WEBVTT

00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:01.944 align:middle line:90%
[SQUEAKING]

00:00:01.944 --> 00:00:03.888 align:middle line:90%
[RUSTLING]

00:00:03.888 --> 00:00:05.832 align:middle line:90%
[CLICKING]

00:00:05.832 --> 00:00:16.040 align:middle line:90%


00:00:16.040 --> 00:00:19.820 align:middle line:84%
SPEAKER: And our last
speaker for this session

00:00:19.820 --> 00:00:21.060 align:middle line:90%
is Jonathan Buonocore.

00:00:21.060 --> 00:00:22.310 align:middle line:90%
JONATHAN BUONOCORE: All right.

00:00:22.310 --> 00:00:23.435 align:middle line:90%
SPEAKER: Oh, you've got it?

00:00:23.435 --> 00:00:27.360 align:middle line:84%
JONATHAN BUONOCORE: I'm
looking for a slide changer.

00:00:27.360 --> 00:00:29.540 align:middle line:90%
Here's one.

00:00:29.540 --> 00:00:30.858 align:middle line:90%
Is this the slide flipper?

00:00:30.858 --> 00:00:31.400 align:middle line:90%
SPEAKER: Yes.

00:00:31.400 --> 00:00:32.358 align:middle line:90%
JONATHAN BUONOCORE: OK.

00:00:32.358 --> 00:00:33.191 align:middle line:90%
SPEAKER: You got it.

00:00:33.191 --> 00:00:34.441 align:middle line:90%
JONATHAN BUONOCORE: All right.

00:00:34.441 --> 00:00:36.240 align:middle line:84%
Yeah, so my name is
Jonathan Buonocore.

00:00:36.240 --> 00:00:38.660 align:middle line:84%
I'm an assistant professor
at Boston University

00:00:38.660 --> 00:00:39.990 align:middle line:90%
School of Public Health.

00:00:39.990 --> 00:00:42.620 align:middle line:84%
And my goal in the
next 10 minutes

00:00:42.620 --> 00:00:45.890 align:middle line:84%
is to not only convince you
that a person from public health

00:00:45.890 --> 00:00:49.040 align:middle line:84%
belongs in the room,
but also to convince you

00:00:49.040 --> 00:00:52.490 align:middle line:84%
that you all are secretly
going to be public health

00:00:52.490 --> 00:00:54.830 align:middle line:90%
professionals.

00:00:54.830 --> 00:00:59.440 align:middle line:84%
So where I wanted to start
was to look at this process.

00:00:59.440 --> 00:01:05.489 align:middle line:84%
This is how EPA, other
environmental agencies,

00:01:05.489 --> 00:01:07.290 align:middle line:84%
help public health and
environmental health

00:01:07.290 --> 00:01:12.180 align:middle line:84%
professionals look at
just hazards in the world.

00:01:12.180 --> 00:01:15.210 align:middle line:84%
We do a lot of very fancy stuff,
but very often it breaks down

00:01:15.210 --> 00:01:17.410 align:middle line:90%
into these four basic steps.

00:01:17.410 --> 00:01:19.830 align:middle line:84%
Start on the left
just ask, is there

00:01:19.830 --> 00:01:21.288 align:middle line:84%
some kind of
pollutant, a stressor,

00:01:21.288 --> 00:01:23.372 align:middle line:84%
something like that, that
people are being exposed

00:01:23.372 --> 00:01:24.820 align:middle line:90%
to that might cause a problem?

00:01:24.820 --> 00:01:32.880 align:middle line:84%
Could be air pollutant, water
pollutant, heat, a safety issue.

00:01:32.880 --> 00:01:35.550 align:middle line:84%
Anything that could harm
people should go in that box.

00:01:35.550 --> 00:01:38.940 align:middle line:84%
Next up is this dose
response assessment.

00:01:38.940 --> 00:01:41.460 align:middle line:84%
This is really just
a process of asking,

00:01:41.460 --> 00:01:44.170 align:middle line:84%
if there's a certain amount of
this thing in the environment,

00:01:44.170 --> 00:01:47.050 align:middle line:84%
what are the health problems at
different levels of exposures?

00:01:47.050 --> 00:01:48.600 align:middle line:84%
Like high levels
of air pollution

00:01:48.600 --> 00:01:51.610 align:middle line:84%
are worse than lower
levels of air pollution.

00:01:51.610 --> 00:01:54.940 align:middle line:84%
Same goes for water pollution,
and that kind of thing.

00:01:54.940 --> 00:01:57.850 align:middle line:84%
The third step that goes
in parallel with that

00:01:57.850 --> 00:02:01.190 align:middle line:84%
is this exposure assessment
step that asks, OK.

00:02:01.190 --> 00:02:03.430 align:middle line:84%
So we know that there's
a thing that is bad.

00:02:03.430 --> 00:02:05.330 align:middle line:84%
How many people
are exposed to it?

00:02:05.330 --> 00:02:06.860 align:middle line:90%
How long are they exposed to it?

00:02:06.860 --> 00:02:10.150 align:middle line:84%
Are there certain susceptible
windows or susceptible

00:02:10.150 --> 00:02:13.090 align:middle line:84%
populations, like infants
or marginalized communities,

00:02:13.090 --> 00:02:16.460 align:middle line:90%
that are exposed to this?

00:02:16.460 --> 00:02:18.610 align:middle line:84%
And then in the end, we
have this fourth step

00:02:18.610 --> 00:02:23.540 align:middle line:84%
called risk characterization,
which basically just asks,

00:02:23.540 --> 00:02:26.350 align:middle line:84%
how big of a deal
is this anyway?

00:02:26.350 --> 00:02:29.470 align:middle line:84%
So what I've done
and do occasionally

00:02:29.470 --> 00:02:34.150 align:middle line:84%
is I flip these four steps to
look like one of these hazmat

00:02:34.150 --> 00:02:39.040 align:middle line:84%
placards that you'll see on the
trucks going down the highway

00:02:39.040 --> 00:02:40.450 align:middle line:90%
or whatever.

00:02:40.450 --> 00:02:43.870 align:middle line:84%
And then, again, here's
a simple version.

00:02:43.870 --> 00:02:45.680 align:middle line:84%
Is there something
that might be harmful?

00:02:45.680 --> 00:02:47.780 align:middle line:84%
How harmful is it
if you're exposed?

00:02:47.780 --> 00:02:49.390 align:middle line:84%
How many people
are exposed to it?

00:02:49.390 --> 00:02:51.290 align:middle line:84%
And how big of a
deal is this really?

00:02:51.290 --> 00:02:53.680 align:middle line:90%
So four basic questions.

00:02:53.680 --> 00:02:57.300 align:middle line:84%
Now, you can overlay this,
look at the full life cycle.

00:02:57.300 --> 00:02:59.420 align:middle line:84%
This is the supply chain
of natural gas starting

00:02:59.420 --> 00:03:04.190 align:middle line:84%
from your wells and everything
on the left, over to the right

00:03:04.190 --> 00:03:06.720 align:middle line:84%
all the gas consumers, like
your commercial buildings,

00:03:06.720 --> 00:03:10.730 align:middle line:84%
your residences, the use of
gas in power plants and all

00:03:10.730 --> 00:03:14.330 align:middle line:84%
the pipelines, storage
facilities, compressor stations,

00:03:14.330 --> 00:03:16.740 align:middle line:84%
processing stations,
LNG terminals,

00:03:16.740 --> 00:03:19.250 align:middle line:84%
whatever else it that
is in between a well

00:03:19.250 --> 00:03:21.690 align:middle line:90%
and your stove or your furnace.

00:03:21.690 --> 00:03:26.250 align:middle line:84%
And we take our little
hazmat placard and say, OK.

00:03:26.250 --> 00:03:29.540 align:middle line:90%
How bad is all this anyway?

00:03:29.540 --> 00:03:31.760 align:middle line:84%
And I'll argue to
you that there are

00:03:31.760 --> 00:03:35.360 align:middle line:84%
hazards present across
the entire supply chain.

00:03:35.360 --> 00:03:38.990 align:middle line:84%
We know very little
about most of these,

00:03:38.990 --> 00:03:41.900 align:middle line:84%
which is this could potentially
be my whole research

00:03:41.900 --> 00:03:44.270 align:middle line:84%
career as a public
health professional.

00:03:44.270 --> 00:03:48.235 align:middle line:84%
But I'm going to talk
in detail about a couple

00:03:48.235 --> 00:03:49.610 align:middle line:84%
of these different
endpoints just

00:03:49.610 --> 00:03:52.460 align:middle line:84%
to explain that what
you all are doing,

00:03:52.460 --> 00:03:54.330 align:middle line:84%
you know all about
the climate hazards.

00:03:54.330 --> 00:03:58.290 align:middle line:84%
You're also doing a
lot for public health.

00:03:58.290 --> 00:04:01.740 align:middle line:84%
So I'm going to start on the
production side of things.

00:04:01.740 --> 00:04:04.200 align:middle line:84%
This is a map of every
single oil and gas

00:04:04.200 --> 00:04:05.790 align:middle line:90%
wall in the United States.

00:04:05.790 --> 00:04:08.640 align:middle line:84%
You may have noticed that
there's a lot of them.

00:04:08.640 --> 00:04:11.930 align:middle line:84%
And a natural question that
you should be asking yourself

00:04:11.930 --> 00:04:12.430 align:middle line:90%
is, OK.

00:04:12.430 --> 00:04:15.273 align:middle line:84%
So how big of a
deal is this really?

00:04:15.273 --> 00:04:16.690 align:middle line:84%
Going through a
hazard assessment,

00:04:16.690 --> 00:04:19.170 align:middle line:84%
there's a lot of things
that you could potentially

00:04:19.170 --> 00:04:24.630 align:middle line:84%
be exposed to, being I mostly
focus on regional air pollution.

00:04:24.630 --> 00:04:26.880 align:middle line:84%
So I did a study that was
focusing on the regional air

00:04:26.880 --> 00:04:30.210 align:middle line:84%
pollution aspects of
this and basically found

00:04:30.210 --> 00:04:35.010 align:middle line:84%
that there are a lot of
violations of the National

00:04:35.010 --> 00:04:36.780 align:middle line:84%
Ambient Air Quality
Standards in the US

00:04:36.780 --> 00:04:39.390 align:middle line:84%
that are due to the air
pollution from oil and gas

00:04:39.390 --> 00:04:41.040 align:middle line:90%
extraction.

00:04:41.040 --> 00:04:43.290 align:middle line:84%
There's a big plume
of ozone in the middle

00:04:43.290 --> 00:04:47.760 align:middle line:84%
of the country over the oil
and gas production there.

00:04:47.760 --> 00:04:49.200 align:middle line:84%
There's NO2, which
we're concerned

00:04:49.200 --> 00:04:51.920 align:middle line:84%
about from a respiratory
health standpoint.

00:04:51.920 --> 00:04:53.920 align:middle line:84%
This tends to be more
concentrated in production

00:04:53.920 --> 00:04:54.420 align:middle line:90%
areas.

00:04:54.420 --> 00:05:00.220 align:middle line:84%
And then PM 2.5, which is our
standard aerosol somewhere

00:05:00.220 --> 00:05:00.950 align:middle line:90%
in between.

00:05:00.950 --> 00:05:03.130 align:middle line:90%
So that's great.

00:05:03.130 --> 00:05:04.922 align:middle line:84%
And then running it
through all the science

00:05:04.922 --> 00:05:06.713 align:middle line:84%
that we have about who
lives where and what

00:05:06.713 --> 00:05:08.960 align:middle line:84%
the health impacts of these
different pollutants are.

00:05:08.960 --> 00:05:12.280 align:middle line:84%
We have about 7,500 deaths per
year in the United States due

00:05:12.280 --> 00:05:15.220 align:middle line:84%
to air pollution from
oil and gas production,

00:05:15.220 --> 00:05:18.915 align:middle line:84%
about 410,000 asthma
attacks and 220--

00:05:18.915 --> 00:05:20.290 align:middle line:84%
these are children
that are newly

00:05:20.290 --> 00:05:23.170 align:middle line:84%
diagnosed with asthma per
year due to oil and gas--

00:05:23.170 --> 00:05:26.650 align:middle line:84%
just the production side
pollution in the US.

00:05:26.650 --> 00:05:31.010 align:middle line:84%
So totaling up all the health
damages on top of this,

00:05:31.010 --> 00:05:34.190 align:middle line:84%
there's emergency department
visits, hospitalizations,

00:05:34.190 --> 00:05:38.920 align:middle line:84%
heart attacks, strokes, a whole
growing menu of health outcomes

00:05:38.920 --> 00:05:41.540 align:middle line:84%
that are related
to air pollution.

00:05:41.540 --> 00:05:45.640 align:middle line:84%
And we can put a price tag on
of about $77 billion, with a b,

00:05:45.640 --> 00:05:49.240 align:middle line:84%
dollars yearly due a
production of oil and gas.

00:05:49.240 --> 00:05:51.290 align:middle line:84%
And as you've heard,
geothermal will

00:05:51.290 --> 00:05:53.580 align:middle line:90%
be able to put a dent in that.

00:05:53.580 --> 00:05:55.770 align:middle line:84%
So that's just the
production side.

00:05:55.770 --> 00:05:58.440 align:middle line:84%
And I'm going to move over
to the other end of this,

00:05:58.440 --> 00:06:00.200 align:middle line:90%
which is the stove.

00:06:00.200 --> 00:06:02.600 align:middle line:90%
They do emit air pollution.

00:06:02.600 --> 00:06:05.568 align:middle line:84%
There's benzene, which is a
carcinogen, so it causes cancer.

00:06:05.568 --> 00:06:07.610 align:middle line:84%
There's a whole lot of
volatile organic compounds

00:06:07.610 --> 00:06:08.693 align:middle line:90%
that come along with that.

00:06:08.693 --> 00:06:10.650 align:middle line:84%
There's NO2 when
you burn it again.

00:06:10.650 --> 00:06:13.250 align:middle line:84%
And methane, which
is the greenhouse gas

00:06:13.250 --> 00:06:16.820 align:middle line:84%
that we're all worried about
from a climate standpoint.

00:06:16.820 --> 00:06:20.250 align:middle line:84%
So Zeyneb, myself, and maybe a
few other people in the room,

00:06:20.250 --> 00:06:25.940 align:middle line:84%
Nathan, were involved in a
study that basically sampled gas

00:06:25.940 --> 00:06:26.850 align:middle line:90%
around Boston.

00:06:26.850 --> 00:06:29.220 align:middle line:84%
So we put it in a
canister, sent it to a lab,

00:06:29.220 --> 00:06:31.310 align:middle line:90%
and they told us what was in it.

00:06:31.310 --> 00:06:35.300 align:middle line:84%
And it looked like an
organic chemistry textbook.

00:06:35.300 --> 00:06:37.830 align:middle line:84%
There was a lot of
methane, as expected,

00:06:37.830 --> 00:06:40.130 align:middle line:84%
a lot of ethane, as expected,
but a whole lot of things

00:06:40.130 --> 00:06:42.590 align:middle line:84%
that were not methane,
and they were not ethane.

00:06:42.590 --> 00:06:46.880 align:middle line:84%
We got hexane, benzene, toluene,
and heptane, carcinogenic,

00:06:46.880 --> 00:06:50.010 align:middle line:84%
MP xylene, carcinogenic,
carcinogenic xylene, and then

00:06:50.010 --> 00:06:53.790 align:middle line:84%
all these other things
that are also carcinogenic.

00:06:53.790 --> 00:06:56.920 align:middle line:84%
So they went on to keep
doing this kind of research.

00:06:56.920 --> 00:07:00.780 align:middle line:84%
Turns out that Boston is not the
only place that has a problem.

00:07:00.780 --> 00:07:04.290 align:middle line:84%
There's also issues related
to these odorants, which

00:07:04.290 --> 00:07:06.510 align:middle line:84%
is the chemical that
is intentionally

00:07:06.510 --> 00:07:09.480 align:middle line:84%
added to the gas stream so you
can smell it when it leaks.

00:07:09.480 --> 00:07:12.180 align:middle line:84%
Turns out that humans don't
like how it smells because it

00:07:12.180 --> 00:07:13.450 align:middle line:90%
is a respiratory irritant.

00:07:13.450 --> 00:07:14.640 align:middle line:90%
It's harmful.

00:07:14.640 --> 00:07:18.150 align:middle line:84%
And potentially, there's other
health issues related to it.

00:07:18.150 --> 00:07:22.170 align:middle line:84%
But it is present in
all the gas everywhere.

00:07:22.170 --> 00:07:24.450 align:middle line:84%
And again, looking
at just benzene,

00:07:24.450 --> 00:07:28.530 align:middle line:84%
again, basically every single
canister they sent to a lab

00:07:28.530 --> 00:07:30.810 align:middle line:84%
had some amount
of benzene in it.

00:07:30.810 --> 00:07:33.390 align:middle line:84%
Boston is actually
on the lowest end

00:07:33.390 --> 00:07:36.340 align:middle line:84%
of the spectrum as far as
benzene concentrations.

00:07:36.340 --> 00:07:38.430 align:middle line:84%
The highest in the
US is Los Angeles.

00:07:38.430 --> 00:07:42.660 align:middle line:84%
And the highest of places in
North America that they sampled

00:07:42.660 --> 00:07:44.800 align:middle line:90%
was Vancouver and Los Angeles.

00:07:44.800 --> 00:07:50.360 align:middle line:84%
So I could go on for hours about
every single one of these spots,

00:07:50.360 --> 00:07:55.420 align:middle line:84%
but I just wanted to give
folks a small snapshot

00:07:55.420 --> 00:07:57.563 align:middle line:84%
of the types of health
hazards that you all

00:07:57.563 --> 00:07:59.230 align:middle line:84%
are helping to prevent
by switching over

00:07:59.230 --> 00:08:03.280 align:middle line:84%
to geothermal because
if you change what's

00:08:03.280 --> 00:08:05.240 align:middle line:84%
going on the right side
of this supply chain,

00:08:05.240 --> 00:08:07.907 align:middle line:84%
you're having ripple effects all
the way across the supply chain

00:08:07.907 --> 00:08:09.640 align:middle line:84%
and reducing air
pollution, reducing

00:08:09.640 --> 00:08:12.100 align:middle line:84%
safety hazards due to gas
storage, which I could talk

00:08:12.100 --> 00:08:15.020 align:middle line:84%
for hours about, reducing
use of pipelines,

00:08:15.020 --> 00:08:17.770 align:middle line:84%
reducing compressor
station pollution,

00:08:17.770 --> 00:08:20.780 align:middle line:84%
and really being a
public health resource.

00:08:20.780 --> 00:08:22.219 align:middle line:90%
So that's it.

00:08:22.219 --> 00:08:25.093 align:middle line:90%
[APPLAUSE]

00:08:25.093 --> 00:08:28.450 align:middle line:90%


00:08:28.450 --> 00:08:29.780 align:middle line:90%
SPEAKER: Thank you so much.

00:08:29.780 --> 00:08:32.679 align:middle line:84%
I am feeling really grateful
for those three amazing talks

00:08:32.679 --> 00:08:34.650 align:middle line:90%
to start our day.

00:08:34.650 --> 00:08:46.000 align:middle line:90%