law.georgetown.edu - April 2013

Each year, Georgetown University Law Center’s Human Rights Institute conducts a human rights fact-finding mission. The 2012-2013 mission topic (chosen by a student committee the previous academic year) is “The Human Right to Water in Marginalized Communities in the United States.” The mission is designed and led by students participating in a year-long practicum course on fact-finding methodology taught by Rachel Taylor, the Institute’s Director. In January 2013, students traveled to Detroit, Michigan and Boston, Massachusetts to conduct interviews with people affected by or knowledgeable about the economic inaccessibility of water.

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An aerial view of the Limerick Generating Station, a nuclear power plant in Pottstown, Pennsylvania. (AFP Photo / Stan Honda)

submitted by Albert Gomez

rt.com - April 9, 2013
nytimes.com - by Matthew L. Wald - April 8, 2013

All 104 nuclear reactors currently operational in the US have irreparable safety issues and should be taken out of commission and replaced, former chairman of the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Gregory B. Jaczko said.

The comments, made during the Carnegie International Nuclear Policy Conference, are “highly unusual” for a current or former member of the safety commission, according to The New York Times. Asked why he had suddenly decided to make the remarks, Jaczko implied that he had only recently arrived at these conclusions following the serious aftermath of Japan’s tsunami-stricken Fukushima Daichii nuclear facility.

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nejm.org - March 28, 2013

In the past decade, a succession of public health emergencies has challenged preparedness and response capacities of government agencies, hospitals and clinics, public health agencies, and academic researchers, in the United States and abroad. The epidemic of the severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS), the 9/11 terrorist attacks, and the anthrax mailings stand out as signal examples in the early years of the decade. In addition to natural disasters such as the 2010 earthquake in Haiti and the 2012 Superstorm Sandy, other recent events — including the 2009 influenza A (H1N1) pandemic, the Deepwater Horizon oil spill, and the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear reactor emergency in Japan — illustrate the diverse and complex forms that threats to public health can assume. Figure 1 displays some examples over the past decade or so and highlights the diversity and frequency of events that can be expected to occur in the foreseeable future.

Click on each balloon for more information on individual patients infected with the avian flu virus: blue, patients infected with the H7N9 virus under treatment; red, those infected with H7N9 who have died; and pink, those infect with the H1N1 avian flu virus.

CLICK HERE - WHO - Global Alert and Response - Disease Outbreak News

CLICK HERE - ProMED-mail updates on H7N9 Bird Flu (Avian Influenza) - www.promedmail.org

ALSO SEE ADDITIONAL INFORMATION IN LINKS BELOW:

China reports nine bird flu cases amid allegations of cover up on social media

xinhuanet.com - China reports 2 more H7N9 bird flu cases

National Health and Family Planning Commission of the People's Republic of China

China's deadly new H7N9 bird flu virus may be harder to track than predecessors, scientists say

foreignpolicy.com - by Laurie Garrett - April 1, 2013

China's mysterious pig, duck, and people deaths could be connected. And that should worry us.

Here's how it would happen. Children playing along an urban river bank would spot hundreds of grotesque, bloated pig carcasses bobbing downstream. Hundreds of miles away, angry citizens would protest the rising stench from piles of dead ducks and swans, their rotting bodies collecting by the thousands along river banks. And three unrelated individuals would stagger into three different hospitals, gasping for air. . .

. . . the facts delineated are all true, and have transpired over the last six weeks in China.

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submitted by Stella Tarnay

noaa.gov - March 26, 2013

In partnership with State and Tribal agencies, the Obama Administration today released the first nationwide strategy to help public and private decision makers address the impacts that climate change is having on natural resources and the people and economies that depend on them. Developed in response to a request by Congress, the National Fish, Wildlife, and Plants Climate Adaptation Strategy is the product of extensive national dialogue that spanned nearly two years and was shaped by comments from more than 55,000 Americans.

Fish, wildlife, and plant resources provide important benefits and services to Americans every day, including jobs, income, food, clean water and air, building materials, storm protection, tourism and recreation. For example, hunting, fishing and other wildlife-related recreation contribute an estimated $120 billion to our nation’s economy every year, and marine ecosystems sustain a U.S. seafood industry that supports approximately 1 million jobs and $116 billion in economic activity annually. 

submitted by Stella Tarnay

securityandsustainabilityforum.org - by Kristina Byrne - January 31, 2013

Image: Wind Share of Net Electricity Generation in Top 10 U.S. States, 2012

earth-policy.org - March 14th, 2013  - J. Matthew Roney

Defying conventional wisdom about the limits of wind power, in 2012 both Iowa and South Dakota generated close to one quarter of their electricity from wind farms. Wind power accounted for at least 10 percent of electricity generation in seven other states. Across the United States, wind power continues to strengthen its case as a serious energy source.

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In this March 12, 2013 photo, an American Eagle jet taxis to a gate past the control tower after landing at the Abraham Lincoln Capital Airport in Springfield, Ill. The airport is one of nearly 240 small airports around the country that will likely shut down their air traffic control towers under federal budget cuts, stripping away a layer of safety during takeoffs and landings and leaving many pilots to manage the most critical stages of flight on their own. (AP Photo/Seth Perlman)

CLICK HERE - List of 149 control towers FAA says will close April 7 due to forced spending cuts - via CNN (4 page .PDF file)

Associated Press - by Jason Keyser - March 15, 2013

CHICAGO (AP) — The planned shutdown of up to 238 air traffic control towers across the country under federal budget cuts will strip away an extra layer of safety during takeoffs and landings, leaving pilots to manage the most critical stages of flight on their own.

A rescue worker uses a two-way radio transceiver during heavy snowfall at a factory area devastated by an earthquake and tsunami in Sendai, northern Japan, 16 March 2011. Credit: REUTERS/KIM KYUNG-HOON

unocha.org - March 15, 2013

When one of the most technologically sophisticated countries in the world is hit by a triple emergency, should we count on web platforms and social media to deliver lifesaving information? Not necessarily, according to a new report by Internews into the communications aspects of the 2011 earthquake, tsunami and nuclear disaster in Japan.

. . . instead of their usual high-tech operation, local newspaper reporters went back a few decades in time and produced a handwritten newspaper.

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Internews Report - Connecting the Last Mile: The Role of Communications in the Great East Japan Earthquake
http://www.internews.org/research-publications/connecting-last-mile-role-communications-great-east-japan-earthquake

                            (LINKS TO STUDY ABSTRACT AND ADDITIONAL INFORMATION ARE BELOW)

Scientists look at an ice core from the West Antarctic Ice Sheet Divide coring site.  Credit: Thomas Bauska, OSU

CNN - by Ben Brumfield - March 8, 2013

Global warming has propelled Earth's climate from one of its coldest decades since the last ice age to one of its hottest -- in just one century.

A heat spike like this has never happened before, at least not in the last 11,300 years, said climatologist Shaun Marcott, who worked on a new study on global temperatures going back that far.

"If any period in time had a sustained temperature change similar to what we have today, we would have certainly seen that in our record," he said.

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Study Abstract - A Reconstruction of Regional and Global Temperature for the Past 11,300 Years
http://www.sciencemag.org/content/339/6124/1198.abstract

submitted by Albert Gomez

energymanagertoday.com - by Linda Hardesty - March 15, 2013

Electricity rates for about 90,000 San Francisco ratepayers could almost double if the San Francisco Board of Supervisors goes forward with a deal for Shell Oil to provide 100 percent renewable energy for the city, according to NBC Bay Area.

The International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW) has strongly criticized the scheme and even launched an online campaign “Stop the Shell Shock” where ratepayers can enter their kilowatt hours to calculate how much more they’ll have to pay.

PUC financial directors predict a maximum rate of .15 cents per kilowatt hour, about double the current rate of .0788 cents per kilowatt hour based on a report prepared for the city’s Rate Fairness Board in late January.

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