Solutions

Strong Communities Are Necessary

Thu, 2011-10-20 12:04 — admin

by John McKnight
Co-Director of the Asset-Based Community Development Institute and Director of Community Studies of the Institute of Policy Researh, Northwestern University.

There is a new worldwide movement developing, made up of people with a different vision for their local communities. They know that movements are not organizations, institutions or systems. Movements have no CEO, central office, or plan. Instead, they happen when thousands and thousands of people discover together new possibilities for their lives. They have a calling. They are called. And together they call upon themselves.

In many nations local people have been called to come together to pursue a common calling. It would be a mistake to label that calling ABCD, or Community Building. Those are just names. They are inadequate words for groups of local people who have the courage to discover their own way—to create a culture made by their own vision. It is a handmade, homemade vision. And, wherever we look, it is a culture that starts the same way:

First, we see what we have—individually, as neighbors and in this place of ours.

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LA-area hospitals prepare for the big quake

Thu, 2011-10-20 11:08 — admin

In 2008 emergency planners predicted that if a 7.8 magnitude earthquake struck southern California, 60 percent of hospital beds in Los Angeles, San Bernardino, Riverside, and Orange counties would be knocked out of commission.

To allow aid workers to treat the thousands of potentially injured residents during the quake, first responders are developing alternative medical care policies like emergency tents stocked with medical equipment.

Kay Fruhwirth, the head of the LA County Office of Emergency Management, said the number of available beds “is really dependent on the level of impact, but we have plans and we know in general what hospitals can do to meet increased demands for a lot of people who need medical care.”

To that end, Fruhwirth said surge tents would be put in place for initial triage and the sorting out of patients for short-term care. In addition, thirteen hospitals in ten locations throughout the region have Disaster Resource Centers, which are equipped with tent shelters that are capable of housing at least forty patients for the first forty-eight hours after a disaster.

“All hospitals do planning for disasters, but these centers have additional supplies and equipment, which can also be moved to the impacted area,” Fruhwirth explained.

US - West

Disaster Risk Reduction

Solutions

Training

Earthquake

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RISE ABOVE PLASTIC + SURFRIDER FOUNDATION = RAPTOBERFEST

Tue, 2011-10-04 14:15 — admin

Did you know…

…that in certain places of the ocean, the amount of suspended plastic particles actually outnumbers ambient plankton?
…that approximately one million seabirds and one hundred thousand marine mammals die from ingestion or entanglement in plastics each year?
…that with the exception of a small amount that has been incinerated, virtually every piece of plastic that has ever been created still exists in some shape or form?

Well now that you do….Read more about RAPtoberfest on Surfrider Foundation to take action in being part of the solution!
WHAT ARE YOU WAITING FOR?!?!?! CLICK HERE

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Can Americans share? You bet! Especially for a fee.

Thu, 2011-08-11 17:05 — admin

Alex Wong/Getty Images: Bicycles from the Capital Bikeshare program.

That question hung over the rows of identical fire-red bicycles lined up last week for the start of Capital Bikeshare in Washington, the nation’s largest bike-sharing program.

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Save money and resources by sharing stuff with your friends

Thu, 2011-08-11 04:55 — JRees

In these difficult economic times, many Americans are wary of buying items they'll use just once or twice and then store in the garage. But for those times you really need a hedge clipper, bread maker or camping stove, there's a social networking site called NeighborGoods.net.

The site is an inventory of items users are willing to lend.

And it helped Web developer Jory Felice of Los Angeles find a mouse to borrow so he could test out a 20-year-old Apple computer he'd found at a garage sale.

"I thought, 'You know what, I could probably go to eBay and find one, but I don't want to pay, like, weird computer collector prices for something that I may not decide that I really want," Felice says.

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What to do when the power goes out

Wed, 2011-08-10 23:20 — admin

Natural disasters, storms, solar events, cascading equipment failure and cyber attacks could shut down local or regional power supply. Possibly for many days, or even weeks. We take the advice from those who have been through black out situations, and bring this to you here:

What do you do when the power goes out?

ADVICE FOR INDIVIDUALS and RESIDENCES:

1) Stay together and do not panic
Research shows that in a disaster most of us want to help others. It is not until a crisis or disaster drags on, that must of grow desperate. Dale Jobes, director of the Energy Huntsville Initiative, is quoted in a 2011 article from Popular Mechanics saying her experience with no power after tornados deveastated the grid in her town,
"All of a sudden you had to be neighbors, whether you wanted to or not,"Everybody was sharing everything they had in their freezers because the food was going to go bad. It was a really neat dynamic."