About 80% of the world's population lives in areas where the fresh water supply is not secure, according to a new global analysis. Researchers compiled a composite index of "water threats" that includes issues such as scarcity and pollution. The most severe threat category encompasses 3.4 billion people. Writing in the journal Nature, they say that in western countries, conserving water for people through reservoirs and dams works for people, but not nature. They urge developing countries not to follow the same path. What we're able to outline is a planet-wide pattern of threat” Charles Vorosmarty City College of New York Instead, they say governments should invest in water management strategies that combine infrastructure with "natural" options such as safeguarding watersheds, wetlands and flood plains. The analysis is a global snapshot, and the research team suggests more people are likely to encounter more severe stress on their water supply in the coming decades, as the climate changes and the human population continues to grow. They have taken data on a variety of different threats, used models of threats where data is scarce, and used expert assessment to combine the various individual threats into a composite index.

Hong Kong, China (CNN) -- While nations debate what to do about long-term problems such as climate change and dwindling water supplies, two words send immediate shivers down the spines of government officials across the world: Food security.
A series of environmental disasters fueling a wave of food price volatility has given governments, "a much needed wakeup call," said Abdolreza Abbassian, an economist for the United Nation's Security of Intergovernmental Group on Grains.

September 17, USA TODAY – (International) Drug-resistant ‘superbugs’ hit 35 states, spread worldwide. Bacteria that are able to survive every modern antibiotic are cropping up in many U.S. hospitals and are spreading outside the country, public health officials said. The bugs, reported by hospitals in more than 35 states, typically strike the critically ill and are fatal in 30 percent to 60 percent of cases. Israeli doctors are battling an outbreak in Tel Aviv that has been traced to a patient from northern New Jersey, said the director of infection control and epidemiology at the University of Pennsylvania and president of the Society of Healthcare Epidemiologists. The bacteria are equipped with a gene that enables them to produce an enzyme that disables antibiotics. The enzyme is called Klebsiella pneumoniae carbapenamase. It disables carbapenam antibiotics, last-ditch treatments for infections that don’t respond to other drugs. “We’ve lost our drug of last resort,” he said. Source: http://www.usatoday.com/yourlife/health/medical/2010-09-17-1Asuperbug17_ST_N.htm

A recent report concludes that dramatically reforming, re-thinking and redesigning two sectors —energy and agriculture— could generate significant environmental, social and economic returns.

Current patterns of production and consumption of both fossil fuels and food are draining freshwater supplies; triggering losses of economically-important ecosystems such as forests; intensifying disease and death rates and raising levels of pollution to unsustainable levels.

Why is it that Americans are discovering that the U.S. now has the largest increase in poverty in more than a half a century under the administration of a U.S. president that may be one of the most sympathetic to the needs of the middle class and the poor of all presidents during this period? One answer might be that it reflects a long tail of a previous president due to the engagement of elective wars with poor outcomes and disastrous tax and social policies. This will most likely be at the heart of the political rhetoric of the Democratic party during the the 2010 mid-term and 2012 presidential election. However, there may be a deeper truth, which our national leadership and the American public is missing, or is unwilling to speak about. American society has deep structural problems from long-standing policies and socio-poliical behaviors stemming back to the early 1980s and before, that have aggregated into disastrous unsustainable, yet well entrenched, societal patterns. The key question is "When will the sociopolitical climate be ripe for political leadership to emerge that can speak honestly with the American public about the federal debt?

As suspected by many scientists and residents along the Gulf Coast, the dispersants used by BP and natural processes have driven the oil from Deepwater Horizon to the bottom. Given the large amounts of petrochemicals covering the bottom of a huge area in the Gulf of Mexico, there is serious concern that the food chain is significantly disrupted in this area. http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=129782098

National and regional authorities in New Zealand are already working on strategies to rebuild areas devastated by the earthquake that struck Christchurch area on Saturday.

The Ministry of Civil Defence and Emergency Management warns the process could take years, but says the government is committed to ressurecting and improving the resilience of affected comunities.

Meanwhile, reports are coming in of the resilient response of the New Zealand farming community. This article from Radio New Zealand 05 SEP 2010.

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