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I wonder. There’s a lot of talk. There’s a lot of commitments being made.
But are they serious commitments? Will they really, really make a difference?

The Gap Between Climate Awareness and Action, Mindy Lubber, WorldChanging, July 22, 2007 1:53 PM

It seems like the world is getting downright giddy about stopping global warming. Congress has held more than 75 hearings on the topic this year, climate-friendly technologies are making it into venture capitalists’ dreams and millions tuned into Live Earth, a seven-continent global warming anthem. 

But it turns out there’s a big gap between awareness and action. Last month, three top power company execs gave investors the inside scoop on what they expect on climate change. I couldn’t help but be curious if their projections and time frames for reducing greenhouse gases lined up with NASA scientist James Hansen’s oft-repeated warning that we have less than 10 years to take strong action on global warming to avoid its worst consequences.

But in listening to the first two execs speak, it was clear for many companies, the distance between what power companies expect and what Hansen says is needed is as wide as the Grand Canyon….

Yesterday I picked up Stop Global Warming by Laurie David.

Comfort vs Conscience (page 36), umm, yeah, that’s the issue.
Who will step up to doing more the screwing in CFL bulbs?

If Americans throw away 100 billion plastic bags every year, what difference does my 100 make? How about I just drive a half mile less per week? Can I use the 100 plastic bags and think of it as a carbon offset?

Why is this all so cerebral? Why does it feel like every one is bargaining with themselves?

End the questions, please. DO SOMETHING!
Then post it somewhere, let people know.

Since starting this, new news!

A dry-weather crisis for Hoover Dam
By Daniel Terdiman, Staff Writer, CNET News.com, Published: July 23, 2007

reporter’s notebook HOOVER DAM, Ariz.–To get a sense of what seven years of drought in the Colorado River basin looks like, all you have to do is gaze out at Lake Mead from the top of the dam here and view the 108 feet of brightly colored earth below the familiar red walls rising from the water. 

Lake Mead is 108 feet below its traditional level, the result of the many years of low rainfall, and these dry years could soon have some serious effects on the region….

Now, Secretary of the Interior Dirk Kempthorne, who has legal control over the dam, has mandated that the Bureau of Reclamation come up with a plan for how to deal with potential shortages in available water for California, Nevada and Arizona, should continued low rainfall eventually mean that the Colorado River–and thus Hoover Dam–not be able to meet those states’ water demands.

The problem, Walsh said, begins with the 7.5 million acre-feet of water allotted to the lower Colorado River basin region under the Boulder Canyon Act enacted by Congress in 1928. Every year, the river has been able to provide Arizona, California and Nevada with that much water–or more–but it is beginning to look like there may be a shortfall in the future if the drought doesn’t end.

Ironically, in the 1990s, the basin had a surplus of water, and Reclamation began to work on guidelines for how to share the extra water. The guidelines were completed and implemented in 2000, according to Walsh, just as the drought began….

What seemed to me to have Walsh–and presumably many others–pessimistic is the sense that the likely scenario would be to come up with a plan that mandates stretching the existing supply out as long as possible, which means drawing supplies from the water table, something that can never be replaced.

Of course, one option could be to demand severe conservation on the part of southern Nevada, southern California and Arizona–the constituencies of the Lower Colorado River basin region–but who can imagine that happening?…

Umm, yeah, volunteers, anyone? Anyone? ANYONE?

There are many efforts afoot to make Health Records management more economical and more reliable. Another less obvious value is facilitating distributed specialized support so the patient doen’t need to leave their community to be near the specialist, rather the specialist can monitor remotely and work through the local health care community. Of course there are times one must go to the specialist, but why not attempt to minimize that since there are social costs, financial costs and patient discomfort and disharmony as a result.

Minnesota First State to Require Electronic Submission of Health Transactions¹

Minnesota is now the first state in the nation to require all health care payers and providers to submit claims and eligibility transactions electronically using a common format starting in 2009. The new requirements, signed into law by Governor Tim Pawlenty as part of the 2007 Omnibus Health and Human Services funding bill, apply to all health care providers and affects virtually anyone who bills for or buys health care services on behalf of a group of people. Electronic administrative health care transactions can reduce costs and improve the efficiency of health care….

Implementing an EHR: Going live is no snap²

Problems, snafus, and some victories take place as three different practices start using their new EHRs. 

The only thing you can count on when implementing an electronic health record system is that little will go according to plan. In this second article in our series on implementing an EHR, three small and medium-sized practices report on the unexpected and often frustrating problems they encountered when they turned on their new EHR and practice management systems….

We Reap What We Sow³

After nearly two decades in health care administration, it is apparent to me that the System is shaking out in ways that may prove to be both very interesting and disparaging to many of our citizens.   In the recent Wall Street Journal Article, Care Gap  Hospital Building Boom Sparks Fear Cities Will Be Left Behind, the nuances of the current five year, $100 billion building expansion that has taken place from 2000 to 2005 in the industry, the majority of that construction has occurred in the suburbs in order to allow the hospitals to target the affluent.  This, according to the article, has resulted in a financial struggle for the urban centers that often treat the poor.  The result of this movement?  “Scores have had to shut their doors.”….

The partial answer is things like these:

• Humanitarian Emergency Logistics & Preparedness (HELP), located in Payson, AZ, USA

¹ Jun 28, 2007, GovTech News Report
² Ken Terry, Medical Economics, Jul 6, 2007
³ World Health Care Blog, by Nick Jacobs, July 6, 2007

digital divide - 070703

There’s an online article for the UK

Action needed on digital divide
Ben Camm-Jones, WebUser (”UK’s best-selling internet magazine”), July 2, 2007 

The body that oversees IT education projects in the UK has called on Gordon Brown’s newly-formed cabinet to close the ‘digital divide’.

UK Online Centres has released its Understanding Digital Inclusion report, which found that nearly 40 per cent of us don’t have access to technology that could enrich our lives….

Milner called on the government to take the matter seriously and ensure that the digital divide is closed, as it is people who are socially excluded in other ways that are missing out the most….

“It’s unacceptable that those already at a disadvantage are three times more likely to be the ones missing out. Digital inclusion matters – not just for individuals but in a wider economic and social context,” she said….

“This research gives us both the information and opportunity to make a significant difference to the digital divide. Let’s make sure those who stand to benefit most from technology are not left behind,” Milner said.

What is interesting is the lack of seeing the age related and education related digital divides that they are talking about with “it is people who are socially excluded in other ways that are missing out the most.” There is more to it than hooking them up to broadband.

Briefly Noted: Talking About Drug Risks, June 28, 2007
healthcare communications and marketing news and information

Needless to say, there is a gloom conclusion about health literacy.

Well, I think digital divides are cause and effect.

Much of the world today requires abstract thinking to sort out.

The tools tend to be digital.

So those unused to digital tools are at a double disadvantage.

They have to learn the tools,

they have to learn the abstract framework those tools are built for.

Very confusing!

It takes patience - the learner and those helping learn.

It takes motivation - the learner and those helping learn.

I can’t use digital tools like a blog to motivate a learner,

but maybe I can help a helper sort out what might help the learner.

The Big Thought Is Missing in National Security
By G. Pascal Zachary, The New York Times, July 1, 2007

He mentions how NASA was formed in 1958, after the Soviet Union launched the third in its series of Sputnik rockets.

He mentions several causes

Mentions the possibility of secret project but thinks they may be too small in scale and vision.

I think its all gotten a little too abstract for many leaders to get their hands around.

What Gets Measured Gets Fixed, so Measure the Right Things
WorldChanging Team
June 28, 2007 9:13 AM

Editor’s Note: Sightline Institute just released their third annual Cascadia Scorecard, a publication reporting on the state of human and environmental health in the Pacific Northwest. Through seven key indicators, they examine present concerns, and offer practical vision for a prosperous future. Last year, we published an excerpt from their Sprawl & Health chapter, and one year later we’re returning to the topic to see what this year’s findings can tell us about the evolution of health and the environment, regionally and beyond. The following is an excerpt from the Introduction and Health chapters of Cascadia Scorecard 2007.

———————————————-

contributed by Sightline Institute

What if your bathroom scale has been wrong all along? Day after day, you step on, and take comfort—or sigh with disappointment—at the reading. But what if it’s been telling you the poundage of some other person? Or, perhaps, the average of 30 strangers, picked seemingly at random? You might try to exchange your scale for one that works; or you might just toss it in the trash. Regardless, you’d certainly stop consulting it….

The Break-In That History Forgot
By Egil Krogh, Op-Ed Contributor,The New York Times, June 30, 2007

The Watergate break-in, described by Ron Ziegler, then the White House press secretary, as a “third-rate burglary,” passes its 35th anniversary this month. The common public perception is that Watergate was the principal cause of President Nixon’s downfall. In fact, the seminal cause was a first-rate criminal conspiracy and break-in almost 10 months earlier that led inexorably to Watergate and its subsequent cover-up.

In early August 1971, I attended a secret meeting in Room 16, a hideaway office in the basement of the Old Executive Office Building, across the street from the White House….

I listened intently. At no time did I or anyone else there question whether the operation was necessary, legal or moral. Convinced that we were responding legitimately to a national security crisis, we focused instead on the operational details: who would do what, when and where.

Mr. Young and I sent a memo to John Ehrlichman, assistant to the president, recommending that “a covert operation be undertaken to examine all of the medical files still held by Ellsberg’s psychiatrist.” Mr. Ehrlichman approved the plan, noting in longhand on the memo, “if done under your assurance that it is not traceable.”…

With the Fielding break-in, some of us in the Nixon White House crossed the Rubicon into the realm of lawbreakers. In November 1973, I pleaded guilty to criminal conspiracy in depriving Dr. Fielding of his civil rights, specifically his constitutional right to be free from an unwarranted search. I no longer believed that national security could justify my conduct. At my sentencing, I explained that national security is “subject to a wide range of definitions, a factor that makes all the more essential a painstaking approach to the definition of national security in any given instance.”

Judge Gerhard Gesell gave me the first prison sentence of any member of the president’s staff: two to six years, of which I served four and a half months.

I finally realized that what had gone wrong in the Nixon White House was a meltdown in personal integrity. Without it, we failed to understand the constitutional limits on presidential power and comply with statutory law….

Egil Krogh, a lawyer, is the author of the forthcoming “Integrity: Good People, Bad Choices and Life Lessons From the White House.”

Machu Picchu pictures at the New York Times

Set up a free, web conference page in minutes with Web 2.0 tools - SmartMobs.com

Vigil Raises ‘Voices Against Terror’ - Washington Post

Shopping Smart: Which Vegetables Should You Buy Organic?

What Google Can Teach Us About Self-Image - LiveDev

Two decades of PowerPoint: Is the world a better place? - Presentation Zen

Lawrence Lessig Speech at iCommons Summit 2007 via YouTube