Image: Correlation of violent protests in Africa and the Middle East with local food prices.

compression.org - October 25th, 2012 - Robert W. "Doc" Hall

Formal risk management has become common in large organizations. Risk management has become complex, standardized in ISO 31000, and meriting university degrees. Most risk assessment multiplies the consequences of an event times its probability to create a risk index. Managements can then choose to eliminate, mitigate, or accept each risk.

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Image: Aftereffects of the L'Aquila earthquake

compression.org - October 25th, 2012 - Robert W. "Doc" Hall

The difficulties of explaining risk are the nub of the recent conviction on manslaughter changes of six Italian seismologists and a public official for inadequately forewarning the public of the L’Aquila earthquake in 2009: 309 fatalities, over 1500 injuries, and about 20,000 buildings destroyed. Seismologists classified the L’Aquila as a “moderate earthquake,” 6.3 Richter, but losses were very high in a densely populated area.

The case has drawn media attention, but Nature has a more detailed account.

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Image: Health employees protest outside the Health Ministry in Athens against pay and budget cuts. Fewer resources for malaria treatment and mosquito control may be contributing to malaria's comeback in Greece. Aris Messinis/AFP/Getty Images

npr.org - October 26th, 2012 - Michaeleen Doucleff

After a 40-year hiatus, malaria is returning to Greece.

Some 70 cases have been reported there this year, and at least 12 people appear to have been infected in the country. (The others picked up the disease elsewhere.)

That's a concern for health workers because it means malaria may now be endemic to Greece — and not just hitching a ride with travelers.

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Image: 2010 Drought in Russia. (c) New York Times.

foreignpolicyblogs.com - November 10th, 2012 - Mia Bennett

The National Academy of Sciences (NAS) and National Research Council (NRC) have released a report commissioned by the CIA and various other American intelligence agencies on the security threats posed by climate change. The report’s goal is to inform intelligence agencies as to how to best carry out monitoring to anticipate climate-related disasters, help prevent them from occurring, and, when they do, respond to emergencies. The report investigates how climate change could potentially induce social and political stresses that will affect U.S. security over the next decade.

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Image: Oil derricks like this one outside of Williston, North Dakota, are part of a shale oil boom that has helped put the United States on track to overtake Saudi Arabia as the world's leading oil producer. Photograph by Gregory Bull, AP

news.nationalgeographic.com - November 12th, 2012 - Theodore K. Grose

In an indication of how "fracking" is reshaping the global energy picture, the International Energy Agency today projected that the United States will overtake Saudi Arabia as the world's largest oil producer by 2017.

And within just three years, the United States will unseat Russia as the largest producer of natural gas.

Both results would have been unthinkable even a few short years ago, but the future geography of supply has shifted dramatically due to what IEA calls America's "energy renaissance."

washingtonpost.com

Uncertainty over whether Washington will agree a spending and taxation deal that is crucial to keeping the U.S. economic recovery on track kept a lid on global market gains on Monday.

Economists have said the U.S. risks slipping into recession if hundreds of billions of dollars in expiring tax cuts and automatic spending reductions take effect on Jan. 1 — the so called “fiscal cliff.” Congress and the White House must find a compromise to prevent a big hit to the world’s biggest economy.

President Barack Obama, fresh from a re-election victory, and House Speaker John Boehner have spoken of compromise but appear to be taking a firm stances on some issues, including whether to raise taxes for the wealthiest.

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Image: Pedestrians walk past graffitti in Athens – a growing number of Greek workers remain nominally employed but have not been paid for some time. Photograph: EPA

guardian.co.uk - October 31st, 2012 - Julia Kollewe and Phillip Inman   

Unemployment in the eurozone has risen to a new record, with more than one in four out of work in Spain and Greece.

There are now 18.49 million people without jobs in the 17 countries sharing the euro, said the European statistics office Eurostat on Wednesday with an extra 146,000 joining the ranks of the unemployed last month.

Youth unemployment – joblessness among under-25s – rose to 23.3%, up from 21% during the same month a year ago.

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Image: Cholera bacteria, image from Wikipedia

submitted by Jenny Boyle

tribune242.com - October 31st, 2012 - Maranda McBride, Lemuria Carter, Merrill Warkentin

Last night the Ministry of Health confirmed its first case of cholera. It said that although it continues to investigate, “there are no other reported cases of cholera in the Bahamas.”

The Ministry said that it “continues its heightened surveillance activities and other necessary precautions to identify cases and prevent the transmission of cholera in the Bahamas.”

It advised the public to use clean water, wash their hands regularly and otherwise maintain good hygienic practices to prevent cholera from developing and spreading.

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reuters.com - November 4th, 2012 - Krista Hughes and Julien Toyer

Finance chiefs of leading economies pressed the United States on Sunday to avert a rush of spending cuts and tax hikes that could hurt global output next year, though some countries still saw Europe's debt crisis as the No. 1 danger.

Unless a fractious Congress can move quickly to reach a deal after Tuesday's U.S. elections, about $600 billion in government spending cuts and higher taxes are set to kick in from Jan. 1, threatening to push the American economy back into recession.
   
"They need to act swiftly on the fiscal cliff and then they will need to put in place a medium-term fiscal consolidation," Australian Treasurer Wayne Swan told Reuters before ministers from the Group of 20 countries gathered for talks.

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Image: Currie Wagner looks over the debris from his grandmother Betty Wagner's house, destroyed by Sandy, in New Jersey. Photograph: Julio Cortez/AP

guardian.co.uk - October 31st, 2012 - Bill McKibben

Here's a sentence I wish I hadn't written – it rolled out of my Macbook in May, part of an article for Rolling Stone that quickly went viral:

    "Say something so big finally happens (a giant hurricane swamps Manhattan, a megadrought wipes out Midwest agriculture) that even the political power of the industry is inadequate to restrain legislators, who manage to regulate carbon."

I wish I hadn't written it because the first half gives me entirely undeserved credit for prescience: I had no idea both would, in fact, happen in the next six months.

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image: Hurricane Sandy churns off the coast of Florida as a line of clouds associated with a powerful cold front approaches the U.S. East Coast on Oct. 26, 2012

businessweek.com - November 1st, 2012 - Paul M. Barrett

Men and women in white lab coats tell us—and they’re right—that many factors contribute to each severe weather episode. Climate deniers exploit scientific complexity to avoid any discussion at all.

Clarity, however, is not beyond reach. Hurricane Sandy demands it: At least 40 U.S. deaths.

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Image: Water filtration system.

fastcoexist.com - November 1st, 2012 - Whitney Pastorek

In Sanskrit, jal is the root for “water,” and sarva is the root for “everyone.” Put them together, and you’ve got exactly what Sarvajal delivers: Water for all. Originally launched as a nonprofit experiment in 2007, the company has grown into a thriving hub-and-spoke model of over 150 Sarvajal franchisees operating small reverse-osmosis filtration plants and revolutionary Water ATMs in India’s northwestern states, and its potent combination of entrepreneurship, common sense, and tech savvy has made a significant change in the quality of life for thousands of rural Indian villagers. “In 60 years of existence, India has always had getting clean water to people as the last mile at the top of its list of things to do,” says Sarvajal CEO Anand Shah. “We figured that if you put a lot of smart people on this idea, maybe you could come up with a solution.”

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Image: Chief executive Sir Stuart Etherington says government should open up commissioning and make other initiatives less complex

submitted by Albert Gomez

thirdsector.co.uk - October 25th, 2012 - Tim Tonkin

Charity leaders are feeling more optimistic about their organisations’ financial prospects in the forthcoming year, according to a new report by the National Council for Voluntary Organisations.

The umbrella body’s latest quarterly Charity Forecast Survey, carried out last month and published today, shows that 31 per cent of the 200 or so NCVO members who responded feel the overall situation of their organisations will improve over the next year, compared with 21 per cent in the poll carried out for the last Forecast Survey.

The proportion who feel their organisation’s overall position will worsen over the coming year is down slightly, from 46 per cent in the last survey to 42 per cent.

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submitted by Albert Gomez

http://csi.gsb.stanford.edu - October 1st, 2012 - Kriss Deiglmeier

A number of reports have crossed my desk recently about how to accelerate and advance social innovation. There are reports on collective impact, convenings on impact investing, and conferences about measuring outcomes to name just a few. 

These gatherings and reports come from credible sources, and so their recommendations influence the agendas of leaders, funders, and investors.

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Image: Design mock-up of the self-sufficient carless city.

submitted by Samuel Bendett

inhabitat.com - October 25th, 2012 - Beth Buczynski

Many may perceive China as a crowded, polluted country, but that legacy is changing. Chicago-based Adrian Smith + Gordon Gill Architecture just unveiled its master plan for Chengdu Tianfu District Great City, a self-sustaining satellite city that offers a solution to the problems of overburdened infrastructure and high pollution levels that assail many of China’s major urban centers.

The project envisions a city that avoids the high energy consumption and carbon emissions associated with suburban sprawl. According to the architects, Great City will be developed by Beijing Vantone Real Estate Co., Ltd. over the next eight years. When completed, it will be home to about 30,000 families totaling 80,000 people.

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