East End - Long Island, New York

City’s Zika action plan enhances mosquito surveillance and control - Expands testing of humans and mosquitos, and launches public awareness campaign

nyc.gov - April 18, 2016

NEW YORK––Marking the start of mosquito season, Mayor de Blasio today detailed a three-year, five-borough plan to protect New Yorkers and prevent the spread of the Zika virus in New York City.

“We are doing all we can to target the mosquito that could transmit Zika here in the city, and building the capacity to respond to every possible scenario, no matter how unlikely,” said Mayor Bill de Blasio. “We will spare no effort to protect pregnant New Yorkers from the devastating consequences of Zika, and we ask New Yorkers to help us by taking simple steps to get rid of standing water where mosquitos can breed. We also ask pregnant women who may have been exposed to Zika to talk to their doctors about getting tested.”

(READ COMPLETE ARTICLE)

CLICK HERE - REPORT - Global Trends in Renewable Energy Investment 2016

nytimes.com - by The Editorial Board - April 4, 2016

Some world leaders, especially in developing countries like India, have long said it’s hard to reduce the emissions that are warming the planet because they need to use relatively inexpensive — but highly carbon-intensive — fuels like coal to keep energy affordable. That argument is losing its salience as the cost of renewable energy sources like wind and solar continues to fall.

insidebayarea.com - by Seth Borenstein - January 18, 2016

CLICK HERE - STUDY - Nature Climate Change - Industrial-era global ocean heat uptake doubles in recent decades

WASHINGTON -- The amount of man-made heat energy absorbed by the seas has doubled since 1997, a study released Monday showed.

Scientists have long known that more than 90 percent of the heat energy from man-made global warming goes into the world's oceans instead of the ground.

And they've seen ocean heat content rise in recent years. But the new study, using ocean-observing data that goes back to the British research ship Challenger in the 1870s and including high-tech modern underwater monitors and computer models, tracked how much man-made heat has been buried in the oceans in the past 150 years.

(READ COMPLETE ARTICLE)

A September 2008 photo released by the Ocean Conservancy on March 10, 2009, shows a trash-covered beach in Manilla, Philippines. (Tamara Thoreson Pierce/Ocean Conservancy/AP)

CLICK HERE - REPORT - World Economic Forum - The New Plastics Economy: Rethinking the future of plastics

CLICK HERE - STUDY - Independent study tallies 'true catch' of global fishing

washingtonpost.com - by Sarah Kaplan - January 20, 2016

There is a lot of plastic in the world’s oceans.

It coagulates into great floating “garbage patches” that cover large swaths of the Pacific. It washes up on urban beaches and remote islands, tossed about in the waves and transported across incredible distances before arriving, unwanted, back on land. It has wound up in the stomachs of more than half the world’s sea turtles and nearly all of its marine birds, studies say . . .

. . . But that quantity pales in comparison with the amount that the World Economic Forum expects will be floating into the oceans by the middle of the century.

Image: A photograph of a city skyline at dusk with lamps in the foreground that resemble stylized trees.

huffingtonpost.com - October 20th, 2015 - Jeremy Rifkin

The global economy is slowing, productivity is waning in every region of the world and unemployment remains stubbornly high in every country. At the same time, economic inequality between the rich and the poor is at the highest point in human history. In 2010 the combined wealth of the 388 richest people in the world equaled the combined wealth of the poorest half of the human race.

(VIEW COMPLETE ARTICLE)

sustainableeastend.blogspot.com - by Francesca Rheannon - October 21, 2015

LISTEN - CLICK HERE

With its miles of low-lying coast land and population pressures, the East End of Long Island is vulnerable to disaster. It could come suddenly in the form of a storm like Hurricane Sandy. Or creep inexorably toward us on the encroaching tide of sea level rise or the degradation of our land and water resources. Or from some other completely unexpected direction, like a pandemic.

Yet we are also a community rich in people committed to the health and well-being of the region. We also have fisheries and farmland to sustain us.

Bringing our resources to bear on building community resilience is the goal of the East End Resilience Network.

We talk today with the organizer of that network, Michael McDonald. As Coordinator of the Global Health Response and Resilience Alliance and Chairman of Global Resilience Systems, Inc., McDonald has been involved in building resilience networks all over the world.

(READ COMPLETE ARTICLE)

odi.org - Aditya Bahadur, Emma Lovell, Emily Wilkinson, Thomas Tanner - August 2015

CLICK HERE - Resilience in the SDGs - Developing an indicator for Target 1.5 that is fit for purpose (7 page .PDF file)

We outline a comprehensive approach for developing a cross-sectoral, multi-dimensional and dynamic understanding of resilience. This underpins the core message of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) that development is multi-faceted and the achievement of many of the individual development goals is dependent on the accomplishment of other goals. It also acknowledges that shocks and stresses can reverse years of development gains and efforts to eradicate poverty by 2030. Crucially, this approach to understanding resilience draws on data that countries will collect for the SDGs anyway and entails only a small additional burden in this regard.

(CLICK HERE FOR ADDITIONAL INFORMATION)

Increased use of low-carbon energy sources instead of fossil energy sources is making it easier for countries to decouple economic growth from greenhouse gas emissions, according to a new report.  Photograph: Mick Tsikas/Reuters

New report from green think tank Heinrich Boll shows OECD countries grew their economies 16% in last decade – and cut greenhouse gas emissions 6.4%

CLICK HERE - RESEARCH REPORT - Turning point: Decoupling Greenhouse Gas Emissions from Economic Growth

theguardian.com - by Bruce Watson - September 26, 2015

As the world works out how to avoid catastrophic climate change, one of the biggest questions remaining is whether we can continue to grow economically without also increasing greenhouse gas emissions.

Image: The Svalbard Global Seed Vault was opened on Feb. 26, 2008. Carved into the Arctic permafrost and filled with samples of the world's most important seeds, it's a Noah's Ark of food crops to be used in the event of a global catastrophe. AFP/Getty Images

npr.org - September 23rd, 2015

A tall rectangular building juts out of a mountainside on a Norwegian island just 800 miles from the North Pole. Narrow and sharply edged, the facility cuts an intimidating figure against the barren Arctic background. But the gray building holds the key to the earth's biodiversity.

(VIEW COMPLETE ARTICLE)

CLICK HERE - WHO - Developing Global Norms for Sharing Data and Results during Public Health Emergencies

blogs.bmj.com - by Trish Groves / The BMJ - September 8, 2015

The whole debate on sharing clinical study data has focused on transparency, reproducibility, and completing the evidence base for treatments. Yet public health emergencies such as the Ebola and MERS outbreaks provide a vitally important reason for sharing study data, usually before publication or even before submission to a journal, and ideally in a public repository.

(READ COMPLETE ARTICLE)

CLICK HERE - Wikipedia - Ingelfinger rule

fema.gov

Flood insurance policyholders: If you filed a flood insurance claim after Hurricane Sandy, you may be eligible to have your claim reviewed and you can ask us to take another look.

Our call centers have extended hours to assist you. You can call toll-free 866-337-4262.

Why are we doing this?
There have been allegations that some policyholders were underpaid for their Hurricane Sandy claims and that the claims process was not effective. FEMA wants to make sure policyholders who filed Sandy claims are paid what they are owed under their policy.

Our resource page has the full list of times and more information to assist you:

CLICK HERE - FEMA - Hurricane Sandy National Flood Insurance Program Claims Review

https://www.facebook.com/FEMA/posts/10153263822614965

Photographer - Andrew Harrer / Bloomberg

bloomberg.com - by Tara Patel - August 31, 2015

Elon Musk unveils Tesla Energy, his plan to fundamentally change the way the world uses energy on an extreme scale. Picture: Patrick T Fallon

iol.co.za - by Nichola Groom and Paul Lienert- May 4, 2015

Los Angeles, California - Tesla has unveiled Tesla Energy - storage systems or batteries for homes, companies and utilities that will expand its business beyond electric vehicles and tap into a fast-growing area of the energy industry.

(READ COMPLETE ARTICLE)

Image: This map shows various coastal storm damage risk management strategies communities can use to adapt to increased flood risk by 2100 (at a non-specific location). Although specific communities should consider a range of all possible solutions based on site-specific conditions, not all strategies to reduce coastal storm damage risk are structural solutions.  A text-only version of this information is available at the bottom of the page.

nad.usace.army.mil

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers recently completed a report detailing the results of a two-year study to address coastal storm and flood risk to vulnerable populations, property, ecosystems, and infrastructure affected by Hurricane Sandy in the United States' North Atlantic region.