7.0 Earthquake in Haiti

[redstategreen]

Five year old boy pulled out of rubble after 8 days (today)

His mother was killed and his father is missing, but doctors attributed Monley's survival to resilience and the strength of his young body.

Relatives found the boy in a void beneath the ruins of his house as they searched for his father, his uncle said. Four of the uncle's friends helped pull the boy out as he cried out, over and over again, "I'm thirsty."

[kpeavey]

Haiti to resettle 400,000 quake victims to camps (Yahoo News)

Here come the camps.
This is a normal, logical, practical progression of relief efforts. Search and rescue, mobilization of relief, distribution, then relocation to camps.

At least 124 people were saved by search-and-rescue teams since the quake, the European Commission reported.

For all that effort, this seems like a very small gain. Considering the traffic jam at the airport and the number of people losing life and limb to infection, I have to wonder if more people could be saved by skipping over search and rescue attempts. Could focusing immediately on care for the injured and establishing potable water and sanitation save more lives if put in place a day earlier?

[kpeavey]

After a week and a half the news is getting thin. The sensation is gone, people are tired of reading about it, the scoops are all over. The earthquake in Haiti has been pushed off the front page by Colin O'Brien and other matters of great importance.

[redstategreen]

Yeah, the two people pulled out half-alive yesterday are good, but they're losing hundreds every day to infection. And reportedly there are areas that haven't seen any aid yet.

Did anyone see the telethon last night? I watched a little of it.

[redstategreen]

The myth of Haiti's lawless streets

As a member of the media covering the tragedy in Haiti, it's with a sense of alarm and astonishment that I've witnessed how some senior aid officials have argued for withholding aid of the utmost urgency because of sensational claims about violence and insecurity, which appear to be based more on fantasy than reality.

John O'Shea, who runs the well-known Irish aid agency Goal, has joined this chorus, telling the Guardian he couldn't get his trucks from the Dominican Republic to Haiti because he had no guarantees his drivers wouldn't be "macheted to death on the way down". He added that Goal has no plans to deploy its much-needed doctors and nurses on the streets of Port-au-Prince.

From what I've observed, such chilling claims do not match the reality on the ground; and by trumpeting a distorted and sensational picture about the violence, some senior aid officials may be culpable of undermining the very aid effort they are supposed to be promoting.

[Ludi]

The myth of Haiti's lawless streets

The myth of the violent Zombie Hordes?

[EnergyUnlimited]

Cruel as it may sound but Haiti has just received (courtesy of Mother Nature) some desperately needed population cut.
Measly at it may appear at first glance (only 5-8% of population loss perhaps, versus ~ 80-90% cut as per ecological requirement to bring human business to balance with Nature), it is certainly a step in right direction.

To put them on sustainable track further 5-10 of earthquakes like this one, all of these affecting most populated areas and followed by dozen of devastating tsunamis or so would be needed.
That's assuming no foreign aid at all...

That is presented to help you realize, how hopelessly unsustainable Haiti is right now.

[kpeavey]

EnergyUnlimited

Some would see your statement as a cold face put on such suffering. Leaving the emotion out of the picture, your statement is direct, to the point, and I fully agree with you. Offering support and assistance to a population in overshoot only serves to delay the inevitable, allowing further population growth which will result in greater suffering down the road. It would be politically unbearable for a government to deny assistance in light of such tragedy. Reason takes a back seat to compassion in such instances because most of the electorate are ignorant to the issues of overpopulation, overshoot, resource depletion and dieoff.

[Ludi]

Offering support and assistance to a population in overshoot only serves to delay the inevitable

I certainly hope you don't take advantage of the support and assistance from the federal government, in the form of food from grocery stores which got there by benefit of subsidies to agriculture and grants to states for construction and maintenance of roads, energy from central power grids, etc. But I bet you do.

That is, you yourself are very likely the beneficiary of support and assistance as a member of a population in overshoot, unless you are entirely self-supporting in food, clothing, and shelter.

So stop benefiting from this support or stop claiming to "fully agree" with someone who thinks a population in overshoot should not benefit from support and assistance.

Or is it ok for YOU to benefit from support and assistance, but not for someone else?

[eastbay]

Cruel as it may sound but Haiti has just received (courtesy of Mother Nature) some desperately needed population cut.
Measly at it may appear at first glance (only 5-8% of population loss perhaps, versus ~ 80-90% cut as per ecological requirement to bring human business to balance with Nature), it is certainly a step in right direction.

To put them on sustainable track further 5-10 of earthquakes like this one, all of these affecting most populated areas and followed by dozen of devastating tsunamis or so would be needed.
That's assuming no foreign aid at all...

That is presented to help you realize, how hopelessly unsustainable Haiti is right now.

200,000 dead is a shocking number. That's the number we read tossed around by those who should know. But it's about 2% of their population. This tragic event will in no way correct the surreal overshoot we all see on their half of Hispaniola. The pre-earthquake population will likely be reached again by this time next year. Or earlier.

[Jack]

At some point, a decision will be made -

Global population triage, or decline into chaos and survival of the fittest. In this instance, fitness is undefined - it is a term that remains to be determined.

Triage means choosing who lives and who dies. Chaos kicks the can down the road until events force a choice.

Chaos will be messier and more destructive. Given the reluctance to adjust population levels, it seems the more likely bet.

Fun times coming. Depending on how one defines fun and recognizing that the term "Fun" is delivered in a sarcastic tone.

[Ludi]

At some point, a decision will be made -

Global population triage, or decline into chaos and survival of the fittest. In this instance, fitness is undefined - it is a term that remains to be determined.

In the short term, fitness is likely to be determined by ability to pay for support and assistance, that is, survival of the richest. In the long term, physical fitness, cleverness, and adaptability may be the determining factors of survival.

[the48thronin]

location, location, location....and some luck! Buying assistance with what? GOLD? lol

[redstategreen]

Monsanto donating seeds to Haiti

I can't help but be suspicious of this. I said so to someone in Haiti (on Twitter) and got called a neo-Luddite by one of his followers. I sincerely hope I'm wrong, but when one of the most corrupt governments in history and the most soulless corporation I've ever seen (with a history of screwing farmers over) are agreeing on something it makes me want to run screaming.

[Sober]

Haiti is very poor, but on an environmental karmic country wide level... it deserves to die off... not saying that I am happy with seeing what is happening in Haiti... but I value more the life of trees than avarage humans, and Haiti has cutted off all trees... If this country wide die off has to happen, I will have prefered that it happened quickly... I don't feel very comfortable expressing this.

[redstategreen]

Haiti is very poor, but on an environmental karmic country wide level... it deserves to die off...

I find that statement very distasteful.