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Conflicting Scenarios Exercise

I have been proposing that, rather than trying to foresee the future, we consider accepting and conducting further research on a much more fundamental, all-encompassing and long-term-resilient approach to our built environment.  I have been proposing that such an elemental approach should be structural adaptivity.  I believe that our world must and will give maximum adaptivity to the basic elements of our built environment to adjust to and meet our needs for the unpredictable, rapidly changing world over the next 50-100 years. 

 

 

In working on this, I conducted an Exercise.  I experimented with a number of different future conditions, or scenarios, that I think are quite possible.  The first two that drew my strongest concern were the conflicting scenarios of: (1) how planners might address our urban areas after global warming has abated – and the problem is continuous hot weather and more storms – as opposed to (2) how planners are now addressing the need to stop or slow down global warming.  I also experimented with additional scenarios that I do not think we are able to, presently, forecast accurately.  Most of them, however, I believe will surface eventually, in one way or another, and cause huge problems.

 

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CDC Fighting Ebola at Home and Abroad: Staff Deployed to W Africa, Enhanced Surveillance, Testing, and Guidance in US

cdc.gov - August 13, 2014

More than 50 CDC experts battling Ebola in Africa

Hundreds of public health professionals working 24/7 in support

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention now has more than 50 disease detectives and other highly trained experts battling Ebola on the ground in West Africa – successfully deploying in less than two weeks the surge of help it promised within 30 days.

CDC’s Emergency Operations Center is also at its highest level of alert.  This means more than 350 CDC U.S. staff are working on logistics, communications, analytics, management, and other support functions to support the response 24/7.

“We are fulfilling our promise to the people of West Africa, Americans, and the world, that CDC would quickly ramp up its efforts to help bring the worst Ebola outbreak in history under control,” said CDC Director Tom Frieden, M.D., M.P.H.  “We know how to stop Ebola.  It won’t be easy or fast, but working together with our U.S. and international partners and country leadership, together we are doing it.”

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Resilience on the Fly: Christchurch’s SCIRT Offers a Model for Rebuilding After a Disaster

submitted by Samuel Bendett

homelandsecuritynewswire.com - by David Killick - August 15, 2014

You do not see it, but you certainly know when it is not there: infrastructure, the miles of underground pipes carrying drinking water, stormwater and wastewater, utilities such as gas and electricity, and fiber-optics and communications cables that spread likes veins and arteries under the streets of a city.

That calamity hit Christchurch, New Zealand, in a series of earthquakes that devastated the city in 2010 and 2011.

The organization created to manage Christchurch’s infrastructure rebuild – it is called SCIRT, for Stronger Christchurch Infrastructure Rebuild Team— has a vital role, and it has become something of a global model for how to put the guts of a city back together again quickly and efficiently after a disaster.

(READ COMPLETE ARTICLE)

SCIRT - http://strongerchristchurch.govt.nz/

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Melting Glaciers are Caused by Man-Made Global Warming, Study Shows

      

Scientists rule out natural causes for rapid melting

CLICK HERE - STUDY - Attribution of global glacier mass loss to anthropogenic and natural causes

independent.co.uk - by Steve Connor - August 14, 2014

The dramatic melting of the world’s mountain glaciers – from the Alps to the Himalayas – is mostly the result of man-made global warming rather than natural variability in the climate, a study has found. . .

. . . An assessment of about 200,000 glaciers in the world, some of which have been monitored since the mid 19th century, has found that about two thirds of the current rate of glacial melting is due to human influences on the climate.

Scientists found that while much of the melting a century or more ago was most probably due to natural variability in the climate, it is now primarily caused by anthropogenic global warming resulting from industrial greenhouse gases.

(READ COMPLETE ARTICLE)

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U.S. Orders Departure of Eligible Family Members from Sierra Leone

Department of State SealPress Statement

Marie Harf
Deputy Department Spokesperson, Office of the Spokesperson
Washington, DC
August 14, 2014
 
At the recommendation of the U.S. Embassy in Sierra Leone, the State Department today ordered the departure from Freetown of all eligible family members (EFMs) not employed by post. The Embassy recommended this step out of an abundance of caution, following the determination by the Department’s Medical Office that there is a lack of options for routine health care services at major medical facilities due to the Ebola outbreak.

http://www.state.gov/r/pa/prs/ps/2014/230613.htm

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U.S. Health Officials to Consider Use of Unapproved Ebola Meds

reuters.com - By David Morgan and Sharon Begley - August 7, 2014

(Reuters) - The Obama administration is forming a special Ebola working group to consider setting policy for the potential use of experimental drugs to help the hundreds infected by the deadly disease in West Africa, U.S. officials said on Thursday.

The group is being formed under Dr. Nicole Lurie, Assistant Secretary for Preparedness and Response at the Department of Health and Human Services, an administration official said.

The action follows mounting international pressure as the death toll mounts to consider using untested treatments.

(READ COMPLETE ARTICLE)

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Ebola in Africa and the U.S.: A Curation

wired.com - August 4th, 2014 - Maryn McKenna

The Ebola outbreak has been building in West Africa for a while, but when it was revealed at the end of last week that two American aid workers had caught the disease — and that they were being transported back to the US for treatment — the news and the reaction to it instantly filled every channel. Over the weekend, so much misinformation and outrage got pumped out that it feels as though there’s no way to cut through the noise.

But I have a few thoughts. Start with this: No, I don’t think the two aid workers who are being returned to the US pose any risk at all to the average American, or even the average Atlanta resident.

(VIEW COMPLETE POST)

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Ebola Virus Info - Twitter - @InfoEbola

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Employment - World Bank - Job Description - Data Scientist

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

CLICK HERE - Job Description - Data Scientist

CLICK HERE - Job Description - Senior Data Scientist

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