Environmental News
Environmental News from Boulder, Colorado
Social Media + Emergency Management: Talking with Tech Leaders on the West Coast boulder #boulder
Jan 14th
Yesterday I had a very productive day in California talking about social media, technology, emergency management, and ways to assist the public in getting prepared, by using the tools they use on a daily basis. Check out this short video to see who I met with:
In addition to meeting with fellow “Craig”, Craig Newmark (the founder of Craigslist), I also met with editors from Wired Magazine, Twitter, Apple and Facebook.
Some of the things we discussed included:
- The need to provide information to the public as data feeds, because they are a key member of our emergency management team;
- The importance of referring to people impacted by a disaster as survivors and utilizing them as a resource;
- The importance of providing good customer service; and
- How we, as emergency managers, need to stop trying to have the public fit into our way of doing things and receiving information, but that we should fit the way the public gets, receives and seeks out information.
There are a lot of discussions and conversations taking place about social media, text messaging, etc, and how these tools can be used before, during, and after a disaster.
There’s no question that these tools have already changed the field of emergency management – and will continue to. As emergency managers, we will have to be flexible and agile and quickly adapt as new technologies and communications tools emerge. What’s exciting is that these new tools, if we embrace them and leverage them effectively, will continue to help us better serve our customers – the public.
As the conversation continues, and as you use these tools on a daily basis, there are things that you can today do to prepare yourself, your family members, and your colleagues at work.
Communicating during or after an emergency
How are you communicating with each other if a disaster or emergency occurs? Are you going to call each other, send an email, text message, or update each other via a social network site? The disaster or emergency could be something like a blackout in your city or a school closure; all disasters aren’t large earthquakes or hurricanes.
Receiving updates on your phone
How are you receiving updates from local officials? Have you signed up for text message or email alerts? If you’re on Facebook, did you know that you can signup to receive text message updates from Facebook pages you follow? If you are a fan of FEMA on Facebook or your local emergency management agency, you can receive our update as a text message right on your phone (and just like with any text message, standard rates apply).
Leverage Twitter without creating an account
And here’s another small tip: if you are thinking about using Twitter, did you know you can receive text messages updates from someone you’re following without having to create an account? For example, if you wanted to receive our updates as a text message to your phone, just text FOLLOW FEMA to 40404 (this is Twitter’s text message number and of course, standard text message rates apply — the lawyers require me to repeat this). You can do the same for your local emergency management agency.
Our meetings in California generated great discussions and ideas and I’m excited to explore how we can move forward on them. In the meantime, I’d like to hear how you use these and other social network sites to communicate with friends and family before or during an emergency, so we can all utilize these tools to fullest capability, so please leave a comment below, or visit our ongoing challenge at www.challenge.gov/fema and submit your ideas.
County to host farm and ranch panel discussion on Jan. 19
Jan 13th
When: Wednesday, Jan. 19, 7-9 p.m.
Where: Monarch High School, 329 Campus Drive, Louisville.
Farmers will discuss their experiences and challenges as well as how they farm in Boulder County. The panel includes Famuer Rasmussen, Jr., Jules Van Thuyne, Jr., Dwayne Cushman, Dave Asbury, Anne Cure and Mark Guttridge, all of whom are farmers and ranchers currently working in the county.
The event will consist of a facilitator-led discussion among the farmers and ranchers followed by a moderated question-and-answer session. Questions will be drawn from those submitted by the audience.
In November, Parks and Open Space held a forum on sustainable agriculture that focused on policy. The farm and ranch panel discussion will offer a chance to focus on practice.
Please contact Resource Planner Jesse Rounds at 303-678-6271 or croplandpolicy@bouldercounty.org for more information.
-B
EXTENT OF CORRUPTION IN COUNTRIES AROUND THE WORLD TIED TO EARTHQUAKE FATALITIES
Jan 12th
A new assessment of global earthquake fatalities over the past three decades indicates that 83 percent of all deaths caused by the collapse of buildings during earthquakes occurred in countries considered to be unusually corrupt.
Authored by Professor Nicholas Ambraseys of the Imperial College of London and Professor Roger Bilham of the University Colorado at Boulder, the study also found that in some relatively wealthy countries where knowledge and sound business practices would be expected to prevail, the collapse of many buildings is nevertheless attributable to corrupt building practices.
A commentary piece on the subject is being published in the Jan. 13 issue of Nature.
Corrupt building practices — which are generally covert and hard to quantify — can include the use of substandard materials, poor assembly methods, the inappropriate placement of buildings and non-adherence to building codes, said the authors.
Ambraseys and Bilham used data gathered by Transparency International, a global organization based in Berlin that operates through more than 70 national chapters around the world. Transparency International annually generates a Corruption Perception Index, or CPI, as determined by expert assessments and opinion surveys.
The CPI index — which defines corruption as the abuse of entrusted power for private gain — is determined by an aggregate of 13 opinion polls averaged over two years from 10 institutions monitoring the frequency and extent of bribes paid within various countries, said Bilham, a professor in CU-Boulder’s geological sciences department. A CPI score of 0 indicates a highly corrupt nation with zero transparency, while a score of 10 indicates an absence of perceived corruption with total transparency.
The authors determined that there is roughly a one-to-one relationship between a nations’ wealth and its perceived level of corruption. “Less wealthy nations are the most corrupt,” said Bilham, also a fellow in the CU-Boulder based Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences. “We found that fully 83 percent of all deaths from earthquakes in the last 30 years have occurred in nations where corruption is both widespread and worse than expected.”
Relative wealth is the most obvious parameter that influences a country’s corruption, according to the authors. Bilham and Ambraseys chose the gross national income per capita to compare the relative wealth of the countries. High wealth is strongly linked to countries with a stable government conducive to the rule of law, they said.
The authors noted that while a 7.0 magnitude earthquake that struck in New Zealand in 2010 resulted in zero fatalities, an identical 2010 quake in Haiti resulted in a death toll reaching six figures. “Widespread anecdotal evidence points to the collapse of structures in devastating earthquakes as a result of corrupt building practices,” said Bilham. “In this study we have attempted to quantify that perception.
“Corruption is found to be far worse in some countries than others, despite a measure of wealth that tells us they should do better,” said Bilham. “It is in the countries that have abnormally high levels of corruption where we find most of the world’s deaths from earthquakes.”
The global construction industry, currently worth $7.5 trillion annually and which is expected to double in the next decade, is recognized by experts as being the most corrupt segment of the world economy, said the authors.
Since 1980, deaths due to an absence of effective earthquake engineering activity have averaged about 18,300 per year, according to the authors.
Poverty and poor education also contribute to building collapse through a lack of strong, available building materials and a lack of education that otherwise would help guide safe building practices, the authors said.
The number of deaths attributable to collapsed dwellings is influenced both by the population density and the vulnerability of buildings near earthquake epicenters, said the authors. In the past 30 years, the rapid increases in urban populations — particularly in developing countries — have been adversely affected by building quality.
The authors said even if corrupt building practices were halted today, those residing in impoverished nations would inherit at least some structures and dwellings that were constructed while corrupt construction practices were under way.
“The structural integrity of a building is no stronger than the social integrity of the builder, and each nation has a responsibility to its citizens to ensure adequate inspection,” the authors wrote in Nature. “In particular, nations with a history of significant earthquakes and known corruption issues should stand reminded that an unregulated construction industry is a potential killer.”
SOIURCE: CU MEDIA RELEASE