Brown2020

The book Eating Fossil Fuels looks at agriculture and our food supply through the lens of energy and energy balance. When you add up the energy inputs of fertilizer, pesticide, herbicide, irrigation, and tilling, the food produced on a typical acre of land today takes many more calories of energy to produce than the maximum energy that could possibly be generated from the sun through photosynthesis. Where does the extra energy come from? Mostly from fossil fuels. What does this mean? The current food system is unsustainable and in many more ways than most people realize. If you look at the energy content of the food we eat, we are literally eating fossil fuels.

Emerging infectious diseases that start with a fever or a rash can pose a risk to public health because they might not be recognized at the early stages when containment or treatment is possible. After September 11, our fears were stoked by anthrax. Then came SARS, and we still wait anxiously for bird flu.

A patent recently issued to Health Hero Network describes a simple but powerful idea that addresses the pandemic challenge by enabling near-real-time syndromic surveillance that can be adapted on the fly. Easy-to-navigate survey devices collect data from hospital waiting rooms, school nurses, and other points of care. The survey script can be changed and updated remotely by public health authorities based on the latest information. The devices report data to central computers that look for any unusual patterns and then alert public health authorities immediately so that they can investigate further.

Disease outbreaks that look like the flu at the beginning can be hard to detect early because flu-like symptoms are common and are not always reported. The first cases of an outbreak may be spread out over many different clinics, hospitals, and schools in a metropolitan area. Unusual patterns might emerge only when looking at a broader cross section of a region. The other challenge is that we may not know what data is relevant and important at the beginning stages of an outbreak. Where it might have been fever, rash, and working in a mail room for one threat, it might be diarrhea and travel to a specific region or eating a particular food in another threat.

While many efforts have been discussed and may even be underway to facilitate early detection of outbreaks by sifting through electronic medical records and pharmacy data, the most important information might be missed because no one knew to ask the right question. When we do figure out what question to ask, we won’t have time to add fields to medical records or change forms. Our public health authorities need the ability to change the script as soon as they learn new information.

Despite the simplicity of the approach, it is not easy to organize health systems around new ways of doing things. On the other hand, maybe we won’t need to. Public health surveys could be pushed to iPhone users, for example. There just might be enough iPhones out there by now to provide a statistically significant sample size enabling highly sensitive early detection of potential public health emergencies. If you want to read the patent, you can find the full text here.

This is a time of year we sometimes think about starting new journeys. After browsing the graduation speeches on YouTube, I am still drawn to this commencement address at Stanford University in June 2005. Steve Jobs, the founder of Apple Computer, tells us some of his stories to convince us to follow our dreams and not to settle, to “stay hungry and stay foolish.”

Mother Jones recently published this is a fabulous picture of where greenhouse gases really come from. It is particularly interesting to see that when you add up the impact of deforestation, fertilizers, and methane, our taste for beef may have a bigger carbon footprint than our need for transportation.

Yes, We Can! - Si, Se Puede!

Song & video by Will.i.am of The Black Eyed Peas. Inspired by Barack Obama’s ‘Yes We Can’ speech.

http://www.yeswecansong.com

http://www.barackobama.com

It was a creed written into the founding documents that declared the destiny of a nation.

Yes we can.

It was whispered by slaves and abolitionists as they blazed a trail toward freedom.

Yes we can.

It was sung by immigrants as they struck out from distant shores and pioneers who pushed westward against an unforgiving wilderness.

Yes we can.

It was the call of workers who organized; women who reached for the ballots; a President who chose the moon as our new frontier; and a King who took us to the mountaintop and pointed the way to the Promised Land.

Yes we can to justice and equality.

Yes we can to opportunity and prosperity.

Yes we can heal this nation.

Yes we can repair this world.

Yes we can.

We know the battle ahead will be long, but always remember that no matter what obstacles stand in our way, nothing can stand in the way of the power of millions of voices calling for change.

We have been told we cannot do this by a chorus of cynics…they will only grow louder and more dissonant ……….. We’ve been asked to pause for a reality check. We’ve been warned against offering the people of this nation false hope.

But in the unlikely story that is America, there has never been anything false about hope.

Now the hopes of the little girl who goes to a crumbling school in Dillon are the same as the dreams of the boy who learns on the streets of LA; we will remember that there is something happening in America; that we are not as divided as our politics suggests; that we are one people; we are one nation; and together, we will begin the next great chapter in the American story with three words that will ring from coast to coast; from sea to shining sea –

Yes. We. Can.

Featuring: Jesse Dylan, Will.i.am, Common, Scarlett Johansson, Tatyana Ali, John Legend, Herbie Hancock, Kate Walsh, Kareem Abdul Jabbar, Adam Rodriquez, Kelly Hu, Adam Rodriquez, Amber Valetta, Eric Balfour, Aisha Tyler, Nicole Scherzinger and Nick Cannon