In North America, consideration of life cycle environmental, economic and social aspects of buildings is in vogue. This trend is clear in part from the booming memberships of the U.S. and Canadian Green Building Councils and Sustainable Buildings Canada and the growing number of buildings and communities using environmental rating systems.

California almonds are a huge food crop in the United States, and land devoted to almond trees is expected to increase another 50% by 2012. But that growth depends in large part on availability of the almonds pollinator, the honeybee. And honeybees are in trouble, according to a report on North American pollinators unveiled by the National Research Council (NRC) of the National Academies.

Monthly and 3-hourly precipitation data from twentieth-century climate simulations by the newest generation of 18 coupled climate system models are analyzed and compared with available observations. The characteristics examined include the mean spatial patterns, intraseasonal-to-interannual and ENSO-related variability, convective versus stratiform precipitation ratio, precipitation frequency and intensity for different precipitation categories, and diurnal cycle.

This paper shows that attenuation formula for peak ground acceleration (PGA) for Chile subduction zone, derived from a homogeneous database for thrust interplate and inslab of intermediate depth earthquakes recorded on ‘hard rock’ and ‘rock and hard soil’, give systematically higher values than universal formulas proposed for subduction zones. Also PGA Chilean values are higher than values for Mexico and Cascadia subduction zone values.

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Extreme climate events such as aridity, drought, flood, cyclone and stormy rainfall are expected to leave an impact on human society. They are also expected to generate widespread response to adapt and mitigate the sufferings associated with these extremes.

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