Haitian Ambassador to US: building smaller, better from the ruins

Raymond Joseph, Haitian ambassador to the U.S., sees the opportunity to build a smaller, better city from the ruins.

Starting from scratch in Haiti's Port-au-Prince ruins

By Andres Viglucci and Scott Hiaasen

McClatchy Newspapers

MIAMI —

Jared Diamond: A divided island - the forces working against Haiti

Why does Haiti have it so tough compared with its neighbour, the Dominican Republic?

The following was printed in The Guardian on Friday 15 January 2010 and is extracted from the book Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed by Jared Diamond, 2005.

After Haiti: Worries of Pending Big Quakes Elsewhere

Inside Science reports on worries about big earthquakes in the US, and Caribbean.

With the world focusing upon the destruction in Haiti in terms of human impact, geologist are looking at the impact of the earth movement to populations living along other fault lines in the Caribbean. And too, what other parts of the world are pending risk from a major earthquake.

Mobile Action in Haiti

Mobile phones are playing a significant role in the relief efforts in Haiti. From on the ground communications information sharing to fund raising, mobile is proving its' muscle in Haiti.

TWITTER
Many Haiti twitter lists have been set up, including those by reliable news organizations:
CNN Haiti Boots On The Ground Twitter list
NPR Haiti Earthquake Twitter List
New York Times Haiti Earthquake Twitter list

Group Think and Climate Change

Global Warming as Groupthink
The U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's process institutionalizes groupthink on a global scale.

By PETER LILLEY

Is the U.S. Really Ready to Make Substantive Efforts to Control Climate Change?

President Obama's speech in Copenhagen speaks strongly to his Administration's intent to control climate change. However, is the U.S. truly ready to live us to commitments the Obama Administration is prepared to make to the world community?

Why Copenhagen Still Matters: The climate talks won't seal a binding global deal, but a lot can still go right in Denmark

BusinessWeek Special Report

By Eileen Claussen

Two years ago this week, on the island of Bali, representatives of 180 nations agreed on an ambitious timeline for reaching a global agreement to address climate change. The Bali Road Map, as it was called, identified key issues to be resolved and set a 2009 deadline for completing the negotiations.

Margaret Atwood from the UK 10:10 project

ROM THE UK
The project is called 10:10. The goal is to unite every sector of British society behind one simple idea: that by working together they can achieve a 10% cut in the UK’s carbon emissions in 2010.
http://www.1010uk.org/#what_is_1010

To support the launch of the 10:10 Climate campaign in the UK, the Guardian newspaper http://www.guardian.co.uk/culture/series/10-10-climate-change-special
asked authors to write new work in response to the climate crisis.

Climate Change: "Biggest Health Threat"

The cost of climate change extend far beyond the welfare of polar bears. Food supplies, drinking water, and basic survival could become issues for all species in response to extreme weather events, flooding, drought and fires.

Doctors use the term “golden hour” to refer to the time in which critically ill and injured patients must receive medical care, otherwise, death appears certain. The question is, are we now at the golden hour of species health, particularly human species health, due to the impacts of climate change?

Local People Do A Better Job in Saving Tropical Forests

Under the category of SOLUTIONS, a study suggest the way to prevent deforestation of valuable jungle is to give forests back to local people to save them.

The Study is titled:
"Trade-offs and synergies between carbon storage and livelihood benefits from forest commons"

by Ashwini Chhatrea, and Arun Agrawalb

Tracking the fate of 80 forests worldwide over 15 years, concluded

Natural Disasters: Thinking Beyond Immediate Response

Tsunami in Samoa, massive flooding in Manila, earthquake in Sumatra – if you think there are more catastrophic acts of nature these days, you’re right. In fact, the number of natural disasters has doubled in the past twenty years. Last year some 400 natural disasters affected over 200 million people, killing 16,000 people and displacing close to 50 million from their homes. Natural disasters affect both rich and poor countries; while they generally produce higher economic losses in developed countries, casualties are higher in developing ones.

Risky business: insuring countries against climate catastrophe

HONG KONG, China (CNN)
The last 50 years have borne witness to a spate of climate-related disasters across the world causing over 800,000 fatalities and $1 trillion in economic losses.

Those stark facts come from the Economics of Climate Adaptation (ECA) Working Group, a group of NGOs and corporations that has produced a report warning that if countries do not take active steps to build resilience to climate change soon, they are likely to suffer even larger economic losses in the coming decades.

Climate change - burden or opportunity for health?

Despite an international resolution to avoid environmental health hazards, the medical community - already overburdened with health challenges - has remained largely outside the climate change dialogue, according to a World Health Organization (WHO) climate change specialist.

“The health community has been late in coming to the issue because we have enough on our plates,” said Diarmid Campbell-Lendrum with WHO’s public health and environment department, speaking about health workers, policymakers and donors.

Texas A&M researcher shows possible link between 1918 El Niño and flu pandemic

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