Are you not quite sure where to look for the next threat? How about checking out the Global Incident Map, using Google Earth to mark “terrorism events and other suspicious activity.” If that isn’t enough–too global, you can have local emergency alerts sent to you by email, cell or pager from the Emergency Email and Wireless Network. Local agencies sign on to this service to distribute information through their channels. This looks like an outsourced update of the Emergency Broadcast System. This is a free, public service.

I’m sure you realize that the food safety system put in place by the U.S. government does not favor you, the person wanting to eat that food, so much as mega agribusiness.

What are you going to do to keep your own food chain more safe? Eat local. Even if you aren’t ready to eat out of your own garden, you can take steps to eat in line with your values. It can be a challenge to eat local, but people around you are making it easier all of the time.

You might start by signing up with a CSA, which is short for Community Supported Agriculture. You can buy a share of the harvest in these local farms. Sign up soon for the upcoming season. Local Harvest offers a comprehensive list of CSAs. Check the list for farmers’ markets and restaurants, too.

Eating local doesn’t guarantee the safety of your food, but it takes you out of the longer chain where safety is more difficult to ensure. Supporting local food helps keep your local economy and community strong.

An emergency product business in Utah has sent a couple of their marketing guys to New Orleans to demonstrate that their two-person 144-hour survival bucket has all they need to survive on the streets this week. They are calling their adventure the 261 Tour — that’s 2 people, 6 days, and 1 bucket.

In the bucket are 60 servings of vegetarian meals (to extend the shelf life of the food), a water filtration unit, cooking and eating utensils, handcrank radio / flashlight, 8-hour cooking stove, thermal blankets, supplements, and medical kit with whistle and compass.

Each day this week they will blog about what they encounter. So far, today, they are in New Orleans sleeping in their rental car.

OK, it’s a stunt, but it’s a smart stunt to see for themselves and show others how well their kit really works.

As expected, members of the Board of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists moved the Doomsday clock forward. The clock now stands at five minutes to midnight. Their justifications include nuclear threats, environmental degradation, and the troubling possibilities of emerging technologies. The Board issued this statement:

This deteriorating state of global affairs leads the Board of Directors of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists–in consultation with a Board of Sponsors that includes 18 Nobel laureates–to move the minute hand of the “Doomsday Clock” from seven to five minutes to midnight.

They also outline steps that would constitute “major progress toward a safer world.” All of the steps concern reduction of numbers and testing of nuclear weapons, greater authority to the IAEA, and “serious and candid discussion.” Imagine that.

The Doomsday Clock, maintained for 60 years by the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists, is a symbol of the danger they want us to understand from nuclear weapons.  Currently, the clock stands at 7 minutes to midnight.  Next Wednesday the hands will move forward.

So says Sarah Filley, one of the artists who was involved in The Art of Survival, a show of seven artists in Oakland, California, ending last month.  For her contribution she created emergency kits and evacuation maps.

Each of the artists interpreted the theme quite differently.  Sounds like it was an interesting show.  Too bad I was so far away.