In Thailand government figures state that 4,812 people were confirmed dead, 8,457 people were injured and another 4,499 people went missing. This was the worst natural disaster in living history in Thailand.

All of the western regions of Thailand suffered death and damage. Although the highest concentration of people was in the number one tourist spot of Phuket less people died there because much of the accommodation is high rise. 80 km north in the tourist area of Khao Lak the death toll was much higher. This is a flat area with mostly bungalows at the time.

Although some government money was made available for the victims of the tsunami in Thailand, many still lost their livelihoods. The fishing industry was badly affected. Another sector that was badly hit was tourism. While the big hotels had the resources to rebuild after the tidal wave, many small independent and local guest houses and shops were never rebuilt for lack of funds. Many of these people were forced to sell up and move on. Naturally developers took advantage of the cheap prices for land in Khao Lak and elsewhere immediately after the disaster.

Since 2004 tourist numbers have returned to normal in Phuket, Khao Lak and elsewhere on the west coast.

Very recently on April 11th 2012 there was another earthquake off Sumatra with an intensity of 8.9 on the Richter-scale. This time the early warning systems put in place worked effectively and people were quickly evacuated. The expected tidal wave in Khao Lak never appeared. The chance to see the early warning system working was almost worth the scare.

In contrast communities are selfless. Communities work together to make everybody’s lot better. Thus if our leaders won’t do anything to save the planet, then the normal people should take the lead. Here are some suggestions:

1) Days should be put aside for people in a community to tend to and plant trees. They should also work together to put green roofs on public buildings. Green roofs lower both heating and cooling bills and add extra habitat to an urban environment.

2) Meetings should be organized to explain to people how they can make their homes more energy efficient by doing such things as using energy saving light bulbs. The importance of installing programmable thermostats should be instilled as well as sensible settings for that particular climate. Volunteers to install programmable thermostats for those not able to do so by themselves should be organized.

3) Recycling bins should be put out in the community and residents encouraged to use them. The money made from the recycling can be put back into carbon saving measures for the community.

4) A hacker space should be set up that can take things like broken TVs and turn them into useful electrical equipment for people in the community, especially those not weatlthy.

These are just a few ideas for how a community can act to reduce its carbon output collectively and to help fight global warming.

The mission is a simple one:

“To ensure that the real estate activity taking place in Nicaragua also benefits the local community”

The implication is that often the local community in areas that receive an influx of real estate development and sales activity don’t always benefit from the flow of real estate dollars. And that’s not a good thing for investors either.  Real estate values will appreciate more quickly (and more sustainably) if the local area also develops and improves.

Makes sense right?

So what’s so special about the model?  Well it tries to include all parties to a real estate transaction.  And when you count them up, there are quite a few:

• the real estate agent
• the title insurance company
• the real estate attorney (both sides)
• the seller
• the buyer
• the architect/builder (for pre-construction sales)

During a closing there’s lots of money sloshing around, and it’s precisely at that time that Community Refund encourages the real estate actors to donate a percentage of their commission, their policy fee, their legal fee, their sales price and so on.

And it seems to be working.  More and more Nicaragua real estate agents have started to participate; some of the more prominent legal firms have taken part and the title insurance companies are also supportive.  The goal of course is to spread this activity to include every real estate transaction, and not just the occasional one.

And then perhaps to share the model more widely.  Perhaps to Costa Rica or to the Panama real estate market (see article).  Community in action!

A traditional means of fund raising is the community bake sale.  These can be organized by a group such as the girl guides or boy scouts, or perhaps a larger organization like the local middle school or church.

The great thing about bakes sales is that they give everyone in the community the chance to contribute, even in a small way.  Everyone pulls together in the name of a common cause, and a sense of community is born.

At a bake sale, everyone has – quiet literally – something to bring to the table.  My personal favorite is my secret pineapple cake recipe – I would never reveal the secret ingredients to the neighbors, but I’m more than happy to contribute a pineapple cake or two to our towns fundraising efforts.

Even small children can contribute however, which is what makes them great communal events.  We have all seen the colorful cupcakes a young child contributes – made, of course, with a little help from mom and dad.  Everyone rushes to buy one of these as no one wants the poor kid to feel bad, so lots of money is raised!

Bake sales are definitely a great way to foster a sense of community in your town, and I encourage you to organize one next time a worthy cause needs aiding.

Greenhouses for sale are everywhere from garden centres to DIY stores.  Obviously it is personal choice but I have discovered the best place to find greenhouses for sale is on the internet.  You can browse quite easily in the comfort of your own home.

Online prices seem to be cheaper than garden centres in general.  You can order online with a card and wait for delivery.

The best way to know exactly what you are going to get is to find the greenhouse you require in a garden centre, then check out the prices online for that particular make and model.

Most small company don’t realize the value of having expert web design templates. They appear for building websites because his or her competition acquire their personal websites. Consequently, they do not take website developing as a significant task. This is because a beginner constructed website won’t be able to get search engines like Google. If you own an e-commerce website you can provide your web visitors an alternative choice to purchase throughout extremely markets. They might do internet shopping without leaving their properties. And then there will not waste their time and ranking difficulties.

This is a wise decision to think about how to construct a great website which could make great results. The straightforward fact is that you need to decide a community based website and to anticipate the idea to complete. If you possess answers to these kind of queries, that’ll be the first step on creating a good website. Companies might utilize the benefits of excellent sites quickly after they create good websites. They may take the concept of these services and products towards the worldwide level from your current community level. It’s your obligation to produce a shipping device to supply the products to the residences of the buyers.

The tragedy in New Orleans was the greatest man-made disaster in modern history. The overtopping of the levees claims by the Army Corps of Engineers is a falsehood. The high watermark can be seen on all levees leading up and down the canal system of New Orleans. The only problem that led to the failures of the loveI at a part of 20 different spots. What’s due to rudimentary mistakes in their design and construction. Engineers did not take proper samples to see that the base materials below their Levy were strong enough to support. Specifically they did not check for Sam. When water seeps through the sand it was able to go directly under the levee. If the engineers had properly noticed this and engineered against it, there would be a way to stop water moving from the canal to the towns.

The cover-up that followed was due to the Army ability to keep funding flowing. The army corps of engineers is only interested in keeping their jobs. They do not care for our safety. And are only interested in the almighty dollar. I never thought our military would be corrupted by such blatant capitalist buffoonery. But I guess I could have expected given the past 15 years of war. I’ll never understand how America slid into the status of police state but I hope one day we can get back to our democratic roots.

I didn’t want to have some wasteful surgery, that wasn’t a priority, clogging up hospitals and wasting electricity. But my Dr. pointed out that chemotherapy is far more destructive to body and mind than a simple mole removal. I asked him about needles, as I’m not a big fan of being poked with sharp objects. But he assured me and I quickly learned that the needle was nothing to worry about.

Perhaps I was lucky because I could not see the mole removal in progress. But there was a very odd sensation while pressure was applied and presumably my mole was cut off. It was not terribly uncomfortable. I was very happy that the procedure only lasted an hour. But I was very relieved that I was not drugged up for a day. The anesthetic wore off in an hour and a half. All I did was take a few Advil and I had no problem . I’ve now started talking to my parents about getting a few of their moles removed just in case. I wonder if, at the age of 90, mole removal seems like polishing a t*rd.

There are few pet stores in town where we can buy pet products so I often  take advantage of no sales tax and free delivery by shopping on the internet.  My grand kids can’t believe that their old granny even knows what the internet is but I absolutely love it!

After the most recent set of wild fires, my wife and I gave a series of wine gifts to those living in government disaster shelters.  Wine might seem like an odd gift when someone has had their home destroyed, but one thing we realized being evacuated ourselves was/is that anything you can do to provide a sense of normalcy makes a ton of difference!