The Power of Empathy

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The Power of Empathy Personal Development   What is empathy and how is it different from sympathy? Watch this short but powerful video to find out and discover how empathy can improve your connections to people, including those you support in your work as a humanitarian or development professional.      Watch Video       Learner Review "Simple and effective. I loved the animation and the use of real life examples." —Martina L. ★★★★★

 

Communities At Risk (CAR), Communities of Color. World has a Giant Climate-Crisis Blind Spot. CNN.COM October 11, 2021

 https://www.newsbreak.com/news/2399482140435/scientists-looked-at-more-than-100-000-studies-and-found-the-world-has-a-giant-climate-crisis-blind-spot

https://www.cnn.com/2021/10/11/world/climate-change-attribution-gap/index.html

Scientists looked at more than 100,000 studies and found the world has a giant climate-crisis blind spot

By Rachel Ramirez

(CNN)Scientists using artificial intelligence to sift through around 100,000 climate studies were trying to put a number on how many people in the world were already experiencing the impacts of the climate crisis.

Instead, they discovered something else: there is a worrying inequality in the world of climate science.

The shoreline of Kadavu Island in Fiji, where rising sea levels have led to coastal erosion.

Climate change studies are twice as likely to focus on wealthier countries in Europe and North America than low-income countries like those in Africa and the Pacific Islands. That blind spot is a problem, as the Global South is and will continue to be more profoundly impacted by the climate crisis than wealthier countries.

The ability to link the climate crisis to real-world impacts has grown dramatically in the past decade, as more people face the consequences of a warming planet, including deadly floods, destructive wildfires and crippling heat. But it has been a challenge to collect and scrutinize the vast amount of research, to fully understand the global impact.

In research published in the journal Nature Climate Change on Monday, scientists used machine learning — training computer algorithms to detect patterns and predict outcomes — to analyze more than 100,000 climate change studies.

"There's just so much climate science produced, like tens of thousands [of studies], and getting to grips with this evidence is really difficult," Max Callaghan, lead author of the study and a researcher at the Mercator Research Institute on Global Commons and Climate Change, told CNN. "So we trained the machine learning algorithm to predict the areas that we didn't have time to look at — which is most of them."

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Compiling the results of all of those studies would suggest a vast majority of the world — 80% of land area, where 85% of the world's population lives — is experiencing the effects of the climate crisis right now. It's a large percentage, but experts know the true number is even higher.

The authors called the blind spot in research an "attribution gap." Callaghan said the gap suggests 85% is likely to be an underestimate.

Friederike Otto, co-lead of the World Weather Attribution initiative, who was not involved with the machine-learning research, also said the study's estimate is likely too low. Over the years, climate scientists like Otto have been saying the climate crisis will leave no place in the world untouched.

"The study focused on changes in mean temperature and precipitation, rather than extremes, but we know that heat extremes are changing faster than mean temperatures and that heat extremes are increasing almost everywhere," Otto told CNN. "It is likely that nearly everyone in the world now experiences changes in extreme weather as a result of human greenhouse gas emissions."

A family from Sydney, Australia, visiting an area devastated by bush fires in the New South Wales region of Australia on Jan. 28, 2020.

"What we find here is that the evidence is distributed unequally across countries," Callaghan said. "And this is really important because often when we try to make a map or to find out where the impacts of climate change are happening, we find often few scientific papers in less developed countries or low-income countries."

Callaghan added that this attribution gap leaves people wondering if climate change is happening in those areas, even though climate scientists firmly believe so.

"We want to try and point out that absence of evidence isn't evidence of absence," he said.

The authors note in the study that an automated approach is "no substitute for careful assessment by experts," however, it can identify large numbers of studies for a region that may point towards consequences brought by human-caused climate change.

Tom Knutson, senior scientist with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and co-author of the study, told CNN the machine learning methodology has "a number" of limitations and weaknesses, since it only accounts for certain climate impacts — in this case, human-induced precipitation and temperature changes.

If it accounted for other impacts such as sea level rise, for example, he said the outcome may have suggested "a greater fraction" of the world's population has been experiencing climate change.

The people of Kiribati have been under pressure to relocate due to sea level rise. Each year, the sea level rises by about half an inch. Though this may not sound like much, it is a big deal considering the islands are only a few feet above sea level, which puts them at risk of flooding and sea swells.

A recent report by the World Meteorological Organization found that an extreme weather event or climate disaster has occurred every day, on average, somewhere in the world over the last 50 years, marking a five-fold increase over that period.

This summer alone was packed with extreme weather events across the Northern Hemisphere: While the United States has been battered by a cocktail of drought-fueled wildfires, devastating floods and a historic heat wave, China and Germany experienced deadly flooding events in July as southern Europe and Canada battled destructive wildfires of its own.

Despite the observed extremes, the dearth of substantial scientific evidence has the effect of limiting the changes that can be proposed or implemented in under-studied locations, Callaghan said.

Sea walls are one of Tanzania's most visible climate adaptation projects to protect its residents against coastal erosion and flooding.

"It's useful to bring together the literature and data as this study has, which allows us to see where more data is needed and where there are gaps," Otto said, pointing to previous studies. "Their finding of a gap in the Global South is similar to what we found last year, where we saw that extreme events are identified less often and are the subject of fewer attribution studies when they occur in poorer countries."

What is COP26? How the pivotal UN conference could avert global climate 'catastrophe'

World leaders will gather at a critical UN climate meeting in less than a month, and one of the issues that will be discussed is the amount of funding developed nations can pledge to help the Global South move away from fossil fuels and manage the impacts of the climate crisis.

Callaghan said this new machine learning research delivers a key message for world leaders: Climate change is already happening and the planet will only continue to warm, meaning adaptation is critical as well as halting the use of fossil fuels. The new study provides an outline of where more climate funds and climate research are needed, and it is up to global leaders to implement that.

"The world will continue to warm until we stop burning fossil fuels, and there is simply no way around that," he said. "And what we really need to recognize is that we need to change the trajectory and reduce emissions."

Correction: This story has been updated to reflect the study was published in the journal Nature Climate Change

October. Important dates to remember.

 

Important Dates

 

October is Cybersecurity Awareness Month and National Community Planning Month October 3 – 9 is National Fire Prevention Week October 10: World Mental Health Day October 11: Indigenous Peoples’ Day October 12: Search & Rescue, Lost Person Behavior Webinar (1 – 2:30 p.m. ET) October 14: 2021 National Household Survey Summary Part I – Key Findings and National Overview (2 – 3 p.m. ET) October 15: Global Handwashing Day October 21: International ShakeOut Day October 22: Alternate Water and Power Resources Workshop (10 – 11 a.m. ET) October 26: Maintaining & Revitalizing your CERT Program (1 – 2:30 p.m. ET) October 28: National First Responders Day October 28: 2021 National Household Survey Summary Part II – Hazards and Demographics (2 – 3 p.m. ET)  Disclaimer: The reader recognizes that the federal government provides links and informational data on various disaster preparedness resources and events and does not endorse any non-federal events, entities, organizations, services, or products. Please let us know about other events and services for individual and community preparedness that could be included in future newsletters by contacting  FEMA-prepare@fema.dhs.gov.

Mental Health Experts in Dispatch. EMERGENCY MANAGEMENT OCTOBER 07, 2021

 

EMERGENCY MANAGEMENT
OCTOBER 07, 2021

TOP STORY

Tucson Police Chief Wants Mental Health Experts in Dispatch
Both police and crisis mobile team workers are walking into a "universe of unknowns" when responding to calls, unless they can share information. READ MORE

Africa. Climate Change.

 AGRIBUSINESS

Zimbabwe: Insurance Lab to Benefit Small Scale Farmers
The Herald
Zimbabwe and other countries are working on an insurance lab to come up with climate change mitigation solutions to cover smallholder farmers who rely on rainfall to grow their crops, but have no access to insurance...Read more>>

Building Resilience Against Urban Flooding
This Day
Across Nigeria the annual wet season sees our news reports and social media feeds 'flooded' with images of commuters wading through rain and sewerage to get home, cars washed off roads and businesses and livelihoods floating on busy streets...Read More>>

ICT 
Namibia Ranks 100th in the World in Digital Quality of Life Index 2021
Namibia Economist
The global digital well-being study shows that Namibia lacks better e-security, in the third annual edition of the Digital Quality of Life Index (DQL) ranks Namibia 100th among 110 countries. Covering 90% of the global population...Read More>> 

Namibia: Tourism Ministry Inks Agreement With Travel and Tourism Forum
Namibia Economist
The Ministry of Environment, Forestry and Tourism earlier recently signed an agreement that will improve the circulation of general sectoral communication, provide training, capacity building and research, with the Namibia Travel and Tourism Forum...Read More>>

Africa. COVID-19 crisis

 HEALTH

Environmental Rescue Initiative Empowers Trained Traditional Midwives in Harrisburg Township to Ensure Covid-19 Vaccine Equity in Rural Communities
Frontpage Africa
As part of efforts to ensure equity in the rollup of the COVID-19 vaccine, about 60 Trained Traditional Midwives in Harrisburg Township have been trained by the Environmental Rescue Initiative to provide the much-needed information...Read more>>

SMEs get Covid resilience funding
New Era
To assist entrepreneurs recovering from Covid-19, SMEs Compete provided an opportunity to 20 small business owners to pitch their products to a panel of adjudicators for possible funding.
One of the participants, Didi Skeyer...Read more>>

Helping Hand Fund. $500,000 commitment to offer relief to renters facing eviction

 

In response to the recent end to the CDC eviction moratorium Operation HOPE, the nation's largest non-profit dedicated to financial empowerment for underserved communities, has announced the launch of its Helping Hand Fund. The Helping Hand Fund is comprised an initial $500,000 commitment to offer relief to renters facing eviction as a result of the impact of COVID-19 and its associated economic hardship.

To learn more about this partner offer please visit the link below:
 
https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/operation-hope-launches-helping-hand-fund-to-aid-renters-facing-covid-related-eviction-301385261.html