Sea Level Rise Explorer ~ Map of Coastal Risk

Check out Sea Level Rise Explorer, a zoomable worldmap of elevation relative to sea-level and thus indicator of coastal flood risk...

Risking It All ~ AlJaz on Earning a Living...

Amazing AlJazeera series Risking It All about people facing great dangers in order to earn a living...

PlaNYC ~ A Stronger, More Resilient New York...

Mayor Michael Bloomberg recently announced PlaNYC: A Stronger, More Resilient New York recommending how to rebuild communities post-Sandy and boost infrastructural resiliency...

"If this plan is implemented, New York City will not be “climate-change proof” -- an impossible goal -- but it will be far safer and more resilient than it is today. While no one can say with certainty exactly how much safer, the climate analysis in Chapter 2 shows that the investments recommended in this plan certainly will be worthwhile.

Lives will be saved and many catastrophic losses avoided. [...] Over time, implementation of this plan would address many of the risks that a coastal city like New York faces. By hardening our coastline, by making our building stock stronger, by creating a more durable power network and better stormwater infrastructure, and so much more, we can be better prepared for anything the future holds. We are a coastal city -- and we cannot, and will not, abandon our waterfront. Instead, we must build a stronger, more resilient city -- and this plan puts us on a path to do just that. It will not be easy, and it will take time; but as New Yorkers we are more than up to the task."

Don't Play With Trains ~ Aussie Rail X-ing PSA!

Worse Than Worst Case? ~ Fearing Fukushima...

Post-quake, IEEE Spectrum EnergyWise blogger Bill Sweet writes Japan Nuclear Accident: Worse than Worst, Again...

"Because of the explosion and the radiation leakage, Fukushima Dai-ichi already ranks as the second most serious nuclear power plant accident after Chernobyl. In terms of public impact, it may come in first because it's taking place in a country that has the world's most sophisticated earthquake prediction and mitigation systems, top-notch nuclear technology, and a pronounced national radiation phobia. Japan is not a technically backward country with notoriously poor reactor designs, the way the former Soviet Union was. Its nuclear power plants were designed and built with an acute consciousness of extreme earthquake dangers. So how is it, despite that sophistication, awareness, and preparedness, that the Fukshima Dai-ichi has nonetheless exceeded worst-case thinking? Here, the story is reminiscent of Three Mile Island and Chernob and the message seems to be the same: Worst-case scenario builders consistently underestimate the statistical probability of separate bad things happening simultaneously, as the result of the same underlying causes. [...] Every major nuclear accident has been worse than worst case, and that's a fact every nuclear advocate -- this one included -- will have to take into account."

Azamat Abdymomunov cuts to the core of the problem... Nature's Geoff Brumfiel gives Anatomy of a Meltdown...

"The key to the crisis is water. In addition to the uranium fuel rods, the fuel assemblies have channels which carry highly purified water between the fuel. The water acts as both a moderator for the nuclear reactions and a coolant for the reactor core. On top of it all, it makes the electricity: as it is heated by the reactor, it turns into steam that drives the power turbines. Once the water passes through the turbines it is cooled and re-injected into the core to do it all again. It all goes great unless the water stops flowing, and that's exactly what it appears has happened in the wake of a massive magnitude 9.0 earthquake that shook the region on 11 March. Diesel generators designed to keep feeding water to Fukushima Unit 1 apparently shutdown about an hour after the quake. Yesterday, the water supply to Unit 3 was interrupted. In both cases, the cores began to heat up."

And Steve Mirsky writes in Scientific American Nuclear Experts Explain Worst-Case Scenario at Fukushima Power Plant...

"The type of accident occurring now in Japan derives from a loss of offsite AC power and then a subsequent failure of emergency power on site. Engineers there are racing to restore AC power to prevent a core meltdown. [...] Physicist Ken Bergeron provided most of the information regarding the actual damage to the reactor."

NuclearTourist shows the flow inside a Boiling Water Reactor...

Enduring Voices ~ Engaging Language Hotspots

Excellent to see the NatGeo Enduring Voices project dial things up...

"By 2100, more than half of the more than 7,000 languages spoken on Earth -- many of them not yet recorded -- may disappear, taking with them a wealth of knowledge about history, culture, the natural environment, and the human brain. National Geographic's Enduring Voices Project (conducted in collaboration with the Living Tongues Institute for Endangered Languages) strives to preserve endangered languages by identifying language hotspots -- the places on our planet with the most unique, poorly understood, or threatened indigenous languages -- and documenting the languages and cultures within them. Each year the Enduring Voices Project sends teams to language hotspots around the globe to interview speakers and document vanishing cultures and languages. When invited, the Enduring Voices Project assists indigenous communities in their efforts to revitalize and maintain their threatened languages."

Check out their Enduring Voices channel...

Challenger Disaster ~ "A Major Malfunction"...

R.I.P. Challenger Crew. This space shuttle engineering and risk analysis disaster happened 25 years ago today, traumatizing children and adults alike, and stalling humanity's shift to the stars by at least a decade. The Big Picture helps us remember... In the incident investigation, MIT alumnus and Nobelist physicist Richard Feymann made some key observations... One memorable aspect of my undergrad MIT experience was an IAP ethics class session with Morton Thiokol solid rockets engineer Roger Boisjoly who warned of the 0-ring cold-temperature risk before hand and blew the whistle on management perfidy afterwards.

No Fear ~ Open Loop without the Amygdala...

Humans, Like Animals, Behave Fearlessly Without the Amygdala writes Sindya Bhanoo in the NYTimes about...

"Patient SM, because of a rare condition called lipoid proteinosis, has holes where her amygdala would normally reside. Researchers found that she, like the monkeys, has no fear of creatures like snakes and spiders, which ordinarily alarm most people. But while this behavior is relatively benign, the researchers also found that SM put her life at risk. In one instance, she walked through a park alone at night and was attacked by a man with a knife. “The following day, she again walked through the same park,”

This validates experiments done in animals repeatedly where sense of fear vanishes when the amygdala is gone. Fascinating implications for therapeutics in fearful humans!

Beware E.T. ~ Prof Hawking on Rapacious Aliens

The CSMonitor and Guardian quote Professor Stephen Hawking...

"If aliens visit us, the outcome would be much as when Columbus landed in America, which didn't turn out well for the Native Americans. [...] advanced aliens would perhaps become nomads, looking to conquer and colonise whatever planets they can reach."

This scenario has been explored many times in Science Fiction, of course, but perhaps never more ironically than by Douglas Adams in The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy which begins with the bureaucratic Vogons appearing one day in the sky and announcing...

"People of Earth, your attention, please. This is Prostetnic Vogon Jeltz of the Galactic Hyperspace Planning Council. As you will no doubt be aware, the plans for development of the outlying regions of the Galaxy require the building of a hyperspatial express route through your star system. And regrettably, your planet is one of those scheduled for demolition. The process will take slightly less than two of your Earth minutes. Thank you. [...] There’s no point in acting surprised about it. All the planning charts and demolition orders have been on display at your local planning department in Alpha Centauri for 50 of your Earth years, so you’ve had plenty of time to lodge any formal complaint and it’s far too late to start making a fuss about it now. […] What do you mean you’ve never been to Alpha Centauri? Oh, for heaven’s sake, mankind, it’s only four light years away, you know. I’m sorry, but if you can’t be bothered to take an interest in local affairs, that’s your own lookout. Energise the demolition beams."

Anyways, here's a snippet of Into The Universe by Hawking...

Forgiveness ~ Invictus Memorializes Mandela

Thanks to both Parade and the NYTimes for spotting the new Eastwood film -- Invictus... The film is centrally about the prelude to and the actual epic moment South Africa’s President Nelson Mandela shook the hand of Springboks rugby captain, the Afrikaaner François Pienaar, in congratulations for their 1995 Rugby World Cup victory... Reaching out to the historically hated symbol of white oppression was an inspired act of forgiveness. Let's see the original, first the Cup finale... Next, straight from Pienaar... And finally, Madiba recollects... Finally, ESPN's 16th Man documentary...

Disaster Risk Map ~ Role of Poverty and Growth...

Thanks to Andrew Revkin of the NYTimes for noting that 2 Studies Tie Disaster Risk to Urban Population Surge. Here's the summary map...

Solar Storms ~ Terrestrial Catastrophe Risk...

Interesting to read Michael Brooks' piece in NewScientist on Space storm alert: 90 seconds from catastrophe where he spotlights the NASA-funded US National Academy of Sciences (NAS) report on Severe Space Weather Events: Understanding Societal and Economic Impacts...

"The effects of space weather on modern technological systems are well documented in both the technical literature and popular accounts. Most often cited perhaps is the collapse within 90 seconds of northeastern Canada’s Hydro-Quebec power grid during the great geomagnetic storm of March 1989, which left millions of people without electricity for up to 9 hours. This event exemplifies the dramatic impact that extreme space weather can have on a technology upon which modern society in all of its manifold and interconnected activities and functions critically depends."

Here's a map of the speculated impact of a severe geomagnetic solar storm on US electric power grid infrastructure... And here's a timelapse of Coronal Mass Ejection, the causal source behind solar storms... This is but one of the many Global Catastrophic Risks as surveyed by works compiled by editors Nick Bostrom and Milan Cirkovic.