Underground world hints at China’s coming crisis

03 Economy, 05 Energy, 06 Family, 11 Society, 12 Water, Civil Society, Commerce, Commercial Intelligence, Government, Key Players, Peace Intelligence

Underground world hints at China's coming crisis

To understand how far ordinary Chinese have been priced out of their country's property market, you need to look not upwards at the Beijing's shimmering high-rise skyline, but down, far below the bustling streets where nearly 20m people live and work.

There, in the city's vast network of unused air defence bunkers, as many as a million people live in small, windowless rooms that rent for £30 to £50 a month, which is as much as many of the city's army of migrant labourers can afford.

. . . . . .

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Public Health Advocates Pressure on EPA Flouride Reduction

01 Agriculture, 04 Education, 07 Health, 12 Water, Corporations

EPA to Bar Fluoride-Based Pesticide

Decision aims to protect children’s health

  • CONTACT: EWG Public Affairs, 202-667-6982 leeann@ewg.org; Beyond Pesticides: Jay Feldman, 202-543-5450; Fluoride Action Network: Ellen Connett, 315-379-9200
  • FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: January 10, 2011

Washington, D.C. – The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency today proposed to grant three environmental groups’ petition to end the use of sulfuryl fluoride, an insecticide and food fumigant manufactured by Dow AgroSciences.

The Dow product, approved by EPA as an alternative to methyl bromide, is used on hundreds of food commodities.

Citing concerns about children’s health and noting their current overexposure to fluoride through tap water, EPA’s decision is the second major federal action in three days to address the safety of fluoride for children. On January 7, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services proposed to reduce its recommended maximum level of fluoride in tap water from 1.2 to 0.7 parts per million (ppm), a 42 percent decrease.

In 2004, Fluoride Action Network, Environmental Working Group, and Beyond Pesticides challenged EPA’s risk assessment of the pesticide sulfuryl fluoride under the Food Quality and Protection Act of 1996, which regulates pesticide safety. The groups objected that EPA’s methodology relied on an outdated health risk assessment and significantly underestimated children’s exposures to fluoride from all sources.

With today’s announcement, the EPA Office of Pesticide Program has concluded that the current legal limit of the pesticide residue on food does not adequately protect children from aggregate fluoride exposures, such as drinking water and toothpaste.

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45 Social Entrepreneurs Showcase at “Unreasonable Finalist Marketplace”

01 Agriculture, 01 Poverty, 02 Infectious Disease, 03 Economy, 03 Environmental Degradation, 04 Education, 05 Energy, 07 Health, 11 Society, 12 Water, Academia, Budgets & Funding, Civil Society, Commerce, Gift Intelligence, microfinancing, Technologies
Explore the projects

http://marketplace.unreasonableinstitute.org

January 20, 2011

The Unreasonable Institute Empowers the Public to Choose the Next Wave of High-Impact Social Entrepreneurs

Global donations will determine which entrepreneurs gain admission to esteemed mentorship program

BOULDER, Colo.–(BUSINESS WIRE)–Starting Jan. 20, 45 social entrepreneurs will showcase their ventures in an online platform called the Unreasonable Finalist Marketplace (http://marketplace.unreasonableinstitute.org/). For 50 days, people from around the world are invited to vote with their wallets on the most viable ventures. The first 25 of the 45 finalists to raise $8,000 in the Marketplace will earn access to the highly acclaimed six-week mentorship program at the Unreasonable Institute. At the Institute, these social entrepreneurs undergo rigorous training sessions, including personal and entrepreneurial skill development, intensive workshops and hands-on guidance from leading thought leaders, innovators, entrepreneurs and investors.

The 45 finalists were selected from more than 300 applicants in 60 countries. Each applicant had to present a financially self-sustaining venture that has the ability to scale to serve the needs of at least 1 million people and demonstrates customer validation through sales or pilots. The finalists this year include a Chinese engineer with a prototype for waterless composting toilets; a 2010 CNN Hero from Kenya who has distributed over 10,000 solar lanterns; and an American inventor with a water purification system that can roll up to the size of a ruler.

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2011 Food Crisis, Urban Gardening, Social Systems

01 Agriculture, 01 Poverty, 03 Economy, 03 Environmental Degradation, 06 Family, 07 Health, 07 Other Atrocities, 11 Society, 12 Water, Earth Intelligence
Tom Atlee

Dear friends,

Food is basic.

Lester Brown — founder of both the Worldwatch Institute and the Earth Policy Institute, author of over 50 books on environmental issues, recipient of 26 honorary degrees and a MacArthur Fellowship, and (according to the Washington Post) “one of the world's most influential thinkers” — has just published a cogent article on the rapidly emerging global food crisis in Foreign Policy magazine.  He clearly outlines the problem and where attention and resources must be put to ameliorate it.

I knew such a crisis was emerging.  I hadn't realized it was emerging so rapidly.

I offer Brown's article here with no further commentary beyond this:  His essay — like most other insightful, data-filled articles of its type — omits the key fact that the political and economic systems that generate such situations are not built to respond to them in a truly life-affirming way.  “Issues” and “crises” are symptoms of those dysfunctional systems.  If social critics and activists spent half the attention and resources on actually transforming those systems that we expend on “issues” and “crises”, we would soon see those “issues” and “crises” being replaced by “solutions” and “creative initiatives”.  This is a supreme example of the kind of thing that a wiser democracy — if we had one — would start to address immediately, if it hadn't already done so decades ago.

While many of us work to transform our political and economic systems, we need also to consider what to do in the meantime as these issues and crises continue to grow.  So I also offer below two delightful articles on something that we can all do to ameliorate the impact of the food crisis on our own lives and communities.  The articles describe not only the functionality of urban gardening but also its enjoyment — and its spread in the face of rising food prices.  Significantly, such gardening is a key element in one of the more co-intelligent initiatives I've seen in recent years, the Transition Towns movement http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transition_Towns.

Food for thought… and action… and bellies.

Coheartedly,
Tom

=========================

http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2011/01/10/the_great_food_crisis_of_2011

The Great Food Crisis Of 2011
By Lester Brown

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Event: 5-7 Aug 2011, Kottayam, Kerala, India; Conf on Recycling & Reuse of Materials (Polymers, Wood, Leather, Glass, Metals, Ceramics, Semi Conductors, Water etc) and their products

03 Environmental Degradation, 03 India, 05 Energy, 07 Health, 12 Water, Waste (materials, food, etc)
Event info

This conference will be one of the big International meetings exclusively dedicated to Recycling and Reuse of Materials and their Products. The conference will be extremely useful in the sense that it will be attended by hundreds of Chemists, Physicists, Technologists and Engineers, making it a truly interdisciplinary conference. The goal of the conference emphasizes interdisciplinary research on processing, morphology, structure, properties and applications of recycling and reuse of materials and their products and their applications in automotive, civil, chemical, aerospace, computer and marine engineering.

This symposium will bring together a panel of highly-accomplished experts in the field of Recycling and Reuse of Materials and their Products. Talks will encompass basic studies and applications and will address topics of novel issues. During the three-day conference, we will listen to recognized authorities in the field as they discuss recent advances, difficulties, and breakthroughs in the field of recycling and reuse of materials and their products. The conference will feature keynote addresses, a number of plenary sessions, invited talks and contributed lectures focusing on specific tenets of recycling and reuse of materials and their products additionally, there will be several poster sessions, and four best poster presentations will be selected for the award. The conference is to be held on 5th, 6th and 7th, August 2011.
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Economics of Happiness: Going Local

01 Agriculture, 03 Economy, 06 Family, 07 Health, 09 Justice, 11 Society, 12 Water, Budgets & Funding, Civil Society, Commerce, Commercial Intelligence, Cultural Intelligence, Earth Intelligence, Ethics, Gift Intelligence, Methods & Process, Peace Intelligence, Reform

the Economics of Happiness

A film by Helena Norberg-Hodge, Steven Gorelick & John Page

‘Going local' is a powerful strategy to help repair our fractured world – our ecosystems, our societies and our selves. Far from the old institutions of power, people are starting to forge a very different future…

FeaturingVandana Shiva, Bill McKibben, David Korten, Michael Shuman, Juliet Schor, Richard Heinberg, Rob Hopkins, Andrew Simms, Zac Goldsmith, Samdhong Rinpoche

Film Trailer & Web Site

See Also:

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