lugon

the case for early school closure when there's a flu pandemic

2006-11-05T10:14:03Z

Please, do take a look at The Case for Early School Closure.

The World Health Organisation has acknowledged the next pandemic may be as deadly as bird flu is now for humans. That's 59% overall, and higher for people less than 20 years old.

Closing schools early implies people talking about it now, and stocking up on food and water and essential medicines for at the very least 2 weeks.

Closing schools early plus a few other things could bring the percentage of people ill from 30% down to 4%. But, here's the trick, we need to be prepared.

Time to talk to family and neighbours and get things done.

Flu Wiki

Pandemic Flu Awareness Week

2006-09-24T09:49:43Z

Pandemic Flu Awareness Week 2006

Thought you might like to know. And link to. And comment on. And DO.

So there's avian flu in China. And?

2005-11-20T09:25:55Z

In my previous article I mentioned avian flu and the possibility of a pandemic. The links are still relevant if you want to take a look there.

Here's an update:

It looks like China is having more flu outbreaks in birds, with a couple of human cases. See details.

A Californian man has created a blog to write about his local community preparation. Knowing the ability of influenza viri to cause silent disease and spread while there are no symptoms, and knowing the inability of a number of governments to do their (our) thing all that well, it looks like it's at least one of the right things to do.

Current statistics are not all that important. The important thing is the unknown: when will a mutated strain start spreading effectively and unstoppably?

Lots of extremely well presented stuff is here if you want to educate yourself. I insist: it's really good stuff. Powerpoint/PDF presentations are nice, easy reading.

C'mon: get a bit anxious, despair at the complexity of the challenge (see the "daunting task" article), then roll up your sleeves!

A flu pandemic: likely? soon? damage? action?

2005-10-04T09:10:08Z

The conditions for a flu pandemic are three - and two and a half of them are already present:

there's a new virus
it knows how to cause disease in humans
it may be learning how to go from one human to the next easily

When would it hit? No one knows. For all we know, it might start today, before 2006 ...

How hard would it be? No one knows. Currently it's 50+ deaths out of 100+ diseased - there are also non-certified cases, to be sure. Changes to be more transmissible may mean it's also less harmful ... but a case-fatality-ratio (dead among the diseased) of 2% is very different from 1% or 4%. IF it makes ill 3 out of 5 people, and kills 2% of those diseased, out of a world population of 6000+ million ...

A vaccine might take 6-8 months to the point of "scarcity" - before that, there would be none to share.

Antiviral drugs - the virus seems to be learning to resist it already.

We're left with the need to get ready: personally, communally, globally: Flu Wiki

Please do ask those near you (local politicians, business owners, community leaders) for their preparation and plans.

Please educate yourself here, here, here or here.

Please pass this on.

Flu Pandemic Awareness Week

2005-10-02T20:54:26Z

Hi folks, long time no write here!

Here's where Melanie, the reveres and DemFromCT, with help from others, are starting Pandemic Flu Awareness Week.

So, friends, read, think and share.

howtos and a bet

2005-05-17T10:04:42Z

Howtos are a good thing. Recipies, manuals, stories ...

I'm helping a small community. They want to grow a howto about recycling animal waste into biogas and compost and much more. Just imagine, where I live we (humans) are about 2 million people - all of us producing waste every day.

Now, how fast can changes go? Here's my bet: we'll have a working version of the howto by mid-august 2005, and there will be 100,000 hectares (about 200,000 acres) emerging from that before the end of 2005 (there are already other initiatives before the howto). It might be 10,000,000 hectares before the end of 2006. That's 100,000,000,000 square meters in all, or about 12 square meters per person for the whole Earth. Not a bad start.

And why? Because it pays.

go local, really

2005-03-07T17:26:56Z

I've started a blog and a yahoogroup, both in Spanish, about sustainability in the Canaries.

Ok, I do read worldchanging.org and I collaborate at Minciu Sodas and at SolaRoof, but I'm trying to focus on "going local".

Multiply by a zillion and we might have something going on.

too much

2005-02-24T15:02:49Z

yes, that's why picsie suggests a STOP day

SolaRoof warm up

2005-01-15T17:09:39Z

You gotta go see SolaRoof and look at the Gallery (upper-right corner of the screen).

Between the two layers of the greenhouse roof, an artificial cloud of bubbles is created at will, letting the sun in only when you want it, and keeping the heat inside just as needed.

Being a closed environment, humidity from plants (even sea algae) can be collected as pure water, and algae can be fed all the nasty CO2 from our bad-bad factories and become fatty algae, which can in turn be converted into bio-diesel.

There's a wiki and a group at yahoo.

The design is "open" (as in free software) so you can be the best champion to implement it locally. Just share what you learn, like good scientists do.

worldchanging.org - beyond relief

2004-12-30T11:57:02Z

Worldchanging.org's "Beyond Relief" article is extremely good stuff.

I've offered my two cents by giving a few links about solaroof, oneVillage, solarcooking, simputer, and other things.

This is overwhelming. It's difficult to get past the shock (even denial) phase.

The people at worldchanging.org are doing a formidable job!

I think it's best to:

jot down five things I could do today.
do the two that take the shortest time.