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Javier E

Health Battle Over Soda Flares in Mexico - WSJ.com - 0 views

online.wsj.com/...3407104579037320321621280.html

health mexico soda

shared by Javier E on 29 Aug 13 - No Cached
  • Seven out of 10 Mexican adults over the age of 20 are either overweight or obese, according to the country's latest national health survey. An estimated 10 million Mexicans have diabetes, or roughly 9% of the population, the highest proportion in any country with more than 100 million inhabitants.
  • Mexico is second only to the U.S. in per capita soda intake
  • Soda is a household staple in Mexico, with some families drinking it at every meal. Diabetes is now Mexico's second-biggest killer after heart disease, having sprinted from ninth place in 1980.
  • ...2 more annotations...
  • Last year, Latin America, anchored by Mexico, where Coca-Cola's biggest independent bottler is based, was Coke's second-most-profitable region, after Europe.
  • "In the Mexican countryside, if you go to somebody's house and they don't have Coke to offer, they apologize. Coca-Cola symbolizes prestige,"
oliviaodon

PLOS Medicine: Integration of Information Technologies in Clinical Studies in Nicaragua - 1 views

journals.plos.org/...article

latin america ICT medicine integration technologies

shared by oliviaodon on 23 Oct 16 - No Cached
  • PDCS follows 3,800 children aged two to twelve with the aim of characterizing the natural history of dengue transmission, obtaining biological samples for vaccine safety research, and establishing appropriate infrastructure for future dengue vaccine trials.
  • PDCS operations are based in a Health Center where cohort children receive all primary care and are screened for dengue.
  • frequent interruptions in electrical, phone, and Internet service, high temperatures and humidity, and the absence of street names and house addresses were obvious obstacles to be overcome.
  • ...2 more annotations...
  • To overcome these challenges, we implemented a series of low-cost yet cutting-edge ICTs.
  • we found that the use of these technologies greatly streamlines information flow and accessibility, improves the quality of data and QC procedures, and reduces operational costs. As a result, we have witnessed the tremendous potential for using ICTs to bolster the public health infrastructure in resource-limited developing country settings
  • oliviaodon on 23 Oct 16
     
    This article emphasized the use of ICTs in healthcare to overcome common obstacles in developing countries.
oliviaodon

Environmental Heatlh in Nicaragua: Addressing Key Environmental Challenges - 0 views

www.worldbank.org/...salud-ambiental-nicaragua

nicaragua sustainability environmental

shared by oliviaodon on 23 Oct 16 - No Cached
  • Environmental health risks impose a significant burden on Nicaragua’s economy, amounting to 2.6 billion NIO or 2.4% of the country’s GDP.
  • The Latin America and Caribbean (LAC) region has a unique mix of qualities and challenges when it comes to the environment. It is exceptionally endowed with natural assets, with globally significant biodiversity and valuable crops, and also harbors the world’s greatest carbon sink in the Amazon.
  • At the same time, however, the region registers the highest rates of urbanization in the developing world with pollution, overuse of its water and natural resources and detrimental impacts on the health of people, especially the poor, and the environment.
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  • The purpose of the series is to contribute to the global knowledge exchange on innovation in environmental and water resources management and the pursuit of greener and more inclusive growth.
malonema1

Environmental Sustainability Issues in Nicaragua - 0 views

www.fsdinternational.org/...envissues

nicaragua environment

shared by malonema1 on 23 Oct 16 - No Cached
  • As both the largest country in Central America and the least populated, Nicaragua has the opportunity to enforce environmental protection laws and conserve a relatively large amount of natural resources. However, a variety of forces are driving deforestation and rapidly increasing pollution.
  • Known as the "Land of Lakes and Volcanoes," and reveling in its status in Central America as the country with the most fresh water, Nicaragua has very little safe drinking water. Those who cannot afford to purchase water are extremely vulnerable to a variety of health issues.
  • Export agriculture in Central America has long been a booming business for U.S. corporations. Yet pesticides employed at fruit and cotton plantations and other export crops throughout the last 40 years contributed to health problems for entire generations.
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  • Around 75 percent of Nicaraguan forests have already been transformed into crop and pasture land, and at least 50 percent of that deforestation has occurred since 1950. Yet there is still hope for preservation.
  • Due to policy shifts, 85 percent of the land that formed part of the reserve on the San Cristobal-Casitas volcano now belongs to one private owner
  • overnment control of the remaining 15 percent is all but nonexistent. Landless peasants, large coffee growers, and cattle ranches are slowly settling into these public lands such as San Cristobal, and the government is failing to stop it
  • When the Chamorro government created the Bosawás Biosphere Reserve in 1991, the territory encompassed 1.8 million acres—7 percent of Nicaragua's land, including a rich section of rainforest. However, they neglected to inform the Mayangna and Miskito indigenous peoples who lived there that the land was now federally protected (and hence, off limits from their traditional uses of fishing, hunting, and crop raising)
  • malonema1 on 02 Nov 16
     
    This article talks about the land rights in Nicaragua and the lack of protection for forests.
nick_gauthier

For Nicaraguans, International Women's Day Marks a Step Back | Human Rights Watch - 0 views

www.hrw.org/...nal-womens-day-marks-step-back

international human human rights women rights nicaragua politics diplomacy history

shared by nick_gauthier on 05 Nov 16 - No Cached
  • Until recently, Nicaraguan women had something to celebrate on March 8, International Women’s Day.
  • decades ago the government eliminated some of the sexist laws that discriminated against women
  • Daniel Ortega’s government is chipping away at the very laws that put them in place. Nowhere is this setback starker than in women’s basic rights to life and health
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  • 2006 the National Assembly enacted a blanket ban on abortion, criminalizing the procedure even when a woman’s life is at risk
  • We also asked the Supreme Court to decide on the constitutionality of the ban, and called on President Ortega to veto the measure stripping the penal code of a provision that had allowed legal abortion for more than 130 years.
  • but women’s lives and health remain at risk in the meantime. According to research by Dr. Arnold Toruño of the Universidad Autónoma de Nicaragua-León, historically although the law has prohibited induced abortions, there has in practice been a high rate of them in Nicaragua.
  • nick_gauthier on 05 Nov 16
     
    This is an article from 2008 outlining the measures Ortegas newly instated government (at the time) took that reversed Women's Human Right's progress. Banning abortion was step back for International Women's day.
Javier E

G.D.P. Doesn't Measure Happiness - NYTimes.com - 0 views

www.nytimes.com/...-doesnt-measure-happiness.html

US economic performance measure GDP happiness goal national education history

shared by Javier E on 09 Oct 11 - Cached
  • “happiness is, in the end, a much more complicated concept than income. Yet it is also a laudable and much more ambitious policy objective.”
  • it’s a challenge to set criteria for measuring happiness. However, in a conversation, she told me she did not see it as an insurmountable one: “It doesn’t have to be perfect; after all, it took us decades to agree upon what to include in G.D.P. and it is still far from a perfect metric.”
  • there remains the issue of being No. 1. Many of us have lived our lives in a country that has thought itself the world’s most powerful and successful. But with the United States economy in a frustrating stall as China rises, it seems that period is coming to an end. We are suffering a national identity crisis, and politicians are competing with one another to win favor by assuring a return to old familiar ways.
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  • When Newsweek ranked the “world’s best countries” based on measures of health, education and politics, the United States ranked 11th. In the 2011 Quality of Life Index by Nation Ranking, the United States was 31st. Similarly, in recent rankings of the world’s most livable cities, the Economist Intelligence Unit has the top American entry at No. 29, Mercer’s Quality of Living Survey has the first United States entry at No. 31 and Monocle magazine showed only 3 United States cities in the top 25.
  • On each of these lists, the top performers were heavily concentrated in Northern Europe, Australia and Canada with strong showings in East Asian countries from Japan to Singapore. It is no accident that there is a heavy overlap between the top performing countries and those that also outperform the United States in terms of educational performance
  • Nearly all the world’s quality-of-life leaders are also countries that spend more on infrastructure than the United States does. In addition, almost all are more environmentally conscious and offer more comprehensive social safety nets and national health care to their citizens.
  • providing the basics to ensure a high quality of life is not a formula for excess or the kind of economic calamities befalling parts of Europe today. For example, many of the countries that top quality-of-life lists, like Sweden, Luxembourg, Denmark, the Netherlands and Norway, all rank high in lists of fiscally responsible nations — well ahead of the United States, which ranks 28th on the Sovereign Fiscal Responsibility Index.
lenaurick

This Caribbean island makes 25% of its money selling visas - Nov. 6, 2015 - 0 views

money.cnn.com/...index.html

politics caribbean foreign policy money

shared by lenaurick on 28 Aug 16 - No Cached
  • For the starting price of just $200,000 you can buy citizenship in the Caribbean nation of Antigua and Barbuda.
  • Antigua launched its "citizenship by investment program" in 2013, and it has proved so popular that it now accounts for about 25% of government revenue. Some 500 people have already bought their way into the country of just 90,000, according to local media reports.
  • Antigua says it is using its windfall to help revive the nation's flagging tourism industry, and to invest in health care and education.
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  • "[These] revenues are inherently volatile, and carry risks of a sudden stop," the IMF wrote in October. "[They] should not be used to fund recurrent government expenditure but rather to clear arrears, pay down debt, build buffers, and fund key strategic infrastructure projects."
  • lenaurick on 28 Aug 16
     
    This article talked about a fairly new way that Antigua and Barbuda was using tourism to their advantage. The nation is now selling citizenship for 200,000 to invest in health care and education. While this seems relatively positive the IMF believes that they should be used in different ways, and that they are "inherently volatile". However it was interesting to me that the selling of citizenships now accounts for 25% of government revenue. This article helped me to understand the economy of Antigua and Barbuda, and showed a positive way that they were using their tourism.
evanpitt14

A&B most vulnerable of CARICOM states | Antigua Observer Newspaper - 0 views

antiguaobserver.com/t-vulnerable-of-caricom-states

shared by evanpitt14 on 30 Sep 16 - No Cached
  • is the most vulnerable of CARICOM states.
  • most vulnerable groups include women, youth, elderly, disabled and children in exploitative labour conditions.
  • doesn’t measure existing poverty
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  • youth are a critical vulnerable group
  • Risk factors identified include teenage pregnancy, domestic violence, ineffective school systems and high health care costs.
  • at risk of becoming poor
  • grow up in abusive families and violent communities, leading to deviant behaviours such as drug abuse and violence, resulting in young males to be both the main victims and the main perpetrators of crime in the Caribbean
  • chain effect
  • gender violence
  • However, women showed greater resilience than men in retaining jobs during the 2009 economic crisis, possibly due to better secondary and tertiary educational performance.
  • evanpitt14 on 30 Sep 16
     
    This articles tells how poverty affects Caribbean countries and especially A+B. It says that this can lead to abuse, violence and drug use.
bennetttony

More Than 70% of Nicaraguans Support Ortega's Re-Election | News | teleSUR English - 1 views

www.telesurtv.net/...e-Election--20161021-0009.html

shared by bennetttony on 04 Nov 16 - No Cached
  • The latest result was released by the pollster M&R Consultores, which also said that 64.8 percent of respondents approve of the Sandinista government, highlighting the social programs, infrastructure, free health care and education, stability and economic growth, among other achievements.
  • bennetttony on 04 Nov 16
     
    This shows that many people continue to support Ortega even though there is evidence of him doing wrong things in the Nicaraguan government.
bennetttony

How Ortega Took the Suspense Out of Nicaragua's Presidential Election - 0 views

www.worldpoliticsreview.com/...aragua-s-presidential-election

nicaragua

shared by bennetttony on 04 Nov 16 - No Cached
  • And we can already predict with absolute certainty that Daniel Ortega will be elected president. Again.
  • Since coming to power, the former Marxist rebel’s ideology has taken an idiosyncratic twist, blending elements of capitalism, populism, new age spirituality and, above all, the tendencies of an autocrat whose paramount objective is to remain in power
  • Next week’s election will mark the seventh time he runs for president, after having ruled the country from 1979 to 1985 as head of the junta.
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  • The last time Ortega won, in 2011, the election results were vehemently rejected by the opposition, which declared that Ortega had become a dictator. The Carter Center said the elections lacked “the most basic guarantees for the integrity of the voting process.”
  • The decision to put her on the ticket formalizes what has already been a high-profile role for the first lady. She is the official government spokesperson, and as such the only government figure authorized to speak to the media. But her influence goes far beyond that.
  • Murillo plays a pivotal role in strengthening the Ortegas’ standing with women, which suffered enormously after he was accused in 1998 by his stepdaughter, Zoilamerica Narvaez, of sexually abusing her for many years, starting when she was a young girl.
  • Nicaraguans believe that Ortega, who is 70 years old and reportedly having health problems, is working to secure his family’s hold on power when he is ready to relinquish the rudder.
  • bennetttony on 04 Nov 16
     
    This article outlines how presidential candidate Ortega is taking advantage of the government in Nicaragua and how he plans on using it for his own benefit.
Cecilia Ergueta

How digital connectivity is transforming Latin America | World Economic Forum - 0 views

www.weforum.org/...-is-transforming-latin-america

nicaragua ICTs digital divide

shared by Cecilia Ergueta on 17 Nov 16 - No Cached
  • 90% percent of the region is covered by mobile broadband
  • only about 50% of those people are “connected” and online
  • three primary barriers to internet use: a lack of locally-relevant content, a lack of digital skills and limited affordability among segments of the population.
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  • there is a direct correlation between internet and the use of information and communications technology (ICT) in creating jobs and reducing poverty
  • GSMA’s study found a lack of local content as the most important factor for a lack of connectivity – more than affordability or coverage – in most of Latin America
  • They are unaware of how much research, data, health information and other tools can be accessed online
Cecilia Ergueta

The Digital Divide: Closing the Gap between Access and Innovation in Latin America - COHA - 0 views

www.coha.org/nd-innovation-in-latin-america

digital divide nicaragua ICTs

shared by Cecilia Ergueta on 17 Nov 16 - No Cached
  • With sustained growth blessing the region, Latin America found itself with an expansive business sector and a demanding public sector, all looking to technology for answers to big social issue
  • Most Latin American nations could be described as straddling the gap of the digital divide in a sustained balancing act.
  • “digital divide” has become shorthand for any gap between individuals, households, businesses and geographic areas with regards to both their opportunities and access to Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs
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  • the digital divide in Latin America, even in an international context, always has been about more than just access to the Internet, or a computer.
  • a big majority of poorer areas within countries—the periphery of the periphery—continue to live in the dark, some with the equipment (machinery) but not the tools (knowledge) to promote  the same socioeconomic empowerment of their richer counterparts
  • a majority of the targeted populations have not become integrated like their more affluent neighbors
  • a problem of knowledge and sustainable innovation
  • over the last 10 years, the digital divide has been shrinking in terms of accessibility based on the numbers of fixed phone lines, mobile subscribers, and Internet users around the world.
  • Few reports can be found focusing on specific countries within the region, leading most international analysts to base their generalizations based on the experience on similar groups of countries
  • Unprecedented economic growth now gives Latin America the opportunity to address some of its most pressing need
  • opportunities in Latin America for sales growth are considered massive, especially for equipment manufacturers and as well as for telecom services providers
  • government-sponsored programs focus mostly on expanding access
  • computer ownership continues to rise with unprecedented speed, even if Internet access proliferation follows at much reduced speed.
  • policy initiatives have remained access-obsessed without evolving to tackle some of the effects of persistent inequality characteristic of the region
  • Dr. Sanabria successfully managed to implement ICTs to give medical advice to remote, marginalized communities
  • an understanding of how technology penetration works can, with some innovation, breed sustainable and meaningful development
  • the work of Fundación Proyecto Maniapure and other organizations like it are having a more lasting impact in alleviating poverty, health deficits, and inequality, than perhaps some nationally sponsored projects that are bringing more technology to communities, but are not quite putting it to its full possible use.
g-dragon

Antigua's volunteer medics on call around the clock - BBC News - 0 views

www.bbc.com/...world-latin-america-36152493

shared by g-dragon on 13 Jun 16 - No Cached
    • g-dragon
      g-dragon on 13 Jun 16
       
      Antigua is facing many problem now, but it is not just known for the challenges that it must face. A self donation based clinic helps injured people on the south side of Antigua and the workers there do no get paid. Many people who get into accidents there do not call the police because they know that it will take too long for them to get to them. The health clinic has also become a search and rescue team. Donations have gotten the ABSAC an ambulance, two boats, and a fire truck. The only problem is that as more people come there and expect treatment like a hospital, the clinic runs out of supplies. They also will need more devoted volunteers to work there.  - Daniel Lin
g-dragon

Antigua and Barbuda - 1 views

www.state.gov/...78876.htm

shared by g-dragon on 12 Jun 16 - No Cached
    • g-dragon
      g-dragon on 12 Jun 16
       
      Antigua and Barbuda is a diplomatic government with laws, but sometimes those laws are not followed well. Some problems are excessive force by police, bad prison conditions, sexual abuse of children, and discrimination and violence against women. There are been reports of police brutality, corruption, and discrimination against gay people. Prisoners are treated poorly by prison guards and children are held in the same prison as adults. There are not a lot of women in the government. There are 1/17 in the House of Representatives, 2/17 in the Senate and none in the cabinet. There are also no minority members in parliament or cabinet. On the bright side, both speaker of the House and president of the Senate are women. Another problem is the violence and abuse towards women. Since women do not testify against their harassers, the government has had trouble addressing this issue however they have been trying to increase women's awareness of their rights and providing a safe place for women and children.  - Daniel Lin
    • g-dragon
      g-dragon on 12 Jun 16
       
      Part Two  The few schools that the government provided often has shortages and the parents often provide the chairs, tables, and books. There is a huge problem with child abuse like rape and men having sexual relationships with young girls. Contrary to other sources, this one states,"girls and boys have equal access to health care and other public services." They also state that there are no reports of discrimination against people with disabilities considering that there is not a law that prohibits discrimination against the handicapped. - Daniel Lin
Javier E

The Global Elite's Favorite Strongman - NYTimes.com - 0 views

www.nytimes.com/...paul-kagame-rwanda.html

politics Africa Rwanda development

shared by Javier E on 05 Sep 13 - No Cached
  • No country in Africa, if not the world, has so thoroughly turned itself around in so short a time, and Kagame has shrewdly directed the transformation.
  • Kagame has made indisputable progress fighting the single greatest ill in Africa: poverty. Rwanda is still very poor — the average Rwandan lives on less than $1.50 a day — but it is a lot less poor than it used to be. Kagame’s government has reduced child mortality by 70 percent; expanded the economy by an average of 8 percent annually over the past five years; and set up a national health-insurance program — which Western experts had said was impossible in a destitute African country.
  • Progressive in many ways, Kagame has pushed for more women in political office, and today Rwanda has a higher percentage of them in Parliament than any other country. His countless devotees, at home and abroad, say he has also delicately re-engineered Rwandan society to defuse ethnic rivalry, the issue that exploded there in 1994 and that stalks so many African countries, often dragging them into civil war.
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  • The question is not so much about his results but his methods. He has a reputation for being merciless and brutal, and as the accolades have stacked up, he has cracked down on his own people and covertly supported murderous rebel groups in neighboring Congo
  • In some areas of the country, there are rules, enforced by village commissars, banning people from dressing in dirty clothes or sharing straws when drinking from a traditional pot of beer, even in their own homes, because the government considers it unhygienic. Many Rwandans told me that they feel as if their president is personally watching them. “It’s like there’s an invisible eye everywhere,” said Alice Muhirwa, a member of an opposition political party. “Kagame’s eye.”
  • why has the West — and the United States in particular — been so eager to embrace Kagame, despite his authoritarian tendencies?
  • Kagame has become a rare symbol of progress on a continent that has an abundance of failed states and a record of paralyzing corruption. Kagame was burnishing the image of the entire billion-dollar aid industry. “You put your money in, and you get results out,” said the diplomat, who insisted he could not talk candidly if he was identified. Yes, Kagame was “utterly ruthless,” the diplomat said, but there was a mutual interest in supporting him, because Kagame was proving that aid to Africa was not a hopeless waste and that poor and broken countries could be fixed with the right leadership.
  • Though Rwanda has made tremendous strides, the country is still a demographic time bomb. It’s already one of the most densely populated in Africa — its 11 million people squeezed into a space smaller than Maryland — and despite a recent free vasectomy program, Rwanda still has an alarmingly high birthrate. Most Rwandans are peasants, their lives inexorably yoked to the land, and just about every inch of that land, from the papyrus swamps to the cloud-shrouded mountaintops, is spoken for.
  • much has improved under his stewardship. Rwandan life expectancy, for instance, has increased to 56 years, from 36 in 1994. Malaria used to be a huge killer, but Kagame’s government has embarked on a wide-scale spraying campaign and has distributed millions of nets to protect people when they are sleeping — malarial mosquitoes tend to feed at night — and malaria-related deaths plummeted 85 percent between 2005 and 2011.
  • Kagame hopes to make more money from coffee, tea and gorillas — Rwanda is home to some of the last remaining mountain gorillas, and each year throngs of Western tourists pay thousands of dollars to see them.
  • aid flows to Rwanda because Kagame is a celebrated manager. He’s a hands-on chief executive who is less interested in ideology than in making things work. He loves new technology — he’s an avid tweeter — and is very good at breaking sprawling, ambitious projects into manageable chunks. Rwanda jumped to 52nd last year, from 158th in 2005, on the World Bank’s Ease of Doing Business annual rating, precisely because Kagame set up a special unit within his government, which broke down the World Bank’s ratings system, category by category, and figured out exactly what was needed to improve on each criterion.
Ellie McGinnis

Guatemala's president: 'My country bears the scars from the war on drugs' | World news ... - 0 views

www.theguardian.com/...tto-molina-war-drugs-guatemala

guatemala narcotics trafficking pérez molina

shared by Ellie McGinnis on 04 Aug 13 - No Cached
  • caught in the crossfire between the nations to the south (principally Peru, Colombia and Bolivia) that produce illegal narcotics and the country to the north (America)
  • Mexico and Colombia – partially funded by the US – stepped up surveillance of aircraft and airspace. Simultaneously the US began more vigorous co-operation with Mexico to stop drugs shipments by sea.
  • the concept of the "transit" nations was born – countries in Central America through which drugs were passed en route to the world's largest drugs market,
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  • he declared that the war on drugs had failed and that the international community needed to end the "taboo" of debating decriminalisation
  • Pérez Molina is unequivocal about the need to search for an alternative to the current paradigm,
  • For Colombia, drugs are a matter of national security; for other countries it is mainly a health and crime issue."
  • The cartels have grown in strength, the flow of arms towards Central America from the north has grown and the deaths in our country have grown. This has forced us to search for a more appropriate response."
  • The situation in Guatemala has become more serious as Mexican cartels – taking refuge from an attempt to militarily defeat them – have inserted themselves into Guatemala and sought to control the trafficking routes through that country
  • with the cartels come other nightmares: kidnapping, extortion, contract killers and people trafficking.
  • Pérez Molina concedes: "Drug traffickers have been able to penetrate the institutions in this country by employing the resources and money they have.
  • western countries fail to understand the reality that countries such as Guatemala and those of Central America have to live in," said Pérez Molina
  • due to a lack of understanding on the part of western countries.
  • arguing explicitly for the introduction of a regulated market for drugs. Not full legalisation, but a controlled, regulated market for the production, distribution and sale of narcotics.
  • the Guatemalans have been consulting with the Beckley Foundation, probably the leading global advocate of deploying science and empirical evidence to drive the debate about the war on drugs
  • "I believe they should reflect on this, to avoid these deaths that are occurring in transit countries. We don't produce and we don't consume, but we are countries that suffer deaths and place our institutions and our democracy at risk.
Javier E

Caribbean Nations to Seek Reparations, Putting Price on Damage of Slavery - NYTimes.com - 0 views

www.nytimes.com/...rice-on-damage-of-slavery.html

caribbean slavery reparations suit

shared by Javier E on 22 Oct 13 - No Cached
  • Spurred by a sense of injustice that has lingered for two centuries, the countries plan to compile an inventory of the lasting damage they believe they suffered and then demand an apology and reparations from the former colonial powers of Britain, France and the Netherlands.
  • “Our constant search and struggle for development resources is linked directly to the historical inability of our nations to accumulate wealth from the efforts of our peoples during slavery and colonialism,” said Baldwin Spencer, prime minister of Antigua and Barbuda, in July this year. Reparations, he said, must be directed toward repairing the damage inflicted by slavery and racism.
  • “What happened in the Caribbean and West Africa was so egregious we feel that bringing a case in the I.C.J. would have a decent chance of success,” Mr. Day said. “The fact that you were subjugating a whole class of people in a massively discriminatory way has no parallel,” he added.
  • ...1 more annotation...
  • Some Caribbean nations have already begun assessing the lasting damage they suffered, ranging from stunted educational and economic opportunities to dietary and health problems, Mr. Day said.
Javier E

A Strategy for National Security, Focused on Sustainability - NYTimes.com - 0 views

www.nytimes.com/...focused-on-sustainability.html

US strategy national security alternative diplomacy sustainable

shared by Javier E on 05 May 11 - No Cached
  • “We must recognize that security means more than defense,” they write. After ending the 20th century as the world’s most powerful country, “we failed to recognize that dominance, like fossil fuel, is not a sustainable form of energy.”
  • In their paper, the officers argue that the United States has to move from “containment” — the foreign policy established after World War II to limit the expansion and influence of the Soviet Union — to what they call “sustainment” or sustainability.
  • The first priority, they write, should be “intellectual capital and a sustainable infrastructure of education, health and social services to provide for the continuing development and growth of America’s youth.”
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  • the country’s security may require “a hard look at the distribution of our treasure,” arguing that the historic focus on defense and protectionism has meant the neglect of international development and diplomacy. And with technology piercing the isolation of nations, they write that the United States has a stake in helping countries held down by illiteracy and poverty.
  • the country must face the demands for water, food, land and energy.
Javier E

One of America's top climate scientists is an evangelical Christian. She's on a mission... - 0 views

www.washingtonpost.com/...9-adf3-f70f78c156e8_story.html

christian religion climate change gop stewardship god

shared by Javier E on 16 Jul 19 - No Cached
  • “What was life like before the Industrial Revolution?” Hayhoe asked during a keynote address at the Citizens’ Climate Lobby conference in Washington, D.C. “It was short. It was brutal.” A woman’s work was an endless cycle of drudgery. Economies were built on the backs of children and slaves. “So I realized that I am truly and profoundly grateful for the benefits and the blessings that fossil fuels have brought us.”
  • They were clapping for fossil fuels because it was cathartic to acknowledge that, for all the damage done, coal and gas and oil had been gifts to mankind.
  • She knows how to speak to oilmen, to Christians, to farmers and ranchers, having lived for years in Lubbock, Tex., with her pastor husband. She is a scientist who thinks that we’ve talked enough about science, that we need to talk more about matters of the heart.
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  • the climate problem, while understood through science, can be solved only through faith. Faith in one another. Faith in our ability to do something bold, together. Faith that the pain of change, that the sacrifices required, will lead to a promised land.
  • She sees herself more like Cassandra, who predicted the fall of Troy but was not believed, or Jeremiah, whose omens were inspired by selfish kings and cultish priests in ancient Jerusalem. “We are warning people of the consequences of their choices, and that’s what prophets did,” she said, over plates of samosas and grape leaves, and “you get the same thing that prophets have gotten throughout history.”
  • In the United States, nearly 40 percent of university scientists have a religious affiliation, according to new research by Rice University professor of sociology Elaine Howard Ecklund; for scientists working outside of universities, that percentage jumps to 77. And many agnostic or atheist scientists still see themselves as spiritual, according to Ecklund and Christopher Scheitle, assistant professor of sociology at West Virginia University.
  • Hayhoe has built followings on Twitter, YouTube and TED.com, where her talk on climate has racked up 1.7 million views. She is also a lead author on the U.S. government’s latest National Climate Assessment, which says that the climate effects we are already suffering from are going to get worse for our health and economy.
  • I would argue, from my research, that we talk about climate change as something demanded to be addressed by faith, not politics,” Ecklund says. Politics creates boundaries, she says, but “faith is extremely motivating to people.”
  • When she put the climate problem in terms of the heart and soul, not just the brain or politics, her family started to see. Taking care of the planet was another way to take care of people. Another way to love
  • In the beginning — if recent history is our beginning — climate change began to make winters milder and heat waves more frequent. In the east, it made storms wetter; in the west, it made droughts drier. Human infrastructure was strained by melting permafrost in Alaska and larger wildfires in California. It was happening now, and not enough people understood, or believed, that they had a role to play in what could happen next.
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