Climate science explained in 60 seconds by the Royal Society and the US National Academy of Sciences.
Review: Risk
“We live in an age of fear”, says Dan Gardner in the opening pages of Risk: The Science and Politics of Fear. Despite the fact that you are more likely to live for longer and healthier now than any other time in human history, we are constantly afraid for our lives.
Homo sapien has been around for over 50,000 years. For much of this time we were hunter gatherers. Those who learned to fear the unknown were the ones who lived the longest. Thus, this trait was passed on down the generations until it became ingrained into our cognitive anatomy.
But for the past 3 or 4 centuries we have not been of that world. Most of the world’s people do not need to hunt for their food. With more than half of the global population living in cities we have become Homo sapien urbanus. But 50,000 years of evolution is hard to forget. Our intuition, still hard wired as a hunter gather, has been thrown into the urban mayhem that is modern life.
It is therefore not surprising that our instinct gets things wrong.
Using clear and elegant prose Dan Gardner explains the results of decades of psychological research on why our rational, logical mind often loses out to irrational gut instinct. And how modern day politicians, journalists and marketers have exploited our instinctive misunderstanding of risk to forward their agendas, stories and products. The author echoes President Franklin Roosvelt who famously said that ” the only thing we have to fear is…fear itself”
Filled with illuminating real world examples and interviews with experts, Risk: The Science and Politics of Fear is an engaging and thought provoking read that will make you question the decisions you make.
I believe this book should be a staple for everyone interested in understanding the science and perceptions of risk.
Earthquake liquefaction causes ground to open and close
The 2011 magnitude 9 earthquake in Japan was one of the largest earthquakes ever measured. Strong shaking and the consequent tsunami caused the death of nearly 18,000 people.
Strong vibrations in earthquakes can cause soil particles in the ground to jiggle about and lose contact with each other. If there is a lot of water within the ground the shaking causes soil to behave more like a liquid than a solid. This process is called liquefaction.
Footage taken by an American tourist shows dynamic movements of the ground during the Japan earthquake. The changing pressures caused by the soil movement can force water out of the ground and form moving cracks on the surface.
Note that this is not ground movements caused by the actual shaking in the earthquake, but by secondary soil movements.
Sustainable development using earthquake resistant bamboo houses
By Dalmeet Singh Chawla
Governments should pay more attention to the role that bamboo and rattan can play in building more sustainable and greener economies, a pressure group has told a UN meeting.
“Bamboo and rattan are not always seen as tools to deliver on the Sustainable Development Goals. We believe they bring major opportunities,” the International Network for Bamboo and Rattan (INBAR), an intergovernmental group based in Beijing, China, told the UN Forum on Forests in New York, United States earlier this month.
“Modern bamboo houses are more flexible in an earthquake, as they flex and absorb some of the energy.”
Hans Friederich, International Network for Bamboo and Rattan
For example, bamboo can reduce soil erosion and restore degraded lands, and ultimately help protect the livelihoods of people who depend on forest ecosystems. Products derived from the two plants could also bring income to millions of people in developing countries, the group says.
INBAR, which has 40 member states, called on policymakers to include bamboo and rattan in their action plans for forest development.
Credit: J’ai pris cette photo
INBAR also presented the Global Assessment of Bamboo and Rattan, an initiative that aims to exchange knowledge and data about bamboo and rattan. The assessment is expected to be launched at the World Forestry Congress in Durban, South Africa, in September 2015.
Bamboo and rattan grow across much of the developing world, including in many equatorial countries in Asia, Africa, Latin America and the Caribbean. They make good alternatives to wood charcoal and cotton fibres, and bamboo can be burned or used in biogas systems to provide a sustainable source of bio-energy.
Bamboo can grow at a rate of up to one metre per day, and can be harvested for productive use after 3-7 years, compared with 10-15 years for conventional trees. Hence, using bamboo as a replacement for other wood would lead to fewer trees being cut down for processing, INBAR says.
“Because bamboo grows quickly it also absorbs carbon quickly, and is what we call a strategic forest resource in the battle against climate change,” says Hans Friederich, director general of INBAR.
But Ramadhani Achdiawan, a researcher from the Centre for International Forestry Research in Indonesia, underlines the importance of forest planning for the long term if countries want to use bamboo and rattan for economic growth. For instance, Achdiawan says that “rattan needs trees to support its growth, so maintaining big trees in forests is very important”.
In its statement, INBAR also told UN representatives about bamboo and rattan’s potential as construction materials to build strong houses and furniture that will withstand natural disasters.
“The recent terrible earthquake in Nepal has highlighted the need to build better for natural disasters,” Friederich says. “Modern bamboo houses are more flexible in an earthquake, as they flex and absorb some of the energy.”
This article was originally published on SciDev.Net. Read the original article.
Quote: Barack Obama
“Tackling climate change is one of our greatest economic opportunities.”
Barack Obama
Earthquake triggered landslides in Nepal
This footage shows the danger and magnitude of landslides that were triggered by the May earthquake this year.
Earthquake progression in Turkey
Since 1939 the North Anatolian Fault in Turkey has had a series of large earthquakes (greater than magnitude 6.5) with a dominant westward progression towards Istanbul.
