Predictions over the long term: AI, climate change: Looming disasters humanity can’t ignore

What if we could have stopped catastrophic disasters like Hurricane Katrina, the 2004 Boxing Day tsunami and the threat of Islamic State?

Two national security and counter-terrorism experts believe governments were warned about some of the world’s most horrific events. Not only that, they say there are new predictions about the future we should not ignore.

R.P. Eddy, a former director of counter-terrorism at the White House National Security Council, and Richard Clarke, who served more than a decade in the White House as national co-ordinator for security and counter-terrorism, said for nearly every catastrophe in the world, there was an expert who said it would happen but was ignored.

In 2012, then ambassador to Syria, Robert Ford, warned the White House a group similar to Al-Qaeda would form and take over large areas of land and even major cities.

He made the prediction after seeing the conflict that began to arise on the ground in Syria.

His views were ignored and then Islamic State began to propagate, becoming more dangerous and causing global terror. Just last month Islamic State claimed responsibility for the Manchester attack at the Ariana Grande concert, which killed 22 people. Yesterday, the group claimed responsibility for a bombing in Kabul, Afghanistan, that killed 90.

The first person to ever win the Polk, Pultizer and Peabody awards, Laurie Garrett, predicted the devastating rise in HIV/AIDS. She, too, was ignored.

“She saw these men dying of a disease called ‘gay related immune deficiency’, ‘GRID’, or ‘gay cancer’,” Mr Eddy told the Huffington Post.

“They didn’t know what it was. Gay men didn’t think they had a transmissible disease. They thought they were sharing a cancer somehow, but just by looking at them and seeing the hypocrisy sarcoma on their face, Laurie Garrett knew this was a contagious illness and started getting the media to pay attention.”

Mr Eddy and Mr Clarke have released a new book, Warnings: Finding Cassandras to Stop Catastrophes, to pre-empt future disasters and warn those in power not to hide away from the inevitable.

For the complete report click here: : AI, climate change: Looming disasters humanity can’t ignore

Water Supplies California: Only 1 year of water left in California, NASA scientist suggests rationing - Lucy Nicholson

NASA’s top water scientist says California only has about one year’s worth of water left in storage, and its groundwater – often used as a backup for reservoirs and other reserves – is rapidly depleting. He suggests immediately rationing water.

California just had the driest January since record-keeping began in 1895, with groundwater and snowpack levels at all-time lows, NASA scientist Jay Familglietti wrote in a column for the Los Angeles Times. He said the state has been running out of water since before the current years-long drought and storage levels have been falling since at least 2002, according to NASA satellite data.

“California has no contingency plan for a persistent drought like this one (let alone a 20-plus-year mega-drought), except, apparently, staying in emergency mode and praying for rain,” said Familglietti. “In short, we have no paddle to navigate this crisis.”


Read more: Only 1 year of water left in California, NASA scientist suggests rationing — RT USA

Environment: EU should support local solutions to Sub-Saharan droughts - by Roland Bunch.

 As the EU continues work and investment in the conflict-stricken Mali, supporting locally-evolved and adapted solutions can help solve one of the sources of violence, food insecurity, writes Roland Bunch.

The road north from Segou, Mali, is a breathtaking experience: few other drives show how fertile farmland gradually turns into forbidding desert. The well-kept highway shoots through the Sahel, offering increasingly dry vistas. Segou’s maize fields are soon replaced by millet, which is more resistant to drought, then by thorny scrub. By the time you cross the Niger River at Timbuktu, you have officially entered the Sahara Desert. Nothing but sand and rock remains.

Today, Mali mostly evokes war. Al Qaeda’s push for southern Mali, stopped by French forces, had at least one effect which its commanders surely did not expect: the outside world has become acutely interested in the western Sahel. Large flows of fresh aid money, including 5 billion from the European Commission, have been pledged.

But as I was driving up that road in late 2011, militant Islamists were the last things on my mind. A drought had hit the country earlier that year – and that wasn’t supposed to happen.

The Sahel used to experience droughts roughly every ten years.  There had been one in the mid 1970s, and then a terrible one in 1984-85 (that one prompted Bob Geldof to organise Live Aid). Other droughts came in 1994 and in 2003 – par for the course. But then things speeded up. Drought came in 2005 and 2009.  Just two years later, we were experiencing yet another.

Over the centuries, the peoples of the Sahel have evolved complex customs to help them survive these occasional catastrophes. Tradition dictates that people must share their food with the least fortunate. Strict rules govern the use of water. Transgressions are harshly punished.


Read: EU should support local solutions to Sub-Saharan droughts | EurActiv

Netherlands: Massive dune fire under control

The large heath fire in the dune region near Schoorl, north-west of Amsterdam was brought under control, according to media reports on Tuesday.

Some 160 fire officers and helicopters were involved in tackling the blaze, and will remain on duty dousing the flames on Tuesday.

Meanwhile, two men aged 19 and 20 who were arrested on suspicion of involvement in the fire have been released from police custody.

For more: DutchNews.nl - Massive dune fire under control