Japan getting serious about Kyoto

NPR’s David Kestenbaum has been doing a series on Morning Edition about Japanese effort to keep up with the Kyoto Protocols

This morning’s piece is about internal temperatures; men in certain government ministries have actually stopped wearing ties to work.

Here’s yesterday’s piece; we’ll post a link to today’s piece- about office temperatures, and clothing, today when NPR posts its links.  Kestenbaum points out in today’s piece that this inititative adds up to only one-tenth of one percent of Japan’s Kyoto targets. On the other hand, 999 other efforts would make 100%. And efforts that make you physically aware, all day – may have persuasive value greater than that of less-visible schemes.

Portable solar panels developed for Australian Troops

The Daily Mail reports that the Australian Ministry of Defence has developed a 14-ounce solar panel:

Soldiers will have them moulded on to their backpacks to help power the array of electronic equipment now used in combat.

The introduction of solar panels is being studied by the Ministry of Defence, which is keen to cut the use of traditional batteries. The new technology would be ‘greener’ than disposable batteries and much cheaper in the long run.

It could also help save troops’ lives by eliminating the danger of equipment failing because of lack of power.

And it could save them from the risk of injury posed by traditional batteries, which can explode if exposed to fire or extreme desert temperatures.

Weighing just 14oz, the panels have been developed for the Australian army, whose troops and special forces regularly fight alongside elite British SAS units in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The panels are made from a secret compound and can produce hours of low-level energy to power radios, night-vision goggles, communications equipment and sensors to detect enemy positions.

They even work in cloudy conditions because they harness solar radiation rather than direct sunlight. The Australian military, which spent £1million on the project, says the battlefield has become more “power hungry”, so finding an alternative battery source was vital.

Lieutenant Colonel John Baird, of the Australian army, said: “This is fighting in the information age, where every soldier is connected via sophisticated communications equipment and uses sensors to provide information on an enemy’s position.

“But it uses a hell of a lot of power, and the disposable batteries we are using now are far from ideal because when they run out the soldiers have to return to base and take the used batteries with them.

“If we can use the sun’s radiation to recharge equipment then that is a clear advantage.”

Dr Gavin Tulloch, director of the solar-panel project, said: “The lithium used in traditional batteries can be dangerous, particularly in conflict situations, and the residual electrolytes are quite polluting.

Clearly within the ambit of current technological possibility. And this became, say, NATO-standard equipment, we might see interesting and rapid changes in price.

Daily Mail article here.

Disaster: Hurricane Katrina and the Failure of Homeland Security

Christopher Cooper and Robert Block’s book Disaster: Hurricane Katrina and the Failure of Homeland Security is essential:

If, after four years and billions of dollars spent on preparedness, Homeland Security can’t handle a hurricane, it is likely to struggle when faced with any manner of other disasters. The preparation for and response to Hurricane Katrina should disturb all Americans. If New Orleans is vulnerable, so are we all.

….

From the very start, FEMA’s bureaucratic brass had trouble integrating all of these subdepartments, with their starkly different cultures, into one cohesive federal agency. President Carter did his best to work out the problem by appointing John Macy as FEMA’s first director. A career bureaucrat with a knack for organization, Macy attempted to unite the various fiefs behind a common philosophy that all disasters – by they unseen or expected, extraordinary or run-of-the-mill – demanded the same response from Washington. He developed what he called the “Integrated Emergency Management System,” which people now refer to as the “all-hazards approach” to disaster preparedness. It is a simple concept, rooted in the assumption that many response tools such as warnings, evacuations, and damage assessments are equally applicable across the universe of disasters.

More from Cooper and Block in the near future.

See also: FEMA (Wikipedia)

WingmanX: NASA now permitting surgically corrected vision

According to the genetically gifted  Wingman X, NASA is now permitting surgically corrected vision

– that is, if your 20/20 is the result of corrected vision – no problem from NASA.

The first person I met who I knew had the surgery went on to become a Port Authority police officer (for you out-of-towners – the Port Authority “of New York and New Jersey”) owns the NYC and Newark Airports, bus terminals, ports, and the World Trade Center – they have their own police force – I’m guessing about 1,500 sworn personnel). He or she had the surgery, become a cop – a damned good one, too. Don’t know if it was permissible then – hence the elliptical reference which might otherwise lead to identification.

Disclosure of interest: I took the NYPD test, and scored about the same as I did on the LSAT – but the law school people didn’t give me an eye exam.

From WingmanX

– scourge of evil, airborne and elsewhere.

CDC reports spike in deaths from amoeba in lakes and streams

According to Chris Kahn, of the Associated Press, (Yahoo! News article here):

A killer amoeba living in lakes enters the body through the nose and attacks the brain where it feeds until you die.
Even though encounters with the microscopic bug are extraordinarily rare, it’s killed six boys and young men this year. The spike in cases has health officials concerned, and they are predicting more cases in the future.

“This is definitely something we need to track,” said Michael Beach, a specialist in recreational waterborne illnesses for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

“This is a heat-loving amoeba. As water temperatures go up, it does better,” Beach said. “In future decades, as temperatures rise, we’d expect to see more cases.”

According to the CDC, the amoeba called Naegleria fowleri (nuh-GLEER-ee-uh FOWL’-erh-eye) killed 23 people in the United States, from 1995 to 2004. This year health officials noticed a spike with six cases — three in Florida, two in Texas and one in Arizona. The CDC knows of only several hundred cases worldwide since its discovery in Australia in the 1960s.

Continue reading →

Searching for funding – first steps

Searching the Responder Knowledge Base, and even logging in as a guest (some of the restricted material won’t show up), for every piece of equipment – or category of equipment – the RKB will list the relevant grants. Or – find a grant program – and you can generate a list of allowable equipment purchases under that grant. Here’s an example:

This page, “Responder Knowledge Base – Grants and Assistance Programs Detaila – FY07 Urban Areas Security Initiative (UASI) program,” provides that states are the eligible grant-seekers – although not the only ultimate recipients of funds:

The program assists Urban Areas in building and sustaining capabilities to prevent, protect against, respond to, and recover from threats or acts of terrorism.

The FY 2007 UASI program provides the opportunity to enhance regional preparedness efforts. Urban Areas must employ regional approaches to overall preparedness and are encouraged to adopt regional response structures whenever appropriate to meet the goals identified in the Urban Area Homeland Security Strategy and common, measurable objectives. Security and preparedness officials at all levels should seek opportunities to leverage funding from multiple sources whenever possible and not restrict their activities to Federal funding alone. UASI funding will be provided to identified Urban Area authorities through the SAAs. In some instances Urban Area boundaries cross State borders. States must ensure that the identified Urban Areas take an inclusive regional approach to the development and implementation of the FY 2007 UASI program and involve the contiguous jurisdictions, mutual aid partners, port authorities, rail and transit authorities, State agencies, Citizen Corps Council(s), and MMRS

(s) in their program activities.

Continue reading →

FEMA “Clarification on Community Emergency Response Team (CERT) Training;”

In a memo dated August 2, 2007. Corey Gruber, Acting Deputy Administrator, National Preparedness Directorate of FEMA, wrote

This Information Bulletin (IB) is to clarify that Homeland Security Grant Program (HSGP) funds are allowable to support and deliver the following training:

• Community Emergency Response Team (CERT) basic training for volunteers in eighborhoods, schools, campuses, workplaces, and all other venues determined by the agency that sponsors the local CERT Program
• Supplemental training for CERT members who have completed the basic training
• CERT Train-the-Trainer course
• Campus CERT Train-the-Trainer course
• Teen CERT Train-the-Trainer course

Continue reading →

All-Med Hi-Viz Rescue Vest

ALLMED , based in Russellville, Missouri, sells a range of EMS – and a few products designed in-house. One of these is their high-visibility vest, pictured below:

We’ve seen a lot of reflective vests; they usually don’t have any pockets; and the reverse – high-utility, load-bearing, lots of pockets – but in olive drab, black, or camo. This has both, and it’s reasonably priced at $55.

Catalog page here.

We’ve had an order in for one since they first placed it in their catalogue, and I understand the first batch is due shortly from the manufacturer.

With ID information (unit, name, etc.) on the back – this might be an ideal purchase for CERT or other teams.

Wikipedia firefighting and emergency management resources

A few weeks back, my friend and neighbor Gary Osgood

explained Wikipedia’s vetting process; I had only the notion – from mainstream media – that whoever posted last posted loudest.

[singlepic=46,320,240,,] From Wikipedia’s Firefighting Page.
Turns out that the peer-reviewed and featured pieces have been subject to pretty vigorous editing and fact-checking. It’s a small percentage, that are fully vetted, but the number that have useful starting points. As Gary points out in his Wikipedia user profile,

As overwhelming [as] the dreck

may be in Wikipedia, one can still type that word into Wikipedia’s search box and get an answer that stumbles toward the truth, leaving the reader with at least a little clue. That small miracle still happens more often that not.

And often there’s a bit of redundancy – for instance, two entries on Prospect Park, both good – Gary has contributed to one, and is the principal contributor to the entry on Aymar Embury II.

I hadn’t realized until today the extent and number of the firefighting resources. Here’s a sample from the excellent entry on Palm Beach, Florida’s emergency responders:

In 2004 the County Commission approved a resolution allowing for funding for the Fire-Rescue Communications Center to come out of the General Fund instead of the Fire-Rescue budget. This change meant that now any city that wanted to be dispatched by Fire-Rescue could do so without having to negotiate a price and a contract, since all taxpayers were paying for it anyway. The concept behind this was to create a “Regionalized Dispatch Center” where the closest unit could be dispatched to a call, regardless of municipal boundaries. This was initially met with opposition from a few cities, citing that this construed “Double Taxation”, as they were already providing dispatch services to their own departments yet their citizens were being taxed for the Countywide system. Recently, more and more cities are coming into the new system.

This is typical of the entry: concise, and addresses to complex logistical issues, how the political process addresses and resolves the problem. The principal drafter of the entry is, it appears, an active serving member of the PBCFR, has also provided the entry “Quint (fire apparatus),” which is a type of “apparatus that serves the dual purpose of an engine and a ladder truck.”

There’s much more on this and related subject in Wikipedia – and I’ll try to point them out in future posts. wpfslogo.jpgwpfslogo.jpg
If you’d like a good starting point – it might be at The Wiki Project:FireService.

DHS Responder Knowledge Base

Another outstanding resource from Brian Steckler from the Naval Postgraduate School and the Center for the Study of Hastily Formed Networks for Humantarian Assistance/Disaster Relief    –

rkb_home_logo2.gif

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has been compiling a Responder Knowledge Base, much of which is non-classified,  has what appears to be an encyclopedic collection of information about:

  • equipment
  • equipment grants
  • standards
  • best practices

If you’re a registered user (first responder, paid or volunteer, planner – someone with a verifiable legitimate use), there’s an “ask an expert” submission form – and the staff promises to try to answer questions, via email, within a week. I’m going to submit a couple of questions that have been, of late, frustrating my attempts to do some communications planning and budgeting.