Global

Where ice once capped the Sermeq Avangnardleq glacier in Greenland, vast expanses of the Arctic Ocean are now clear. Credit Kadir van Lohuizen for The New York Times

nytimes.com - by Justin Gillis - August 26, 2014

Runaway growth in the emission of greenhouse gases is swamping all political efforts to deal with the problem, raising the risk of “severe, pervasive and irreversible impacts” over the coming decades, according to a draft of a major new United Nations report.

Global warming is already cutting grain production by several percentage points, the report found, and that could grow much worse if emissions continue unchecked. Higher seas, devastating heat waves, torrential rain and other climate extremes are also being felt around the world as a result of human-produced emissions, the draft report said, and those problems are likely to intensify unless the gases are brought under control.

Here are some more Facilitation Examples.  By Facilitation I am meaning general activities by planners, and others that cause or guide development, to influence the development of the built environment toward structural adaptivity as we progress into an ever more uncertain and unpredictable future.  Some might call them implementation strategies or “calls to action.”

These examples have not been identified or studied by teams of experts; they are only my personal ideas intended to illustrate possibilities.  Hopefully, however, they will convey a sense of the real prospects for structural adaptivity to be achieved.  I believe that structural adaptivity is critical to resilience over the long term.

Promote the Futurist Perspective.  With more attention in our society to the “futurist perspective,” sooner rather than later, such attention will also come to focus on the need for all forms of adaptivity, including structural adaptivity in our urban areas and regions.  Structural adaptivity is the most, if not only, logical approach to facing a future that now is uncertain, unpredictable and rapidly changing.

There are fears Ebola has spread to a fifth country, the Democratic Republic of Congo, as sub-Saharan African authorities take drastic steps to keep population centres safe from the worst-ever Ebola outbreak.

Australian Broadcasting Corporation - Broadcast: 25/08/2014 - Reporter: Martin Cuddihy

. . . GAVIN MACGREGOR-SKINNER, ELIZABETH R. GRIFFIN RESEARCH FOUNDATION: It's heartbreaking. For being involved in infectious diseases prevention and control for years, what I'm hearing on the news, what I'm reading and the conversations that I'm having with colleagues in West Africa, it's absolutely heartbreaking.

MARTIN CUDDIHY: Gavin MacGregor-Skinner is an Australian expert in public health and emergency responses. He's now based in Washington, DC, but is preparing to leave for Nigeria. He says technology is making a big difference in how quickly authorities can react.

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ReliefWeb.int - par Zoom DOSSO avec Selim SAHEB ETTABA à Dakar

MONROVIA, 22 août 2014 (AFP) - toutes les régions du Libéria est maintenant frappée par Ebola, ont indiqué des responsables vendredi, comme l'Organisation mondiale de la santé a averti la lutte contre la pire flambée de la maladie mortelle prendrait mois.

Après avoir vu des gens tomber le virus mortel dans la zone après zone, le Liberia a déclaré deux personnes avaient succombé au virus dans la province de Sinoe, le dernier bastion exempt de virus Ebola dans un pays qui a connu le plus grand péage...

. . . Le virus s'est propagé sans relâche à travers le Libéria, la Guinée et la Sierra Leone, et le Nigeria a également été affecté malgré montrant certains progrès dans la lutte contre l'épidémie...

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