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Study Uncovers Massive Global Yawn Over Global Warming

Sun, 2013-03-03 15:32 — Kathy Gilbeaux

A National Guard truck drives through high water on Newark Street in Hoboken, N.J. Wednesday, Oct. 31, 2012 in the wake of superstorm Sandy. AP Photo / Craig Ruttle

nationalpost.com - by Kelly McParland - February 26, 2013

This has to be bad news for environmental activists everywhere: a massive international study, conducted in 33 countries over 17 years, shows that people just don’t care a lot about the environment.

. . . the lack of concern is itself reason for concern.

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Verily: Crowdsourced Verification for Disaster Response

Fri, 2013-03-01 18:30 — Kathy Gilbeaux

irevolution.net - by Patrick Meier - February 19, 2013

Social media is increasingly used for communicating during crises. This rise in Big (Crisis) Data means that finding the proverbial needle in the growing haystack of information is becoming a major challenge.

QCRI and Masdar have launched an experimental platform called Verily. We are applying best practices in time-critical crowd-sourcing coupled with gamification and reputation mechanisms to leverage the good will of (hopefully) thousands of digital Samaritans during disasters.

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Veri.ly
http://www.veri.ly/

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Making Communities More Resilient to Climate-Induced Weather Disasters

Tue, 2013-02-26 23:08 — Kathy Gilbeaux

submitted by Samuel Bendett

homelandsecuritynewswire.com - February 18, 2013

Mounting scientific evidence indicates climate change will lead to more frequent and intense extreme weather that affects larger areas and lasts longer. We can reduce the risk of weather-related disasters, however, with a variety of measures. Experts say that a good strategy should include a variety of actions such as communicating risk and transferring it through vehicles such as insurance, taking a multi-hazard management approach, linking local and global management, and taking an iterative approach as opposed to starting with a master plan.

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The Limits to the Shale Oil Boom

Thu, 2013-02-21 19:06 — admin

The cleanest form of petrochemical energy is clearly past its peak and is causing significant damage to ecosystems all over the planet. That is why risky and incredibly expensive resource extraction, such as Deep Water Horizon, is becoming the new reality of oil production. The impacts of climate change are now escalating rapidly. But the bigger problem lies in the extents to which the largest and most profitable businesses in the world in the petrochemical industry are willing to go to continue their profitability against all rationality in terms of the mass extinction and the impact on health and human security.

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Food Scarcity: The Timebomb Setting Nation Against Nation

Fri, 2012-10-19 15:44 — Kathy Gilbeaux

submitted by Paul G.Kaplan

A drying corn field in southern Minnesota. Bad weather has resulted in a poor harvest this year. Photograph: David I. Gross/ Corbis

As the UN and Oxfam warn of the dangers ahead, expert analyst Lester Brown says time to solve the problem is running out

guardian.co.uk - by John Vidal - October 13, 2012

Brandon Hunnicutt has had a year to remember. The young Nebraskan from Hamilton County farms 2,600 acres of the High Plains with his father and brother. What looked certain in an almost perfect May to be a "phenomenal" harvest of maize and soy beans has turned into a near disaster.

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Book - Full Planet, Empty Plates
http://www.earthpolicy.org/mobile/books/fpep

Oxfam Report - 'Our Land, Our Lives': Time Out on the Global Land Rush
http://policy-practice.oxfam.org.uk/publications/our-land-our-lives-time-out-on-the-global-land-rush-246731

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Global Food Supply - We Need to Plan for System Failure

Wed, 2012-10-10 18:34 — Kathy Gilbeaux

ethicalcorp.com - by Mallen Baker - October 4, 2012

Mallen Baker argues that it’s irresponsible not to make contingency plans, especially when the potential failures concern the fundamentals – such as food

Imagine your critical business systems depend on one computer server. This server is huge – it has immense capacity – but you have grown into that space and now every single day you are pushing it to its limit. . .

. . . Now let’s substitute the global food system for the server. Here we have a system that is operating at full capacity. Any hiccups in normal production can lead to serious problems. This year we have seen such hiccups.

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More Ways to Combat Water Shortages

Sat, 2012-10-06 00:38 — Kathy Gilbeaux

submitted by Samuel Bendett

Homeland Security News Wire - September 28, 2012

Water is the one element that every breathing, living organism on Earth needs, and unlike oil, there are no viable alternatives. In many undeveloped countries, water is becoming scarce. Concerns are growing about the availability of water in developed countries as well..

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Whooping Cough Vaccine Loses Effectiveness Faster Than Thought, Study Finds

Tue, 2012-09-18 20:44 — Kathy Gilbeaux

huffingtonpost.com - by Mike Stobbe - September 12, 2012

NEW YORK — As the U.S. wrestles with its biggest whooping cough outbreak in decades, researchers appear to have zeroed in on the main cause: The safer vaccine that was introduced in the 1990s loses effectiveness much faster than previously thought.

A study published in Wednesday's New England Journal of Medicine found that the protective effect weakens dramatically soon after a youngster gets the last of the five recommended shots around age 6.

The protection rate falls from about 95 percent to 71 percent within five years, said researchers at the Kaiser Permanente Vaccine Research Center in Oakland, Calif.

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Study - NEJM - Waning Protection after Fifth Dose of Acellular Pertussis Vaccine in Children
http://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa1200850?query=featured_home

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Injection Wells: The Poison Beneath Us

Fri, 2012-06-22 20:00 — Kathy Gilbeaux

A class 2 brine disposal well in western Louisiana near the Texas border. The well sat by the side of the road, without restricted access. (Abrahm Lustgarten/ProPublica)

propublica.org - by Abrahm Lustgarten - June 21, 2012

Over the past several decades, U.S. industries have injected more than 30 trillion gallons of toxic liquid deep into the earth, using broad expanses of the nation's geology as an invisible dumping ground.

No company would be allowed to pour such dangerous chemicals into the rivers or onto the soil. But until recently, scientists and environmental officials have assumed that deep layers of rock beneath the earth would safely entomb the waste for millennia.

There are growing signs they were mistaken.

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