Volunteers prepare to remove the bodies of people who were suspected of contracting Ebola and died in the community in the village of Pendebu, Sierra Leone, on August 2, 2014. REUTERS/WHO/Tarik Jasarevic

cbsnews.com - By Agata Blaszczak-Boxe - August 11, 2014

The current Ebola outbreak in West Africa has rapidly grown into the largest and deadliest in history, claiming more than 960 lives so far in Guinea, Sierra Leone, Liberia and Nigeria. The death toll is already more than three times higher than any previous Ebola outbreak. Experts say a number of factors have contributed to making this outbreak so much worse than those that came before.

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cnn.com - by Susannah Cullinane - August 11, 2014

(CNN) -- The government of Liberia says that sample doses of the experimental Ebola drug ZMapp will be sent there to treat doctors who have contracted the deadly virus.

The White House and Food and Drug Administration approved the Liberian request for the drug to be made available to them.

Liberia identified itself as the recipient of the drug after the company that makes ZMapp said earlier that its supply was exhausted after fulfilling the request of a West African country, which it did not name.

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Health workers, wearing head-to-toe protective gear, prepare for work, outside an isolation unit in Foya District, Lofa County, Liberia in this July 2014 UNICEF handout photo. REUTERS/Ahmed Jallanzo/UNICEF/Handout via Reuters

reuters.com - by Stella Dawson - August 7, 2014

WASHINGTON (Thomson Reuters Foundation) - The health care system in Liberia is collapsing, hospitals closing down and medical workers fleeing from the Ebola epidemic, which is poised to worsen, Liberia’s foreign minister said on Thursday.

“People are dying from common diseases because the health care system is collapsing,” Minister of Foreign Affairs Augustine Kpehe Ngafuan said in an interview with Thomson Reuters Foundation.

“It is going to have a long-term impact, even after this crisis is behind us.”

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(ALSO SEE SAME ARTICLE HERE)

who.int - August 8th, 2014

The recent treatment of two health and workers infected with the Ebola virus with experimental medicine has raised questions about whether medicine that has never been tested and shown to be safe in people should be used in the outbreak, and, given the extremely limited amount of medicine available, if it is used, who should receive it.

A number of interventions have been through the laboratory and animal study phases of development. It is likely that ‘first in man’ studies will be conducted over the next 2-4 months. It is also likely that the number of doses available for further study and/or deployment from end 2014 onwards will remain insufficient to meet demand.

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Doctors Without Borders workers at an Ebola treatment center in Guinea in April, shortly after the virus was recognized. Credit Kjell Gunnar Beraas/Doctors Without Borders

nytimes.com - By DENISE GRADY and SHERI FINK - August 9, 2014

Patient Zero in the Ebola outbreak, researchers suspect, was a 2-year-old boy who died on Dec. 6, just a few days after falling ill in a village in Guéckédou, in southeastern Guinea. Bordering Sierra Leone and Liberia, Guéckédou is at the intersection of three nations, where the disease found an easy entry point to the region.

(THE GLOBAL RESILIENCE SYSTEM IS ASSISTING WITH THE ADMINISTRATION OF A FACEBOOK PAGE TITLED
"Ebola Virus Info".
CLICK HERE TO GO TO THE "Ebola Virus Info" FACEBOOK PAGE.)

Global Resilience System-great up to date info: http://t.co/u8ValDjczW

— Ebola Virus Info (@InfoEbola) August 7, 2014

Image: In this Aug. 7, 2014, photo, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) Director Dr. Tom Frieden testifies on Capitol Hill in Washington. Ebola is a "painful, dreadful, merciless virus," the United States' top disease fighter says. The outbreak in West Africa has been declared an international health emergency, already killing more than 900 people and spreading. That's scary, and it's serious. But it needs context. (AP Photo/Molly Riley)

sltrib.com - August 9th, 2014 - Connie Cass

The United States’ top disease detective calls Ebola a "painful, dreadful, merciless virus."

Image: Volunteers prepare to remove the bodies of people who were suspected of contracting Ebola and died in the community in the village of Pendebu, north of Kenema August 2 , 2014. REUTERS/WHO/Tarik Jasarevic/Handout via Reuters

trust.org - August 5th, 2014 - Kate Kelland

Three of the world's leading Ebola specialists called on Tuesday for experimental drugs and vaccines to be offered to people in West Africa, where a vast outbreak of the deadly disease is raging in three countries.

Noting that American aid workers who contracted the disease in Liberia were given an unapproved medicine before being evacuated back to the United States, the specialists - including Peter Piot, who co-discovered Ebola in 1976 - said Africans affected by the same outbreak should get the same chance.

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— World Bank (@WorldBank) August 10, 2014

The World Bank is in search of data scientists for bigdata. Apply Now!

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Image: Chinese workers level coal to be used for generating electricity on a freight train at a railway station in Jiujiang city on June 16, 2014. Imaginechina via AP Images

america.aljazeera.com - August 5th, 2014

China has announced plans to ban the use of coal in its smog-plagued capital by the end of 2020, as the country fights deadly levels of pollution, especially in major cities.

Beijing's Municipal Environmental Protection Bureau posted the plan on its website on Monday, saying the city would instead prioritize electricity and natural gas for heating.

The Chinese central government recently listed environmental protection as one of the top criteria by which leaders will be judged.

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http://www.msf.org.uk/ebola

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F5nkkEwPaEA

msf.org - July 18, 2014

146 Ebola patients have fully recovered in MSF treatment centres in Guinea & Sierra Leone.

https://twitter.com/msf_uk/status/498047294143344643

 msf.org

Ebola is one of the world’s most deadly diseases. It is a highly infectious virus that can kill up to 90 percent of the people who catch it, causing terror among infected communities.

Ebola is so infectious that patients need to be treated in isolation by staff wearing protective clothing. MSF has over 670 staff on the ground and we have brought in more than 40 tonnes of equipment and supplies to help fight the epidemic.

Read MSF's response to the World Health Organisation statement declaring the Ebola outbreak "an extraordinary event".

(CLICK HERE, THEN SCROLL DOWN TO VIEW THE MSF EBOLA GUIDE)

I believe that structural adaptivity will become generally accepted in our world even without conscious effort.  As change continues speeding up, and as planners, developers, futurists, risk managers, and many others come to recognize that change is coming at an accelerating rate and that the future is ever more uncertain and unpredictable, they will focus on adaptivity.  However, the longer we wait for people to realize this, the greater the chances are that much harm will occur that should have been avoided or mitigated by the resilience we should have been already building.

The facilitation strategies and techniques that I propose are primarily intended to show some logical possibilities.  Hopefully other people will be better able than I am to come up with the best ones. 

For now, I will present the full list of the possibilities that I have come up with and then present a discussion of a few of them. <!--break-->

My full list: