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Water Scarcity in California's Bay-Delta Necessitates “Hard Decisions”

Fri, 2012-03-30 19:25 — Kathy Gilbeaux

California's Bay-Delta water supply area // Source: usgs.gov

submitted by Samuel Bendett

Homeland Security News Wire - March 30, 2012

Simultaneously attaining a reliable water supply for California and protecting and rehabilitating its Bay-Delta ecosystem cannot be realized until better planning can identify how trade-offs between these two goals will be managed when water is limited, says a new report from the National Research Council. Recent efforts have been ineffective in meeting these goals because management is distributed among many agencies and organizations, which hinders development and implementation of an integrated, comprehensive plan. Additionally, it is impossible to restore the delta habitat to its pre-disturbance state because of the extensive physical and ecological changes that have already taken place and are still occurring, including those due to multiple environmental stressors.

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California Struggling to Prepare Quake Early Warning System

Sat, 2012-03-24 13:05 — Kathy Gilbeaux

submitted by Samuel Bendett

Workers fix subway lines that were damaged after an earthquake was felt in Mexico City on Tuesday, March 20. (Associated Press / March 19, 2012)

By Hector Becerra and Sam Allen, Times Staff Writers - latimes.com - March 22, 2012

The state spends a fraction of what countries like Mexico and Japan spend on their systems. One reason for the lack of interest, experts say, is that California has not experienced a catastrophic quake in more than a century.

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San Diego Urban Farm Grows Food and Self Esteem for Refugees

Tue, 2012-02-07 11:32 — Kathy Gilbeaux

Good, and good for you. New Roots Community Farm hosts U.S. first lady Michelle Obama in April 2010. (Reuters/Mike Blake)

submitted by Janine Rees

by Jill Richardson - latitudenews.com - January 30, 2012

Imagine escaping from your farm in a war-riven part of Africa or Asia. You arrive in the U.S. What a relief! But you’ve replaced farming with asphalt and concrete of a U.S. city. Bewilderment, shock, all over again.

To help refugee farmers adjust, the International Rescue Committee started an urban farm in San Diego. It hired Amy Lint, then 31, to get New Roots Community Farm up and running.

(READ COMPLETE ARTICLE)

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Reframing Resilience

Sat, 2012-01-28 10:48 — mdmcdonald

First, there is great value in a systems approach as a heuristic for understanding interlocked social-ecological-technological processes, and in analysis across multiple scales. Yet we need to move beyond both systems as portrayed in resilience thinking, and the focus on actors in work on vulnerability, to analyse networks and relationships, as well as to attend to the diverse framings, narratives, imaginations and discourses that different actors bring to bear.

For More:

http://resilienturbanism.tumblr.com/post/7573475902/reframing-resilience

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Resilience Alliance

Sat, 2012-01-28 10:29 — mdmcdonald

There are many definitions of resilience from simple deterministic views of resilience anchored in Newtonian mechanics to far more dynamic views of resilience from a systems perspective, including insights from quantum mechanics and the sciences of complexity. One baseline perspective of resilience sees it in terms of the viability of socio-ecological systems as the foundation for sustainability. For those that are ready to look beyond resilience as the ability to return to the "normal state" before a disaster, take a look at:

http://www.resalliance.org/

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More Arizona parents refusing to vaccinate kids

Tue, 2011-10-25 03:12 — JRees

by Ken Alltucker - Oct. 23, 2011 12:00 AM
The Arizona Republic

A small but growing group worries public-health officials:
parents who refuse to vaccinate their kids.

Thousands of Arizona schoolchildren skipped their recommended vaccines during the 2010-11 school year under a "personal beliefs" exemption allowed by state law, Arizona Department of Health Services records show. In kindergarten alone, more than 2,700 Arizona students, or 3.2 percent, skipped vaccines, more than double the exemption rate claimed by parents one decade ago.

These aren't children who lacked access to health care or had a medical reason for not immunizing. Their parents or guardians chose to keep them vaccine-free because of religious or personal beliefs such as fears that the vaccines may do more harm than good.