Population

Looking Back on the Limits of Growth

      

Chart Sources: Meadows, D.H., Meadows, D.L., Randers, J. and Behrens III, W.W. (1972) /  Linda Eckstein

by Mark Strauss - Smithsonian Magazine - April 2012

Recent research supports the conclusions of a controversial environmental study released 40 years ago: The world is on track for disaster. So says Australian physicist Graham Turner, who revisited perhaps the most groundbreaking academic work of the 1970s,The Limits to Growth.

Written by MIT researchers for an international think tank, the Club of Rome, the study used computers to model several possible future scenarios. The business-as-usual scenario estimated that if human beings continued to consume more than nature was capable of providing, global economic collapse and precipitous population decline could occur by 2030.

(GO TO THE SMITHSONIAN MAGAZINE ARTICLE)

Limits to Growth: The 30-Year Update

The Club of Rome

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Resilience Alliance

There are many definitions of resilience from simple deterministic views of resilience anchored in Newtonian mechanics to far more dynamic views of resilience from a systems perspective, including insights from quantum mechanics and the sciences of complexity.  One baseline perspective of resilience sees it in terms of the viability of socio-ecological systems as the foundation for sustainability.  For those that are ready to look beyond resilience as the ability to return to the "normal state" before a disaster, take a look at:

http://www.resalliance.org/

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Protests in Occupy Oakland are Deepening and Broadening, But Perhaps in the Wrong Direction

One of the concerns from within the Occupy Movement, as well as from outside observers is that police violence is redirecting the energy of the protests into clashes between protesters and the police toward an escalating Victim - Villain - Hero cycle in which violence action is percevied as essential action between increasingly large crowds of citizens and law enforcement.  Increasing reports of police violence and charges are police brutality in many cities seem to be fueling larger and larger crowds inflamed by the injustice of the use of violence by the police against non-violent protesters and reporters acting within their legal rights. 

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Public Health Workbook to Define, Locate and Reach Special, Vulnerable, and At-Risk Populations in an Emergency

OVERVIEW

Following disasters in the United States, public health and
emergency planners have assessed human service needs and
issues that were met or unmet before, during, and after the
crises. A primary lesson learned in the aftermath of 9/11, the
anthrax attacks that followed, widespread power outages in the
Northeastern United States, hurricanes in the South, mudslides
in the West and diseases such as SARS and West Nile Virus is that
traditional methods of communicating health and emergency
information often fall short of the goal of reaching everyone in
a community. Those with the greatest needs and greatest risk
often are outside the channels of mainstream communication.

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Guardian: Maps and Lists of Occupy Everywhere Sites

 

The below Guardian article provides a map and lists of where Occupy Everywhere protests are emerging.  They are primarily, but not exclusively in the U.S. and Europe, in countries where the economy is in significant decline and inequities are significant.  In most of these places, the youth fear that their future will be worse than their parents, due to the greed of a global elite insensitive to the destruction they have caused economically and environmentally.

 

The list includes 951 cities in 82 countries.

 

To see the story and full list, go to:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/news/datablog/2011/oct/17/occupy-protests-world-list-map

 

 

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Challenges Loom as World Population Hits 7 Billion

submitted by Samuel Bendett

by David Crary - Associated Press - October 17, 2011

She's a 40-year-old mother of eight, with a ninth child due soon. The family homestead in a Burundi village is too small to provide enough food, and three of the children have quit school for lack of money to pay required fees.

"I regret to have made all those children," says Godelive Ndageramiwe. "If I were to start over, I would only make two or three."

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IT and Information Sharing Environments for Community Health Resilience

Information Technology (IT) and Information Sharing Environments (ISEs) are crucial to the evolution of community health resilience.  Most people working to improve community health resilience do not understand the nuances of Information Sharing Environments, and how the rapid shifts in IT, mobile devices, social media, cloud computing, peer to peer parallel processing, smart grids, and the linking of millions of people, mobile devices, computers, and sensors are creating a societal mind, which is transforming community health resilience and the health and human security of Americans.

If you have thoughts on these topics, please comment within this collaboratory thread.

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The Power of the 21st Century Librarian

Michael D. McDonald, Dr.P.H.

It can be argued that libraries have their origins in the swarm behavior of individuals and groups acquiring and sharing cultural artifacts (e.g, pictographs, books) as the fundamental repositories of knowledge within a community and the broader society.  Librarians have played a key role in the founding and differentiation of  America at its origins.  Thomas Jefferson and Benjamin Franklin, for example, played key roles in deepening and broadening the tradition of knowledge sharing within the early United States. 

 

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Social Innovation in Venice California

Venice, California has long been a center of innovation within Los Angeles.  Its boardwalk is a spectacle of creativity and entrepreneurship in an open community setting, where the LA megalopolis meets the beach and the Pacific Ocean.  This combination attracts millions of visitors a year in a very small area.

As a result, Venice -- in addition to its opportunities, also struggles with significant and growing challenges with homelessness, drugs, and crowd control, amongst the other problems that all communities face in an economic downturn within a time of energy descent. 

The result?  Both the opportunities and the problems now require creative energy from the Venice community itself to shape what Venice wants to be in the early 21st century. 

Please place your comments on how Venice community members might think about shaping their community to enhance it during the challenging years ahead. 

 

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