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.

March 13, 2012

WASHINGTON – The Department of Homeland Security's Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) and the Corporation for National and Community Service (CNCS) today announced an innovative new partnership designed to continue to strengthen the nation's ability to respond to and recover from disasters while expanding career opportunities for young people.

FEMA Corps is a historic collaboration which will create a new unit of AmeriCorps' National Civilian Community Corps (NCCC) whose members will be devoted solely to FEMA disaster response, and recovery efforts. The five-year agreement provides for a full service corps of 1,600 members annually who will be an additional workforce in support of FEMA's current disaster reserve workforce.

“The initiative we're launching today underscores our commitment to shared responsibility and strong partnerships to help communities across the United States more effectively prepare for, respond to, and recover from disasters of all kinds,” said Secretary Napolitano. “This new partnership will help us respond to disasters in a way that is cost-effective, and that draws on the strengths of our communities and our people.”

FEMA and AmeriCorps to Announce New Partnership to Strengthen Disaster Response, Recovery

Join the announcement by webstream: 11:00am EDT on Tuesday

On Tuesday, March 13, Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano, Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) Administrator Craig Fugate, Corporation for National and Community Service (CNCS) Acting CEO Robert Velasco, Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) Deputy Administrator Rich Serino, and Director of the White House Domestic Policy Council Cecilia Muñoz, joined by Tuscaloosa, AL Mayor Walter Maddox, will announce an innovative new partnership between FEMA and CNCS designed to strengthen the nation’s ability to respond and recover from disasters.

We welcome you to join the launch of this effort.  You are invited to view the official announcement of this partnership at FEMA Headquarters via webstream, at 11:00am EDT at the following link:

http://www.fema.gov/LiveVideo.

submitted by Albert Gomez

Beacon Food Forest Schematic Site Plan

by Zak Stone - good.is - March 2, 2012

Imagine if your neighborhood park doubled as a communal orchard. Out of fruit in the fridge? Just stroll down the block and pluck the first ripe pear you see. It may sound like a hippie fantasy, but residents of Seattle's Beacon Hill neighborhood could soon be living that dream, with a community group planning to break ground on the country's largest "food forest" this summer.

(READ COMPLETE ARTICLE)

submitted by Janine Rees

Stream Gaging Station by Beige Alert, on Flickr

by John Farrell - energyselfreliantstates.org - February 27, 2012

In a New York Times SundayReview piece last week – Drawing the Line at Power Lines – Elisabeth Rosenthal suggested that our desire for clean energy will require significant tradeoffs . . .

I disagree.

The future of American electricity policy is not about tradeoffs, but rather a chance to trade-in an obsolete, centralized paradigm for a local, clean energy future.

(READ COMPLETE ARTICLE)

Source: NPR - Credit: Adam Cole, Maggie Starbard

by Adam Cole - npr.org - February 24, 2012

. . . "Surveillance is one of the cornerstones of public health," says Philip Polgreen, an epidemiologist at the University of Iowa. "It all depends on having not only accurate data, but timely data."

Public health officials have been trying to speed up their responses to disease outbreaks since, well, they started responding to outbreaks.

There's still plenty of room for improvement.

The current system requires the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to compile reports about from physicians and labs all over the country — and that can take a while. There's typically a week-long delay between an outbreak and the release of an official report.

To get an early read on things, epidemiologists look for the first clues of illness — a rise in thermometer sales or increased chatter on hospital phone lines. Now, they're tapping into the Internet. . . .

scientificamerican.com - February 15, 2012

Digital innovators Bill Joy, co-founder of Sun Microsystems, and Danny Hillis, co-founder of the Long Now Foundation, talk with Scientific American Executive Editor Fred Guterl about the technological "Entanglement" and the attempts to build the other, hardier Internet. Web sites related to this episode include http://compass-summit.com and The Shadow Web

(LISTEN TO THE PODCAST IN THE LINK BELOW)

http://www.scientificamerican.com/podcast/episode.cfm?id=the-coming-entanglement-bill-joy-an-12-02-15

submitted by Jonathan King

By: Rich Miller - datacenterknowledge.com - February 20, 2012

Jesse Robbins is a trained fireman. He also has managed some of the world’s largest Internet infrastructures. Robbins says the lessons of fire readiness can be applied to building reliable systems.

“You cannot learn the lessons of failure without experiencing it,” said Robbins, the co-founder and Chief Community Office at Opscode. “That’s why we do fire drills.”

(READ COMPLETE ARTICLE)

Image/Chad Hagen - The New York Times Company

submitted by Samuel Bendett

by Steve Lohr - The New York Times -February 11, 2012

GOOD with numbers? Fascinated by data? The sound you hear is opportunity knocking.

Mo Zhou was snapped up by I.B.M. last summer, as a freshly minted Yale M.B.A., to join the technology company’s fast-growing ranks of data consultants. They help businesses make sense of an explosion of data — Web traffic and social network comments, as well as software and sensors that monitor shipments, suppliers and customers — to guide decisions, trim costs and lift sales. “I’ve always had a love of numbers,” says Ms. Zhou, whose job as a data analyst suits her skills.

(READ COMPLETE ARTICLE)

submitted by Gerald Eisman

everyday-democracy.org

Everyday Democracy and the Kettering Foundation collaborated to produce Sustaining Public Engagement: Embedded Deliberation in Local Communities, a research report providing insights into how public engagement initiatives can grow into a regular practice involving people from many different parts of a community and spanning multiple issues. The new report by Harvard University researchers Archon Fung and Elena Fagotto argues that the most successful of civic engagement efforts are those that address not only particular public issues such as school redistricting, domestic violence, or racism, but also improve the quality of local democratic governance. Sustaining Public Engagement will be of interest to researchers and community organizers. The report features concrete examples of sustained community-led dialogue and problem solving efforts that draw upon different approaches to public deliberation. (2009)

(FREE DOWNLOAD OR ORDERING OPTIONS IN LINK BELOW)

http://www.everyday-democracy.org/en/Resource.136.aspx

by Derek Top - greenbiz.com - January 31, 2012

Maybe it's a West Coast thing. While the VERGE discussion at last week's GreenBiz New York City event centered on the city's famous competitive edge in finance, research and development, and, ahem, football, the folks on the San Francisco GreenBiz Forum panel concluded that a VERGE city should focus on "how does it make living in a city better."

(READ COMPLETE ARTICLE)

submitted by Albert Gomez

un.org - January 30, 2012

Report

The High-level Panel on Global Sustainability presents its report to the Secretary-General on 30 January 2012 in Addis Ababa.

The 22-member Panel, established by the Secretary-General in August 2010 to formulate a new blueprint for sustainable development and low-carbon prosperity, was co-chaired by Finnish President Tarja Halonen and South African President Jacob Zuma. The Panel's final report, "Resilient People, Resilient Planet: A Future Worth Choosing", contains 56 recommendations to put sustainable development into practice and to mainstream it into economic policy as quickly as possible.

During the Davos Economic Summit, there were several interesting presentations under "Big Data, Big Impact."  One presentation focused on possibilities for international development.  As San Francisco builds out its distributed smart grid in a post-peak oil world, the issues of how "Big Data" are applied becomes evermore critical to the resilience of the City and the sustainability of its neighborhoods.

********************

A flood of data is created every day by the interactions of billions of people using computers, GPS devices, cell phones, and medical devices. Many of these interactions occur through the use of mobile devices being used by people in the developing world, people whose needs and habits have been poorly understood until now. Researchers and policymakers are beginning to realise the potential for channelling these torrents of data into actionable information that can be used to identify needs, provide services, and predict and prevent crises for the benefit of low-income populations. Concerted action is needed by governments, development organisations, and companies to ensure that this data helps the individuals and communities who create it.

Continuing to explore the ways in which technological and social change affect our relation to money…