Caudalosa workers clean up mining tailings in Peru's Opamayo River. - Credit:Milagros Salazar/IPS

by Stephen Leahy - ipsnews.net

UXBRIDGE, Canada, Mar 1, 2012 (IPS) - A global scramble for land and mineral resources fuelled by billions of investment dollars is threatening the last remaining wilderness and critical ecosystems, destroying communities and contaminating huge volumes of fresh water, warned environmental groups in London Wednesday.

No national park, delicate ecosystem or community is off limits in the voracious hunt for valuable metals, minerals and fossil fuels, said the Gaia Foundation’s report, "Opening Pandora's Box". The intensity of the hunt and exploitation is building to a fever pitch despite the fact the Earth is already overheated and humanity is using more than can be sustained, the 56-page report warns.

Proceedings of the American Thoracic Society - March 15, 2012

Worldwide increases in the incidences of asthma, allergies, infectious and cardiovascular diseases will result from a variety of impacts of global climate change, including rising temperatures, worsening ozone levels in urban areas, the spread of desertification, and expansions of the ranges of communicable diseases as the planet heats up, the professional organization representing respiratory and airway physicians stated in a new position paper released today.

The paper is published online and in print in the Proceedings of the American Thoracic Society.

http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2012-03/uoc--lde030912.php

An Official American Thoracic Society Workshop Report: Climate Change and Human Health

http://pats.atsjournals.org/content/9/1/3.abstract

A social media campaign to shine a light on Ugandan warlord Joseph Kony has attracted ire of its own after critics attacked its methods. Is using Facebook and Twitter to promote change pointless, or the natural extension of our social media habit?

by Kate Dailey - BBC News - March 9, 2012

On Monday, the California-based nonprofit Invisible Children released an online 30-minute documentary about Joseph Kony, leader of the Lord Resistance Army (LRA). "We want to make him famous," they said. "Not to glorify him, but so that his crimes would not go unnoticed."

It worked.

(READ COMPLETE ARTICLE)

Solar panels, lights, and battery chargers.  All that's needed to give doctors and patients a chance when the power goes out.  Photo/We Care Solar

cbcradio - February 29, 2012

They were in the middle of surgery again when the power went out in the Nigerian operating room.

Luckily, a visiting American doctor had a flashlight.

But Laura Stachel figured there had to be a way around the recurring problem.

And with husband Hal Aronson, a solar energy educator in California, they came up with something called the Solar Suitcase.

She joined us while unpacking one in a maternity clinic in another part of Africa to explain how it's providing lifesaving light.

Dr. Laura Stachel at work with her Solar Suitcase in Sierra Leone. She's co-founder of WE CARE Solar, creating technology to benefit maternal health in the developing world.

http://wecaresolar.org/

http://www.cbc.ca/dispatches/news-promo/2012/02/29/a-box-full-of-light-and-life/

People who fled the Darfur region of Sudan amid brutal attacks are coming back. A Darfurian in Nyuru, peacekeepers behind her.   Sven Torfinn for The New York Times

The New York Times - by Jeffrey Gettleman - February 26, 2012

NYURU, Sudan — More than 100,000 people in Darfur have left the sprawling camps where they had taken refuge for nearly a decade and headed home to their villages over the past year, the biggest return of displaced people since the war began in 2003 and a sign that one of the world’s most infamous conflicts may have decisively cooled.

The millions of civilians who fled into camps, their homes often reduced to nothing more than rings of ash by armed raiders, are among the most haunting legacies of the conflict in Darfur, transforming this rural landscape into a collection of swollen impromptu squatter towns.

tacmedia.wordpress.com - February 26, 2012

In the world of Twitter, Facebook , YouTube and everything else that demands instantaneous information sharing it is horrible to see an event occur and the only information that comes out is rumour, guesses and innuendo.

Today, I watched virtually as a passenger train derailment occurred in the region that I live in.  In fact, I was out with my family today and we weren’t to far from the location where the event occurred.

Like so many others, I learned about the event on Twitter and I stayed with the information all afternoon and into the evening.

(READ COMPLETE ARTICLE)

scientificamerican.com - February 15, 2012

Digital innovators Bill Joy, co-founder of Sun Microsystems, and Danny Hillis, co-founder of the Long Now Foundation, talk with Scientific American Executive Editor Fred Guterl about the technological "Entanglement" and the attempts to build the other, hardier Internet. Web sites related to this episode include http://compass-summit.com and The Shadow Web

(LISTEN TO THE PODCAST IN THE LINK BELOW)

http://www.scientificamerican.com/podcast/episode.cfm?id=the-coming-entanglement-bill-joy-an-12-02-15

submitted by Samuel Bendett

Homeland Security News Wire - February 23, 2012

The heat wave that struck western Russia in summer 2010 killed 55,000 people and caused $15 billion in damage; a new study concludes that soaring temperatures were within the natural range for a Russian summer, but that due to human-induced climate change, the chance of such an extreme heat wave has tripled over the past several decades

The heat wave that struck western Russia in summer 2010, killing 55,000 people, broke July temperatures records and caused $15 billion in damage. Searching for a culprit for the soaring temperatures, research teams have identified either natural or manmade causes. A new study concludes, however, that the devastating heat wave had both. Soaring temperatures were within the natural range for a Russian summer, the researchers found, but due to human-induced climate change, the chance of such an extreme heat wave has tripled over the past several decades.

submitted by Mike Kraft

stefanomele.it

In its seventh edition, the World Economic Forum´s Global Risks Report features more refined risk descriptions and rigorous data analysis covering 50 global risks. It aims to improve public and private sector efforts to map, monitor, manage and mitigate global risks. It is also a “call to action” for the international community to improve current efforts at coordination and collaboration, as none of the global risks highlighted respects national boundaries.

(READ COMPLETE ARTICLE)

World Economic Forum - Global Risks 2012 - Seventh Edition (64 page .PDF file)

http://www3.weforum.org/docs/WEF_GlobalRisks_Report_2012.pdf

submitted by Gigi Pomerantz

 by gbastinwsup - Sanitation Updates - February 20, 2012

Financing water and sanitation improvements for the very poor remains a major challenge over large areas of the globe.

In the lead-up to World Water Forum 2012, sector specialists throughout the world have been asked to report specific solutions for addressing this challenge. Based on these concrete examples, IRC and WSUP today propose six key solutions for pro-poor WASH finance.

(READ COMPLETE ARTICLE)

Image / FlyingSinger/CC BY 2.0/Flickr

stockholmresilience.org

Tipping towards the unknown

submitted by Samuel Bendett

by Zack Whittaker - zdnet.com - February 13, 2012

Summary: A new Forrester research report sees over 1 billion smartphones being used by 2016, while app store spending increases and ‘bring your own’ device becomes the norm.

In a world where already you cannot travel on the subway without someone flipping out their cellphone, or stand at a Starbucks without someone yapping away on their iPhone, imagine what’ll happen with 1 billion smartphones out there?

Forrester seems to think so. Analysts at Forrester believe that by 2016 — only four years away, and in time for the following Olympics — there could be as many as 1 billion smartphones on the planet. This isn’t to say that everyone will have two or more smartphones, that is.

(READ COMPLETE ARTICLE)

Revolutionaries, anti -government activist  are tearing down signs and renaming "streets, bridges and boulevards" and replacing them with their heroes.
It seems it began from Social Media using Facebook to gain support, and now they are electronically renaming the same in Google maps.

(ARTICLE FOUND HERE) by Colum Lynch, The Washington Post with Foreign Policy,WORLD,National Security February 14,2012

Gabon at the Congo Basin, the second largest tropical forest in Africa

Loango Lodge at Gabon,Loango National Park.

Tourism needed to save Gabon,the park, the land, the animals and to utilize its natural resources.
Political issues cause setbacks for Gabon and its Eco-Tourism vision ,new President new outlook.

(ARTICLE FOUND HERE) BBC NEWS, by David Baron,PRI's The World, February 7,2012