Ana Maria Luiza Barbuta's Blog (6)

I did some digging around on the interwebs regarding emergency response plans in Iceland, considering that Katla may well erupt soon and make our lives interesting.



I started with the Search & Rescue organization, SAR Iceland. They didn't have that much info in English on their page, so I e-mailed them to ask about their disaster response plan. They directed me towards the Department of Civil Protection and Emergency Management, who have a nice… Continue

I guess by now everyone knows about the troublesome volcano under the Eyjafjallajökull glacier. And most have heard the speculation that Katla is the next volcano to go off. If that happens, things in Iceland will be a lot more dire than now, as Katla is a notorious troublemaker in the volcano world.



In the event of the eruption, a system like Ushahidi would help greatly in the evacuation and search and rescue efforts. I'm attempting to draw a road map of the eruption.



First… Continue

Since energy in Iceland is already very cheap and efficient, there really aren't many ways for me to make it even more so. Here's what I'm doing now:
- using low-power light bulbs and only turning the lights on when I really need it
- turning off the monitors at home and at work when I'm not using the computer
- participating in the Clean Energy project on World Community Grid

I'm starting a home garden with vegetables and herbs, much to my kittens' delight, who love munching on vegetables (don't ask me why). This is quite a challenge in Iceland, given the cold climate, but I have a back-up plan: getting some wooden boxes with glass lids for growing small plants, since sunlight is more than abundant during Icelandic summer.



My company also has a yearly food drive for poor families, I am going to find or make a collection of cheap recipes to include with the… Continue

The Transylvanian Saxons are are a people of German ethnicity who settled in Transylvania (German: Siebenbürgen) from the 12th century onwards. Until the end of WWI they benefited from an elevated status and developed a thriving community. However, since the beginning of the 20th century their numbers have been dwindling, most of them having emigrated to Germany; nowadays there are less than a quarter Saxons compared… Continue

I chose The Working Group as my social innovation heroes, as they tackle something I feel very strongly about: hate and intolerance. Their Not In Our Town series of videos and events are very powerful tools that work to bring people together and empower them to take action against hate speech and hate crimes.



While poverty, famine, recession and so on are terrible things, I believe hate and intolerance are the insidious evil. You can't fix… Continue