WELLNESS FOR PEACE: ANTARCTICA: Ocean Health Index, a collaborative effort to assess regional and global threats to ocean health, becomes an invaluable tool

Greg Stone, Chief Scientist for Oceans, Conservation International says: "The Index posits that "a healthy ocean sustainability delivers a range of benefits to people now and in the future." In the Antarctic, it evaluated how well the region is delivering the maximum sustainable amounts of desired benefits. The Antarctic region scored 72 out of 100, based on how well it provided food, natural products, tourism, livelihoods and economies, clean waters, coastal protection, biodiversity and sense of place. Dr. Catherine Longo, project scientist at the University of California at Santa Barbara's National Center for Ecological Analysis and Synthesis, led the Antarctica assessment. She saw a mix of good and bad news. On the positive side, the distance from human population centers, industries and agriculture protects Antarctica's clean waters. Protected whales and fur seals are also recovering from over-exploitation. On the other hand, 38 of the assessed species are decreasing. Those include some iconic species such as southern bluefin tuna, basking sharks, porbeagle sharks, gentoo penguins and five species of albatrosses, one of which is critically endangered and two others that are endangered. Dr. Longo was concerned that the population trends are unknown for 40% of the species that have been assessed. Two other issues were particularly worrisome for us: illegal, unregulated and unreported fishing (IUU) and climate change. Both are difficult to control, and both can wreak havoc on species populations and conservation efforts." Source: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/greg-stone/despite-its-remoteness-an_b_5906602.html

WELLNESS FOR PEACE: ASIA: Singapore with Most-Efficient Health-Care System & Medical Services Supports Aging Population

The Southeast Asian nation was rated first among 51 countries, according to an annual ranking compiled by Bloomberg that tracks factors including life expectancy, the cost of health care as a percentage of gross domestic product and total medical expenditure for each person. Hong Kong dropped to second place and Italy was ranked third, while the U.S. was 44th and Russia last. Singapore has increased health-care spending in recent years as the workforce ages and the government faces political pressure to ease the burden of the country’s poor. The city-state subsidizes some medical expenses and patients are required to take on more of the costs if they choose premium services, with citizens using mandatory savings set aside for health-care needs.

WELLNESS FOR PEACE: EUROPE: Improving health system performance has been on the political agenda in all member states over the past couple of years

Well-performing health systems make Europe 'politically stable'. This is crucial, because health systems are at the heart of the EU's social model, the Commission says. At the European Health Forum Gastein on Thursday (2 October) Martin Seychell, deputy director general at the Commission's DG Sanco, stated that efficiency is important for the European health systems these days, as healthcare expenditure has been growing steadily in most countries. The drivers behind the expenditure have also increased, and therefore it's appropriate to strive for higher efficiency levels. "Efficiency is an economic concept, but in the health arena we should also talk more about performance. Performance goes beyond the pure concept of the economic efficiency. A good healthcare system must also address a number of other dimensions," he said. Seychell pointed out that a healthcare system is not an end in itself. It's a tool and an instrument to pursue a political, public policy goal. Whatever decisionmakers decide to do with the health systems, the systems must be effective in improving the health status of our population. "A good health system also includes good equity. If we don't, as policymakers, respond to patients' expectations, the response will be negative. People will not feel satisfied and it will lead to a political issue," the Commission representative stressed. Health systems play a vital role in societies, Seychell noted. They are part of social protection, as they guard citizens against unexpected shocks, which also have a beneficial effect on the economy and social security.

UPDATE: Global Warming: The deeper half of the ocean did not get measurably warmer in the last decade, but surface layers have been warming faster than we thought

Sea level change from Year 2005 to Year 2013: The overall rise, on average, was 2.78mm per year. The estimated contribution of melting land ice was 2mm per year. The contribution from warming and expanding shallow layers (above 2km) was approximately 0.9mm per year. This leaves -0.13mm per year for depths beneath 2km (corresponding to a slight cooling of the deep water. However, the error associated with that "residual" is 0.72mm per year - meaning the results are too blurred by uncertainty to indicate significant warming or cooling at depth. The deeper half of the ocean did not get measurably warmer in the last decade, but surface layers have been warming faster than we thought since the 1970s, two new studies suggest. Because the sea absorbs 90% of the heat caused by human activity, its warmth is a central concern in climate science. The new work suggests that shallow layers bear the brunt of ocean warming. Scientists compared temperature data, satellite measurements of sea level, and results from climate models. Both the papers appear in the journal Nature Climate Change. Source: Nature Climate Change

UPDATE: Australia’s First Community-Owned Retailer of Renewable Energy

Northern Rivers Energy, a company being formed by a consortium of “forward thinking citizens” in the area has won a $54,000 grant to develop a business plan and conduct a feasibility study. The plan includes creating a company with both retailing and generation, and an asset management arm that could invest in generation, help finance rooftop solar and distributed generation for poorer households and, maybe some time down the track, even help buy back the grid. Community owned retailers are common in Europe and the US, particularly in Germany where it is common for retailers and local network operators to be owned by local councils. In recent years, many of the network management contracts have returned to community ownership out of frustration with the actions – or lack of them – of major utilities. A similar theme is running through Australia, with renewable energy popular with the community, solar penetration running at the highest in the world, and growing frustration with energy retailers. Source: http://cleantechnica.com/2014/10/04/australias-1st-community-owned-energy-retailer-way/

UPDATE: Chile becomes the first South American country to tax carbon

(Reuters) - President Michelle Bachelet of Chile enacted new environmental tax legislation - making the country the first in South America to tax carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions. Part of a broad tax reform, Chile's carbon tax will target the power sector, particularly generators operating thermal plants with installed capacity equal or larger than 50 megawatts (MW). These installations will be charged $5 per tonne of carbon dioxide (CO2) released. Thermal plants fueled by biomass and smaller installations will be exempt. The new tax is meant to force power producers to gradually move to cleaner sources to help reduce the country's greenhouse gas emissions and meet its voluntary target of cutting these gases 20 percent from 2007 levels by 2020. Earlier this year, Mexico imposed a tax on the sale of several fossil fuels, based on their carbon content, averaging $3 per tonne of CO2. In Mexico, companies are able to use carbon credits to reduce their tax bills, a provision not considered in Chile. Central-American country Costa Rica also has an environmental tax, but it targets gasoline sales. Around 80 percent of Chile's energy is based on fossil fuels, mostly imported oil and coal. Chile's government will start measuring carbon dioxide emissions from thermal power plants in 2017 and the new tax would be charged from 2018. Four companies are expected to pay the bulk of the new tax: Endesa, AES Gener, Colbún and E.CL. The companies have said that the tax will raise the price of electricity. They have also complained that other industrial sectors were not targeted. The government said it expects to collect about $160 million from the carbon tax, a relatively small share of the forecast $8.3 billion in additional revenue the broader tax reform will bring in. (Reporting by Marcelo Teixeira. Editing by Andre Grenon)

WELLNESS FOR PEACE AT HOME: Keep Family Emotionally Safe On-line: Set Internet Rules for the Entire Household to Follow Responsibly

SAMPLE INTERNET RULES TO IMPLEMENT AT HOME: 1. Secure your home Wi-Fi network. Your home Wi-fi allows your kids to access the internet from all over your house, which makes it harder for you to keep an eye on them. If it’s not secured, intruders might use your bandwidth, or worse, compromise your internet security by infecting your PC with malware or sending their malware attacks from your system. So what to do? Make sure your Wi-Fi highly secured: use a strong password for your router (see rule #7); enable wireless encryption to prevent strangers from “seeing” your network and restrict access to it. 2. Read online privacy policies carefully. Social networks or websites that require basic information from you when you create an account with them – Facebook, Google+, Pinterest etc. – have privacy policies. Every time you (or a family member) want to join a new network, read the privacy policy carefully so that you know how/if its creators intend to use your information in any way, and what measures they take to prevent internet security dangers such as phishing and identity theft. 3. Teach your kids and even grandma safe social networking. First off, if your kid is under 13, don’t let him/her subscribe to social networks, unless they’re for kids. Secondly, teach your family members not to use their full names, birthdays and addresses on their profiles. The less personal info, the better for their internet security. Do not talk about your vacation plans prior to leaving, do not share photos with identifiable details (home street, car licence plate etc.) and do not “check in” to public places. Advise your kids to do the same and talk to them about cyberbullying, predators and stalkers. 4. Ensure safe live online gaming for your kids. Live online games, such as Xbox Live, enable kids or teens to interact with their friends in a fun way, but can also expose them to internet security dangers such as: bullying, harassment, and predators. Make sure your kid doesn’t reveal his identity while playing games – have him use a nickname and an avatar; monitor his play and always check who he’s playing with; turn on the safety measures in the game consoles – use the parental controls they offer. 5. Make sure your teenage kid blogs safely. Nowadays, all kids do some form of blogging, if not on blogging platforms, on social networks. While blogging improves writing skills and communication, it may compromise your kid’s internet security and physical security if they keep their posts too personal - stalkers and predators’ favourite type of read. So, find out if your kid blogs, evaluate the blogging service (read the privacy policy and make sure it’s private and password-protected), check and review your kid’s blog and posts on social networks regularly. 6. Install Parental Control on your family computers, just in case. It’s always best to foster open communication with kids, trust them and make them trust you. But extra caution doesn’t hurt. Using a Parental Control tool, just as the one in BullGuard Internet Security, you can block access to inappropriate websites and monitor their activity. Remember: it’s not about spying on your kids, it’s about keeping them safe from online dangers! 7. Create safe passwords for your accounts. A weak password can be easily cracked by any hacker who wants to breach your online accounts and steal precious information or your identity. A basic internet security rule is to create a strong unique password for each online account and change it regularly: make it long (at least eight characters), mix letters, numbers and symbols, and opt for security questions (whenever the possibility is provided) to which only you know the answer. Teach your family members to do the same. 8. Ensure safe browsing for everyone, even for grandma! Web browsing is probably the one thing everybody’s good at in the online world. But bear in mind that cybercrooks know and use this fact to their advantage. They can push up fake web addresses in your search results to make you visit their malicious websites and trick you into giving up personal details or downloading spyware and malware. This is why you need to install an effective Safe Browsing tool, as the one included in BullGuard’s internet security suite – it flags out every malicious link in search results and even on Facebook walls; and whenever that happens, it makes a statement! Grandma would surely be pleased with all the prevention details it offers. 9. Download and install software from trusted sources only. Free games, music, movies etc. are up for download all over the internet. They are also very tempting for children. But some of them contain spyware and other types of malware that can compromise your whole family’s internet security. Make a list of trusted downloading sources and have your whole family stick to it. Also, read carefully the licence agreement before installing a new piece of software and make sure your kids ask for your permission before they download or install something. 10. Look for https:// in the URLs of the websites you make online transactions from. “S” in “https” stands for “secure” and should appear in every bank or online shop address. If grandma or any other family member is a keen online shopper, advise them to always look for this internet security sign and shop from trusted sources. If they find a new cool online shop, have them research it. Also, if you/they bank or shop from your home Wi-fi, make sure it’s secured (see rule #1). 11. Learn how to recognize and avoid phishing scams. Usernames, passwords, bank account numbers, PINs, full credit card numbers and your birthday are the “commodities” cybercrooks are after. They devise all sorts of scam messages and sent them your way via e-mail, messages, comments and posts on social networks. Be especially wary of alarmist messages and threats of (bank) account closures, requests for charity donations, lottery wins and giveaways. Also look for grammar and spelling mistakes in the messages and links you’d have to click on – if they are poorly written, they are certainly part of an internet security scam (e.g. www.goog.le.com) Teach your family members to do the same. 12. Keep all your computer programs up-to-date. Out-dated software has security holes that can easily be exploited by hackers and viruses. That’s why you have to make sure that all the programs on the devices you and your family go online from are up-to-date. A Vulnerability Scanner, like the one in BullGuard Internet Security, can spot the out-dated software versions and find the needed updates. 13. Back up every important file on your computer. You never know when your computer might break down, whether because of malware attacks or some silly accident. You have to make sure that every vital item on it stays safe and sound. Including your precious family photos of your children growing up, family anniversaries and holidays. 14. Have a complete internet security solution installed on your family computers. In addition to the features mentioned above, BullGuard Internet Security 12 comes with a proactive antivirus engine that spots even the newest forms of malware, thanks to the state-of-the-art technology it uses – Behavioural detection combined with Signature-based detection. It also provides you with 5GB of Online Backup and the possibility to protect 3 computers at the same time. 15. Keep yourself informed about internet security threats. Only knowing the “enemy” you can set up a proper “defence mechanism” suited to your family. You don’t have to become a computer savvy; you just need some basic knowledge about online dangers, so that you can talk with your family and teach them how to defend themselves. In BullGuard’s Internet Security Centre you can find lots of information about the most common and newest threats in the online world, as well as some specific tips and tricks on how to stay safe from each threat. http://www.bullguard.com/bullguard-security-center/internet-security/security-tips/family-online-safety.aspx