NEWS THREAD 3

[towhom]

Swine Flu Impacts Could Further Damage U.S. Economy, Says UAB Economist
University of Alabama at Birmingham
Posted on 9/23/2009 11:35:00 AM
main.uab.edu/Sites/MediaRelations/articles/68888/

BIRMINGHAM, Ala. - H1N1 influenza could slow growth in key industries and stall already-weak GDP growth in the third and fourth quarters of 2009, says a health economist in the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB) School of Business.

"Tourism and travel are vitally important sectors in the economy of many U.S. cities and communities," Bryce Sutton, Ph.D. "Depending upon the severity of the spread of the virus, consumers and businesses may respond by restricting travel and vacation plans, which would dampen an already weak recovery in these areas."

AAA estimates that as many as 60 million Americans annually travel 50 miles or more from home during the country's peak travel periods, which fall on the days that surround the Thanksgiving and Christmas holidays. Sutton says airlines, hotels and other service industries negatively impacted by recent trends of tightened consumer spending could face double jeopardy should H1N1 infections or simply fears of exposure keep would-be travelers at home.

Other business sectors could suffer, too, if sick workers and absences cut deeply into productivity and revenues, Sutton says.

"Although business managers have had time to prepare contingency plans, those that already have cut the numbers of employees in an effort to reduce costs during the downturn may be hardest hit," Sutton says. "In many cases, companies that already are working with the bare minimum staffs face further productivity challenges should large numbers of the remaining employees contract H1N1."

Sutton says more research is needed to measure the more precise impact of the H1N1 virus once the traditional U.S. flu season has passed. Until then, statements on the economic influence of the virus will reflect educated predictions based on the history of previous pandemics and their reported economic effects.

"The most recent case we have to study is the Asian SARS outbreak in the early 2000s, which negatively impacted a range of industries in Asia. The effects led to a regional loss of between 0.5 and 2 percent of GDP," Sutton says. "H1N1 impact predictions are based on examples like this one in which virus fears traditionally have had a negative influence on the economies of impacted regions.

"However, the H1N1 preparation has been much better when compared to the response of health agencies during the SARS outbreak and that could counter some potential negative impacts," he says.

About UAB
UAB is the state of Alabama's largest employer and an internationally renowned research university and academic health center whose professional schools and specialty patient care programs are consistently ranked as among the nation's top 50. The UAB Health System includes all patient-care activities, including UAB Hospital, the Callahan Eye Foundation Hospital and The Kirklin Clinic.

Thank you SOOOOoooo much for posting that rather obvious possible impact on the economy if faced with a protracted run of the H1N1 influenza virus. Well, duhhhh...like we didn't already know this? And we REALLY needed an economic cost analysis since the potential HUMAN COST isn't newsworthy. I also noticed there was absolutely NO MENTION made of the vaccines being made available to mitigate this "potential economic downswing". Surely your "...internationally renowned research university, academic health center...and specialty patient care programs...consistently ranked as among the nation's top 50..." have the information available for employees, students and patients referencing these vaccines and stand ready to discuss patient options...

The statement, "...more research is needed to measure the more precise impact of the H1N1 virus once the traditional U.S. flu season has passed" is an incredibly lame PR attempt for additional funding for more such "redundant" reports.

I was particularly "delighted" to note the School of Business generated this "piece", yet the "About UAB highlights" focus on the "(specialty) patient care programs and on-campus medical facilities".

And lastly, I remembered this quote from President Obama's recent address to Congress (cited here):

Unfortunately, in 34 states, 75 percent of the insurance market is controlled by five or fewer companies. In Alabama, almost 90 percent is controlled by just one company. And without competition, the price of insurance goes up and quality goes down. And it makes it easier for insurance companies to treat their customers badly -- by cherry-picking the healthiest individuals and trying to drop the sickest, by overcharging small businesses who have no leverage, and by jacking up rates.

[/color][/blockquote][/b][/i]Now, given that UAB is the state's largest employer, it would seem that the "health care insurance provider" for this "employer" is attempting to make a "profound" statement through its "largest policy payee".

[nodstar]

Second dust storm hits Sydney, heads north[/size]

www.theage.com.au/environment/second-dust-storm-hits-sydney-heads-north-20090926-g6ov.html

September 26, 2009 - 9:49AM


Dust casts an eerie red glow over Sydney on Wednesday.

Dust casts an eerie red glow over Sydney on Wednesday. Photo: Reuters

A second dust storm has swept through Sydney and is moving north to Queensland.

Satellite photos indicate an area of dust particles swept up in the storm measures up to 200 kilometres wide, a Bureau of Meteorology spokesman said.

Visibility in the city has been reduced, the BoM spokesman said, but there's been no repeat of the dramatic scenes witnessed in Sydney on Wednesday morning when the city was bathed in red, orange and yellow hues.

"The area of dust seems much smaller," the BoM spokesman said.

Visibility is still likely to be reduced for a couple of hours.

Residents in south-east Queensland have also been warned to stay inside, with another dust storm expected late this afternoon.

The second storm blew through Sydney and was over southern Queensland at 8.30am.

BoM senior forecaster Ben Annells said the dust storm, combined with smoke from bushfires, would decrease visibility.

"There will be some dust (later) and there is already some smoke and haze around at the moment," he said.

"There is poor visibility at the moment and we expect it to get a bit worse. There will probably be a tinge of orange, but we are not expecting it to be as bad (as Wednesday)."

Brisbane residents could expect wind speeds of 60 km/h when the storm hit, Mr Annells said.

Water restrictions have been relaxed so south-eastern Queensland residents, except those in Toowoomba, can hose homes, buildings and cars, until October 4.

A dry, partly cloudy day with fresh to strong gusty westerly winds is forecast for Sydney today, with a top temperature of 21 degrees.

Health authorities are advising asthmatics to avoid exercising outdoors this morning.

A severe weather warning is forecast for much of eastern NSW, including the Southern Tablelands, Central Tablelands, south coast, the Illawarra and the Hunter district.

[nodstar]

Australia PM: G20 Deal Experiment In Intl Cooperation[/size]

Wall Street Journal
online.wsj.com/article/BT-CO-20090925-713477.html

By Laurence Norman
Of DOW JONES NEWSWIRES


PITTSBURGH (Dow Jones)--The Group of 20 developed and developing nations has embarked on a new experiment in global macroeconomic coordination but all the tough work still lies ahead, Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd said Friday.

The summit represents "another important chapter in the response to the global recession...but it would be an absolute mistake to believe that our work finishes here," Rudd said. "In fact our work just begins here."

Rudd said he believed the commitments made at the G-20 could pave the way for a sustained global recovery but said the journey there "will be tough, it will be bumpy, it will be long."

Rudd said the G20's commitment to a framework for balanced and sustained growth would present challenges for Chinese and Japanese policy makers in particular.

China and Japan have long generated large trade and current account surpluses, in part by purchasing dollars to keep their currencies weaker.

Rudd said the Asian nations would need to look at "new possibilities" for generating growth in future - relying less on the debt-burdened U.S. consumer. He said that, so far, the G-20 had not explicitly discussed foreign exchange matters but hinted that may need to happen as the G-20 works to contain global imbalances.

"It means that you have to resort to other strategies (for growth) including increasing your own domestic consumption," he said.

Rudd welcomed the establishment of the G-20 as a "permanent part of the global governance system for the future" and said it represents a big gain for Australia.

"It's important for Australia that our voice is heard in the councils of the world," he said. "This is the first time that our country has had a place at the top economic table."

Rudd said the establishment of a peer review system for G20 countries to monitor each others' policies will produce real results. But he warned the containment of large imbalances won't happen quickly.

"This will not occur overnight," he said.

He also noted that peer review - and the possibility of criticism of some countries' economic policies - would be a "new experience" for China.

Rudd said that despite some progress in Pittsburgh, achieving a climate deal at December's Copenhagen summit will be "very hard to do." He also said that completing the Doha trade round over the next year will be "critical" for restoring strong growth.

[nodstar]

Australian PM Rudd takes place on world stage[/size]


ABC News Australia

Sabra Lane reported this story on Thursday, September 24, 2009 12:10:00
Listen to MP3 of this story ( minutes)

Alternate WMA version | MP3 download

ASHLEY HALL: To the United Nations and the Prime Minister Kevin Rudd's address to the General Assembly.

Mr Rudd has delivered his address to a very small gathering in the past hour.

His formal address was pushed back by almost two hours as earlier speakers, such as Libya's Muammar Gaddafi and Iran's President Mahmoud Amadinejad went way over their allocated 20 minutes.

Mr Rudd has highlighted reforms to the global financial system, climate change, trade and nuclear non-proliferation during his address.

The World Today's Sabra Lane was there.

And Sabra were there any surprises in Mr Rudd's address?

SABRA LANE: Ashley, no there weren't really many surprises. This was really a distillation of a number of themes that the Prime Minister has been talking about this week.

He has talked specifically in the last 24 hours much about the need for global financial reform, specifically pointing ahead to the G20 and saying that the world needed a new driving force to generate new reforms around the world.

He says that perhaps the Doha round of trade talks which has now being going on for eight years could be one of the solutions to pulling the world out of the global recession.

He has also talked about climate change.

But specifically he really addressed the issue of the global financial crisis and said that it had a huge impact on ordinary people around the world.

He's talked specifically about the number of people who had lost their jobs. In Sydney he talked about Liverpool, that 19,000 people had lost their jobs due to the global financial crisis. In Cairns in far-north Queensland, hardest hit by tourism he said 13,000 people had lost their jobs. And he talked about Perth, that the community surrounding the south-eastern suburbs of Perth, 12,500 people had lost their jobs.

He said that ordinary people had paid the price for the excesses of corporate greed.

Let's now listen to what he had to say about the global financial crisis.

KEVIN RUDD: But there remains much work to be done to prevent the unrestrained greed of unregulated financial markets that has wrought such economic carnage across the world these last 12 months from sowing the seeds of future financial crises.

Mr President, the global financial crisis has been a wake-up call to the international community to reform the institutions of global governance and a wake-up call that our system of global governance today is in radical need of reform.

ASHLEY HALL: That's the Prime Minister Kevin Rudd talking to the United Nations General Assembly.

And Sabra Lane, what else was on his agenda today?

SABRA LANE: Well he also talked about climate change. He said that the world really needed to find the will to do something about it; pointing out that the world only has 75 days to go until, sorry 74 days remaining until the Copenhagen conference that the governments of the world are brought together in Denmark to sit down and try and nut out this agreement.

He says and he has been saying for the last 48 hours, not enough action has been taken. He says the collective political will to date hasn't been adequate to meet the task.

He says for too long that there has been a fight between developed and developing countries over who has been responsible for the problem and he says it's time to really put that aside.

Now let's listen to what he had to say to the United Nations about that.

KEVIN RUDD: What is required globally is the leadership to embrace this truth and to respond to it accordingly because the truth is all our governments need to reach beyond their self interests and instead fashion a grand bargain between the developed and developing countries of the world - a grand bargain on climate change which embraces both historical and future responsibility; a grand bargain which is anchored in the science of climate change and the need to keep temperature rises within two degrees Celsius to avoid catastrophic climate change.

ASHLEY HALL: Prime Minister Kevin Rudd.

And Sabra, it's been a busy day for the Prime Minister. What else has he been up to?

SABRA LANE: It has. He's been on the go here since seven o'clock this morning and it's now 10 o'clock at night.

This morning he met with global business leaders and throughout the day he has been holding bilateral meetings with countries. He has met with Cyprus, Albania, the Dominican Republic, Japan.

And this afternoon he had a meeting with Mahmoud Abbas, the President of the Palestinian authority and he also sat down and had a chat with Benjamin Netanyahu, the Prime Minister of Israel.

And it's quite funny during the stage that cameras were allowed in to capture images of the two leaders talking, Benjamin Netanyahu sort of had a little bit of fun with the Prime Minister saying that either Australia had to move or the United Nations had to move. He was sort of making fun how far and distant Australia is from New York.

So yes, he's had a fairly busy day. I think this was the busiest day of his schedule and tomorrow of course he moves on to Pittsburgh and the two days set aside for the G20 conference.

ASHLEY HALL: Sabra Lane, thank you for keeping us up to date.

[nodstar]

BIG SURGE IN UFO SIGHTINGS UK [/size]


Monday September 21,2009
By Daily Express Reporter

www.express.co.uk/posts/view/128818/Big-surge-in-UFO-sightings-



Are we being watched ?


A RECORD number of UFO sightings have been reported in Britain this year, Government figures show.

X Files-style Ministry of Defence documents released as part of a Freedom of Information request say 394 mysterious hovering objects have been seen in our skies between January and the end of last month.

Among the sightings, a pilot said he saw a 30ft-long black cylinder above his plane in Otmoor, Oxfordshire and a giant bright orange UFO was spotted hovering over Gorey Castle, near Jersey airport, earlier this year. Gary Heseltine, a British Transport Police officer and UFO expert, said yesterday: “There is no doubt in my mind that a small number of these sightings are genuine extraterrestial phenomena.

“The fact is, so many people have UFO sightings but are afraid to report it for fear of ­ridicule.”

The record number of sightings comes as a new book about their history in this country is released. The UFO Files, by Dr David Clarke, claims there were defence officials in the Nineties who thought UFOs could have been carrying out “tourist” ­visits to the UK.

[nodstar]

Waterproof Nanotech Sand Could Change Deserts into Farms[/SIZE]

Singularity Hub
singularityhub.com/2009/09/17/waterproof-nanotech-sand-could-change-deserts-into-farms/



2009-09-26

Nanotechnology may conjure up images of tiny robots, or machines in our blood stream, but what about really cool dirt? DIME, a company based in the United Arab Emirates, has licensed a nanotech process to create hydrophobic sand. The extremely thin coating on each grain causes it to repel water. While similar technologies have existed for several years (see the video for ‘Magic Sand‘ below), DIME sells a plastic wrapped hydrophobic sand that can be used to create an artificial water table. This high tech sand bag, called a HST-roll, could change the nature of farming in the Middle East. With a production of more than 3 thousand tonnes a day, DIME is on the path to help the desert bloom.

Water scarcity is an enormous problem around the world. While potable water gets all the press, irrigation is where much of the consumption happens (up to 85% in the Middle East). Regions with sandy soil leach water away as it is being used, and salt rises to the top. That’s a lethal combination for crops. DIME’s HST-rolls work by forming a giant water-proof layer under the topsoil. You lay them out like a pool liner. When crops are grown in the soil above, less water is needed because it isn’t sucked deep underground. It also prevents salt from flowing into the topsoil. Water use could be cut by as much as 35% (granted these numbers are from DIME itself).

DIME’s hydrophobic sand production is licensed from a German firm and they aren’t very forthcoming on the exact process, obliquely referring to the additive used as SP-HFS 1609. Some sort of nanometer thick coating is applied to each and every grain of sand. Similar products, like the one shown in the video above, use a silica layer. No matter the exact mechanism involved, the results are the same: the coated sand will repel water or move through it to minimize water contact. Hence the snake-like shapes that form as the sand is poured into a glass.

Part of the appeal of hydrophobic substances is that they are so versatile. Original designs called for them to be used as solutions to oil spills. Grains of the sand would float on the water until bonding to oil. At that point the sand would clump together and become dense enough to sink, eliminating most of the hazard of the floating crude. Hydrophobic sand can also be used under concrete foundations to stop water-caused settling or seepage. HST-rolls could help solve erosion concerns along beaches.

Yet it’s the water retention promises that make hydrophobic sand so important. The UAE, one of the wealthiest countries per capita in the Middle East, is a great testing ground for desert reclamation. While it imports major staples (rice, grains, etc) it also has a history of seeking of agricultural independence in recent years. If the Emirates can increase the water efficiency of their arable land they may secure themselves against future instability as petroleum prices continue to fluctuate.

Of course I’m no expert in water drainage management, but wouldn’t a plastic tarp work just as well as magic sand? That would seem like a much cheaper option. I can’t find an answer to that question anywhere, so I’m going to assume that I’m being obtuse somehow. I have to hope that the UAE would have at least investigated the ‘tarp-option’ before spending millions on hydrophobic sand.

We future-looking bloggers have a tendency to focus on the most awe-inspiring uses of technology, but it’s the way nanotech changes food, shelter, and water that will really alter our world. Sand that can pick up oil, or stay dry while you play with in the pool is cool, but sand that can help you feed your family? That’s powerful. And it’s proof that while technology can’t solve every problem, it’s certainly going to try.

[auroralaura]

Detroit: From Motown to Hoetown? Radical plan calls for abandoned areas to become farmland

news.therecord.com/News/CanadaWorld/article/604062

September 26, 2009
By Catherine Porter, Toronto Star

DETROIT; Businessman Matt Allen crosses Warren Ave. in lower east Detroit and wades into a neighbourhood.

Houses and a high school once cluttered this block. Now, there is nothing but calf-high grass and a few scruffy trees as far as you can see. He is looking for houses.

“On that block there is one,” he says, pointing to a white clapboard house with a green Ford parked out front. Its tires are gone, its back window smashed.

“On the next block there is none. On that block there is none. On that block there is none. On that block there are three.”

Behind him, a rust-coloured cigar factory slumps empty, its windows broken. A few blocks down there is a store, but it’s boarded up. A man sits with a pit bull on the steps of a dilapidated house next door. Its windows are covered with plywood.

“You’ll see a house over there that looks pretty good. But look closer. There’s a hole in the roof,” Allen says.

A whisper of sidewalk peeks out from beneath the grass. A brown hawk flies overhead.

If you couldn’t see the letters “GM” on the top of a tower in the distance, you’d think this was the country. But it’s central Detroit – the equivalent of Leslieville in Toronto.

“From McDougall to Chene St., from Warren all the way to Forest Ave., this is 35 contiguous acres and there are five structures on the whole thing,” Allen says. “See what I’m saying? It gets real easy, real fast to do the math.”

The math adds up like this – Detroit was built for 1.8 million people. Now, half that number live here. Every third house is gone or empty. The former residents are not coming back.

Instead of building yet another flashy casino, Allen is pitching a radical – and highly contentious – solution. Empty whole parts of the city, dig up the concrete, yank down the light poles, and reclaim what was here before a guy named Henry Ford moved to town: farmland.

“This is relatively fertile clay loam,” says Michael Score, an agriculture adviser with Michigan State University. It’s perfect, he says, for high-end horticultural crops.

Score has drafted a business plan for Hantz Farms, Allen’s company. He spins around the field, describing what we’d see standing here in three years. A number of greenhouses growing cucumbers, lettuce and tomatoes. Rows of strawberries and raspberry bushes, where Detroiters will pick their own quarts. Apple and cherry trees. A wetland. A field of sunflowers. A block of Christmas trees.

What about those five houses?

“If someone doesn’t want to move, we’ll farm around them, just like a farm in the country would,” Score says.

This is not some urban planning student’s master’s thesis. Allen says they’ve already begun assembling land to become the biggest urban farm in the world, to the horror of local activists.

The Hantz plan is to convert 2,024 hectares of mostly abandoned land into 120-hectare farming “pods” across the city – each roughly the size of Canada’s Wonderland.

The farms would provide fresh fruit and vegetables to a city starved for them. It would offer much-needed jobs to Detroiters. And, most important to a city facing a $300 million deficit, it would cut out whole garbage truck routes and police patrol zones – costly budget items.

Urban farms would shrink the city in chunks, cutting out whole neighbourhoods like holes in a block of Swiss cheese.

“How do you take a crippled, post-industrial juggernaut and turn it into something else?” Allen says.

His answer is farm it.

“We’re creating a new model for 21 century cities.”

Detroit might seem an unlikely champion of urban agriculture, as the birthplace of the automobile and its farm-devouring offspring – urban sprawl.

But, it has become ground zero for North America’s local food movement.

Last year there were roughly 550 gardens in the city’s urban farming network. This year there are more than 850.

Driving around the city, you can see everything that will make up your dinner – chickens, goats, mushrooms, plum trees, honeybee hives. I passed a whole block growing shoulder-high corn. A horse grazes outside a barn behind a high school. Edith Floyd parks her tractor behind her house – 12 kilometres from city hall, where bureaucrats are scrambling to catch up with the collard greens sprouting on street corners.

Here, a locavore doesn’t eat food that’s travelled 100 kilometres. She eats food that’s travelled 10.

“I picked these this morning,” Floyd says, carrying a laundry hamper filled with watermelons to her stand at the Wayne State University farmers’ market. The chalkboard propped in front reads “Grown in Detroit.”

It’s enough to make Michael Pollan, author of local food manifesto The Omnivore’s Dilemma, swoon.

Why Detroit?

The answer becomes clear a few minutes after pulling off one of the multiple interstate highways that are the city’s equivalent to subway lines.

You feel like you’ve dropped into Miss Havisham’s dark, cobwebby parlour in thingyens’ Great Expectations – the uneaten cake an earthy mound on the dusty table, still waiting for the groom decades later.

Whole streets of once-ornate houses are collapsing. Sprawling factories are fenced up, windows shattered. You can see through the abandoned train station in the heart of the city. Kids in school uniforms walk through pastures that yawn between the houses left standing.

While neighbours wait months for street parking permits in Toronto, Detroit has nothing but space.

Even the mayor, Dave Bing, has called half of Detroit vacant.

Once a symbol of industry, the Motor City is now a model for deindustrialization.

It’s been shrinking since the 1950s, when the Big Three auto companies were still raking in profits and art deco bank towers crowded downtown. The cars that made Motor City also killed it, speeding inhabitants past the city-limit signs to its leafy suburbs even before the race riots of 1967. After the city burned for a week and 43 people died, there was a stampede to get out. Detroit became a doughnut long before anyone had heard of the Wal-Mart effect.

What’s left today is in tatters. Detroit boasts one of the highest crime rates of any American city. Around half of Detroiters aren’t in the labour force. According to the Detroit Literacy Association, 47 per cent of the population can’t read or write.

Most of the city is a food desert, where residents buy provisions in tins from convenience and liquor stores. There’s not a chain grocery or big box store left in all the 357 square kilometres of Detroit. That means to buy even basic supplies, like a bath towel, you have to leave town.

“There used to be a Polish-Italian bakery there,” Mark Covington says, pointing to his patch of broccoli and squash across the street. He’s sitting in the window of a hollowed-out home where only two years ago, his kindergarten teacher lived. Since she moved to a nursing home, “scrappers” have broken in and stripped away every bit of metal – the copper wires and pipes, the grates, the doorknobs.

A truck roared up at night, attached chains to the metal bars that still guarded the windows, and pulled them down.

“This was a nice mixed white-black neighbourhood when I was growing up,” says Covington, 37. “People started leaving.”

Two years ago, after losing his job as an environmental technician, Covington spent a week hauling garbage off the lots beside his home. He then planted boxes of vegetables where neighbours once lived. He named it the Georgia Street Community Garden and invited passersby to tuck in.

“People around here don’t have lights or gas,” he says, waving to a woman who has stopped to pick some cherry tomatoes. “So what was better to grow – flowers or vegetables?”

A woman up the street started sending her foster kids to help, and a movement was born. Covington erected four white boards to show movies on Saturday nights. He brought in chairs for reading sessions. He started a backpack program and hosted a harvest dinner for 90 neighbours.

Last year, he bought his old teacher’s home and the derelict store next door for $1 from the city, and $4,000 in back taxes. He plans to refurbish it into a community centre.

“We’re not just into farming. We’re into community self-determination,” says Malik Yakini, one of the leaders of Detroit’s nascent farming movement. The self-described “social architect” runs an Africentric school and chairs the Detroit Black Community Food Security Network. He talks about food justice – where the community reaps both the nutritional and financial rewards of the food it buys.

His D-Town Farm spans two acres of city parkland on Detroit’s western edge, where little bungalows with rusted awnings still line wide streets and a faded ice cream truck does laps of the yellowing boulevard. The volunteer team running it sells its leafy greens and radishes to local restaurants and farmers markets. Next year, it plans to hire two permanent employees.

“We’re trying to create an economic model, to show how agriculture could contribute to the economic recovery of Detroit,” Malini says, pushing into the brush to reveal a plastic greenhouse where oyster mushrooms will soon grow.

That model doesn’t include agribusiness. Replacing General Motors with Cargill isn’t the answer, he says.

“We’re activists. We’re concerned with the health, vitality and well-being of the black community generally. This is one part of a larger picture. So any proposal that brings in the corporate sector and disempowers community is problematic for us,” says Yakini, who spearheaded the just-formed Detroit Food Policy Council. “We’re much more in favour of smaller scale community-operated projects where people themselves have a vested interest and profit from the sale of the produce.”

Go to Europe, and you’ll trip over the remnants of all kinds of empires. After the fall of the Berlin Wall, the German government moved residents to concentrated areas in cities like Leipzig and turned off the lights elsewhere.

But in North America, where people spend more time every year commuting to work than vacationing, the idea of planning decline is foreign.

“In the U.S., everything is about reaching the next frontier. Growth is progress,” says Karina Pallagst, director of the Shrinking Cities in a Global Perspective program at the University of California at Berkeley. “So talking about shrinking is taboo. It’s a very painful insight to say we have to cut back.”

Still, there are some local models. Facing a population a third the size of its glory days, former steel hub Youngstown, Ohio, has offered to move residents out of dying neighbourhoods into denser ones, where city resources are concentrated. It plans to demolish leftover homes, yank up street lamps and let nature take over.

“It’s like taking a segment of an orange out,” says Joe Berridge, a partner with Toronto’s Urban Strategies, which helped draft Youngstown’s “right-sizing” plan.

Flint’s former acting mayor, Michael K. Brown, recently spoke about following suit and “shutting down quadrants of the city.”

While running for mayor last spring, Bing raised the prospect for Detroit.

“We’ve got limited resources as a city,” his spokesperson Edward Cardinas says. “We’re tying to figure out how to keep providing services.”

What’s different, in Detroit’s case, is the role of farming.

City planning officials have struck a working group to craft a vision for “agricultural urbanism” and corresponding legislation. As it stands, all farms are technically illegal. But facing a homicide a day, the city has been preoccupied. Now, it is wondering if the ground beneath the crumbling pavement could be part of the solution.

The Hantz farm proposal is on Mayor Bing’s desk. He’ll get to it once he figures out the budget, Cardinas says.

The potential is inspiring. A recent study by Michigan State University sustainable agriculture professor Michael Hamm shows that by growing about 5 per cent of the extra fruit and vegetables Michigan residents should be eating to meet health standards, the state’s economy would gain $200 million and more than 4,000 jobs. Much of that produce could be grown in Detroit – which by his calculations has 4,800 acres of vacant land, not including parks or right-of-ways.

“There’s a huge opportunity,” Hamm says. “The lesson then is we can carve out green space and not think of agriculture as an outlying activity to cities. It will be an integral component of a green city in the future.”

----------------------------------------------------------------------------

I hope this catches on.
AL

[nodstar]

Can the Antarctic Be Eco-Engineered to Save the Planet?[/size]

Daily Galaxy
www.dailygalaxy.com/my_weblog/2009/09/can-the-antarctic-be-ecoengineering-to-save-the-planet.html


Giant Antarctic Petrel

LINK TO LAVISH IMAGES OF ANTARCTIC WILDLIFE

images.google.com.au/imgres?imgurl=http://www.komar.org/faq/travel/vacation/antarctica/scotia-sea_drake-passage/2009_01_24_5073-mod-closeup-antarctica-scotia-sea-birds.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.komar.org/faq/travel/vacation/antarctica/&usg=__2xTVaojCG4yS7ZIkxVFmCZDxzO8=&h=600&w=900&sz=193&hl=en&start=33&sig2=PLrGj-izQKI-fVmBp7vmUw&tbnid=fDgyXofGce-5TM:&tbnh=97&tbnw=146&prev=/images%3Fq%3DNova%2BScotia%2B%2Balbatross%2Bbird%26gbv%3D2%26ndsp%3D18%26hl%3Den%26sa%3DN%26start%3D18&ei=88G-Ss2zEorSsQP91sVz

This past January, German research vessel Polarstern is steamed at full power from Capetown to the Antarctic, where it deployed a cargo designed to re-engineer the local environment as part of an effort to save the planet from pollution. We were stunned to learn that the crew does not feature a rogue Russian agent, a hard-bitten expert escaping the ghosts of his past or a separated couple who will rediscover true love because this isn't a book. It really happened.

A global team of scientists added twenty tons of iron sulphate to a nutrient-poor region of the arctic ocean to trigger a local increase in the algae population. Observation of this short-lived surge in ocean life provided data for larger scale projects. The oceans and the vast banks of singe-celled life they hold are massive regulators for the ecosystem - learning to control them would be an enormous step forward in environmental engineering.

I'm going to say that again: Environmental engineering. Or rather, intentional environmental engineering - we've been busily altering our environment by accident for decades now, the problem being the kind of changes you make by applying chainsaws and industrial poisons aren't entirely positive. Anybody who doubts that humans affect the environment just doesn't understand the number "six billion" - even if we were all vegan monks who attained enlightenment by perching on remote mountain peaks, we'd still crowd a few species of hawk to extinction just by meditating on their nesting grounds. Considering how our main activities are less "pondering the universe" and more "burning gasoline to get to the throwing-away-plastic-party", anyone who imagines we pass through the Earth with less impact than a shy neutrino should perhaps be given some ice-cream while the grown-ups are busy talking.

Of course, people are complaining about this awesome effort the same way people complain when anybody dares to do anything. A UN body recommended that all oceangineering be suspended until a "global, transparent and effective control and regulatory mechanism is in place for these activities", which is a very grand way of saying "Let's never do anything ever." Luckily the Polarstern has a thick metal hull which can withstand even the most sternly-worded letter, thus rendering it entirely UN-immune. When a group won't even move over half a country being set on fire and killed by the other half, a group of algae scientists are unlikely to be the "Deploy the Marines" trigger.

We're helped by the fact that twenty tons of iron sulphate couldn't affect the Earth if it was compressed into a ball and fired at us from the sun. While the environment is the world's largest game of unintended consequences (just ask Australia about rabbits or prickly pears), this experiment is a small step towards hacking the entire ecosphere. Because if we're breaking it anyway, we really shouldn't be stopping the guys trying to figure out how to fix it.

Posted by Luke McKinney.

Image credit: www.komar.org

Oceangineering

[galaxygirl]

www.realitysandwich.com/treating_americas_psychopathy

Treating America's Psychopathy

Jonathan Phillips

(excerpted from article at link above)



All it takes is a dent in the psychopath’s ego for the entire house of cards to come crashing down. And we are due for a karmic reckoning that’s been several thousand years in the making. Much like the psychopathic client, western civilization (and especially the US) are coming upon a time where we will have to face and feel the pain of our transgressions against mother Earth, each other, and, in the end, ourselves. The aggrandized belief in the “rightness” of the capitalist system or America’s own power and glory is tottering on the thin wooden stilts holding it up. And with the faltering economy, the walls created by our national psychopathy are cracking wide open.

Countries, communities, and individuals could react by pointing fingers and saying, “We told you so,” but that would simply put the psychopath back in their defenses, making them want to lash back in potentially dangerous ways. Instead, I’m hoping a growing “transformational network” on the planet can serve as helpers, healers and guides. Those who’ve already embarked on the healing path can reach out to those just stepping onto it. It’s like the story of the prodigal son in The New Testament. Rather than criticize and chastise the lost soul, we welcome our relations back into the unity of the world family tree. After all, none of us are without sin since we were all “raised” within this corrupted system.

We need to look at our own patterns and see where the need for specialness, control, and manipulation emerge. As we learn this process for ourselves, we can then hold space for others to connect with and release their guilt, confess and make restitution for their actions, and experience the exponential healing power of forgiveness. This stage is usually difficult for my individual clients and I can only imagine how challenging it might be with entire nations processing the environmental wreckage and karmic devastation we’ve laid upon our home, and each other.

Grounding is essential for healing the psychopath. They are trapped in an overcharged third chakra, and bringing in soothing earth energies can free up their internal circuitry. We, as a society, need to reconnect with the planetary rhythms and vibrations that have supported life for over four billion years, reintegrating that wisdom into our daily lives. Fortunately, there seems to be a growing mobilization to make this happen with various organizations and individuals engaging in permaculture, slow food, green design, eco villages, and other sustainable practices.

Perhaps those who hold the most grounding vibrations are the ones who have not fully strayed into the dominator model of civilization. Many tribal elders are carrying these earth frequencies of the first and second charkas (and the heart center) and have been coming together to hold space to heal our planet in crisis. This can be seen with Return of the Ancestors Gatherings in Sedona, The International Council of Thirteen Indigenous Grandmothers, and The Gathering of Nations, not to mention the emergence of shamanic practices and teacher plants into western culture.

----------

To do this, we’ll need to unlearn what has been handed down to us and liberate ourselves from dangerous and dysfunctional paradigms. We can begin by re-imagining the nuclear family, taking out the fission of sibling rivalries and domestic abuse while allowing for divine presence, joy, and revelation within community. Instead of giving shallow rewards of grades for “outstanding achievement,” we could introduce yoga, meditation, and healing courses to cure the divisive habit of cliques, competitiveness, and popularity contests in our educational institutions. We could even resurrect the ancient model of the Mystery Schools, where studies in reading, writing, and arithmetic were balanced with the intuitive wisdom of the initiatory process.

====

Before we can fix the problem, it must first be named.

GG

[Eagles Disobey]

Due to a cybersecurity flag, I have temporarily locked the Hideaway. Marci will pass information to GT Chief Admin, Nodstar*, in about 7 hours, when she calls her.

We apologize for the temporary inconvenience. Things would move a little faster, but due to Dan's imminent surgery, we are working emergency safety/security protocols. Under such protocols, given a cybersecurity flag, the Chief Admin of EDO, Marci (and not her designate) must speak directly with the Chief Admin of the GT (Nodstar*) to provide the information. (We are trying to work out another way between now and 10am Pacific time, to allow Fran to speak with her, but I have not been given clearance by Steven (Chief of Security) yet.

Again, we apologize for the temporary inconvenience. This temp maneuver is for every member's security.

SESQ

[Eagles Disobey]

Sept 27, 2009 13:57:58 GMT 4 Eagles Disobey said:

Due to a cybersecurity flag, I have temporarily locked the Hideaway. Marci will pass information to GT Chief Admin, Nodstar*, in about 7 hours, when she calls her.

We apologize for the temporary inconvenience. Things would move a little faster, but due to Dan's imminent surgery, we are working emergency safety/security protocols. Under such protocols, given a cybersecurity flag, the Chief Admin of EDO, Marci (and not her designate) must speak directly with the Chief Admin of the GT (Nodstar*) to provide the information. (We are trying to work out another way between now and 10am Pacific time, to allow Fran to speak with her, but I have not been given clearance by Steven (Chief of Security) yet.

Again, we apologize for the temporary inconvenience. This temp maneuver is for every member's security.

SESQ

NORMAL OPERATIONS SHOULD BE RESTORED SHORTLY. WE HAD ANOTHER ATTEMPTED HACK INTO THE GT. THE ATTEMPT FAILED. MARCI IS SPEAKING WITH NODSTAR*.

PEACE OUT!
SESQ

[towhom]

Intense hunt begins for new shot’s side effects
Government ramps up for unprecedented tracking of swine flu vaccine
MSNBC
September 27, 2009 1:04 PM EDT
www.msnbc.msn.com/id/33045346/ns/health-swine_flu

WASHINGTON - More than 3,000 people a day have a heart attack. If you're one of them the day after your swine flu shot, will you worry the vaccine was to blame and not the more likely culprit, all those burgers and fries?

The government is starting an unprecedented system to track possible side effects as mass flu vaccinations begin next month. The idea is to detect any rare but real problems quickly, and explain the inevitable coincidences that are sure to cause some false alarms.

"Every day, bad things happen to people. When you vaccinate a lot of people in a short period of time, some of those things are going to happen to some people by chance alone," said Dr. Daniel Salmon, a vaccine safety specialist at the Department of Health and Human Services.

Health authorities hope to vaccinate well over half the population in just a few months against swine flu, which doctors call the 2009 H1N1 strain. That would be a feat. No more than 100 million Americans usually get vaccinated against regular winter flu, and never in such a short period.

How many will race for the vaccine depends partly on confidence in its safety. The last mass inoculations against a different swine flu, in 1976, were marred by reports of a rare paralyzing condition, Guillain-Barre syndrome.

'How do we know it's safe?'
"The recurring question is, 'How do we know it's safe?'" said Dr. Gregory Poland of the Mayo Clinic.

Enter the intense new monitoring. On top of routine vaccine tracking, there are these government-sponsored projects:

• Harvard Medical School scientists are linking large insurance databases that cover up to 50 million people with vaccination registries around the country for real-time checks of whether people see a doctor in the weeks after a flu shot and why. The huge numbers make it possible to quickly compare rates of complaints among the vaccinated and unvaccinated, said the project leader, Dr. Richard Platt, Harvard's population medicine chief.
  
• Johns Hopkins University will direct e-mails to at least 100,000 vaccine recipients to track how they're feeling, including the smaller complaints that wouldn't prompt a doctor visit. If anything seems connected, researchers can call to follow up with detailed questions.
  
• The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is preparing take-home cards that tell vaccine recipients how to report any suspected side effects to the nation's Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting system.

"We don't have any reason to expect any unusual problems with this vaccine," said Dr. Neal Halsey, director of Hopkins' Institute for Vaccine Safety, who is directing the e-mail surveillance.

Recipe substitution
After all, the new H1N1 vaccine is a mere recipe change from the regular winter flu shot that's been used for decades in hundreds of millions of people without serious problems. Nor have there been any red flags in the few thousand people given test doses in studies to determine the right H1N1 dose. They've gotten the same sore arms and occasional headache or fever that's par for a winter flu shot.

But because this H1N1 flu targets the young more than the old, this may be the year that unprecedented numbers of children and pregnant women are vaccinated.

Then there's the glare of the Internet — where someone merely declaring on Facebook that he's sure the shot did harm could cause a wave of similar reports. Health authorities will have to tell quickly if there really do seem to be more cases of a particular health problem than usual.

So the CDC is racing to compile a list of what's normal: 25,000 heart attacks every week; 14,000 to 19,000 miscarriages every week; 300 severe allergic reactions called anaphylaxis every week.

Any spike would mean fast checking to see if the vaccine really seems to increase risk and by how much, so health officials could issue appropriate warnings.

Very rare side effects by definition could come to light only after large-scale inoculations begin — making this the year scientists may finally learn if flu vaccine truly is linked to Guillain-Barre, an often reversible but sometimes fatal paralysis. It's believed to strike between 1 and 2 of every 100,000 people. It often occurs right after another infection, such as food poisoning or even influenza.

But the vaccine concern stems from 1976, when 500 cases were reported among the 45 million people vaccinated against that year's swine flu. Scientists never could prove if the vaccine really caused the extra risk. The CDC maintains that if the regular winter flu vaccine is related, the risk is no more than a single case per million vaccinated.

So the question becomes, Is the risk of disease greater than that?

Mayo's Poland cites a study in Chicago that found the rate of preschoolers being hospitalized for the new H1N1 flu last spring was 2 1/2 times higher than that possible Guillain-Barre risk.

However the flu season turns out, the extra vaccine tracking promises a lasting impact.

"Part of what we hope is that it will teach us something about how to monitor the safety of all medical products quickly," said Harvard's Platt.

[towhom]

Agency looks for ideas to clean up space junk
One proposal would create liquid wall for debris to slam into, fall from orbit
MSNBC
updated 4:19 p.m. ET, Fri., Sept . 25, 2009
www.msnbc.msn.com/id/33024322/ns/technology_and_science-science/

James Hollopeter of GIT Satellite has a plan for getting rid of orbiting junk. He wants to launch rocket-loads of water into space to create a liquid wall for debris to slam into, so the pieces can slow down and eventually drop out of orbit.

Launched on ballistic flight paths that quickly re-enter the atmosphere, the water wouldn't add to the debris problem, unlike some other proposals to clean up space. The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency known as DARPA wants to hear about them all.

The agency last week issued a request for ideas to clean up orbital debris, a problem that has skyrocketed since China intentionally blew up a defunct satellite as part of a weapons test in 2007 and the orbital collision of two communications spacecraft earlier this year.

"Since January 2007, we have experienced a nearly 50 percent increase in the number of cataloged debris objects," DARPA wrote in its solicitation.

The government's Space Surveillance Network currently tracks more than 20,000 objects in orbit around Earth, 94 percent of which are classified as debris. And those are just the pieces big enough to track. There are estimated to be hundreds of thousands of objects smaller than about 10 centimeters across that literally slip beneath the radar.

While hurling water into space is a decidedly low-tech affair, Hollopeter says that is one of its advantages.

"In less than 18 months, I could do a demonstration mission," he told Discovery News. "The pacing item would be getting the paperwork approval through NASA."

The so-called Ballistic Orbital Removal System could be operated inexpensively by launching water on decommissioned missiles out of suborbital launch complexes, such as NASA's Wallops Island in Virginia, he added.

The DARPA solicitation so far has attracted interest from 11 firms, including prime aerospace contractor Boeing, NASA's Space Science and Technology Center at Marshall Space Flight Center in Alabama, and several small firms.

"The debris is becoming more pronounced and more important," said B.J. Austin, president of Indiana-based In Space. "In order to preserve space for future generations, we need to mitigate debris."

Proposals are due by Wednesday.

DARPA, which does not plan on awarding a contract at this time, declined to be interviewed.

"We need more time to gather information to see what direction this study points us in before we're ready to engage in further discussions," an agency spokesman said.

[towhom]

‘Sound cannons’ give ‘unmistakable warning’
Devices used against G-20 protesters can be heard at least 1,600 feet away
MSNBC
updated 6:33 p.m. ET, Fri., Sept. 25, 2009
www.msnbc.msn.com/id/33026156/ns/technology_and_science-innovation/

Police in Pittsburgh showed off the latest in crowd control Thursday as they reportedly used "sound cannons" to blast the ears of protesters near the Group of 20 meeting of world economic leaders.

City officials said it was the first time such sound blasters, sometimes called sound weapons, were used publicly. But what exactly are they?

"There was an array of sound amplifiers used during the demonstration," Lavonnie Bickerstaff of the Pittsburgh Bureau of Police, told LiveScience, adding, "The Poconos police brought the long-range acoustic device with them, but I don't know whether it was used."

The long range acoustic device (LRAD) is designed for long-range communication and "unmistakable warning," according to the American Technology Corporation, which develops the instruments.

"The LRAD basically is the ability to communicate clearly from 300 meters to 3 kilometers" (nearly 2 miles), said Robert Putnam of American Technology's media and investor relations. "It's a focused output. What distinguishes it from other communications tools out there is its ability to be heard clearly and intelligibly at a distance, unlike bullhorns."

Its shrill warning tones can be heard at least 1,600 feet (500 meters) away and depending on the model of LRAD it can blast a maximum sound of 145 to 151 decibels — equal to a gunshot — within a 3-foot (one meter) range, according to American Technology. But there is a volume knob, so its output can be less than max, Putnam noted.

On the decibel scale, an increase of 10 (say, from 70 to 80) means that a sound is 10 times more intense. Normal traffic noise can reach 85 decibels.

For comparison, a jet engine sends out an ear-splitting 140 to 180 decibels of sound. Human conversation hovers at about 60 decibels. Permanent hearing loss can result from sounds at about 110 to 120 decibels in short bursts or even just 75 decibels if exposure lasts for long periods, according to the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and other sources.

Anything over 120 decibels is liable to be noticeably painful for some individuals, and 150 decibels would hurt anyone's ears. Such sounds damage small hair cells in the inner ear that convert sound energy into electrical signals that travel to the brain. "Once damaged, our hair cells cannot grow back," the NIH states.

But Putnam said under normal circumstances the LRAD is not harmful. "There's no way it can hurt you unless you have the ability to stand in front of it closely for several minutes," Putnam said in a telephone interview.

If you did stand there at length, "It's like having a rock concert in three hours given to you in a half-hour," he added.

The instrument's volume, along with its high-pitched tone, make for "painfully loud sound frequencies that are concentrated in a narrow beam and easily direct them at a target, not unlike using a spotlight," according to Gizmag.

Putnam said the frequency of LRAD ranges from 2,800 Hertz to 3,000 Hertz. That's similar to the pitch of human speech, which is between 500 Hz and 3,000 Hz, the NIH states.

This is awful - I am appalled.

[towhom]

Obama: ‘We cannot wait’ on health care
President resumes reform push at speech to Congressional Black Caucus
MSNBC
updated 5:31 a.m. ET, Sun., Sept . 27, 2009

WASHINGTON - President Barack Obama on Saturday resumed his push to overhaul the health care system, telling a Congressional Black Caucus conference that there comes a time when "the cup of endurance runs over."

"We have been waiting for health reform since the days of Teddy Roosevelt. We've been waiting since the days of Harry Truman," he said in remarks at the caucus foundation's annual dinner. "We've been waiting since Johnson and Nixon and Clinton."

"We cannot wait any longer," Obama said.

Obama spent the past week largely focused on global and economic issues in meetings with world leaders in New York and Pittsburgh.

At the G-20 economic summit that wrapped up Friday in Pennsylvania, Obama told a story about an unnamed foreign leader who privately told the president he didn't understand the at-times contentious debate over changing the health care system.

"He says, 'We don't understand it. You're trying to make sure everybody has health care and they're putting a Hitler mustache on you. That doesn't make sense to me,'" Obama said, quoting the world leader he declined to identify.

The reference to Nazi leader Adolf Hitler was to signs some people have waved outside of often testy town hall meetings around the country this summer where lawmakers discussed Obama's health care plan.

In the speech, Obama described his plan as one that would not require people with coverage to change anything but would make health insurance affordable for the millions of people who don't have any. Republicans dispute those claims.

The Senate Finance Committee is in the process of amending a health care bill introduced by Chairman Max Baucus, D-Mont.

Before becoming president, Obama was the only senator in the all-Democratic caucus, which now has 42 members. He wasn't particularly active in the group and isn't especially close to many of its members.

Animosity toward the president and his policies has bubbled up in recent weeks, most notably with Rep. Joe Wilson, R-S.C., shouting "You lie!" at Obama during the president's recent health care speech to Congress.

Democrats from former President Jimmy Carter on down have blamed the increasingly harsh criticism of Obama on racism.

Obama says it's not racism but an intense debate over the proper role of government.

Before he began to speak, Obama walked to a podium facing the audience from the right side of the stage before he was directed to another one — the one affixed with the presidential seal — on stage left.

"They don't want me to be on the right," he joked. "This is the CBC."