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.

A British man infected with the Ebola virus is loaded into a Royal Air Force (RAF) ambulance after being flown home on a C17 plane from Sierra Leone, at Northolt air base outside London, August 24, 2014.  REUTERS/Andrew Winning

af.reuters.com - By Umaru Fofana and Media Coulibaly - August 26, 2014

FREETOWN/KINSHASA (Reuters) - The World Health Organization (WHO) said on Tuesday it had shut a laboratory in Sierra Leone after a health worker there was infected with Ebola, a move that may hamper efforts to boost the global response to the worst ever outbreak of the disease.

. . . The WHO said it had withdrawn staff from the laboratory testing for Ebola at Kailahun -- one of only two in Sierra Leone -- after a Senegalese epidemiologist was infected with Ebola. . .

"It's a temporary measure to take care of the welfare of our remaining workers," WHO spokesperson Christy Feig said, without specifying how long the measure would last. "After our assessment, they will return."

(READ COMPLETE ARTICLE)

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.

A relic of the Middle Ages, quarantines do more harm than good

By Amber Hildebrandt, CBC News Aug 25, 2014 5:00 AM ET

Medical experts say that mass quarantine is rarely if ever effective in stemming the spread of a contagion like Ebola, and the move by Liberia to cordon off a sprawling slum is likely to do more harm than good.

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.

(READ COMPLETE ARTICLE)

reuters.com - (Reporting by Bienvenu-Marie Bakumanya; Writing by Daniel Flynn; Editing by Robin Pomeroy)
August 24, 2014

(Reuters) - Democratic Republic of Congo declared an Ebola outbreak in its northern Equateur province on Sunday after two out of eight cases tested came back positive for the deadly virus, Health Minister Felix Kabange Numbi said.

A mysterious disease has killed dozens of people in Equateur in recent weeks but the World Health Organization had said on Thursday it was not Ebola.

"I declare an Ebola epidemic in the region of Djera, in the territory of Boende in the province of Equateur," Kabange Numbi told a news conference. . .

. . . Numbi said that one of the two cases that tested positive was for the Sudanese strain of the disease, while the other was a mixture between the Sudanese and the Zaire strain -- the most lethal variety.

(READ COMPLETE ARTICLE)

ALSO SEE RELATED ARTICLES IN THE LINKS BELOW:

reliefweb.int - by Zoom DOSSO with Selim SAHEB ETTABA in Dakar

MONROVIA, August 22, 2014 (AFP) - Every region of Liberia has now been hit by Ebola, officials said Friday, as the World Health Organization warned the fight against the worst-ever outbreak of the killer disease would take months.

After seeing people fall to the deadly virus in area after area, Liberia said two people had succumbed to the virus in Sinoe province, the last Ebola-free bastion in a country that has seen the biggest toll . . .

. . . The virus has spread relentlessly through Liberia, Guinea and Sierra Leone, and Nigeria has also been affected despite showing some progress in fighting the epidemic . . .

(READ COMPLETE ARTICLE)

Video: Earth's atmosphere contains an unexpectedly large amount of an ozone-depleting compound from an unknown source decades after the compound was banned worldwide.

huffingtonpost.com - August 23rd, 2014 - Katherine Boehrer

New research from NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center shows that large quantities of a chemical responsible for depleting the ozone layer are still being emitted, even years after an international ban.

New measurements have revealed that despite the Montreal Protocol, which limits the use of a variety of ozone-depleting chemicals, releases of carbon tetrachloride (CCl4) continue. There should be zero emissions of the compound under the international agreement, but NASA measurements show an average of 39 kilotons are still emitted every year.

(VIEW COMPLETE ARTICLE)

Photo: CDC

As Ebola outbreak grows, WHO notes case-count difficulties

cidrap.umn.edu - by Robert Roos - August 22, 2014

. . . the World Health Organization (WHO) conceded that the size of the epidemic has been underestimated and cited a list of reasons for that, from concealment and denial of cases to the closing of treatment centers and clinics. . .

. . . The WHO also said that in parts of Liberia, newly opened treatment facilities have been immediately flooded with patients, many of whom were not previously identified. "This phenomenon strongly suggests the existence of an invisible caseload of patients who are not being detected by the surveillance system."

(READ COMPLETE ARTICLE)

Source: http://www.cubiclane.com/2014/08/24/who-expert-in-west-africa-infected-by-the-ebola-virus-12984

jid.oxfordjournals.org

Here are some more examples of how I propose that structural adaptivity could be applied as a leading principle for resilient development in the US over the next 20-50-100 years.  These are intended to support my conviction that structural adaptivity is the only logical approach to advancing our built environment for a rapidly changing, uncertain, unpredictable future.  I am hoping that others will review these concepts and propose their own personal and team-researched applications of the principle.

In re-balancing our nation, do so by major watersheds.  I propose that the re-balancing of our nation’s urban development (as I discussed before) should be based on the locations and characteristics of our major watersheds.  All major urban development regions should have a long-term dependable natural source of fresh water. 

reuters.com - (Reporting by Bienvenu Bakumanya and Emma Farge; Editing by Daniel Flynn/Mark Heinrich)
August 21, 2014

(Reuters) - At least 70 people have died in northern Democratic Republic of Congo from an outbreak of hemorrhagic gastroenteritis, the World Health Organization said on Thursday, denying that the illness was Ebola.

A WHO report dated Thursday and seen by Reuters said that 592 people had contracted the disease, of whom 70 died. Five health care workers, including one doctor, are among the dead.

"This is not Ebola," a WHO spokesman said in an email to Reuters on Thursday.

(READ COMPLETE ARTICLE)

Reference link:

http://virologydownunder.blogspot.com.au/2014/07/ebola-virus-disease-evd-2014-west.html

By NORIMITSU ONISHIAUG. 20, 2014

The New York Times

MONROVIA, Liberia — Soldiers and police officers in riot gear blocked the roads. Even the waterfront was cordoned off, with the coast guard stopping residents from setting out in canoes. The entire neighborhood, a sprawling slum with tens of thousands of people, awoke Wednesday morning to find that it was under strict quarantine in the government’s halting fight against Ebola.