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Social Media in Emergency Response: Transforming the Response Enterprise

Wed, 2011-11-09 06:24 — mdmcdonald

By harnessing the collective power of citizens and engaging communities in their own response and recovery, social media have the power to revolutionize emergency management. Yet, many challenges—
including guidelines for use by response agencies, demonstration of value, and characterization of reliability—must be addressed if the potential of social media is to be fully realized in emergency response and relief efforts in the United States. Please join us for this presentation and panel discussion, which will be chaired by Dr. Clarence Wardell of CNA and will feature findings from the report, 2011 Social Media + Emergency Management Camp: Transforming the Response Enterprise.

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Disaster Risk Reduction

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The Waterpod

Sat, 2011-11-05 23:01 — Kathy Gilbeaux

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Sustainable Development

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Independent, Skeptic-Funded Study Confirms Global Warming is Real

Sun, 2011-10-30 22:10 — Kathy Gilbeaux

dvice.com - October 30, 2011

The Berkeley Earth Surface Temperature study has just released a summary of a recently completed global land warming analysis showing "reliable evidence of a rise in average world land temperature by approximately one degree Celsius since the mid-1950s." Yeah, we've heard that before, but this is one study that even skeptics may have to believe.

Here's why the Berkeley Earth Project is different from all previous studies on global warming:

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Climate

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Does Adaptive Management of Natural Resources Enhance Resilience to Climate Change?

Tue, 2011-10-25 02:12 — admin

Emerging insights from adaptive and community-based resource management suggest that building resilience into both human and ecological systems is an effective way to cope with environmental change characterized by future surprises or unknowable risks. In this paper, originally published in Ecology and Society, authors Emma Tompkins argue that these emerging insights have implications for policies and strategies for responding to climate change. The authors review perspectives on collective action for natural resource management to inform understanding of climate response capacity. They demonstrate the importance of social learning, specifically in relation to the acceptance of strategies that build social and ecological resilience. Societies and communities dependent on natural resources need to enhance their capacity to adapt to the impacts of future climate change, particularly when such impacts could lie outside their experienced coping range. This argument is illustrated by an example of present-day collective action for community-based coastal management in Trinidad and Tobago.

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Dr. C. Everett Koop’s perspective on health care reform

Mon, 2011-10-24 23:13 — JRees

Dr. C. Everett Koop, former U.S. Surgeon General, facilitated health care reform in the United States during the 1990s. Dr. Koop recommends whatever is done in the health care reform process, that the legislative process be designed to succeed in protecting the health care rights of children and aging Americans, if broader reform is not politically or economically feasible. The health care reform process should also be designed to fail safely, if not successful, in order to not endanger other key services that are currently addressing the health needs of all Americans. For example, Dr. Koop recommends that a simple incremental extension of Medicare should be at the center of health care reform and that current free market health care system elements are not damaged in the process of engaging new forms of legislation and regulation.

Below are five of the most important health care reform considerations advanced by Dr. Koop on health care reform, considering the successes and failures of attempts at health care reform in the 1990s and previous rounds of health care reform in the United States and in other countries.

1) Public/Private Partnership

Health

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The Memes of Occupy Everywhere

Mon, 2011-10-24 09:09 — mdmcdonald

Occupy George dollar bill

Hundreds of thousands of demonstrators are now engaged in the Occupy Everywhere movement in hundreds of cities around the globe. Many are carrying signs. Of all the fragments of culture being paraded as slogans, the central meme that has caught fire starting with Occupy Wall Street is the idea of extreme wealth disparities and the lack of opportunities for youth to live within the mainstream economy of their country and live a meaningful life.

The central message is not about arrests or police violence, it is about resilience, sustainability, and economic well-being in a time of energy descent and economic decline. It will be interesting to see what emerges as central themes as the Occupy Everywhere movement continues to grow and evolve. What memes will morph and which memes will remain stable.

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Communication

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http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/10/23/occupy-wall-street-poll_n_1027109.html

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Gallup Poll: 37% Support Occupy Wall Street Movement

Mon, 2011-10-24 08:08 — mdmcdonald

A recent poll is showing that very large numbers of Americans support the Occupy Wall Street movement and that this support may be growing. This story also shows the general difference between OWS protesters and Tea Party protesters. OWS protesters are tending to blame the private sector. The Tea Party protesters are tending to look at government as being at the heart of the problem. As the OWS movement grows many Tea Party protesters are realizing that they too are part of the 99% embraced by the Occupy Everywhere movement.

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

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Guardian: Maps and Lists of Occupy Everywhere Sites

Mon, 2011-10-24 07:42 — mdmcdonald

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:

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http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/gallery/2011/oct/23/protests-around-the-world-in-pictures

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Guardian: Snapshots of the Occupy Everywhere Protesters Views

Mon, 2011-10-24 07:25 — mdmcdonald

This Guardian photo slideshow depicts how the Occupy Everywhere movement is growing globally. The protesters talk about what is motivating them. In generzl, they are talking about how their governments have failed to provide the fundamentals of resilience to their generation. They intend to take these matters into their own hands.

Occupy protests: Rita Maestre, Madrid

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