Assorted content to end your week. – Qiulu Ding and HanJun Zhao study the long-term effects of COVID-19 on the brain, including lasting effects on function and memory. Ida Mogensen et al. find that the younger people who were so frequently declared to be “low-risk” are entirely vulnerable to long
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Accidental Deliberations: Thursday Afternoon Links
This and that for your Thursday reading. – Sabina Vohra-Miller discusses the ample body of research showing how COVID-19 vaccinations produce superior health outcomes in the course of a pregnancy. And Nature examines the limited effectiveness of rapid tests in identifying asymptomatic cases (which are responsible for half of COVID transmission). –
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Tuesday Afternoon Links
This and that for your Tuesday reading. – Joseph Puthussery et al. study the feasibility of real-time, location-based air sampling to identify the presence of COVID-19, while Jennifer La Grassa reports on the efforts of scientists to ensure the powers that be don’t scrap what few remaining monitoring efforts are
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Friday Afternoon Links
Assorted content to end your week. – Emma Goldberg et al. study how the end of COVID-19 protections in China predictably gave rise to a swift and extensive outbreak. And Michelle Gamage reports on the push to ensure kids in British Columbia schools aren’t avoidably exposed this fall, while Mark
Continue readingThings Are Good: A Climate Hole in One in Spain
????Saboteamos 10 campos de golf en todo el territorio español ????Actuamos en diez campos de golf en seis provincias españolas, con el objetivo de denunciar el despilfarro de agua que supone el golf en medio de una de las peores sequías de la historia… (1/4) pic.twitter.com/4FvK3HA3JV — Extinction Rebellion Spain
Continue readingA Puff of Absurdity: The Difficulty of Knowing
The main character from Camus’ The Plague, a medical doctor spending his days and nights helping the sick, said, “A man can’t cure and know at the same time. So let’s cure as quickly as we can. That’s the more urgent job.” This hit me as particularly poignant as we’re
Continue readingThings Are Good: Hydrogen Train Takes to the Rails in Quebec
In an effort to show North Americans that train travel can be both good for the environment and getting around Alstom has sent a train to Quebec. The train company has been making a hydrogen powered train to replace diesel engines on routes that don’t support electric operations. Hydrogen isn’t
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Wednesday Morning Links
Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading. – Michael Marshall discusses the growing body of knowledge about the persistence of long COVID – with people still suffering symptoms after a year tending to suffer from it as a chronic condition thereafter, and no effective treatment available once long COVID sets in.
Continue readingCanadian Dimension: How Big Oil is manipulating the way you think about climate change
Make Big Oil Pay march, San Francisco, 2010. Photo by Steve Rhodes/Flickr. In medieval times, gamekeepers trained dogs to the hunt by setting them on the trail of a dead rabbit they had dragged through the forest. Once the dogs were baying along the rabbit’s scent, the gamekeeper ran across
Continue readingSusan on the Soapbox: A “Reset” to Alberta-Ottawa Relations (Chortle)
When Danielle Smith and her team met with federal ministers Jonathan Wilkinson and Dominic LeBlanc to discuss energy and climate change measures, there was some talk that Smith may be open to a “reset” of the Alberta-Ottawa relationship. Unfortunately, some of her cabinet ministers missed the memo. Danielle Smith and
Continue readingwmtc: in which an email reminds me to resurrect a very old post: join athena to change amazon
Do you support Athena? Athena is a broad coalition of people and organizations who seek to change Amazon’s practices through a variety of tools and tactics, including from the inside. In a braindump called the post of orphaned notes, I found this. athena is organizing against amazon, and you can help
Continue readingA Puff of Absurdity: It’s all the Scientists’ Fault!
We’re at the stage in climate change news that it’s time to blame scientists for not telling anyone about it before now. Headline from The Hill: “Catch-22: Scientific communication failures linked to faster-rising seas” “Scientists failed for decades to communicate the coming risks of rapid sea-level rise to policymakers and
Continue readingSusan on the Soapbox: Danielle Smith Stands her Ground (or something)
Last week the Feds unveiled the Sustainable Jobs Act, Danielle Smith responded in her typical word-salad fashion and the press lauded her for standing her ground. Against what? The Feds said… Natural Resources Minister, Johnathan Wilkinson, says the Act is about creating and protecting jobs as we shift to a
Continue readingIN-SIGHTS: Shareholder value built on destruction
A whistle blows and another train rumbles through White Rock, headed toward the Roberts Bank coal export dock. This one is carrying thermal coal from Montana, bound for a massive power plant, perhaps in Korea. As the train rolls through Delta, black clouds of coal dust billow from the open
Continue readingA Puff of Absurdity: Climate Conspiracy
Journalist and activist George Monbiot wrote on why we can’t actually explain the problems with certain arguments anymore: Conspiracy fictions have succeeded, as Steve Bannon hoped, in “flooding the zone with shit”. It is almost impossible now to have a rational conversation about the real sources of oppression, destruction and injustice, as
Continue readingThings Are Good: Accurately Capturing the Social Cost of Carbon
When policy makers think about climate change they sometimes take into consideration the whole impact of carbon regulation and reduction. The commonly held myth is that reducing carbon emissions will negatively impact the economy, now we have better numbers to help people no longer fall into believing that myth. Indeed,
Continue readingIN-SIGHTS: Dangerous actors — corporate and political
Progressive punishment is not enough to regulate behaviour when an offender has extraordinary wealth. To a corporation like Teck Resources Ltd. — market capitalization $29 billion — inconsequential fines are minor costs of doing business. A $1 million penalty imposed on Teck corresponds to a fine of $11 levied on
Continue readingSusan on the Soapbox: The Politicization of the Beast
Welcome to “Life in a Conservative Province” also known as “they say the wackiest things.” “They” being conservative premiers who say idiotic things when asked: how do you reconcile your government’s policies with the impact of climate change on the increasing frequency and intensity of wildfires? Before we get into
Continue readingA Puff of Absurdity: We’re Reaping What We’ve Sown
There’s tons of news about all the smoke – so much about the smoke. But I’m finding very little information about the actual fires. We know that firefighters are coming to help from the states and from South Africa, which is fantastic, but where are the videos of planes water
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Thursday Morning Links
This and that for your Thursday reading. – Umair Haque discusses the absurdity (and manufactured idiocy) that results in us continuing with extractive business as usual as we enter a palpable age of extinction. And Richard Eskow writes about the reasons why billionaires can’t tolerate the prospect that most people
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