You are here

Vulnerability

Will the Next War Be Fought Over Water?

by Megan Erickson - bigthink.com - December 23, 2011

Country / Region Tags: 
Problem, Solution, SitRep, or ?: 

NASA: Warming Will Transform Natural World

By PAT BRENNAN - The Orange County Register - miamiherald.com - December 19, 2011

       

Global warming could bring a major transformation for Earth's plants and animals over the next century, a NASA study says, driving nearly half the planet's forests, grasslands and other vegetation toward conversion into radically different ecosystems.

The ecological stress could give a boost to invasive species, but at the expense of natives, reducing the diversity of plants and animals overall.

Country / Region Tags: 
Problem, Solution, SitRep, or ?: 

Mystery Kidney Disease in Central America

by Kate Sheehy - PRI's The World - BBC News - December 12, 2011

      

A mysterious epidemic is sweeping Central America - it's the second biggest cause of death among men in El Salvador, and in Nicaragua it's a bigger killer of men than HIV and diabetes combined. It's unexplained but the latest theory is that the victims are literally working themselves to death.

In the western lowlands of Nicaragua, in a region of vast sugar cane fields, sits the tiny community of La Isla.

The small houses are a patchwork of concrete and wood. Pieces of cloth serve as doors.

Maudiel Martinez emerges from his house to greet me. He's pale, and his cheekbones protrude from his face. He hunches over like an old man - but he is only 19 years old.

(READ COMPLETE ARTICLE)

Country / Region Tags: 
Problem, Solution, SitRep, or ?: 

Gallup Poll: 37% Support Occupy Wall Street Movement

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. 

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

Country / Region Tags: 
Problem, Solution, SitRep, or ?: 

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

 

 

Country / Region Tags: 
Problem, Solution, SitRep, or ?: 

Guardian: Snapshots of the Occupy Everywhere Protesters Views

 

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

 

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

Meeting / Event Tags: 
Country / Region Tags: 
Problem, Solution, SitRep, or ?: 

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.

Meeting / Event Tags: 
Country / Region Tags: 
Problem, Solution, SitRep, or ?: 

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. 

 

Meeting / Event Tags: 
Country / Region Tags: 
Problem, Solution, SitRep, or ?: 

Explosion at French Nuclear Waste Plant

The Guardian - September 12, 2011

      

Rescue workers and medics land by helicopter at the Marcoule nuclear site, in France. Photograph: Claude Paris/AP

An explosion at a French nuclear waste processing plant that killed one person and injured four others sparked fears of a radioactive leak on Monday.

An emergency safety cordon was thrown around the Marcoule nuclear site near Nimes in the south of France immediately after a furnace used to melt nuclear waste exploded and caused a fire. It was lifted later in the day after France's nuclear safety agency, the Autorité de Sûreté Nucléaire (ASN), said there was no danger to the public.

Reports said the body of one male worker at the plant had been "found carbonised", but there was no evidence that the explosion had caused any radioactive leak, though the ASN admitted there was the "possibility of a leak of low-level radioactivity, but no shooting of radioactivity in the air". There was no information as to the cause of the explosion.

The accident came just a week after the French president, Nicolas Sarkozy, bucked the anti-nuclear trend following Japan's Fukushima disaster and pledged €1bn (£860m) of new investment in atomic power.

Country / Region Tags: 
Problem, Solution, SitRep, or ?: 

Pages

Subscribe to Vulnerability
howdy folks