Infectious disease experts have had plenty to worry about in recent decades, including HIV/AIDS, Ebola, and Zika. But one disease scares them above all others—influenza. That’s right, the flu.

news.emory.edu - by Martha McKenzie - December 2018

Even though many people dismiss and misunderstand it—calling everything from a cold to a stomach bug “the flu”— influenza actually claims 12,000 to 56,000 lives in the U.S. every year. And that’s in a normal flu season.

Every so often, a flu pandemic emerges. That’s when a new strain appears that is so different from what has circulated before that people have no immunity to it. A hundred years ago, the 1918 H1N1 pandemic swept the globe infecting about a third of the world’s population and killing 50 million to 100 million people. Since then, there have been three more pandemics, in 1957, 1968, and 2009.

The next pandemic, say experts, is a question of when, not if. Are we ready?

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Richard Oswald stands in a frozen puddle surrounded by unharvested corn. Wet conditions have made harvesting difficult for Oswald and other farmers.  Photograph: Amy Kontras for the Guardian

The changes have become more radical’: farmers are spending more time and money trying to grow crops in new climates

theguardian.com - by Chris McGreal - December 12, 2018

. . . Climate change is likely to make it harder to grow crops, and to make those that do grow more vulnerable to diseases and pests because of rising humidity. The report said heat and diminishing air quality will take its toll on livestock. Farmers will collectively have to spend billions of dollars to adapt. The effects are already seen from prolonged drought in Kansas and torrential rains in Iowa.

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CLICK HERE - STUDY - Transmissibility of emerging viral zoonoses

outbreaknewstoday.com - November 21, 2018

Researchers have developed a model that predicts which of the viruses that can jump from animals to people can also be transmitted from person to person–and are therefore possible sources of human diseases.

The study, published recently in PLOS One, identified several viruses that are not yet known to spread among humans but may have that potential, suggesting possible targets for future disease surveillance and research efforts.

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ALSO SEE RELATED ARTICLE HERE - Pub Med - Transmissibility of emerging viral zoonoses

 

CLICK HERE - WWF - Living Planet Report 2018: Aiming Higher

"There cannot be a healthy, happy and prosperous future for people" without biodiversity, the report warns.

nbcnews.com - by Rachel Elbaum - October 30, 2018

The population of the planet's vertebrates has dropped an average of 60 percent since 1970, according to a report by the WWF conservation organization.

The most striking decline in vertebrate population was in the tropics in South and Central America, with an 89 percent loss compared to 1970. Freshwater species have also significantly fallen — down 83 percent in that period.

The Living Planet Index, provided by the Zoological Society of London (ZSL) and included in the WWF Living Planet 2018 report, tracked the population of mammals, birds, fish, reptiles and amphibians around the world between 1970 and 2014, the latest year for which data was available.

                                                 

documents.worldbank.org - 29 January 2018

Abstract

Public health systems have critical and clear relevance to the World Bank’s twin goals of poverty eradication and boosting shared prosperity. In particular, they are impacted by, and must respond to,significant threats at human-animal-environment interface. Most obvious are the diseases shared between humans and animals (“zoonotic” diseases), which comprise more than 60 percent of known human infectious pathogens; but also aspects of vector-borne disease, food and water safety and security, and antimicrobial resistance. Public health systems must therefore be resilient and prepared to face existing and future disease threats at the human-animal-environment interface. the Operational Framework provides a strong orientation to One Health to assist users in understanding and implementing it, from rationale to concrete guidance for its application. Six core chapters are included, supported by annexes diving deeper into operational tools and recent World Bank alignment with One Health topics, and a glossary that explains key terms, including interpretations specific to the Operational Framework.

Living Planet Index shows vertebrate populations are set to decline by 67% on 1970 levels unless urgent action is taken to reduce humanity’s impact

       

A victim of poachers in Kenya: elephants are among the species most impacted by humans, the WWF report found. Photograph: imageBROKER/REX/Shutterstock

CLICK HERE - Living Planet Report 2016

theguardian.com - by Damian Carrington - October 26, 2016

The number of wild animals living on Earth is set to fall by two-thirds by 2020, according to a new report, part of a mass extinction that is destroying the natural world upon which humanity depends.

The analysis, the most comprehensive to date, indicates that animal populations plummeted by 58% between 1970 and 2012, with losses on track to reach 67% by 2020. Researchers from WWF and the Zoological Society of London compiled the report from scientific data and found that the destruction of wild habitats, hunting and pollution were to blame.

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submitted by Gordian Raacke

CLICK HERE - White House Council of Economic Advisors - Incorporating Renewables into the Grid: Expanding Opportunities for Smart Markets and Energy Storage (40 page .PDF report)

whitehouse.gov - June 16, 2016

. . The Administration is announcing new executive actions and 33 state and private sector commitments that will accelerate the grid integration of renewable energy and storage.  Together, these announcements are expected to result in at least 1.3 gigawatts of additional storage procurement or deployment in the next five years. .

           

Aerial view overlooking landscaping on April 4, 2015 in San Diego, California.  Photo: Sandy Huffaker/Getty Images

by Sarah Ferris and Peter Sullivan - April 25, 2016

The United States is on the verge of a national crisis that could mean the end of clean, cheap water.

Hundreds of cities and towns are at risk of sudden and severe shortages, either because available water is not safe to drink or because there simply isn’t enough of it.

The situation has grown so dire the U.S. Office of the Director of National Intelligence now ranks water scarcity as a major threat to national security alongside terrorism.

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CLICK HERE - STUDY - Pew Research Center - America’s Shrinking Middle Class: A Close Look at Changes Within Metropolitan Areas

latimes.com - by Don Lee - May 11, 2016

America's shrinking middle class, a growing concern for the economy and a central issue in the presidential race, cuts across virtually all communities from coast to coast, according to a study released Wednesday.

The report by Pew Research Center found that the share of the middle class fell in 203 of the 229 U.S. metropolitan areas examined from 2000 to 2014, including major cities such as New York, Los Angeles and Chicago, which saw a relatively sharp drop in its middle class.

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Image: Flares at the Bridgeton Landfill outside St. Louis burn off noxious fumes, including those generated by an underground fire that's been burning since 2010. The "fire" is really a high-temperature chemical reaction that consumes the waste below the landfill's surface. Véronique LaCapra/St. Louis Public Radio

npr.org - November 3rd, 2015 - Veronique Lacapra

Imagine you are a parent, and that out of the blue, you get a letter from your child's school telling you not to worry — that they're ready to evacuate or shelter in place if an underground fire at a nearby landfill reaches radioactive waste on the same property.

That's pretty much what happened recently in suburban St. Louis.

                            

odi.org - Aditya Bahadur, Emma Lovell, Emily Wilkinson, Thomas Tanner - August 2015

CLICK HERE - Resilience in the SDGs - Developing an indicator for Target 1.5 that is fit for purpose (7 page .PDF file)

We outline a comprehensive approach for developing a cross-sectoral, multi-dimensional and dynamic understanding of resilience. This underpins the core message of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) that development is multi-faceted and the achievement of many of the individual development goals is dependent on the accomplishment of other goals. It also acknowledges that shocks and stresses can reverse years of development gains and efforts to eradicate poverty by 2030. Crucially, this approach to understanding resilience draws on data that countries will collect for the SDGs anyway and entails only a small additional burden in this regard.

(CLICK HERE FOR ADDITIONAL INFORMATION)

                                                 

evergreencooperatives.com

The Evergreen Cooperatives of Cleveland, Ohio are pioneering innovative models of job creation, wealth building, and sustainability. Evergreen’s employee-owned, for-profit companies are based locally and hire locally. They create meaningful green jobs and keep precious financial resources within the Greater University Circle neighborhoods. Worker-owners at Evergreen earn a living wage and build equity in the firms as owners of the business.

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usresilienceproject.org - October 31, 2011

U.S. Resilience Project (USRP) reports are designed to showcase how public policy can benefit from private-sector best practices in security, business continuity, risk management, and disaster preparedness.

Harness the Power of Intelligent Networks and Social Media

The focus for national preparedness should be on creating situational awareness, enhanced decision-making and rapid response; Platforms like the U.S. Resilience System, that are based upon distributed intelligent social networks and crowd-sourcing, can enable far more agility and adaptability than a highly structured, hierarchical capability with significantly better outcomes at far less cost. Exploiting U.S. leadership in this area has the potential to create significant engagement in preparedness, disaster response, and regional resilience building.

Video: Some restaurants produce eight gallons of waste every hour. Thanks to a sustainability plan, Sandwich Me stretched that time...to two years.

 

 

ecowatch.com - Brandon Baker - June 3rd 2014

Quick—how much food, paper and plastic have you thrown in the garbage the past two years?

It’s a question you likely can’t answer, but whatever the amount,  it will certainly exceed the output of Justin Vrany and his Chicago café, Sandwich Me In.

Vrany estimates that an average restaurant dumps eight gallons of trash in a dumpster per hour.

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