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LogIK - Online database for cross-border movement of emergency relief items

A poster explaining LogIK

Image: A poster explaining LogIK

reliefweb.int - July 10th, 2013

When disasters strike, in-kind emergency relief items are sent from around the world. Until now, there has been no way to centrally record international contributions of humanitarian relief items.
To fill this gap, OCHA created LogIK (Logistics In-Kind) — a new online database that records these contributions. It gathers logistics information such as the sender, the origin, the destination and the details of the items.

(VIEW WEBSITE)

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Dangerous Global Warming Could Be Reversed, Say Scientists

      

We’re going to need a bigger bucket of water.  Shutterstock

grist.org - by Natalie Starkey - July 14, 2013

Global warming could be reversed using a combination of burning trees and crops for energy, and capturing and storing carbon dioxide underground (CCS), according to an analysis by scientists. But experts cautioned that trying such an approach after temperatures had passed dangerous levels could be problematic, as climate change reduced the number of trees available for “bioenergy.”

The bioenergy and CCS method was the most cost-effective way of tackling carbon emissions, said the team at Chalmers University of Technology in Sweden, publishing their research in the journal Environmental Research Letters on Thursday.

(READ COMPLETE ARTICLE)

Research - Meeting global temperature targets—the role of bioenergy with carbon capture and storage
http://iopscience.iop.org/1748-9326/8/3/034004/article

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Bloom Energy Made from Beach Sand

http://www.bloomenergy.com

Bloom Energy is changing the way the world generates and consumes energy.

Our unique on-site power generation systems utilize an innovative new fuel cell technology with roots in NASA's Mars program.

Derived from a common sand-like powder, and leveraging breakthrough advances in materials science, our technology is able to produce clean, reliable, affordable power,... practically anywhere,... from a wide range of renewable or traditional fuels.

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Landfill Harmonic - The world sends us garbage... We send back music.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fXynrsrTKbI

kickstarter.com - LANDFILL HARMONIC: Inspiring dreams one note at a time!

A heartfelt & moving story of how instruments made from recycled trash bring hope to children whose future is otherwise spiritless.

Too many children in the world are born into lives with little or no hope.

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Health & Ecosystems: Analysis of Linkages (HEAL)

      

www.wcs-heal.org

HEALTH & ECOSYSTEMS: ANALYSIS OF LINKAGES (HEAL) represents a global collaboration among leading public health and environmental conservation institutions focused on understanding relationships between the state of ecosystems and public health outcomes.

With planning grants over the past several years from the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation and the Rockefeller Foundation, the Wildlife Conservation Society organized a series of workshops starting in 2009 that brought together top professionals from the public health and conservation communities.

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Designing a Cleaner Future: Bicyclean Helps Recycle E-Waste in Developing Nations

 

July 1, 2013 — A slum on the outskirts of Accra, Ghana, received major media attention in 2010 and 2011 when the outside world realized where computers go to die. In an area called Agbogbloshie, impoverished residents were burning broken electronic parts, discarded and dumped by wealthier nations, to extract the metal components. Crouched around bonfires, they inhaled toxic smoke and unwittingly leached heavy metals into a nearby river, just to eke out a living.

Harvard undergraduate Rachel Field '12, an engineering sciences concentrator, read the news reports and devoted her senior thesis project to addressing the problem.

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From theory to modelling : urban systems as complex systems

 

 

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Amazing world of Indian shoestring creativity

CNN - By Arion McNicoll - 07/25/13


(CNN) -- In 2001 a huge earthquake shook the state of Gujarat in India.
2,000 people were killed, 400,000 lost their homes, and countless more lost their businesses in the

devastation.

One young entrepreneur, Mansukhbhai Prajapati, lost everything, but found an innovative way to get back on his feet. Prajapati designed a low-cost clay fridge which required no electricity and continued to function in the event of major catastrophes or blackouts such as the one that devastated his village.

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Shelter in a Day - Disaster Relief Housing

submitted by Stan Pleskunas

      

http://www.shelterinaday.com/

Shelter In A Day provides not only safe, secure and sturdy emergency and disaster relief housing, but Shelters are also termite, rust and rot resistant and come equipped with lockable doors and windows.  Shelter In A Day’s homes are eco-friendly as they are crafted from waterproof, recycled wood fiber material.

But perhaps the most valuable quality of Shelter In A Day is that homes can be erected in one day, without tools or electricity, using a new patented “Tool Free Joint.”  Shelter's Tool Free Joint reinvents a simple, yet solidly constructed, carpenter style joint with a secure locking peg that is very easy to assemble. 

Shelter In A Day's homes are earthquake and windstorm resistant, built to last and provide those in need a very appealing alternative to traditional "box car" type shelters. Roof overhangs keep the noonday sun off the walls, keeping Shelter's cool inside.  A sturdy and lockable door and windows allow light and ventilation. 

http://www.shelterinaday.com/about.html

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Wind at parity with new coal in India, solar to join by 2018: HSBC

By on 11 July 2013

Wind energy is now cost competitive with new-build coal capacity in India, and solar is likely to follow suit sometime between 2016-18, according to a report by HSBC.

The report on India Renewables, Good bye winter, hello spring, published on April 30, says the growing cost-competitiveness of renewable energy with new-build coal – and the arrival of wind parity, despite the upper wind FiT range being around 15 per cent lower than the upper tariff range for new coal capacity (see chart 3 below) – is helping to drive strong renewables growth on the sub-continent.

India’s share of renewable generation in the total electricity mix increased to around 6 per cent in the 2012/13 financial year – an amount the government is hoping to grow to 20 per cent by the end of 2020, to help meet the nation’s a peak power deficit of 12GW, or around 9 per cent of its demand....

 

FULL ARTICLE HERE

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