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Extreme Weather Means Extreme Food Prices Worldwide, Aid Agency Warns

Sun, 2012-09-09 00:22 — Kathy Gilbeaux

      

Somali girls line up to receive a hot meal in Mogadishu last year after the worst drought in the Horn of Africa in decades, compounded by war, put millions in danger of starvation.  Roberto Schmmidt/AFP/Getty Images

npr.org - by Elizabeth Shogren - September 6, 2012

Reducing greenhouse gases and saving the polar bears tend to dominate discussions on climate change. But to the booming world population, one climate change issue may be even more pressing – hunger.

A new report by a leading international relief agency warns that climate change will increase the risk of large spikes in global food prices in the future, and lead to more hungry people in the world.

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Oxfam report - Extreme Weather, Extreme Prices
http://www.oxfamamerica.org/publications/extreme-weather-extreme-prices

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United Nations International Conference on Space-Based Technologies for Disaster Management

Thu, 2012-09-06 22:24 — Kathy Gilbeaux

submitted by Luis Kun

un-spider.org - August 2012

Upcoming events

http://www.un-spider.org/about/updates/un-spider-august-2012-updates

http://issuu.com/unspider/docs/un-spider_updates_august_2012/1

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Rethinking Humanitarian Relief: Sourcing Locally Before Disaster Strikes

Thu, 2012-09-06 21:42 — Kathy Gilbeaux

submitted by Albert Gomez

good.is - by Rosie Spinks - September 6, 2012

When disaster strikes a place like Haiti, Somalia, or Indonesia, the response in the developed world usually follows a similar trajectory: massive aid appeal from local NGOs supported by celebrity faces, a large influx of funds from reliably generous Americans, and an eventual petering out of urgent media coverage in the ensuing weeks.

While media coverage of international tragedies may appear to reach saturation levels at times, the story of how those aid dollars affect local economies is not so well told.

“After a disaster, there is more money [from donors] than you can shake a stick at,” says Howard Sharman, senior consultant for the UK-based relief project Advance Aid.

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Why 2013 will be a year of crisis

Wed, 2012-09-05 20:07 — Maeryn Obley

Prediction: 2013 will be a year of serious global crisis. That crisis is predictable, and in fact has already begun. It will inescapably confront the next president of the United States. Yet this emerging crisis got not a mention at the Republican National Convention in Tampa.

Image: Rotting corn was damaged by severe drought on a farm near Bruceville, Indiana.

submitted by Samuel Bendett

cnn.com - September 3rd, 2012 - David Frum

Prediction: 2013 will be a year of serious global crisis. That crisis is predictable, and in fact has already begun. It will inescapably confront the next president of the United States. Yet this emerging crisis got not a mention at the Republican National Convention in Tampa.

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Qatar's Al Jazeera website hacked by Syria's Assad loyalists

Wed, 2012-09-05 20:00 — Maeryn Obley

in.reuters.com - September 5th, 2012

The website of Qatar-based satellite news network Al Jazeera was apparently hacked on Tuesday by Syrian government loyalists for what they said was the television channel's support for the "armed terrorist groups and spreading lies and fabricated news".

A Syrian flag and statement denouncing Al Jazeera's "positions against the Syrian people and government" were posted on the Arabic site of the channel in response to its coverage of the uprising against President Bashar al-Assad which began in March last year.

Al Jazeera took the lead in covering the uprisings across the Arab world, and Qatar, one of the Sunni-led states in the region, publicly backed the predominantly Sunni rebel movement in Syria against Assad's Alawite-led government.

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Risk of water wars rises with scarcity

Tue, 2012-09-04 14:35 — Maeryn Obley

aljazeera.com - Chris Arsenault - August 26th, 2012

The author Mark Twain once remarked that "whisky is for drinking; water is for fighting over" and a series of reports from intelligence agencies and research groups indicate the prospect of a water war is becoming increasingly likely.

In March, a report from the office of the US Director of National Intelligence said the risk of conflict would grow as water demand is set to outstrip sustainable current supplies by 40 per cent by 2030.

"These threats are real and they do raise serious national security concerns," Hillary Clinton, the US secretary of state, said after the report's release.

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No Base in Paradise

Tue, 2012-09-04 13:42 — Maeryn Obley

Actor, filmmaker and environmental advocate Robert Redford. (photo: Contour/Getty Images) go to original article

Image: Actor, filmmaker and environmental advocate Robert Redford. (photo: Contour/Getty Images)

readersupportednews.org - Robert Redford - September 3rd, 2012

From September 6-15, some 10,000 environmentalists will converge on Jeju Island to attend the World Conservation Congress (WCC), organized by the oldest environmental organization, the International Union of the Conservation of Nature (IUCN). The IUCN's slogan is that it promotes "a just world that values and conserves nature." If recent actions are any indication, nothing could be further from the truth.

The WCC will take place only a few minutes away from Gangjeong, where the construction of a naval base is threatening one of the planet's most spectacular soft coral forests and other coastal treasures, assaulting numerous endangered species and destroying a 400-year-old sustainable community of local farmers and fishers.

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Images: Venezuelan Refinery Under Scrutiny After Deadly Blaze

Tue, 2012-09-04 13:16 — Maeryn Obley

Venezuela's Amuay refinery during the disaster. (Photograph from Nuevo Dia/European Pressphoto Agency)Image: Venezuela's Amuay refinery during the disaster. (Photograph from Nuevo Dia/European Pressphoto Agency)

news.nationalgeographic.com - Brian Handwerk - August 30th, 2012

Fires raged at Venezuela's Amuay refinery after a predawn explosion rocked the facility on August 25 and left at least 42 dead, dozens wounded, and hundreds of homes demolished. The blast was the world's deadliest refinery accident in 15 years.

The catastrophe's exact causes haven't been determined, but Energy Minister Rafael Ramírez, president of the state's oil company Petróoleos de Venezuela SA (PDVSA), said on Venezuelan television that a gas leak had appeared in a fuel storage tank area and formed a cloud that burst into a ball of flame despite the efforts of workers.

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Antarctic Methane Could Escape, Worsen Warming

Tue, 2012-09-04 13:08 — Maeryn Obley

A cutaway view of Antarctica shows its southern ice sheet. (Map from National Geographic)

Image: A cutaway view of Antarctica shows its southern ice sheet. (Map from National Geographic)

news.nationalgeographic.com - Rob Kunzig - August 31st, 2012

Swamp gas trapped under miles of Antarctic ice, a chemical souvenir of that continent's warmer days, may someday escape to warm the planet again, an international team of researchers report in Nature this week.

The researchers suggest that microbes isolated from the rest of the world since the ice closed over them, some 35 million years ago, have kept busy digesting organic matter and making methane—a much more effective greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide.

If global warming causes the ice sheets to retreat in the coming decades or centuries, the researchers warn, some of the methane could belch into the atmosphere, amplifying the warming.

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More Dengue Fever Reported in Eastern Cuba

Sun, 2012-08-26 22:31 — Kathy Gilbeaux

miamiherald.com - by Juan O. Tamayo - August 20, 2012

A vocational school has been turned into a makeshift hospital to handle the overflow of Dengue patients.

An outbreak of dengue fever in eastern Cuba has reportedly forced authorities to turn a vocational school into a hospital, while a city racked by a cholera epidemic now also faces an increase in the mosquito that carries dengue.

Medical personnel in the eastern city of Camaguey said the Maximo Gómez vocational school for sciences is being used as a hospital, and a local university building will be turned into a treatment center if the outbreak spreads.

“We have a huge outbreak of dengue here, and if things continue to be bad — we already are at the level of epidemic — I think they may quarantine us,” one local medical worker told relatives in Miami. “Don’t worry too much, but this is bad.”

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