Category: Earth Intelligence

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Journal: Hungarian/European Ecological Disaster

03 Economy, 03 Environmental Degradation, Earth Intelligence
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UPDATE: 12 Oct 10

Hungary Sludge Flood PHOTOS: First Satellite Images

There have been plenty of photos from ground level, but NASA today released the first satellite images of the Hungary toxic sludge flood.

NASA describes the photos as follows:

On October 9, 2010, the Advanced Land Imager (ALI) on NASA's Earth Observing-1 (EO-1) satellite captured this natural-color image of the area. The top image shows a close-up of the alumina plant and closest villages. The bottom image shows the wider region.

The incident has been called “an ecological disaster” and it has forced Hungary to declare a state of emergency.

10 Oct 2010 Update

UPDATE 10 Oct 10:

Toxic Sludge Could Spill Again, Hungary Government Warns

Engineers feared a second wave could be even more toxic than the first because the sludge remaining in the reservoir was more concentrated.

UPDATE 7 Oct 10:

Danube Hit By Hungary Sludge: Red Toxic Mud Reaches Famous River

UPDATE 6 Oct 10:

Hungarians battle to hold back toxic sludge spill from Danube

Greenpeace describes incident as ‘one of the top three environmental disasters in Europe in the last 20 or 30 years'

TIME Photo Gallery

UPDATE 6 Oct 10:

Photos from TIME Magazine

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Hungary toxic sludge spill an ‘ecological catastrophe' says government

Hungary declares a state of emergency as 1m cubic metres of sludge leaks from an alumina factory killing four and injuring 120

Local environmentalists said the plant, which had been privatised several years ago, should have been modernised but that the company put profits first.

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Robert Fidrich, of Friends of the Earth in Hungary, said: “Now we, the public, will have to pay the real bill. You can forget about cleaning up those villages … nobody will be able to live there for 10 years or more. It has affected the lives of hundreds of people.”

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Journal: Nature-Hand-Held-Cloud-World Brain

Earth Intelligence, IO Mapping

Full Story Online

New ecology app makes wildlife viewing a cultural sport

Project NOAH and its innovative app are about to go global with a media blitz.

Social media to some is the antithesis of all things nature. With people’s heads often bent over handheld devices, it seems like the last thing they will do is notice a chirping bluebird or flying ladybug overhead. But a new app for the iPhone seeks to change all that. Slate reports that Project NOAH, or networked organisms and habitats, can make your mobile device into a handheld wildlife spotting tool.

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Journal: Quakers Activating on Earth Care

Cultural Intelligence, Earth Intelligence
Eileen Flanagan

Eileen Flanagan

Author, The Wisdom to Know the Difference: When to Make a Change — and When to Let Go

Posted: October 8, 2010 07:32 AM

Quakers Advocate Living in ‘Right Relationship' with Creation

In recent years, a number of Quaker writers and organizations have argued that these core values and the future of our planet are threatened by an economic system that encourages people to consume increasingly scarce natural resources, resulting in environmental devastation, economic inequality, and wars for oil. The alternative they propose is living in “right relationship,” which means radically changing both our individual behavior and social structures so that our way of life honors all of God's creation.

“We draw on a Quaker legacy of passion for doing the right thing and going inward to discover what the right thing is,” explains the website of the Earth Quaker Action Team, which grew out of a gathering in the summer of 2009 where many Quakers felt that God was calling them to engage more vigorously with these issues. “We are people who recycle and re-use, who drive hybrids and bicycles, who take buses and shorter showers, and at the same time know that the sum of individual actions cannot make up for the destructive decisions taken by large structures. We realize we must turn to the power of collective action.”

Phi Beta Iota: We are sensing both an emergence and a convergence coming together in 2012.

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Journal: Army Shines with Bee Deaths But Case Still Open

01 Agriculture, Commerce, Commercial Intelligence, Earth Intelligence, Military, Mobile
Full Article Online

Possible Cause of Bee Die-Off Is Found

The New York Times

By KIRK JOHNSON

Published: October 6, 2010

DENVER — It has been one of the great murder mysteries of horticulture: what is killing off the honeybees?

Since 2006, 20 to 40 percent of the bee colonies in the United States alone have suffered “colony collapse.” Suspected culprits ranged from pesticides to genetically modified food.

Now, a unique partnership — of military scientists and entomologists — appears to have achieved a major breakthrough: identifying a new suspect, or two.

A fungus tag-teaming with a virus have apparently interacted to cause the problem, according to a paper by Army scientists in Maryland and bee experts in Montana in the online science journal PLoS One.

Phi Beta Iota: This is a very exciting story, and a real accomplishment by the US Army team applying Cold War bio-chemical skill sets to what may be the single greatest threat to US agriculture other than vanishing water.  The Times did not, however, reference other causes of bee disorientation and dysfunction, such as cell phones and other electromagnetic pollutants.

See Also:

Bees Vanish, and Scientists Race for Reasons (April 24, 2007)

Journal: Electromagnetics, Bees, & Agriculture

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Journal: Census of Marine Life Astonishes & Enlightens

Academia, Earth Intelligence, Real Time
Full Story Online

Census of marine life shows how various underwater life forms are connected to one another

Census of marine life took place over a ten-year period and cost $650 million. Over 200 thousand life forms were identified in the census of marine life.

. . . . . . .

“We didn't know so much about the deep sea…,” Arbizu said. “We believe now that the deep sea is more connected, also the different oceans, than we previously thought.”

Phi Beta Iota: Science is on the cusp of a major new learning period, finding connectivity and co-evolution in tangible forms that can be documented.  Science is also on the verge of a mental and ethical meltdown, between fragmented sub-specialties and rampant fabrications.  Changes to the Earth that used to take 10,000 years now take three.  It's time we rescued education, intelligence, and research, together.

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Search: buckminster fuller map

Advanced Cyber/IO, Earth Intelligence, Geospatial, Geospatial, info-graphics/data-visualization, IO Mapping, Policies-Harmonization, Strategy-Holistic Coherence

Phi Beta Iota: Although the search produces Graphics Directory A-Z as of 28 September 2010 and within that one can find Graphic: Robert Steele Adopts Buckminster Fuller that is too far from our preferred outcome.  Here is the human in the loop answer: it's called the Dymaxion map.

Here are a whole bunch of images.

Within those, the two below are the most interesting.  The second was used in a discussion between Buckminster Fuller and the Russian leadership, to show how a global electrical grid could be achieved that would eradicate the current 50% loss from source to end-user.

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Worth a Look: Citizens, Banks, and Coal Mining

05 Energy, Civil Society, Commerce, Earth Intelligence

Phi Beta Iota: We decided to post a long email about helping a major international bank decide not to fund mountaintop removal coal projects for the following reasons:

1)  It illustrates the emergent power of focused citizen advocacy.

2)  It documents the modified behavior of select major banks.

3)  It highlights the complete fragmentation of citizen advocacy–all over the lot with no strategic analytic model, no information-sharing network, no ability to co-evolve and achieve multiplication effects.

Continue reading “Worth a Look: Citizens, Banks, and Coal Mining”