Our Hurricane Sandy edition of the bimonthly tweet roundup features big ideas about infrastructure, flood prevention measures for coastal cities, a duel between two lists of appropriate technologies that can outfit household emergency kits and more. This is our latest roundup of tweets from the international community.
For up-to-the-minute updates from E4C on Twitter, please follow us at @Engineer4Change.
what do natural disasters teach us about energy infrastructure resilience? http://bit.ly/SEAwpr stick with renewable, decentralized tech
— frank bergh (‎@frankbergh) November 3, 2012
Wind and solar power generators weathered Hurricane Sandy well, and they were never a threat to public safety, as were nuclear reactors and natural gas leaks, Renewable Energy World reports.
5 Ideas That Could Have Prevented Flooding in New York http://lnkd.in/eA-XPW
— rockforlight (‎‎@rockforlight) November 1, 2012
Elevated subway entrances, seagates, surge barriers and even oysters make up some of these five solid ideas for preventing flooding in New York City (or any coastal city, really). This is a timely list by Atlantic Cities, tweeted by E4C’s Kasmore Rhedrick.
Tips on How To access the Internet via Text Message During Hurricane Doomsday…or everyday in the #developing world: http://gizmodo.com/5955938/you-can-still-get-the-internet-via-text-message-during-hurricane-doomsday …
— iana (‎‎‎@iana_aranda) October 30, 2012
Gizmodo offers tips for updating Facebook and performing Google searches using nothing but old-fashioned SMS. Unfortunately, the site is impaired as of the time of posting, but here’s a link to Google’s cache of the page: http://bit.ly/PM4g4B And the article borrowed from this report at Buzzfeed, which lists all of the tips: http://www.buzzfeed.com/jwherrman/how-to-use-the-internet-when-the-internet-is-gone
Hurricane #Sandy‘s impact on already stressed Haiti, DR, Barbados and Cuba http://abcn.ws/X1lv3p
— iana (‎‎‎@iana_aranda) November 1, 2012
Before it flooded the US East Coast, Hurricane Sandy left a swathe of destruction through Jamaica, Cuba, the Bahamas, Puerto Rico, the Dominican Republic and Haiti, Univision reports.
Too expensive? That’s what @AIDG says about our round up of appropriate tech for emergency kits: http://aidg.org/blog/?p=1646 #hurricane
— Engineering 4 Change (‎‎‎‎@engineer4change) November 1, 2012
We posted a list of ten technologies at work in developing countries that could also serve to flesh out household emergency kits anywhere, but Peter Haas, who heads AIDG, said our items were too expensive. He made up a $200 emergency kit from Walmart and Amazon in response. To add context, a day earlier we had implored the Twitterverse to “Upgrade your hurricane or zombie-apocalypse emergency kits with these 10 technologies for int’l development http://bit.ly/SaMZxj”
And in other news…
Fantastic notes & sketches! RT @willowbl00: Notes from my favorite session so far at #IEEEGHTC12 on Business for BoP: http://ieeeghtc.wordpress.com/2012/10/24/business-for-the-bop_-dream-or-reality-ieeeghtc12/ …
— Engineering 4 Change (‎‎‎‎@engineer4change) October 25, 2012
Willow Brugh found an attractive way to present notes and sketches from a workshop at IEEE’s Global Humanitarian Conference in Seattle, Wash.
Sheila of windstream power demos the 12V human powered generator @ the #ieeeghtc12
— iana (‎‎‎‎‎@iana_aranda) October 24, 2012
One of the many interesting devices on display at IEEE’s Global Humanitarian Conference, the human-powered generator could fill a niche need for low levels of electricity off the grid.
“Life appeared” – Russ George on his ocean geoengineering experiment to dump iron dust & grow plankton http://bit.ly/TlaY0a / @FastCoExist
— Engineering 4 Change (‎‎‎‎‎‎@engineer4change) October 27, 2012
It was lambasted by some as reckless, and praised by others as a worthy experiment, but whatever the opinions about his methods, Russ George’s adventure in geoengineering may provide some valuable data.
World Band’s Climate Innovation Center in Kenya fosters 70 ventures in off-grid tech, water, ag, etc http://bit.ly/Sfxuo7 / @GlobalEnvision
— Engineering 4 Change (‎‎‎‎‎‎@engineer4change) November 2, 2012
The new center will support green businesses and the development of off-grid technologies, water management and purification, micro-hydro, technologies for handling flood and drought, agriculture and bio-energies, Global Envision reports.
A list of aquaponics resouces RT @Myway500: Build a vertical aquaponic veggie & fish farm for small yards & houses: http://bit.ly/baK1u9
— Engineering 4 Change (‎‎‎‎‎‎@engineer4change) October 23, 2012
There’s a lot of talk about aquaponics as a more efficient way to raise crops and fish. The link offers a list of resources for those interested.
