People are also increasingly moving to urban areas, leading to denser living with increased pressure to reduce energy use and build new infrastructure . Currently over 50% of people live in cities compared to just 28.8% in 1950 with the United Nations projecting that 69% of people will live in cities by 2050 when the world population is projected to be 9.3 billion.

Another challenge is the increasing number of mouths to feed with a finite amount of land suitable for agriculture. In a new article Worldwatch proposes “two main approaches to mitigate the impacts of a soaring global population:    1) Empower women to make their own decisions about childbearing and 2) Consume fewer resources and waste less food.”

National Geographic magazine special year-long series on population explores many of the challenges we face with our growing world population. Additionally, they are offering a limited time  free iPad app 7 Billion: How your world will change - to coincide with the arrival of the 7 billionth human being to our world, exploring the challenges of a growing human population in a world of limited resources with informative videos, interactive maps, in-depth articles, and photography.

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Earthquake Crisis in Haiti

Original post by Wilnise Jasmin [01.14.2010 @ 6:53 AM EST]

As you may have already heard, a 7.0 magnitude earthquake struck about 10 miles southwest of Port-au- Prince, Haiti at about 5 pm Tuesday night. The quake ravaged the infrastructure of Haiti’s fragile government and destroyed some of its most important cultural symbols.

“Parliament has collapsed,” Mr. Préval told The Miami Herald. “The tax office has collapsed. Schools have collapsed. Hospitals have collapsed. There are a lot of schools that have a lot of dead people in them.” He added: “All of the hospitals are packed with people. It is a catastrophe.”

President Obama promised that Haiti would have the “unwavering support” of the United States.

Haitian authorities and humanitarian aid organizations are struggling to respond amid devastation.

A Red Cross field team of officials from several nations had to spend Wednesday night in Santo Domingo in the Dominican Republic to gather its staff before taking the six-hour drive in the morning across the border to the earthquake zone.

Here are some various ways to help with the recovery:

• American Red Cross
• Center for International Disaster Information
• On this website, there have been posts containing information about missing relatives. If anyone can possibly account for anyone please do.
• Partners In Health, and their partner organization in Haiti, Zanmi Lasante, are familiar to many of us from Tracy Kidder’s book Mountains Beyond Mountains.  They have been working in Haiti for over 20 years, in times of emergency as well as in a long-term commitment to improving the health infrastructure.  They are currently looking for qualified surgeons and nurses.
• More organizations
• Build a fundraising page with MercyCorps

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Updated [01.14.2010 @ 3 PM EST]: Key news items and op-eds:

• Barack Obama: “Unwavering support”
• U.S. grants temporary protection status to Haitians; sends troops
• Red Cross: 45,000-50,000 dead
• Tracy Kidder: Country Without a Net
• Bill Clinton: What we can do to help Haiti, now and beyond
• Nicolas Sarkozy: Time to end Haiti’s “curse”

Updated [01.14.2010 @ 11 PM EST]: US Military Plan of Action Established and Underway

Secretary of Defense, Robert Gates has shifted all of the resources of the US Department of Defense towards providing relief. General Douglas Fraser of the US Southern Command publically announced the Haiti relief plan on Thursday at a press conference held at the U.S. Southern Command Headquarters in  Doral, Florida. The main areas addressed by Douglas focused on improving life sustaining capabilities and to provide assistance  in the relief efforts in order  to mitigate the suffering as soon as humanly possible. Some of the areas discussed:

• An  initial Commander and  Control  has been set up until communication capability has been reestablished
• Opening the air field and making it operate on a  24/7 schedule
• 4 Coastguard cutters to provide helicopters and any additional support it can
• A navy destroyer will also be providing helicopter support as well as the fuel needed to keep all the helicopters running.
• A Threat and Disaster Relief assessment team has been organized in order to  get an accurate survey of the extent of the damage
• Paratroopers have been dispatched
• Carrier USS Carl Vinson is scheduled to arrive on the morning of the 15th to provide additional helicopters and serve as the platform that will alleviate the organization problems faced due to the poorly established infrastructure that currently exists in Haiti
• Marines are scheduled to bring the heavy equipment necessary to provide capacity and capability on the 19^th
• USNS Comfort hospital ship is is scheduled to arrive on the 22^nd

Updated [01.15.2010 @ 12:30 PM EST]: The Big Picture

Two days later, the extent of the damage is seen in these harrowing photographs at the Boston Globe.  Click on the image to see the photo-essay of devastation and rescue.

Updated [01.15.2010 @ 4 PM EST]:

• The U.S. military reopens the Port-au-Prince airport

Updated [01.15.2010 @ 8:30 PM EST]:

• Port-au- Prince is not the only area in Haiti that needs help.

Updated [01.16.2010 @ 10:30 AM EST]:

T-Mobile USA Waives Call Charges to and From Haiti

• T-Mobile USA is enabling phone calls for current customers to Haiti without charges for international long distance through January 31, 2010, and retroactive to the earthquake on January 12, 2010. Additionally, T-Mobile customers who may already be in Haiti will be able to roam on T-Mobile’s partner networks in Haiti (operated locally in Haiti under the names Voila and Digicel) free-of-charge through the end of the month.

• T- Mobile also pledge to assist in wireless restoration.

Updated [01.17.2010 @ 10:30 AM EST]: Prevention and Rebuilding

Many are asking if this tragedy that resulted from the earthquake could have been prevented. Back in 2008 two geophysicists who study fault lines in the Caribbean predicted that the fault line that Haiti sits upon called the Enriquillo fault could produce a 7.2 magnitude quake.  The plates of the fault had been slipping past each other at about 7 millimeters per year for the last 250 years and the geophysicists predicted that it was time to snap.

While the earthquake could not have been prevented, the scientists believe that there was enough forewarning to implement emergency plans for when the earthquake would occur.  While the limited resources of Haiti did not allow it to upgrade every single building standing, some buildings , such as hospitals and governmental buildings, could have been designated as critical and plans to strengthen these could been made.  These areas could have served as the base from which all rescue efforts could be organized.

Unfortunately these plans were not made and to dwell on the errors of the past will not resolve the current problems that exist today.   Once all rescue efforts have been exhausted, we can take learn from the errors that were made and not repeat them.  When the reconstruction phase begins, NGO’s like Architecture for Humanity can work to ensure that another tragedy like the one that occurred this week will not recur.

Updated [01.17.2010 @ 11:30 AM EST]: Earthquake on Ocean Floor

On Sunday morning, a 6.3 magnitude earthquake was detected by seismologists In the Drake Passage on Atlantic Ocean floor between South America and Antarctica.  The quake had no effect on nearby lands.

Updated [01.17.2010 @ 10:00 PM EST]

The CDC has deployed staff to Haiti to assist in the emergency response and guide the efforts to minimize public health impacts in the coming months.  It has also updated several relevant resources for health care providers and responders:

• Guidance for Relief Workers and Others Traveling to Haiti for Earthquake Response
• Emergency Wound Management for Healthcare Professionals
• After an Earthquake: Management of Crush Injuries & Crush Syndrome
• CDC’s Earthquake Webpage
• Health Recommendations for Relief Workers Responding to Disasters
• Public Health Issues and Priorities for the Haiti Earthquake
• Travel Health Warning
• CDC Emergency Twitter account
• Haiti Disaster Volunteering

Updated by Jennifer Weinberg [01.19.2010 @ 9:00 am EST]

Partners in Health (PIH) is one of many organizations from around the globe dedicating efforts to the earthquake victims in Haiti. As this organization has been working in Haiti for over 25 years, they are in a unique position to understand the multitude of factors contributing to this tragedy.

Watch a PIH Executive Director Ophelia Dahl discuss the importance of long term rebuilding efforts with CBS’s Katie Couric.

Read an op-ed by PIH co-founder Paul Farmer focusing on the importance of building back better.

Updated [01.20.2010 @ 2:20 PM]:

As inquiries about volunteering in Haiti keep pouring in, while after-shocks rattle the island and life-saving supplies are turned away for lack of logistics support, the World Journal of Surgery shares some thoughts on the “cardinal sins” of humanitarian medicine.

Updated [01.20.2010 @ 8:30 PM]: More ways you can help

• If you are a health professional interested in volunteering to help, the American Academy of Family Physicians can link you organizations that are in Haiti.

• The Pan American Health and Education Foundation’s is an independent philanthropic organization working to build public health expertise to be able to innovatively lead development of healthier generations of people in the Americas.  It has set up a  Disaster Relief Fund to help bring critically needed emergency supplies for affected families and to support recovery efforts in Haiti.

• Habitat for Humanity has worked with Haiti for over 26 years and will continue to serve the people there by helping to rebuild.

• Nine Medical Teams International volunteer physicians and nurses are hard at work at various hospitals in Port au Prince. At Kings Hospital, a 350 bed inpatient facility that survived the earthquake the physicians are providing  care to those who would have died without the help of the volunteers.

Updated [01.21.2010 @ 11:30 PM]: When Good Intentions Make Things Worse ;   Record Donations; and Mass Movements

Haitian government figures relayed by the European Commission put the death toll at 200,000, with 80,000 buried in mass graves. The commission now estimates 2 million homeless, up from 1.5 million, and says 250,000 are in need of urgent aid. The countless number of untreated injuries that many Haitians still have will continue to add to the earthquake’s death toll. Lack of food and water will also contribute to the death toll.  .”  Partners in Health, an organization that has been providing health care in Haiti for two decades, estimated that 20,000 Haitians were dying daily from lack of surgery.

In an effort to prevent the loss of more lives, health experts have arrived in Haiti from Israel, Cuba, Portugal and other countries, many with stocks of medicine and supplies as well as extensive experience in disaster conditions. And the United States Navy hospital ship Comfort pulled up off the Haitian coast to handle the worst-off patients.

One of the problems with the relief effort is that there is a lack of organization and communication between the various aid agencies. “Nobody knows how many doctors, how many nurses have come to Haiti,” said Dr. Henriette Chamouillet, head of the World Health Organization in Haiti. “No one is providing the government with the data it needs.

Disaster organizers say good intentions gone wrong are another hindrance to the recovery effort.” Some examples include volunteer medical teams who have gone to Haiti on their own, without the support of established organizations that have the prior experience in disaster relief and working in developing nations, may actually use up the resources that could have been used to help the victims of the earthquake.  Contacting one of the many organizations listed in the earlier updates of this post can help the individual healthcare worker allocate his or her skill sets in a way that will not take away from those that need aid.

For many organizations, donating money, rather than goods, is the better way to provide aid.  Jeff Nene, a spokesman for Convoy of Hope, a Springfield, Mo., agency that feeds 11,000 children a day in Haiti, urges cash donations that allow his group to buy in bulk from large suppliers and retailers. “When people give $1, it translates into $7 in the field,” he said. “If they spend $5 for bottled water, that’s nice and it makes them feel good, but probably it costs us more than $5 to send it. If they give us $5, we can get $35 worth of water.”

According to the Chronicle of Philanthropy’s recently released a survey, donations to relief groups working in Haiti are breaking fund-raising records. The survey was based on a tally on proceeds reported by the nation’s 22 largest charities and it showed that US charities raised more than $150 million in the four days after the quake. The Chronicle’s survey doesn’t include the sums raised by smaller charities, such as the $25 million by Partners in Health. Among the biggest recipients was the American Red Cross, which has raised $87 million for Haiti so far. Small texted donations account for $16 million of the $150 million raised so far.

Despite the slow progress in coordinating the communications between the organizations providing aid in Haiti, the Haitian government has been able to begin the process of moving 400,00 earthquake victims to new settlements outside of the haphazard camps in Port-au- prince that have been set up in the days following the earthquake. The United Nations supports this move because the consolidation of the nearly 450 homeless encampments in Port-au-Prince alone will help to streamline food distribution.

Updated [01.30.2010 @ 1:20 PM]:  Surveillance for Disease, and Advocacy for Investment

• Dr. James Wilson’s epidemiology surveillance of infectious disease outbreaks in Haiti: Operational Biosurveillance
• Dr. Paul Farmer’s testimony before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee: Video | Transcript

Updated [02. 18.2010 @ 9:30 AM]:In President Preval’s Own Words

The president of the Haiti talks about his initial response to the crisis.

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

+ mother-to-child transmission has increased from 10% to 45% since 2004

+ 2.7 million people newly infected with HIV in 2008

+ HIV infections have fallen 17% since 2001

+ according to the Haiti GHESKIO-Cornell evaluation by Jean Pape MD, without ART there are 80% deaths at  year, contrasted to with ART 80% survival at 2 years

+ GHESKIO-Cornell, there is a correlation between food insecurity and CD4 counts: CD4 counts decrease as food insecurity increases

+ Successful HIV containment in Bangladesh (except in Dhaka) due to preventive education efforts directed towards sex workers, injection drug users and MSM

+ Botswana’s anti-retroviral medicine program covers 80% of its population and has cut AIDS-related deaths by more than half in five years

Here is a statement from Ngoi Okonjo-Iweala, MD, director of the Bank, committing resources in the fights against HIV/AIDS: “The Bank stepped up boldly with the first billion dollars for HIV a decade ago when denial and inaction were widespread.  Now, the tide of the epidemic finally seems to be turning. But we are still in very deep water.  Especially with much of the world still grappling with the food and financial crises, the Bank is doing the right thing in reaffirming to countries, just as each Bank president has done since 2000, that we will continue to support effective efforts to prevent and cope with HIV for as long as it takes to succeed against this virus.”

For a more in-depth summary of today’s events at the World Bank, please redirect yourself here. For a ppt of Dr. Pape’s work in Haiti at Les Centres GHESKIO (Groupe Haitien d’Etude du Sarcome de Kaposi and des Infections Opportunistes) regarding Food Security and HIV/AIDS, click here.

Sisters Vidalia, left, and Maribel Agustin, who suffer from malnutrition, sit at a shelter in Guatemala in August.

From CNN:

Guatemalan President Alvaro Colom has declared a state of national calamity because so many citizens do not have food or proper nutrition.

Speaking in a nationally televised address late Tuesday, Colom said his declaration will make it easier to get food to the thousands of Guatemalan families who are in dire need.

“This will help us access resources from the international community that are generously offered for this type of situation and to mobilize national resources more rapidly,” he said.

This is horrible, though not unexpected, news. The United Nations Food Program has Guatemala as the country with the fourth highest rate of chronic malnutrition in the world. Of course, such problems did not just worsen overnight.

Colom said the nation’s food problems are the result of a drought this year, global warming and the effects of the international economic crisis. He also cited the Central American nation’s “history of unfairness that has made Guatemala live since long ago with high and shameful poverty levels, extreme poverty and undernutrition.”

[...] “This is the cause of the food and nutritional crisis that this country is going through,” Colom said. “There is food. What we don’t have are the financial means so that those who are affected can buy the available food. … Let’s not wait until we have a famine to act.”

The natural resources, at least thus far, are there, but ultimately, it is a financial problem. Years of neglect, shock capitalism, and the never-ending spiral of debt have taken its toll, and the current economic crisis has stripped all false illusions of prosperity. If the government cannot afford the basics, how much better do you think regular people are doing?