Clipmarks | Catastrophes Clips

krugman: climate change risk

Tue, 29 Jul 2008 15:21:56 GMT

clipped by: afrjc

July 29, 2008, 8:22 am

Economics of catastrophe

on any sort of expected-welfare calculation, the small probability of catastrophe dominates the expected loss. Suppose that there’s a 99% chance that Lomborg is right, but a 1% chance that catastrophic climate change will reduce world GDP by 90%. You might be tempted to disregard that small chance — but if you’re even moderately risk averse (say, relative risk aversion of 2 — econowonks know what I mean), you quickly find that the expected loss of welfare isn’t 0.5% of GDP, it’s 10% or more of GDP.

The question is, can we mobilize people to make modest sacrifices to protect against low-probability catastrophes in the distant future?

Tags: climate change, global warming, urgency, urgent, risk, economics, catastrophic change, anthropogenic climate change, welfare

Common Wealth: Sustainable future

Sun, 13 Jul 2008 13:44:05 GMT

clipped by: egsnyder
clipper's remarks: We are in one another's faces as never before, crowded into an interconnected society of global trade, migration, ideas and, yes, risk of pandemic diseases, terrorism, refugee movements and conflict.

We also face a momentous choice. Continue on our current course, and the world is likely to experience growing conflicts between haves and have-nots, intensifying environmental catastrophes and downturns in living standards caused by interlocking crises of energy, water, food and violent conflict. Yet for a small annual investment of world income, undertaken cooperatively across the world, our generation can harness new technologies for clean energy, reliable food supplies, disease control and the end of extreme poverty.

Clip Source: www.time.com

Common Wealth

By Jeffrey D. Sachs

The 21st century will overturn many of our basic assumptions about economic life. The 20th century saw the end of European dominance of global politics and economics. The 21st century will see the end of American dominance too, as new powers, including China, India and Brazil, continue to grow and make their voices heard on the world stage. Yet the century's changes will be even deeper than a rebalancing of economics and geopolitics. The challenges of sustainable development—protecting the environment, stabilizing the world's population, narrowing the gaps of rich and poor and ending extreme poverty—will render passé the very idea of competing nation-states that scramble for markets, power and resources.

The defining challenge of the 21st century will be to face the reality that humanity shares a common fate on a crowded planet.

Tags: wealth, poverty, sustainability

The Really Inconvenient Truths

Thu, 19 Jun 2008 06:07:26 GMT

clipped by: merrie
clipper's remarks: Seven Environmental Catastrophes Liberals Don't Want You to Know About - Because They Helped Cause Them. aim.org podcast 25 min.

Clip Source: www.aim.org

The Really Inconvenient Truths

Podcast | June 17, 2008

AIM chairman Don Irvine interviews Iain Murray of the Competitive Enterprise Institute about his book, The Really Inconvenient Truths: Seven Enviornmental Catastrophes Liberals Don't Want You to Know About - Because They Helped Cause Them.

You can also download this podcast here as an MP3.

The Really Inconvenient Truths
June 17, 2008

Boy Scouts Under Siege From ACLU
May 27, 2008

The Problem With Ethanol
May 14, 2008

Environmentalist Finds That Global Warming Deniers Are Right
May 2, 2008

Low Birth Rates Threaten World Economies
May 1, 2008

You can also visit the complete Podcast archives.

Tags: al gore, global warming, environmental catastrophes, ddt, who

France to March Against Bush

Tue, 10 Jun 2008 02:23:29 GMT

clipped by: papananook
clipper's remarks: It's sad..no, outrageous... that there's not enough people in the USA to get up and march against Bush but the French will do it.

Clip Source: www.politicalaffairs.net

Paris, Jun 8 (Prensa Latina) Left-wing parties, trade unions and social organizations in France will hold demonstrations across that country to protest the upcoming visit of US President George W. Bush.

Bush will be received by his French counterpart Nicolas Sarkozy on Friday and Saturday, in a working meeting, where they will discuss international and common topics.

A communiqué signed by 30 organizations pointed out this will be the occasion to express the popular rejection of Bush's militaristic policies, just like it is being done in the US and the rest of the world.

The text expressed discomfort with the catastrophes generated by the US government's interventions in other countries.

"The consequences of the war in the Middle East are misery, corruption, terrorism, millions of civil victims and destroyed countries," the document said.

Developmental Aid Workers Are Killing Africa

Fri, 06 Jun 2008 00:27:00 GMT

clipped by: rustajb
clipper's remarks: Very interesting read with some information I had not previously considered.

Clip Source: www.spiegel.de

Developmental Aid Workers Are Killing Africa

No one has to starve in Africa. Hunger there results from the failures of unscrupulous rulers -- and their friends in the West. Paradoxically, it is the aid workers who are standing in the way of progress.

The hunger emergency in Kenya: "Philanthropic people lose all sense of humanity."

If you follow the reasoning of the United Nation's World Food Program, then Kenya is a unique region when it comes to hunger catastrophes. In this east African country, a popular vacation destination with 32 million inhabitants, UN workers hand out more food on an annual basis than they do in southern Sudan, which civil wars have ravaged for decades. But is Kenya really dying of hunger?

For Kenya, the question -- which also applies, incidentally, to Malawi, about which there are regular reports about hunger emergencies -- is really this: Can you starve if you live right next to such a gigantic freshwater reservoir?

From cracks to catastrophes, “singularity theory” could shed light

Thu, 05 Jun 2008 21:25:05 GMT

clipped by: wildcat

Clip Source: www.world-science.net

There’s often more to everyday events than meets the eye. The folding of paper, or dripping of water from a tap, are two examples: they both involve the creation of points known as singularities.

Singularities occur at places of cutoff or of sudden change, as in formation of cracks, lightning strikes, creation of ink drops in printers, and the breaking of a cup when it drops. These points require sophisticated mathematical techniques to describe, analyse and predict.

Scientists say many singularities have much in common at all size scales—from microscopic interactions to the formation of the universe itself during the so-called Big Bang. But these seemingly disparate events are usually studied by different scientists in relative isolation.

Tags: cracks, catastrophes, “singularity theory”

Signs of the Singularity

Sun, 01 Jun 2008 08:49:49 GMT

clipped by: wildcat
clipper's remarks: By Vernor Vinge
First Published June 2008

Clip Source: www.spectrum.ieee.org

Hints of the singularity's approach can be found in the arguments of its critics

I think it's likely that with technology we can in the fairly near future create or become creatures of more than human intelligence. Such a technological singularity would revolutionize our world, ushering in a posthuman epoch. If it were to happen a million years from now, no big deal. So what do I mean by “fairly near” future? In my 1993 essay, “The Coming Technological Singularity,” I said I'd be surprised if the singularity had not happened by 2030. I'll stand by that claim, assuming we avoid the showstopping catastrophes—things like nuclear war, superplagues, climate crash—that we properly spend our anxiety upon.

The AI Scenario: We create superhuman artificial intelligence (AI) in computers.

The IA Scenario: We enhance human intelligence through human-to-computer interfaces—that is, we achieve intelligence amplification (IA).

Tags: vernor vinge, singularity

Lifelong Illnesses Feared for Children in Katrina Trailers

Fri, 30 May 2008 10:37:14 GMT

clipped by: tabsey
clipper's remarks: People appear to have good cause to be disappointed in the governments lack of involvement. Can't fight wars and repair catastrophes.

Clip Source: www.truthout.org

A Sheriff's Department deputy patrols a FEMA trailer park in St. Bernard Parish, Louisiana. (Photo: Gerald Herbert / AP)

FEMA and CDC criticized on delay in moving tenants.

Bay St. Louis, Mississippi - The anguish of Hurricane Katrina should have ended for Gina Bouffanie and her daughter when they left their FEMA trailer. But with each hospital visit and each labored breath her child takes, the young mother fears it has just begun.

"It's just the sickness. I can't get rid of it. It just keeps coming back," said Bouffanie, 27, who was pregnant with her now 15-month-old daughter, Lexi, while living in the trailer. "I'm just like, 'Oh God, I wish like this would stop.' If I had known it would get her sick, I wouldn't have stayed in the trailer for so long."

The girl, diagnosed with severe asthma, must inhale medicine from a breathing device.

Tags: shame

A Digital Escape - frogConcept

Sun, 18 May 2008 13:35:07 GMT

clipped by: wildcat
clipper's remarks: just imagine this

Clip Source: www.frogdesign.com

The future isn’t all rosy. Increasing pollution, overpopulation, poverty, and climate change – society’s impact on the earth is reaching a breaking point. And while we may work to slow the onset of these catastrophes, reversing them is no longer an option. The question becomes, how do we live with the troubles we’ve already caused?

We don’t wish to make any prophecies – but if we fail to do more to mitigate today’s cultural, climatic, and economic dangers, the future may not be a pleasant one. Natural disasters will become more frequent, society more stratified, diplomacy more volatile.

In a troubling future, these augmented reality devices would offer a new dimension - a virtual layer that could be used to “re-skin” the troubling outside world. A boundary between the wearer and the world around him, the device would become a sort of visual drug, used to make the world appear a better place – even if just for a moment.

Tags: frogconcept, virtuality, concept, reskin

Lynda.com - Maya 2008 Essential Training

Wed, 14 May 2008 09:37:08 GMT

clipped by: vlbwluri

Clip Source: www.iebooke.com

Lynda.com - Maya 2008 Essential Training

by Amar Agarwal / 2008-05-12Phaco NightmaresConquering Cataract Catastrophes

by Malden C. Nesheim / 2008-05-12Seafood Choices

by David F. Chang / 2008-05-12Phaco Chop: Mastering Techniques, Optimizing Technology, and Avoiding Complications

by Kurt Bauer, Dorotha Garbe / 2008-05-12Common Fragrance and Flavor Materials

by David Pimentel / 2008-05-12Food, Energy, and Society

2008-05-12English for Academic Purposes: An Advanced Resource Book

2008-05-12Fuzzy Systems and Knowledge Discovery (Lecture Notes in Computer Science)

2008-05-12Blood-Spinal Cord and Brain Barriers in Health and Disease (US$190)

2008-05-12Bezier and Splines in Image Processing and Machine Vision

Tags: free download ebook

A Rescue in China, Uncensored

Wed, 14 May 2008 05:28:52 GMT

clipped by: arifsali

Clip Source: www.nytimes.com

Mothers wailing over the bodies of their children. Emergency workers scrambling across pancaked buildings. And a grim-faced political leader comforting the stricken and reassuring an anguished nation.

While such scenes are a staple of catastrophes in much of the world, the rescue effort playing nonstop on Chinese television is remarkable for a country that has a history of concealing the scope of natural calamities and then bungling its response.

Since an earthquake flattened a swath of rural Sichuan Province on Monday, killing more than 13,000 people, the government in Beijing has mounted an aggressive rescue effort, dispatching tens of thousands of troops and promptly sending Prime Minister Wen Jiabao to the disaster zone, accompanied by reporters.

A hard hat on his head and a bullhorn in hand, he ducked into the wreckage of a hospital where scores of people were buried and shouted: “Hang on a bit longer. The troops are rescuing you.”

Tags: china, earthquake

Environmental Amnesia While questioning what we buy, we've forgotten where we live

Tue, 13 May 2008 16:23:47 GMT

clipped by: papananook
clipper's remarks: continuing:...'I have steadfastly refused to frequent that part of town. But when my son needed a haircut for my father’s funeral, I found myself driving my old walking route to school, in search of a salon open on a Monday. It was supposed to be in here somewhere. While navigating the service roads, I tried hard to forget. But while my son was being pumped up in his pneumatic chair, I saw reflected in the mirror a retaining wall at the edge of the parking lot. I know that pattern of stones. I looked at them every day during math. I was standing in my fifth grade classroom. And the military recruiting center next door would have been the lunchroom. And that drive-through over there was the field where, every recess, my sister and Danelle and I ran, circling and whinnying like wild, wild horses." Good column --only clipped small part.

Clip Source: cathy-edgett.livejournal.com

WHAT’S INDUCING THIS EPIDEMIC of environmental amnesia? Maybe one contributor is the long silence of the federal government on environmental catastrophes of all kinds. In the breach, activist groups have tried to protect the public. In need of positive messages and deliverable results, they focus on individual solutions. Don’t microwave in plastic. Buy organic. There is no place in that discussion for the barrels of waste buried atop the aquifer. The very mention of them fills a room with paralyzing despair.

Or maybe we’re now spending so much more time with consumer objects than with our natural environments that we have forgotten how to think about them. Sport water bottles are real to us—polycarbonate? or stainless steel?—but creekbeds are fuzzy concepts.

Or maybe our unremembering is a wall against grief. My own elementary school—along with the field, playground, and wooded path to the crosswalk—was razed years ago to make way for discount shopping.

Al Gore Is Bad For The Planet

Tue, 22 Apr 2008 23:03:31 GMT

clipped by: merrie
clipper's remarks: Iain Murray's rollicking exposé of environmental blowhards who waste more energy, endanger more species, and actually kill more people, than the environmental villains they finger. Did you know that estrogen from birth control and"morning after" pills is causing male fish across America to develop female sex organs? Funny how "pro-choice" and "environmentalist" liberals never talk about that. Or how about this: the Live Earth concert to "save the planet" released more CO2 into the atmosphere than a fleet of 2,000 Humvees emit in a year? We hear a lot about AIDS in Africa, but the number one killer of children in much of Africa is malaria-and guess who was responsible for banning the pesticide that used to have malaria under control? Iain Murray, a sprightly conservative environmental analyst with a long record of skewering liberal hypocrisy, has dug up seven of the environmental catastrophes caused by the Left and exposed them in The Really Inconvenient Truths.

Clip Source: search.barnesandnoble.com

* How ethanol, the liberals' favorite fuel, is destroying the world's rainforests-and could cause global food shortages
* How Al Gore's hero Rachel Carson cost the lives of millions of Africans through her efforts to ban DDT
* How the environmentalists have covered up the polluting effects of contraceptive and chemical abortion drugs
* How the Endangered Species Act actually endangers species
* How Gore's vision of greater state control over the economy has already produced some of the greatest environmental disasters in history

All ofus want a planet with clean air and clean water, vibrant forests, healthy animal populations, and glorious open space. But liberal environmentalists aren't the ones to deliver it. In fact, they've made the planet worse, while old-fashioned property rights, unpopular hunters, and the innovative engine of capitalism have made it better. The facts are all here, in a book that Al Gore would rather burn than read.

Tags: inconvenient truths, iain murray, liberal hypocrasy, environmental catastrophes

Unearthing clues of catastrophic earthquakes

Thu, 17 Apr 2008 17:38:34 GMT

clipped by: invictus
clipper's remarks:

There is still much to be known about ancient earthquakes. The instrumental record for seismology is short, going back 100 years. The historical seismology record is a much longer, including written documentation such as news accounts and diaries, which vary widely by culture and region. The archeoseismic record serves as the bridge between historical accounts and the paleoseismic record of Earth’s history.

Clip Source: www.eurekalert.org

The destruction and disappearance of ancient cultures mark the history of human civilization, making for fascinating stories and cautionary tales. The longevity of today’s societies may depend upon separating fact from fiction, and archeologists and seismologists are figuring out how to join forces to do just that with respect to ancient earthquakes, as detailed in new studies presented at the international conference of the Seismological Society of America.

Archaeoseismology, a young scientific discipline that studies past earthquakes in the archaeological record, allows scientists to broaden the time window to detect these rare seismic catastrophic events. But archaeological evidence for past earthquakes raises a lot of reservations from seismologists, some of them strongly questioning whether man-made structures can be used as earthquake indicators at all.

Tags: archaeology, seismology, ancient earthquakes, catastrophes, science

A Coup For The Kiwis

Wed, 16 Apr 2008 10:12:20 GMT

clipped by: merrie
clipper's remarks: Forced to adjust to new economic realities, New Zealand farmers cut costs, diversified their land use, sought non-farm income opportunities and altered production as market signals advised — for example, by reducing sheep numbers and boosting cattle ranching. Farmers were aided on the cost side as input prices fell, because suppliers could no longer count on subsidies to inflate demand.

Clip Source: corner.nationalreview.com

As House Republicans try to light a fire under Nancy Pelosi to revive the U.S.-Colombia Free-Trade Agreement, news comes that New Zealand has inked a free-trade deal with China

First, while New Zealand's government is opening up an unprecedented export opportunity for its farmers, ours is letting election-year politics get in the way of a similar (though not as lucrative) deal.

Second, our government apparently prefers to keep farmers on welfare rather than open markets for them. By contrast, New Zealand is a case study for why agricultural subsidies are inefficient and unnecessary. In 1984, New Zealand's government pulled the plug on all government assistance to farmers, and the catastrophes many predicted never occurred:

Today, New Zealand's agricultural sector is thriving, and its government is cutting trade deals to give its farmers even greater opportunities. Meanwhile, our government gives farmers billions in handouts while dragging its feet on market-opening deals.

Tags: new zealand, exports, china, u.s.-columbia free-trade agreement, u.s.agriculture subsidies