According to Dr. James, drought is a “change in precipitation patterns that reduces the amount of accessible water currently needed in that location”. NOAA’s National Climatic Data Center breaks down the term “drought” into four different entities: hydrologic drought (occurs when low water supplies become manifest), meteorologic drought (prolonged period of low precipitation or water input), agricultural drought (occurs when agricultural production suffers due to reduced water supply), and socioeconomic drought (reflected by water shortage-induced changes in social and economic factors, which are discussed later in the episode).

Below, a picture from WETA of dust transported from the Midwest to Washington, D.C., due to the historic droughts that ensued during the Dust Bowl.

In simple terms, an aquifer is an underground store of water, as illustrated above in the picture from National Geographic.

According to UN Water (the United Nations’ workgroup on water and sanitation), water security is the “capacity of a population to safeguard sustainable access to adequate quantities of acceptable quality water for sustaining livelihoods, human well-being, and socio-economic development, for ensuring protection against water-borne pollution and water-related disasters, and for preserving ecosystems in a climate of peace and political stability.” Check out UN Water’s “water security” infographic here.

Water Insecurity, then, is the absence of this capacity. Below, a CNN picture from of the critical water shortage in Cape Town, South Africa, during the summer of 2018.

“Heavy metals”, in the context of water quality, refer to a group of metals and metalloids that can have widespread toxic effects in humans. They are (approximately) circled in the periodic table below on the left.

While not discussed in this episode, “heavy metal” also refers to the high-decibel music genre channeled by bands like Iron Maiden, pictured below on the right in an image from The UK Times.

In this podcast and in the media, the term “climate refugee” refers to an individual who has been displaced by climate change. This may be an acute environmental disaster like a hurricane, or a more insidious change, like a catastrophic drought. Below, an image (Jonas Gratzer/Getty Images) of Kiribatians displaced by flooding, which is a growing problem for small island nations as sea levels rise due to global climate change.

Of note, there is some disagreement about the use of this phrase, as the term is not recognized in international law, and the term “refugee” typically refers to somebody who has crossed an international border. You can read more about the nuances behind this term at the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) website.

The term “carcinogen” refers to a substance that can cause cancer. In this episode, we use the word in our discussion of toxic heavy metals. Other commonly-mentioned carcinogens include asbestos and cigarette smoke. For those interested in learning more, a lengthy list of carcinogenic compounds is enumerated on the American Cancer Society website, linked here.

In this episode and others, “inequity” refers to the fact that different populations experience the effects of climate change differently. In other words, climate change will affect all of us; depending on other factors in our lives and communities, we will experience it differently. Dr. James alluded to a Pinterest meme which illustrates this concept, and which we were able to track down and post below.

“Dose-response curve” refers to a plot of the effects of increasing doses (or amounts) of a toxin. On the left is a crude example of a dose-response curve, in which increasing amounts of a toxin result in a linear increase in the degree of toxicity. On the right is a “U-shaped dose-response curve”, which Dr. James references in the interview in the context of manganese. Substances that have a U-shaped dose-response curve are essential at low doses to make our bodies function–without them, we can get sick. However, too much of a substance with a U-shaped dose-response curve can cause toxicity. In addition to manganese, other substances that have U-shaped dose-response curves include iron, zinc, and copper.

The San Luis Valley (SLV) is a culturally-rich agricultural region in southern Colorado that forms the headwaters of the Rio Grande River. It is home to the town of Alamosa and the Great Sand Dunes National Park, and has been studied extensively by researchers at the Colorado School of Public Health in part due to its experience of severe drought in recent decades.

Below, a map of the SLV produced using publicly-available software.