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Horn of Africa: From One Drought to Another

Mon, 2011-07-11 17:44 — Kathy Gilbeaux

submitted by George Bressler

guardian.co.uk - July 7, 2011

The problem is not just assessing the size of the current crisis, but also that droughts are an almost annual occurrence.

Every day 1,000 Somalis stream across the Kenyan border to Dadaab, which is full to bursting with 367,000 people and already constitutes the largest refugee settlement in the world. They arrive malnourished and dehydrated but – after a walk lasting weeks – grateful that they have made it to a point where they will get food and water. The exodus is not the only indicator that a major food crisis is brewing in the Horn of Africa after the driest year for 60 years.

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Drought
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Problem

Al Gore's Critique Sparks Debate Over Obama's Record on Climate Change

Thu, 2011-06-23 09:28 — mdmcdonald

 

The following video looks at the key perspectives regarding the issue of whether the Obama Administration has engaged policies that effectively address the threat of climate change.

 

http://news.google.com/?ar=1308834370

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Climate
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Simulation Fukushima Reactor 4-like Meltdown in a U.S. Nuclear Power Plant

Thu, 2011-06-23 09:08 — mdmcdonald

It has been proposed that there should be a serious game simulation of a Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear power plant reactor 4-like accident in a U.S. power plant to test the U.S. public's preparedness and ability to utilize social media and government risk communication messaging to reduce health and human security concerns around U.S. nuclear plants.  Many U.S. power plants, often close to major U.S. population centers like New York City and Omaha, Nebraska, share Japan's crippled Fukushima nuclear power vulnerability of storing spent fuel rods on site.  The U.S. has not prepared the American public in projected plume areas for sheltering in place and evacuations that would dramatically reduce their risk in a Fukushima-like accident.  

This week's loss of power during flooding at the Fort Calhoun nuclear power plant, near Omaha, Nebraska demonstrates that this problem is not theoretical.  Although power was only cut to the plant for 90 minutes, if the power shortage had continued for over 28 hours or so, a catastrophic meltdown could have threatened Omaha, Nebraska with high-levels of radiation.

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Simulation and/or exercise
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The Nation: Russia's Federal Atomic Energy Agency Claims a Near Catastrophic Meltdown of the Fort Calhoun Nuclear Power Plant in Nebraska

Thu, 2011-06-23 00:52 — mdmcdonald

 This unusual story from Pakistan's "The Nation" claims that there has been a cover up of a near catastrophic meltdown for the Fort Calhoun nuclear power plant near Omaha, Nebraska.  Evidence from the nuclear power plant and U.S. regulators indicate that the Pakistani story and Russian claims are significantly over-reaching.  The flooding that caused a Fukushima reactor 4-like spent fuel rod cooling pond interruption of power led to a 90 minute interruption of power, but the temperature of the cooling pond and the water coverage of the spent fuel rods did not approach circumstances that would cause a meltdown, according to U.S. officials. 

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Flood
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The Earth Is Full

Thu, 2011-06-09 22:54 — Kathy Gilbeaux

Thomas L. Friedman - The New York Times - June 7, 2011

You really do have to wonder whether a few years from now we’ll look back at the first decade of the 21st century — when food prices spiked, energy prices soared, world population surged, tornados plowed through cities, floods and droughts set records, populations were displaced and governments were threatened by the confluence of it all — and ask ourselves: What were we thinking? How did we not panic when the evidence was so obvious that we’d crossed some growth/climate/natural resource/population redlines all at once?

“The only answer can be denial,” argues Paul Gilding, the veteran Australian environmentalist-entrepreneur, who described this moment in a new book called “The Great Disruption: Why the Climate Crisis Will Bring On the End of Shopping and the Birth of a New World.” “When you are surrounded by something so big that requires you to change everything about the way you think and see the world, then denial is the natural response. But the longer we wait, the bigger the response required.”

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Limits
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Special Report: After Japan, Where's the Next Nuclear Weak Link?

Thu, 2011-06-09 10:54 — Kathy Gilbeaux

Reuters - June 9, 2011

Imagine a country where corruption is rampant, infrastructure is very poor, or the quality of security is in question. Now what if that country built a nuclear power plant?

It may sound alarming but that is what could happen in many developing countries which are either building nuclear power plants or considering doing so - a prospect that raises serious questions after Japan's experience handling a nuclear crisis.

A trove of U.S. diplomatic cables obtained by WikiLeaks and provided to Reuters by a third party provide colorful and sometimes scary commentary on the conditions in developing nations with nuclear power aspirations.

In a cable from the U.S. embassy in Hanoi in February 2007, concerns are raised about storing radioactive waste in Vietnam, which has very ambitious plans to build nuclear power plants. Le Dinh Tien, the vice minister of science and technology, is quoted as saying the country's track record of handling such waste was "not so good" and its inventory of radioactive materials "not adequate."

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Alarm Spreads as E. Coli Cases Rise Sharply (in Europe) - With Unusual Neurological Effects

Thu, 2011-06-02 11:31 — Kathy Gilbeaux

June 1, 2011

The number of E. coli cases has risen dramatically in northern Germany, authorities announced Wednesday, with at least 180 new cases emerging in the past 24 hours in Hamburg and Lower Saxony alone.

The new figures came as doctors in Schleswig-Holstein reported that the bacterial illness was also causing unusual neurological effects including epilepsy.

Seventeen people – one in Sweden and the rest in Germany – have now died from the virulent form of enterohamorrhagic E. coli (EHEC), which can cause bloody diarrhoea and kidney failure known as haemolytic uraemic syndrome (HUS).

In the past day, the number of cases rose in Lower Saxony by 80 to 344, while in Hamburg another 99 cases were identified, bringing the total in the port city to 668.

“We are again seeing a clear rise in cases of people sick with EHEC and HUS,” Hamburg’s Health Minister Cornelia Prüfer-Storcks said. “The situation remains worrying and it is definitely too early to give any kind of all-clear.”

An 84-year-old woman who died on Sunday has now been identified as the 17th confirmed victim, the Lower Saxony Health Ministry announced Wednesday.

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Guardian -- "Food security: rising prices, climate change and a growing population"

Thu, 2011-06-02 08:33 — mdmcdonald

The Guardian holds a periodic news round up and forums under their "Poverty Matters" series.

Below is a sample of the issues now being discussed:

 

 

Rising commodity prices, a changing climate and a growing population have combined to push food security to the top of the international agenda, and have also dominated coverage on the Global development site this week.

 

Our Global food crisis interactive highlights the big issues in the current food debate, through blogs, features, video, galleries and audio reports.

 

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Oil Spill Panel: White House Blocked Federal Scientists From Releasing Worst-Case Scenario For Gulf Disaster

Wed, 2010-10-06 20:36 — mdmcdonald

WASHINGTON — The Obama administration blocked efforts by government scientists to tell the public just how bad the Gulf oil spill could become and committed other missteps that raised questions about its competence and candor during the crisis, according to a commission appointed by the president to investigate the disaster. In documents released Wednesday, the national oil spill commission's staff describes "not an incidental public relations problem" by the White House in the wake of the April 20 accident. Among other things, the report says, the administration made erroneous early estimates of the spill's size, and President Barack Obama's senior energy adviser went on national TV and mischaracterized a government analysis by saying it showed most of the oil was "gone." The analysis actually said it could still be there. "By initially underestimating the amount of oil flow and then, at the end of the summer, appearing to underestimate the amount of oil remaining in the Gulf, the federal government created the impression that it was either not fully competent to handle the spill or not fully candid with the American people about the scope of the problem," the report says.

Global
Pollution
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U.S. Institute of Peace: Briefing on Crime and Governance in Haiti

Mon, 2010-10-04 11:21 — mdmcdonald

Dear colleagues, Haiti remains in a desperate state on essentially all measures of health and human security. The governance and crime issues are now moving to the forefront in the post-earthquake mission again, as the elections draw near. The health and human security issues will need to be addressed within any credible approach to the governance and management of the crime issues. If you are interested in how the U.S. Department of State and Rand are looking at Haiti's resilience, the upcoming U.S. Institute of Peace briefing on October 13 may of interest.

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