Saudi Arabia's crown prince on Sunday unveiled plans to build a zero carbon city at NEOM, the first major construction project for the $500 billion flagship business zone aimed at diversifying the economy of the world's largest oil exporter.
Finance officials from the world's 20 biggest economies on Sunday referenced climate change in their final communique for the first time in U.S. President Donald Trump's administration, but stopped short of calling it a major risk to the economy.
Governments face a struggle at a United Nations summit in Spain next week to inject momentum into efforts to curb global warming, dogged by lack of consensus, U.S. scepticism and disruptive protests demanding more action.
How are cyber security and environmental health linked? Just look at the health mess – still! – in Puerto Rico after Hurricane Maria leveled the grid.
While at first glance this story would appear unrelated to environmental health, it actually covers a story of vital importance to the environment, health, and climate change.
Cybersecurity attacks could take down parts or all of the utility grid, or other important components of a country's infrastructure, including in the United States. A few days without grid would be tolerable, but some plausible scenarios involve weeks or months—or longer—down times. Check out Ted Koppel's book "Lights Out."
A few weeks without a functioning grid would be devastating. Consider what the Hurricane Maria did to health, water supply, food security and more on Puerto Rico.
From the Reuters story:
Russia, China, Iran and North Korea are launching daily cyber strikes on the computer networks of federal, state and local government agencies, U.S. corporations, and academic institutions, said Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats.
Of the four, "Russia has been the most aggressive foreign actor, no question," he said.
A number of protests have broken out in Iran since the beginning of the year over water, a growing political concern due to a drought which residents of parched areas and analysts say has been exacerbated by mismanagement.
