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Conflicting Scenarios Exercise

Sat, 2014-08-16 20:46 — WDS1200-Columbus

I have been proposing that, rather than trying to foresee the future, we consider accepting and conducting further research on a much more fundamental, all-encompassing and long-term-resilient approach to our built environment. I have been proposing that such an elemental approach should be structural adaptivity. I believe that our world must and will give maximum adaptivity to the basic elements of our built environment to adjust to and meet our needs for the unpredictable, rapidly changing world over the next 50-100 years.

In working on this, I conducted an Exercise. I experimented with a number of different future conditions, or scenarios, that I think are quite possible. The first two that drew my strongest concern were the conflicting scenarios of: (1) how planners might address our urban areas after global warming has abated – and the problem is continuous hot weather and more storms – as opposed to (2) how planners are now addressing the need to stop or slow down global warming. I also experimented with additional scenarios that I do not think we are able to, presently, forecast accurately. Most of them, however, I believe will surface eventually, in one way or another, and cause huge problems.

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Disaster Risk Reduction

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Resilience on the Fly: Christchurch’s SCIRT Offers a Model for Rebuilding After a Disaster

Sat, 2014-08-16 20:00 — Kathy Gilbeaux

submitted by Samuel Bendett

homelandsecuritynewswire.com - by David Killick - August 15, 2014

You do not see it, but you certainly know when it is not there: infrastructure, the miles of underground pipes carrying drinking water, stormwater and wastewater, utilities such as gas and electricity, and fiber-optics and communications cables that spread likes veins and arteries under the streets of a city.

That calamity hit Christchurch, New Zealand, in a series of earthquakes that devastated the city in 2010 and 2011.

The organization created to manage Christchurch’s infrastructure rebuild – it is called SCIRT, for Stronger Christchurch Infrastructure Rebuild Team— has a vital role, and it has become something of a global model for how to put the guts of a city back together again quickly and efficiently after a disaster.

(READ COMPLETE ARTICLE)

SCIRT - http://strongerchristchurch.govt.nz/

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Sustainable Development

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http://www.nytimes.com/2014/08/16/science/agencies-issue-warnings-over-bogus-ebola-cures.html?_r=0

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Agencies Issue Warnings Over Bogus Ebola Cures

Sat, 2014-08-16 07:32 — Norea

A government burial team in Sierra Leone. As Ebola claims more victims, false cures are being marketed toward Africans. Credit Carl De Souza/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images By DONALD G. McNEIL Jr. - nytimes.com - AUG. 15, 2014

Panic over Ebola has the makers of dietary supplements aggressively targeting Africans, claiming to have a cure for the lethal virus.

Late this week, both the World Health Organization and the United States Food and Drug Administration issued strong warnings about false Ebola cures. The latter threatened American companies with penalties if they continue making such claims.

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http://online.wsj.com/articles/ebola-doctors-with-no-rubber-gloves-1408142137

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Ebola Virus: For Want of Gloves, Doctors Die

Sat, 2014-08-16 07:04 — Norea

In a school building used to quarantine Ebola patients in Monrovia, Liberia, Umu Fambulle stands over her infected husband after he fell. Getty Images

By Drew Hinshaw - Aug. 16, 2014 2:43 a.m. ET

Health Workers Believe Ebola's Toll on Staff Could Be Mitigated With More Basic Hospital Supplies

SERGEANT KOLLIE TOWN, Liberia—Rubber gloves were nearly as scarce as doctors in this part of rural Liberia, so Melvin Korkor would swaddle his hands in plastic grocery bags to deliver babies.

His staff didn't bother even with those when a woman in her 30s stopped by complaining of a headache. Five nurses, a lab technician—then a local woman who was helping out—cared for her with their bare hands.

Within weeks, all of them died. The woman with a headache, they learned too late, had Ebola.

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http://www.voanews.com/content/nigeria-confirms-11th-case-of-ebola/2413025.html

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Guinea Declares Public Health Emergency Over Ebola

Fri, 2014-08-15 07:34 — Norea

Liberian policemen, right, dressed in riot gear disperse a crowd of people that blocked a main road after the body of someone suspected of dying from the Ebola virus was not removed by health workers in the city of Monrovia, Liberia, Aug. 14, 2014.

VOA News - August 14, 2014 1:59 PM

Guinea has declared a public health emergency over the Ebola epidemic and is sending health workers to all affected border points, a government official said.

An estimated 377 people have died in Guinea since the world's worst outbreak of Ebola began in March in remote parts of a border region next to Sierra Leone and Liberia.

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http://www.state.gov/r/pa/prs/ps/2014/230613.htm

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U.S. Orders Departure of Eligible Family Members from Sierra Leone

Fri, 2014-08-15 07:25 — Norea

Department of State Seal Press Statement

Marie Harf
Deputy Department Spokesperson, Office of the Spokesperson

Washington, DC

August 14, 2014

At the recommendation of the U.S. Embassy in Sierra Leone, the State Department today ordered the departure from Freetown of all eligible family members (EFMs) not employed by post. The Embassy recommended this step out of an abundance of caution, following the determination by the Department’s Medical Office that there is a lack of options for routine health care services at major medical facilities due to the Ebola outbreak.

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http://edition.cnn.com/2014/08/14/health/ebola-vaccine-drugs-faq/index.html?iid=article_sidebar

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Only the facts: Ebola experimental drugs

Fri, 2014-08-15 07:05 — Norea

By Caleb Hellerman, CNN

August 14, 2014 -- Updated 1122 GMT (1922 HKT)

(CNN) -- The race to develop an effective treatment or vaccine against Ebola is on as the largest outbreak in history continues to spread in West Africa. Meanwhile, questions about whether unproven treatments are appropriate to use, and who should get them, are inspiring passion and resentment.

On Wednesday, an Iowa-based company called NewLink said it has enough doses of an experimental Ebola vaccine to begin clinical trials in the next few weeks, if such trials are approved. Meanwhile, a shipment of 800 to 1,000 doses of the vaccine, known as VSV-EBOV, were delivered to health officials in Liberia, as a donation from the Public Health Agency of Canada.

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U.S. Health Officials to Consider Use of Unapproved Ebola Meds

Thu, 2014-08-14 23:00 — Kathy Gilbeaux

reuters.com - By David Morgan and Sharon Begley - August 7, 2014

(Reuters) - The Obama administration is forming a special Ebola working group to consider setting policy for the potential use of experimental drugs to help the hundreds infected by the deadly disease in West Africa, U.S. officials said on Thursday.

The group is being formed under Dr. Nicole Lurie, Assistant Secretary for Preparedness and Response at the Department of Health and Human Services, an administration official said.

The action follows mounting international pressure as the death toll mounts to consider using untested treatments.

(READ COMPLETE ARTICLE)

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