You are here

Home

Situation Report

Millions Face Starvation as World Warms, Say Scientists

Tue, 2013-04-30 10:04 — Kathy Gilbeaux

      

Corn in the hands of a farmworker in South Africa. Photograph: Greatstock Photographic Library/Alamy

guardian.co.uk - by John Vidal - April 13, 2013

Millions of people could become destitute in Africa and Asia as staple foods more than double in price by 2050 as a result of extreme temperatures, floods and droughts that will transform the way the world farms.

As food experts gather at two major conferences to discuss how to feed the nine billion people expected to be alive in 2050, leading scientists have told the Observer that food insecurity risks turning parts of Africa into permanent disaster areas. Rising temperatures will also have a drastic effect on access to basic foodstuffs, with potentially dire consequences for the poor.

(READ COMPLETE ARTICLE)

US National Climate Assessment
http://assessment.globalchange.gov/what-we-do/assessment/draft-report-information

Country / Region Tags: 
Global
General Topic Tags: 
Climate
Food
Problem, Solution, SitRep, or ?: 
Situation Report

Dennis Meadows on 'The Limits to Growth and the Future of Humanity'

Thu, 2013-04-25 12:36 — Maeryn Obley

Dennis MeadowsImage: Dennis Meadows

carsoncenter.uni-muenchen.de - December 4th, 2012

2012 marks the 40th anniversary of the publication of  The Limits to Growth. Not only has this book been  translated into more than 30 languages,  it has also sold more than 30 million copies, thus making it the highest selling environmental book in world history. The Limits to Growth unleashed a debate that has yet to end.

(VIEW WEBSITE)

(VIEW PDF OF PRESENTATION)

Country / Region Tags: 
Global
General Topic Tags: 
Environment
Resilience
Problem, Solution, SitRep, or ?: 
Situation Report

The Grand Decade for Global Health: 1998–2008

Thu, 2013-04-25 03:31 — Maeryn Obley

chathamhouse.org - April 2013 - Jon Liden

The decade 1998-2008 was a period of rapid growth in the resources devoted to global health problems and of unprecedented innovation in the way these resources were delivered.
 
The innovation was principally manifested in new forms of partnerships which included in their governance the private sector, foundations and civil society alongside governments.

This institutional innovation was driven forward by dynamic new leadership at the World Health Organization under Dr Gro Harlem Brundtland and by political leaders in the G8 countries seeking to give globalization a human face, who were themselves heavily influenced by the moral and political force of AIDS activists and protestors.

(VIEW COMPLETE OVERVIEW)

(DOWNLOAD PAPER)

Country / Region Tags: 
Global
General Topic Tags: 
Health
Problem, Solution, SitRep, or ?: 
Situation Report

Can You Have Too Much Solar Energy?

Sat, 2013-04-13 01:47 — Maeryn Obley

A worker mounts solar panels on the roof of a barn in Binsham, Germany, in March 2012. (photo: Michaela Rehle/Reuters)

Image: A worker mounts solar panels on the roof of a  barn in Binsham, Germany, in March 2012. (photo: Michaela Rehle/Reuters)

slate.com - March 29th, 2013 - Andrew Curry

It’s been a long, dark winter in Germany. In fact, there hasn’t been this little sun since people started tracking such things back in the early 1950s. Easter is around the corner, and the streets of Berlin are still covered in ice and snow. But spring will come, and when the snow finally melts, it will reveal the glossy black sheen of photovoltaic solar panels glinting from the North Sea to the Bavarian Alps.

(VIEW COMPLETE ARTICLE)

Country / Region Tags: 
Global
General Topic Tags: 
Energy
Technology
Problem, Solution, SitRep, or ?: 
Situation Report

US Rice Imports Contain Harmful Levels of Lead

Fri, 2013-04-12 00:38 — Kathy Gilbeaux

      

The researchers found the highest levels of lead in rice from China and Taiwan

submitted by Lloyd Helferty

bbc.co.uk - by Jason Palmer - April 10, 2013

Analysis of commercially available rice imported into the US has revealed it contains levels of lead far higher than regulations suggest are safe.

Some samples exceeded the "provisional total tolerable intake" (PTTI) set by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) by a factor of 120.

The report at the American Chemical Society Meeting adds to the already well-known issue of arsenic in rice.

(READ COMPLETE ARTICLE)

Journal of Environmental Science and Health (Part B)
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-22099990

Country / Region Tags: 
Global
General Topic Tags: 
Agriculture
Food
Problem, Solution, SitRep, or ?: 
Problem
Situation Report

More and More Voices Speaking Out Against Brazil’s Belo Monte Dam

Mon, 2013-04-01 16:09 — admin

Brazil’s Belo Monte Dam to Displace Thousands in Amazon    www.abcnews.go.com - June 18, 2012 - Tiffany Hagler-Geard

Belo Monte Dam will be the world’s third-largest hydroelectric project and will displace up to 20,000 people while diverting the Xingu River and flooding as much as 230 square miles of rainforest in Brazil. The Brazilian government says residents forced to relocate will be compensated and that most will benefit from the relocation. Opponents of the dam are skeptical of this claim.

While environmentalists and indigenous groups oppose the dam, many Brazilians support the project. The Brazilian Amazon, home to 60 percent of the world’s largest forest and 20 percent of the Earth’s oxygen, remains threatened by the rapid development of the country. The area is currently populated by over 20 million people and is challenged by deforestation, agriculture, mining, a governmental dam-building spree, illegal land speculation including the occupation of forest reserves and indigenous land and other issues.

Country / Region Tags: 
Global
General Topic Tags: 
Dams
Ecosystems
Energy
Environment
Problem, Solution, SitRep, or ?: 
Situation Report

UN - World Food Programme - Hunger Map

Sun, 2013-03-31 15:49 — Kathy Gilbeaux

                                           (TO ENLARGE MAP - CLICK ON MAP IMAGE BELOW)

      

The map shows the prevalence of undernourishment in the total population as of 2010 - 2012. The indicator is an estimate of the percentage of the population having access to an amount of energy from food insufficient to maintain a healthy life.

http://www.wfp.org/hunger/downloadmap

Country / Region Tags: 
Global
General Topic Tags: 
Food
Map
Visualization
Vulnerability
Problem, Solution, SitRep, or ?: 
Problem
Situation Report

National Climate Assessment Series

Sun, 2013-03-24 18:39 — Kathy Gilbeaux

      

submitted by Stella Tarnay

securityandsustainabilityforum.org - by Kristina Byrne - January 31, 2013

Country / Region Tags: 
Global
United States
General Topic Tags: 
Climate
Problem, Solution, SitRep, or ?: 
Situation Report

OCHA - Japan: An Earthquake, a Tsunami – and a Handwritten Newspaper

Tue, 2013-03-19 16:52 — Kathy Gilbeaux

      

A rescue worker uses a two-way radio transceiver during heavy snowfall at a factory area devastated by an earthquake and tsunami in Sendai, northern Japan, 16 March 2011. Credit: REUTERS/KIM KYUNG-HOON

unocha.org - March 15, 2013

When one of the most technologically sophisticated countries in the world is hit by a triple emergency, should we count on web platforms and social media to deliver lifesaving information? Not necessarily, according to a new report by Internews into the communications aspects of the 2011 earthquake, tsunami and nuclear disaster in Japan.

. . . instead of their usual high-tech operation, local newspaper reporters went back a few decades in time and produced a handwritten newspaper.

(READ COMPLETE ARTICLE)

Internews Report - Connecting the Last Mile: The Role of Communications in the Great East Japan Earthquake
http://www.internews.org/research-publications/connecting-last-mile-role-communications-great-east-japan-earthquake

Country / Region Tags: 
Global
United States
General Topic Tags: 
Communication
Disaster Response
Problem, Solution, SitRep, or ?: 
Solutions
Problem
Situation Report

Global Warming is Epic, Long-Term Study Says

Fri, 2013-03-15 20:30 — Kathy Gilbeaux

                            (LINKS TO STUDY ABSTRACT AND ADDITIONAL INFORMATION ARE BELOW)

       

Scientists look at an ice core from the West Antarctic Ice Sheet Divide coring site.  Credit: Thomas Bauska, OSU

CNN - by Ben Brumfield - March 8, 2013

Global warming has propelled Earth's climate from one of its coldest decades since the last ice age to one of its hottest -- in just one century.

A heat spike like this has never happened before, at least not in the last 11,300 years, said climatologist Shaun Marcott, who worked on a new study on global temperatures going back that far.

"If any period in time had a sustained temperature change similar to what we have today, we would have certainly seen that in our record," he said.

(READ COMPLETE ARTICLE)

Study Abstract - A Reconstruction of Regional and Global Temperature for the Past 11,300 Years
http://www.sciencemag.org/content/339/6124/1198.abstract

Country / Region Tags: 
Global
United States
General Topic Tags: 
Climate
Problem, Solution, SitRep, or ?: 
Problem
Situation Report

Pages

Subscribe to Situation Report
howdy folks