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Saturday Story: Just One This Week. A Must Read If You Haven’t Yet
Posted August 8, 2020 by Yoni Freedhoff
Ed Yong, in the Atlantic, with the sadly all too believable (yet still unbelievable) story of how SARS-CoV2 defeated America
Related Stories
- Saturday Stories: Vaccine Reality Check, Early Warning Failure, And Maybe We Should Talk About Ventilation
- Saturday Stories: COVID Orphans, A Must Read Piece, The Currency of Risk, And COVID19 Vaccine Side Effects
- Saturday Stories: Herd Immunity Is Up To Us, #SchoolsBeforeBars, Another Pandemic, And The American Dumpster Fire
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As QAnon Conspiracy Spreads on the Far Right, Climate Science Deniers Jump Aboard
Posted August 27, 2020 by Sharon Kelly
Read time: 10 mins
Back in December 2019, two conspiratorial worldviews collided as, for the first time, QAnon’s Q suggested his followers should question anew a topic that, by now, has been considered, and reconsidered, for decades: climate change.
“The Paris Agreement on Climate is Another Scam to Ripoff Taxpayers and Enrich the Politicians,” the Q-Drop (the term QAnon followers use to refer to messages they believe come from some sort of government insider who signs messages with the letter Q) claimed, labeling climate action a “con.”
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Saturday Stories: Is It Airborne?, Exhausted Experts, Sweden, Cancer During COVID, And Schools
Posted July 11, 2020 by Yoni Freedhoff
Apoorva Mandavilli, in The New York Times, with a discussion on whether or not SARS-CoV2 is airborne and what that actually means.
Ed Yong, in The Atlantic, covers the toll COVID19 has had on the “not ok” experts covering, studying, and managing it.
Peter S. Goodman, in The New York Times, with the cautionary lesson from Sweden that it’s the virus, not quarantines, that devastate the economy.
Bill Gardner, in the Incidental Economist, with his (first on this topic) blog post highlighting the realities he’s facing after being diagnosed with cancer, in Canada, during the time of COVID.
Jennifer Couzin-Frankel, Gretchen Vogel, and Meagan Weiland, in Science, summarize the a bit all over the place data on reopening schools around the globe
Photo by Alex Valavanis / CC BY-SA
Related Stories
- Saturday Stories: No Heroes In Science, Selflessness, School Reopening, And Vaccine Developments
- Saturday Stories: Peer Review, #Masks4All, Talking To Kids, And The Public Health Of Protests
- Saturday Stories: COVID And Kids With Disabilities, Racist Statues, COVID Death Mysteries, And Virus Hunters
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Voting for delusion
Posted September 12, 2020 by Anonymous
As I read this short piece at No More Mister Nice Guy, I felt increasingly horrified:
It’s often said that Trump’s approach to everything is “transactional.” I think Trump’s approach to reality is transactional. The truth is the truth when it serves his purposes. In those moments, Trump believes in reality. But in other moments, not only does he walk out to a podium and contradict reality, he does so without necessarily believing that he’s lying. As I’ve said in the past, Trump doesn’t believe in truth. There are (as we see them) facts, lies, and true and false interpretations of reality, but to Trump they’re all equally valid. He’ll use any of them to shape reality, and he’ll believe whatever he’s saying at the time, even if it contradicts what he said six hours ago. In part this is because, as Yastreblyansky says, he believes in the Power of Positive Thinking and therefore thinks confidence can shape reality. In part it’s because it’s important to him to be his audience’s daddy, someone who dominates us the way his father dominated him.
This is the man that millions of Americans voted for. And will vote for again.
I’m reading more stories now about Americans who don’t believe COVID is actually real – they think its all a Democratic plot, and that millions of Americans are just getting the flu, and hundreds of thousands are dying of something they already had like heart disease.
I don’t know what they think people are getting sick from in other countries around the world, but probably they aren’t even aware that other countries actually exist.
And I’m reading stories now about how people in small towns in Oregon and Washington and California think that Antifa, not campers or lightning, is the cause of the fires that are destroying their homes.
I hear from friends in Oregon that, per local media, some claims ‘antifa is starting forest fires’ have been traced to magabros hearing ‘blm’ on radio scanners and not realizing it means Bureau of Land Management
— David Burbach (@dburbach) September 11, 2020
Its absolutely crazy.
Anyone else make this mistake recently? 😳#climatechange #wildfires #apocalypse2020 #motordumb #yycbike pic.twitter.com/Gn1TljmSgu
— REWORKS (@ReWorksYYC) September 12, 2020
Apparently AP style now says you can use “less” even when “fewer” is correct and so 2020 continues to plumb new depths.
— Jonathan Gitlin (@drgitlin) September 11, 2020
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Saturday Stories: COVID Winter, Circular Errors, Mutations, And Obesity
Posted September 12, 2020 by Yoni Freedhoff
Irfan Dhalla, in The Globe and Mail, on COVID and the rapidly approaching Canadian winter.
Ed Yong, in The Atlantic, on the recurrent errors being made that hamper progress on COVID.
Edward Holmes, in The New York Times, covers the mutating SARS-CoV2…
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Saturday Stories: This Week in #COVID19
Posted May 2, 2020 by Yoni Freedhoff
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| Arlene Reid, 51, mother of 5 and PSW in Ontario working in LTC, died from COVID19 on April 27th. May her memory be a blessing. |
Gid MK, in Medium, with his meta-analysis of reported infection fatality rates for COVID19
Jeanne Lenzer and Shannon Brownlee, in Inside, on the out of control “science” of this pandemic.
Joss Fong, in Vox, with a great explainer on how to understand that graph of all the countries’ COVID cases you keep seeing.
Ed Yong, in The Atlantic, with a spectacular guide on how to make sense of the all over the place that is COVID19.
Caitlin Flanagan, in The Atlantic, with the 2020 commencement speech you’re never hear (but you should so read).
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Saturday Stories: Peer Review, #Masks4All, Talking To Kids, And The Public Health Of Protests
Posted June 27, 2020 by Yoni Freedhoff
Simine Vazire, in Wired, on the failings of scientific peer review
Kimberly A. Prather, Chia C. Wang, and Robert T. Schooley, in Science, on how to reduce transmission of SARS-CoV2 (tl;dr – wear a mask)
Kate Julian, in The Atlantic, on how to talk to kids about the sad, scary, and unjust issues permeating society today.
Tara Haelle, in Forbes, on why public health experts support Black lives matter protests.
Photo By Mike Shaheen – https://www.flickr.com/photos/63015897@N02/49979513917/, CC BY 2.0, Link
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IDEAS THAT MATTER: The COVID Crisis–Are The Youths Trying to Kill Us?
Posted August 22, 2020 by bigcitylib
I have often felt sad over the state of The Youths. What with robots coming for their jobs and Climate Change, their future seems lacking. But by the time its obvious that their lives will be a dystopian dead-end I will myself be retired an…
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As Climate-Fueled Wildfires Worsen, Communities Wrestle With Paying the Costs
Posted August 31, 2020 by guest
Read time: 9 mins
By Karen Savage, Climate Docket. Originally published on Climate Docket.
Pennie Opal Plant spent much of last weekend anxiously scanning the horizon for smoke from California’s growing wildfires, packing and repacking treasured items into her car, and trying to decide which to bring if she needed to evacuate.
Plant, the co-founder of Idle No More SF Bay, a group led by Indigenous women dedicated to climate activism, is no stranger to climate-fueled disasters, including California’s growing wildfire crisis. But for the first time ever, Plant was preparing to flee from the flames at a moment’s notice. She has lived in her home in Richmond for more than 20 years.
She left once last year because of the smoke—Plant and her husband both have respiratory conditions — but this was different. This time she was afraid if they left, she’d never see her home again.
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U.S. LNG Industry’s Business Model Doesn’t Work
Posted August 25, 2020 by Anonymous
Read time: 8 mins
In mid-July, Secretary of Energy Dan Brouillette signed an order authorizing the export of liquefied natural gas, or LNG, from a proposed $10 billion terminal and gas pipline project in Oregon. The news release accompanying Brouillette’s order hailed the approval as having “profound economic, energy security, and environmental implications, both at home and abroad.”
Although the project, known as the Jordan Cove LNG terminal, has struggled to obtain state permits and faces vocal opposition from tribes and others, this consistent Trump administration refrain has not changed. The Obama administration made similar claims about natural gas production and energy security, jobs, and the environment, when it oversaw a rapid expansion of the LNG export industry.
President Obama and President Trump were on the same page about LNG exports. They also share something else in common: They were both dead wrong.
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Saturday Stories: COVID Orphans, A Must Read Piece, The Currency of Risk, And COVID19 Vaccine Side Effects
Posted July 25, 2020 by Yoni Freedhoff
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| Dr. Anna DeForest |
John Woodrow Cox, in the Washington Post, with a heartbreaking story about 3 coronavirus orphans.
Anna DeForest, in The New England Journal of Medicine, with what I would describe as an absolutely must read piece highlighting the crushing devastation COVID is wreaking on front-line physicians.
Maggie Koerth, in Five Thirty Eight, explains how every decision is a risk, and how every risk is a decision.
Hilda Bastian, in Wired, explains why there needs to be frank transparency around any possible COVID19 side effects even if they’re minor.
Related Stories
- Saturday Stories: Herd Immunity Is Up To Us, #SchoolsBeforeBars, Another Pandemic, And The American Dumpster Fire
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- Saturday Stories: No Heroes In Science, Selflessness, School Reopening, And Vaccine Developments
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Trump is unwell
Posted June 14, 2020 by Anonymous
After yesterday’s West Point debacle – the water glass, the inability to say “McArthur”, the ramp, the tweet ABOUT the ramp – #TrumpIsUnwell is trending this morning on twitter.
Along with all the jokes, there is this:
The media’s failure to meaningfully cover Trump’s cognitive and physical decline after obsessing about Hillary’s health is evidence of open misogyny at this point.
— The Hoarse Whisperer (@HoarseWisperer) June 14, 2020
Personally, I believe that Trump has a minor stroke last November – remember the fast and unscheduled “tour” of Walter Reed? – and he still has impairments on his right side.
On a lighter note, #ObamaDay is also trending twitter:
You’d think Republicans would be more worried about protecting the Constitution.
It’s the only thing preventing Barack Obama from being president again.#ObamaDayJune14th
— Middle Age Riot (@middleageriot) June 14, 2020
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Saturday Stories: Vaccine Reality Check, Early Warning Failure, And Maybe We Should Talk About Ventilation
Posted August 1, 2020 by Yoni Freedhoff
Sarah Zhang, in The Atlantic, with a vaccine reality check.
Grant Robertson, in The Globe and Mail, on how Canada’s pandemic early warning system failed with COVID19.
Zeynep Tufecki, in The Atlantic, wonders why we’re not talking more about ventilation
Related Stories
- Saturday Stories: COVID Orphans, A Must Read Piece, The Currency of Risk, And COVID19 Vaccine Side Effects
- Saturday Stories: Herd Immunity Is Up To Us, #SchoolsBeforeBars, Another Pandemic, And The American Dumpster Fire
- Saturday Stories: Is It Airborne?, Exhausted Experts, Sweden, Cancer During COVID, And Schools
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How Charles Koch Is Buying Credibility With Academic Investments
Posted September 12, 2020 by Anonymous
Read time: 7 minsIn 1996, Richard Fink, an executive at Koch Industries and a top advisor to Charles Koch, outlined a three-tiered strategy for getting the petrochemical industrialist’s free-market ideas out into the world: through academia, think tank…
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Delaware Just Sued 30 Fossil Fuel Companies and the American Petroleum Institute Over Climate ‘Denial and Disinformation’
Posted September 10, 2020 by Anonymous
Read time: 7 mins
Delaware, the home state of Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden, announced on Thursday, September 10 that it is taking dozens of major oil and gas companies including BP, Chevron, and ExxonMobil to court over the rising costs of climate impacts such as sea level rise and coastal flooding.
Like other U.S. states and municipalities suing the fossil fuel industry, Delaware says that the industry knew half a century ago about the likely climate impacts resulting from the use of its products, but instead of warning the public or changing their business model, the fossil fuel companies engaged in campaigns to attack climate science and downplay the risks of burning coal, oil, and gas in order to stave off policy responses.
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Saturday Stories: The COVID Roundup
Posted May 9, 2020 by Yoni Freedhoff
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| Dr. Bredy Pierre-Louis, Family Physician, Brooklyn, Died From COVID19. May his memory be a blessing |
Caitlin Flanagan, in The Atlantic, on having stage IV colon cancer during the time of COVID19 (if you only read one piece this week, make it this one)
Orac, in Respectful Insolence, discusses Plandemic.
Tomas Pueyo, in Medium, on testing and contact tracing.
Ed Yong, in The Atlantic, covers whether or not we should be currently worried about coronavirus mutations
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Saturday Stories: The COVID files
Posted May 23, 2020 by Yoni Freedhoff
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| Dr.Sudheer Singh Chauhan, Internal Medicine Physician and Associate Program Director IM Residency Program at Jamaica Hospital, New York, died of COVID19 on May 19th. May his memory be a blessing |
Tavis Apramian, in the CBC, on why you must discuss how you want to die with your family.
Ed Yong, in The Atlantic, on how America’s patchwork approach to containing COVID19 is likely to challenge any hope of near term success
Kai Kupferschmidt, in Science, on why only some people are COVID super spreaders
Natalie Kofler and Françoise Baylis, in Nature, on the perils, pitfalls, and disparities of “immunity passports”.
David Fisman, in The Globe and Mail, on what Canada needs to reopen safely and how at least now, it doesn’t appear that we have it.
Ian Sample, in The Guardian, with a rather depressing piece on COVID19 vaccine related challenges and realities.
And if you don’t follow me on Twitter or Facebook, here’s a segment I did with CTV’s The Social on the very real impact these scary times has on our physical and mental well being
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Journalists under attack
Posted June 1, 2020 by Anonymous
In his daily CNN newsletter, Brian Stelter gives a summary of some of the attacks made on journalists over the last few days in the George Lloyd protests across the US:
[there have been a] shocking number of cases of reporters being assaulted and arrested while covering the unrest. This wasn’t just a stray rubber bullet here or there — it seemed, to a lot of people, like targeting of journalists, by both police and in some cases by unruly protesters.
Bellingcat identified “at least 50 separate incidents where journalists have been attacked by law enforcement. In these examples journalists have been shot with rubber bullets, targeted with stun grenades, tear gassed, physically attacked, pepper sprayed and arrested.”
>> CBS’ Michael George tweeted: “I’ve covered protests for 15 years across the US. This is the first time I’ve ever seen police actively and intentionally target the press with rubber bullets, tear gas, and arrests. Scenes reminiscent of China, Iran. We remain determined to show the country what’s happening here…”
>> On Sunday morning I interviewed LA Times reporter Molly Hennessy-Fiske, who described the moment when Minneapolis police fired rubber bullets Saturday night: “We were shouting ‘press’ and I was waving my notebook at them. They just kept following us and firing at us…“
…
As Baltimore Sun media critic David Zurawik wrote in this column, “the question that remains is why we are seeing more physical attacks on the press than we did, say, in 2015 in the uprising in the wake of the death of Freddie Gray.” Echoing what he said on CNN, Zurawik wrote, “There are a lot of reasons for the rise, but here’s the one I think making the greatest difference: almost four years of the president of the United States demonizing the press, calling reporters ‘enemies of the people’ and ‘scum,’ and encouraging rallygoers at his events to intimidate them…”
I am wondering if some police are also blaming the media for what is happening, in a “shoot the messenger” reaction — maybe they have the idea that they could beat people up any time they wanted, if it weren’t for cell phone cameras and reporters publicizing it when they do.
The actual problem, of course, is that police are beating people up.
And journalists keep on reporting it when it happens.
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A Plastics Spill on the Mississippi River But No Accountability in Sight
Posted August 11, 2020 by Julie Dermansky
Read time: 7 mins
When I arrived on Sunday, August 9, scores of tiny plastic pellets lined the sandy bank of the Mississippi River downstream from New Orleans, Louisiana, where they glistened in the sun, not far from a War of 1812 battlefield. These precursors of everyday plastic products, also known as nurdles, spilled from a shipping container that fell off a cargo ship at a port in New Orleans the previous Sunday, August 2.
After seeing photographs by New Orleans artist Michael Pajon published on NOLA.com, I went to see if a cleanup of the spilled plastic was underway. A week after the spill, I saw no signs of a cleanup when I arrived in the early afternoon, but I did watch a group of tourists disembark from a riverboat that docked along the plastic-covered riverbank. By most accounts, the translucent plastic pellets are considered pollution, but government bureaucracy and regulatory technicalities are making accountability for removing these bits of plastic from the river’s banks and waters surprisingly challenging.
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Saturday Stories: Racist Pulse Oximeters, Convalescent Plasma Politics, Rapid Testing, And Immunity
Posted August 29, 2020 by Yoni Freedhoff
Amy Moran-Thomas, in Boston Review, on how pulse oximeters, integral to the care of a COVID19 patient, encode systemic racism.
Craig Spencer, in The Atlantic, discusses convalescent plasma politics from his very unique vantage point as both a New York ER physician, and as someone who received convalescent plasma (to treat Ebola) as an experimental treatment.
Katherine Harmon Courage, in Vox, with the lowdown on how inexpensive rapid testing might bring back a semblance of normal sooner than vaccines.
Helen Branswell, in Stat, with 4 different types of immunity and their ramifications.
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Climate Deniers on Front Line of Battle Over Pennsylvania Joining Cap-and-Trade Program to Slash Carbon Pollution
Posted August 26, 2020 by Anonymous
Read time: 6 mins
Pennsylvania, traditionally a battleground state in electoral politics, is currently embroiled in a battle over the state potentially joining a regional program to curb carbon pollution from the power sector. That program, called the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI), has seen carbon dioxide emissions from power plants slashed by 47 percent over 10 years while generating over $3 billion in revenue. Participating states have then used that revenue to invest in energy efficiency and clean energy programs.
Environmental advocates say Pennsylvania’s participation in RGGI would be a “game-changer,” but climate science deniers and other fossil fuel allies claim it would be too costly and kill jobs in a state where the coal and fracked gas industries have long dominated the energy landscape.
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Campaigners Demand Court Shuts Down Ecuador’s Oil Pipelines After Spill
Posted August 12, 2020 by Anonymous
Read time: 4 mins
Communities in the Ecuadorian Amazon are calling for an end to “violence against Indigenous peoples and nature” as a trial into a devastating oil spill resumes today.
The Kichwa and Shuar tribes launched a lawsuit against the government and state-owned oil company Petroecuador in April after two pipelines ruptured. Around 27,000 Indigenous people already isolated by COVID-19 were left with little or no access to freshwater and fishing after more than 15,000 barrels of crude oil gushed into the Rivers Coca and Napa and downriver to Peru.
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Saturday Stories: This Week’s Worthwhile COVID19 Reads Roundup
Posted April 18, 2020 by Yoni Freedhoff
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| Dr. Huy-Hao Dao, 44,,who worked at Quebec’s Montérégie-Centre Integrated Health and Social Services Centre in Longueuil and sadly the first Canadian physician to die of COVID19, may his memory be a blessing. |
Roxanne Khamsi, in Nature, on the incredible challenges we’ll face producing and distributing a SARS-CoV2 vaccine if/when we find one.
Michael Specter, in The New Yorker, with a profile of America’s real doctor – Anthony Fauci
Apoorva Mandavilli and Katie Thomas, in The New York Times, discuss what serology tests are, and whether they’ll help us all get back to work.
Ed Yong, in The Atlantic, on our pandemic summer and how the only way out is through.
Maggie Koerth, in FiveThirtyEight, on COVID’s destruction of our medical supply chains and how it’s not impossible the entire world’s supply of medical grade glass (used for vaccine vials for instance) has already been pre-purchased.
Terrie Laplante-Beauchamp, in the Globe and Mail, with her must-read 3 day diary of her experiences volunteering as an orderly in a Montreal based long-term care facility hit hard by COVID19.
William Hanage, in the Guardian, on why he thinks it’s incredibly premature to be discussing peaks, second waves, and getting back to normal.
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Pollution Scientist Calls Plastic Pellet Spill in the Mississippi River ‘a Nurdle Apocalypse’
Posted August 28, 2020 by Julie Dermansky
Read time: 9 mins
Three weeks after a shipping container full of tiny plastic pellets fell into the Mississippi River near New Orleans, cleanup hired by the vessel that lost its cargo stopped shortly after it started as a pair of major storms approached the Gulf Coast. But huge numbers of the pellets, which were made by Dow Chemical and are melted down to manufacture plastic products, still line the river banks in New Orleans and further afield.
After visiting a couple locations along the river banks affected by the spill, Mark Benfield, an oceanographer and plastic pollution expert at Louisiana State University, estimated that nearly 750 million of these lentil-sized plastic pellets, also known as nurdles, could have been lost in the river.
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European Thinktanks Repeating ‘Well-worn’ US Climate Denial Tropes
Posted September 17, 2020 by Anonymous
Read time: 3 minsOrganisations promoting climate science denial and anti-environmentalism in Europe share the same rhetoric, narratives and right-wing links as their US counterparts, new research has found.
The paper published in the journal Climatic …
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Canada’s Trans Mountain Pipeline Inches Forward, But Opposition Intensifies
Posted August 14, 2020 by Anonymous
Read time: 12 mins
Late one night this past April, four people on off-road vehicles drove into a small, Indigenous village near the town of Blue River in British Columbia, Canada. It was dark and the vehicles drove through deep snow, smashing through wooden signs and barriers that guarded the village of tiny houses, erected in the path of a long-distance oil pipeline that runs from Alberta to the Pacific Coast.
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Hurricane Laura’s Aftermath: Miles of Oil Sheen in Louisiana’s Wetlands
Posted September 9, 2020 by Julie Dermansky
Read time: 8 mins
Almost a week after Hurricane Laura struck Louisiana’s coast, which is studded with oil and gas industry pipes, tanks, wells, and rigs, I photographed from the sky oil sheen along at least 20 miles of marsh and bayous that absorbed the full strength of the storm. Scientists say warmer ocean waters due to human-caused climate change is making hurricanes like Laura stronger and causing them to intensify more rapidly; Hurricane Laura spun up to a Category 4 storm in just 24 hours.
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Fiddling while America burns
Posted May 5, 2020 by Anonymous
People in the United States are realizing that Trump and his administration have spent the last two months tweeting and twiddling their thumbs.
Silly. The plan is to pretend that the problem had been solved (because it’s been a while and staying at home is boring) and start opening up the country. What could go wrong?— Your Friend & Sabre ⚔️ (@xiphodaimon) May 4, 2020
And why did they expect anything different?
Trump is utterly incompetent at everything, and the only people he hires are people who won’t show him up. So of course he is clueless now and so is everyone else around him.
If America survives this, it will be because of its governors, who are rapidly forming their own regional associations. But they don’t have the authority to deficit spend so we are going to be stuck for the next 9 months watching the US economy implode, until Biden can take over. It isn’t going to be pleasant.
Still, its a tricky go, isn’t it? I’m uncertain about our future is, too, but I do have some confidence that the Trudeau government and most of the provinces are on the same page. Though Saskatchewan is reporting new cases, the Maritimes are doing better.
Vox had a big article today comparing Canada and the US:
The American response has become infected by partisan politics and shot through with federal incompetence. Meanwhile, Canada’s policies have been efficiently implemented with support from leaders across the political spectrum. The comparison is a case study in how a dysfunctional political system can quite literally cost lives.
The Canadian approach has not been perfect. Its death rate is currently much higher than best-in-class performers like Germany and South Korea; Canadian officials have fallen down, in particular, when it comes to long-term senior care and the indigenous population. But given the interdependence between these two large neighboring economies, Canadians are not only vulnerable as a result of their own government’s choices but also because of their southern neighbors’ failures.
“The biggest public health threat to Canada right now is importing cases from the United States,” says Steven Hoffman, a political scientist who studies global health at York University.
Yes, its going to be a long time before that border reopens.
I am beginning to worry seriously about Canadian food supplies — so much of our food is from vegetable and fruit growers in the US, and further south too, and these all depend on an established and predictable supply chain where crops get planted, harvested, processed and transported in an orderly progression. Canada can produce its own flour and beef and apples, but not oranges. Or bananas.
“Let me tell you about the olden days, children. Why, there used to be a time when we could get bananas any time we went to the store. Any time at all!”
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Hoboken, New Jersey Sues Oil Industry for Climate Impacts From its ‘Deceptive Actions’
Posted September 2, 2020 by Anonymous
Read time: 5 mins
New Jersey has now joined the wave of lawsuits seeking to hold the fossil fuel industry accountable for climate impacts. The city of Hoboken today filed a case against major oil and gas companies and the American Petroleum Institute (API), a powerful industry trade group which has played a major role in promoting “uncertainty” about climate science.
The lawsuit seeks to recover costs associated with climate impacts like extreme flooding and sea level rise. Like other climate liability lawsuits targeting fossil fuel companies, Hoboken’s suit alleges that the oil and gas companies and their lobbying group not only knew early on about the climate harms resulting from their products, but actively engaged in campaigns of deception to undermine climate science and avoid policy responses.
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Celebrate
Posted July 5, 2020 by Anonymous
Trudeau’s uplifting message on Canada Day:
Canada is an amazing place to call home, and its people make it even better. We’re always there for each other – in good times and bad – and we always will be. And that’s worth celebrating. Happy Canada Day, everyone! https://t.co/SDC41cWOY0 pic.twitter.com/2OKNyxGEqe
— Justin Trudeau (@JustinTrudeau) July 1, 2020
Biden’s inspiring message on Independence Day:
Our nation was founded on a simple idea: We’re all created equal. We’ve never lived up to it — but we’ve never stopped trying. This Independence Day, let’s not just celebrate those words, let’s commit to finally fulfill them. Happy #FourthOfJuly! pic.twitter.com/1WrATlx8Xl
— Joe Biden (@JoeBiden) July 4, 2020
Here’s another good one, from Arnold Schwarzenegger:
Happy birthday, America. Thank you for letting me live the American Dream. We must fight every day to make sure that dream is as true for a Black child born in Minneapolis as it was for a white bodybuilder born in Austria. via @attn pic.twitter.com/rM95vb3twC
— Arnold (@Schwarzenegger) July 4, 2020
And nothing in either of Trump’s speeches is worth repeating. But here’s a summary, in case you missed them both:
As Frederick Douglass delivered a swiff and swippy victory in Operation Desert Storm in Vietnam, protected against the oranges of totalittotalitotarianism, with super duper missiles and stock rocket records. God bless the United Schates and rid us of Obamanacare.#TrumpIsUnwell
— Trent Capelli 🇨🇦 (@TrentCapelli) July 5, 2020
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Climate Accountability Largely Missing from Senate Democrats’ New Climate Report
Posted August 28, 2020 by Anonymous
Read time: 8 mins
As blistering wildfires and a monstrous hurricane fueled by rising temperatures ravage the U.S., Senate Democrats this week released their action plan for combating the climate crisis and building a clean energy economy.
But the report appears to have left out any reference to, much less a plan for, climate accountability — that is, holding polluters accountable for the harms they are knowingly causing in communities across the country facing extreme heat, devastating wildfires, and disastrous flooding and storms.
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Latest Youth Climate Lawsuit Filed Against 33 European Countries Over Human Rights
Posted September 3, 2020 by Anonymous
Read time: 7 mins
Six young people from Portugal have filed an unprecedented climate change lawsuit against almost all of Europe, targeting 33 European nations for failing to take adequate action on the climate crisis that they say threatens their human rights.
It is the latest in a series of legal actions brought by young people around the world demanding urgent climate action to protect their fundamental rights and safeguard their futures.
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Lost years
Posted May 12, 2020 by Anonymous
Well, I think we have all realized now there is not going to be any “normal” anymore.
The hysterical “reopen, damn it!” marches across the continent were a cry of despair against the inevitable, but now I think the truth is sinking in.
There is going to be a new Depression across North America.
Here’s a thread about what we are facing:
Because they’re competing with the other shop across the street, they cut prices to keep their share of the market. And they often operate while servicing debt. Most businesses need to keep all of the balls in the air just to survive. That time is over.— Paul Doroshenko, Q.C. (@PaulDoroshenko) May 11, 2020
The entrepreneurs have no capital. Their capital is gone. They can’t start new businesses. A handful will survive but with drastically reduced ability to invest. They will suffer in survival mode.
So will there be any jobs?— Paul Doroshenko, Q.C. (@PaulDoroshenko) May 11, 2020
In 25 years the businesses on the street will be completely different. Many of those once apparently solid companies will fail within the next 12 months. Expect nothing but grim news.
If you have a job, cherish it. If you have a secure government job, keep it.— Paul Doroshenko, Q.C. (@PaulDoroshenko) May 11, 2020
We must (this is an imperative) pick ourselves up and keep going. We owe that to ourselves, our families and our fellow occupant of planet earth.
Hold on. Stay strong. Better days will come and they’re worth living for.— Paul Doroshenko, Q.C. (@PaulDoroshenko) May 11, 2020
Trump’s mismanagement – his ignorance about testing, plus his inept and corrupt support programs –will result in successive waves of Covid outbreaks across the US all summer and fall, each one killing thousands more. Everyone will just try to stay home as much as possible, so the US economy will continue to decline. Meanwhile the US government will bankrupt itself as it fights a losing battle to try to shore up the stock markets, the only economic measure Trump thinks is important.
In nine months, Biden will take over, but by then it will be too late for the thousands of businesses and bars and restaurants that will go bankrupt by next fall, after a few miserable months of trying to reopen. The companies that survive will be the ones that continue to have their employees work from home. So the downtown office towers will be empty and the owners of commercial real estate will be going bankrupt too, not to mention everyone from window washers to the people who water office plants. Farmers across the US will be watching their restaurant markets disappear, and they won’t be able to find immigrant workers to pick their crops.
Canada’s economy won’t crash as badly, I don’t think — our more effective and better run federal support programs will cushion the blow a little better for us – but still, its not going to be pretty. The US border won’t be reopening for a long time yet, and our biggest trading partner won’t be buying nearly as much as they used to. Tourism will be a disaster, our oil and gas industries are in free fall, and we don’t know who will be buying all our agricultural exports anymore either.
If we can avoid another Great Depression, we will be lucky, I think.
Back in 1973, journalist Barry Broadfood published Ten Lost Years – he interviewed hundreds of people about their experiences during the Great Depression and put it all into a book, and for many Canadians, it was the first time we had ever really heard about what happened to ordinary people in Canada during the 1930s, that awful time.
I have been thinking about that book a lot lately.
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Weighty Matters 2020-09-05 05:30:00
Posted September 5, 2020 by Yoni Freedhoff
Mark Earnest, in The New England Journal of Medicine, on becoming a plague doctor.
James Hamblin, in The Atlantic, on why herd immunity isn’t a strategy.
Jesmyn Ward, in Vanity Fair, on losing her husband to COVID.
Jon Cohen, in Science, interviews Moncef Slaoui, the head of operation Warp Speed who says he’ll quit if politics trump science on vaccine safety and distribution.
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We are the world
Posted June 6, 2020 by Anonymous
Its been quite a week, hasn’t it? Even here in Saskatoon, the George Floyd rally on Thursday was attended by hundreds of people, all races and colours.
And its been like this all around the world. Yes, we have seen Black Lives Matter and police abuse protests before, but this time it feels different. I am amazed that protests about the Floyd homicide have been continuing day after day, and that they have spread so far, so fast.
So now I am wondering if our shared COVID-19 pandemic experience has changed us in ways we could not have predicted.
For the first time in history, all of the peoples of the world shared the same experience – a two-month shutdown that was virtually unique in our human experience.
Yes, we were forced to be alone and isolated. We couldn’t go out, we couldn’t see our family and friends. But everyone around the world was, for the first time ever, dealing with the same emotions, the same fears, the same questions and concerns, the same depths of despair, the same glimmers of hope.
After this experience, I think the peoples of the world understand each other in a more profound way than we ever did before.
And perhaps this is why now millions of us are on the same side of these protests. We get it.
People are standing up in solidarity for Black Lives Matter and against police brutality, in numbers I have never seen before – generals are apologizing for ever working with Trump, sports leaders like Sydney Crosby are speaking up, Harry and Meghan are too, bike manufactures are suspending sales to police, corporations are making statements, even the NFL is apologizing for the way they treated Kaepernick.
Wow. Its truly remarkable. This is the way the world changes.
I’ve been watching politics closely for a long time, and I’ve never seen any entity get its ass kicked as badly in a PR/political battle as the country’s metro police are right now.
Only rival is the Catholic Church, and both relied on their wide popularity for their power.
— Martin Longman (@BooMan23) June 5, 2020
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Fossil Fuel Industry and Koch Network Fighting Pennsylvania’s Move to Join Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative
Posted September 17, 2020 by Anonymous
Read time: 6 minsAs Pennsylvania took a significant step this week towards joining a regional climate initiative to curb carbon pollution from power plants, newly revealed email records show how fossil fuel interests campaigned to oppose this initiativ…
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‘That’s the Way It Is’: Trump’s Dismissal of Hurricane Laura and Climate Crisis Echoes Remarks on COVID-19 Deaths
Posted September 1, 2020 by Sharon Kelly
Read time: 11 mins
At an August 30 briefing in Orange, Texas, during a visit to tour damage from Hurricane Laura, President Trump answered a question about climate change and hurricanes. Texas has had big storms for a long time, he said, and “that’s the way it is.”
The phrase carried echoes of his remarks on COVID-19 — made at a time when the coronavirus had killed over 156,000 and infected over 4.7 million in the U.S. — that the virus’s death toll “is what it is.”
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Saturday Stories: Herd Immunity Is Up To Us, #SchoolsBeforeBars, Another Pandemic, And The American Dumpster Fire
Posted July 18, 2020 by Yoni Freedhoff
James Hamblin, in The Atlantic, with an explainer on how herd immunity might only require 20% of us to be immune (whether by vaccine or infection) if we are diligent with our behaviours.
Paul Krugman, in The New York Times, on how the rush to open bars before schools threatens our kids’ education.
Ed Yong, in The Atlantic, considers what might happen were we to be facing another pandemic before we’ve figured out how to deal with COVID
Helen Branswell, in STAT, on how to fix the American dumpster fire that is their response to COVID to date.
U.S. Air Force photo/Staff Sgt. Levi Riendeau / Public domain
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- Saturday Stories: Peer Review, #Masks4All, Talking To Kids, And The Public Health Of Protests
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Saturday Stories: Kids And School, The Immune System, Russian Vaccines, And Sharpies
Posted August 15, 2020 by Yoni Freedhoff
Zoë Hyde, in a pre-print in The Medical Journal of Australia, with a review article covering what we do and don’t know about the risks of kids, COVID, and school.
Ed Yong, in The Atlantic, with what we do and don’t know about our immune systems and COVID.
Gideon Meyerowitz-Katz, in The Guardian, with what we do and don’t know about the new Russian COVID vaccine.
Jen Coleman, in McSweeney’s, writes about Sharpies (don’t miss this one)
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‘Unplanned Gas Release’ at Controversial Gas Facility in Weymouth, South of Boston
Posted September 15, 2020 by Anonymous
Read time: 6 minsThe standard, pre-operational testing of a new natural gas compressor station in the Massachusetts community of Weymouth, south of Boston, had barely begun last week when a gasket failure prompted an emergency shutdown of the facility …
