GCR News Summary May 2013

Sunset from Mauna Loa Observatory image courtesy of NOAA/Eric Johnson.

The National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration reported that for the first time the daily mean atmospheric concentration of carbon dioxide at the Mauna Loa Observatory was higher than 400 parts per million. The concentration of CO2 has grown at an increasing rate since the observatory began taking measurements in 1958. The concentration of CO2 is generally believed to be 40% higher than it was before the beginning of the Industrial Revolution. It …

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GCRI Welcomes Professional Associate Robert de Neufville

We’re pleased to announce our newest affiliate, Professional Associate Robert de Neufville. Here’s his bio from the GCRI People page.

Robert blogs about the future of the human race at Anthropocene. Robert is also a contributing blogger at Big Think and The Economist’s Democracy in America. Robert holds an M.A. in political science from the University of California, Berkeley (1996) and an A.B. in Government from Harvard (1992). As a Professional Associate, Robert writes GCRI’s news summary and contributes to a wide range of global catastrophic …

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News Summaries Added As Resource

Website update: GCRI’s ongoing series of news summaries can now be found under the Resources menu item at the top of the page. That links to a new News Summaries resource page. This acknowledges the important role that the news summaries play and will make it easier to find the news summaries from anywhere in the website.

The news summaries can also be access through the blog via the News Summaries blog category page.

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May 2013 Newsletter

Dear friends,

If there’s one thing we know from the study of risk, it’s that sudden, unexpected events can change the game. So it was for the 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil spill, the subject of a new paper by GCRI Deputy Director Grant Wilson. So too it is right now for GCRI and our parent organization Blue Marble Space, which recently lost its 501c3 tax status. For Deepwater Horizon, the result was several deaths plus massive environmental and economic damage. For GCRI, it means we have to …

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New Paper: Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill

GCRI has a new academic paper out. Deepwater Horizon and the Law of the Sea: Was the cure worse than the disease?, by Grant Wilson, has been accepted for publication in a law journal to be determined. This paper analyzes the 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil spill in relation to international law. The paper focuses on the use of the oil dispersant Corexit, suggesting that this may have been in violation of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea. The paper also explores …

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GCR News Summary April 2013

You can help us compile future news posts by putting any GCR news you see in the comment thread of this blog post, or send it via email to Grant Wilson (grant [at] gcrinstitute.org).

So far 115 people have been diagnosed with a strain of bird flu known as H7N9 that was previously unknown in humans. Twenty-three of the people known to have contracted the disease have already died. The discovery of a 4-year-old boy who has the virus but who has no apparent …

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Blue Marble Space 501c3 Status Revoked

On Friday, April 5, Blue Marble Space (BMS) was informed by the IRS that its 501c3 nonprofit status has been revoked. Details can be found in this series of letters from BMS President Sanjoy Som.

GCRI is a BMS initiative. Therefore, as of April 5, GCRI also does not have 501c3 status, and donations made to GCRI will not be tax exempt. We are working with BMS to resolve this situation and regain 501c3 status as fast as possible. We will keep you updated as the …

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April 2013 Newsletter

Dear friends,

Ongoing headline news discusses possible global catastrophes. In February, it was a close call with an asteroid. Now, there’s the threat of nuclear war with North Korea. What I’m most worried about is the H7N9 flu virus – see Laurie Garrett’s excellent article Is This a Pandemic Being Born? It can be a lot to keep track of, and so this month GCRI is announcing a new GCR news summary initiative.

We’re also announcing a new research paper focusing on the survivors of global catastrophe. …

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Adaptation to and Recovery from Global Catastrophe

View the paper “Adaptation to and Recovery from Global Catastrophe” 

Global catastrophes, such as nuclear war, pandemics, and ecological collapse threaten the long-term sustainability of human civilization. A lot of research has studied the nature of global catastrophes and how to prevent them. The research neglects what happens to any human survivors of the catastrophe. This paper analyzes the possibility that survivors may adapt to post-catastrophe conditions, recover civilization and perhaps even go on to colonize space. The paper considers both the importance of adaptation/recovery and …

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New Paper: Global Catastrophe Adaptation and Recovery

GCRI has a new academic paper out. Adaptation to and Recovery from Global Catastrophe, by Tim Maher and Seth Baum, has been accepted for publication in Sustainability. (Click here for a nontechnical summary.) This paper analyzes the possibility that survivors may adapt to post-catastrophe conditions, recover civilization, and perhaps even go on to colonize space. The paper considers both the importance of adaptation/recovery and how adaptation/recovery may proceed.

Adaptation and recovery from global catastrophe could be a crucial feature in the fate of human civilization in …

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