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Wednesday, April 14, 2021
Despite the pandemic, green energy smashed records in 2020
Costs drop, production grows along with clean tech market
By
for Common
Dreams
IRENA's annual Renewable Capacity Statistics 2021 shows
that global renewable energy capacity grew by more than 260 gigawatts (GW) last
year, beating the previous record set in 2019 by nearly 50%.
Last
year marked the second consecutive year in which clean energy's share of all
new generating capacity increased substantially, with renewables accounting for
over 80% of all new electricity capacity added in 2020.
Total fossil
fuel additions, by contrast, fell by more than 6% last year—from 64 GW worth of
new electricity capacity in 2019 to 60 GW in 2020.
Vaccine guilt
It can be real, but it should not stop you from getting a shot
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| For some, a shot has been accompanied by pangs of guilt. AP Photo/Lynne Sladky |
Vaccine guilt – a feeling associated with getting immunized before others – is a phenomenon that has been reported in both the U.S. and overseas.
With the vaccine rollout expanding to more and more people, those who are able to work from home, can safely socially distance, or don’t have underlying medical conditions increasing their COVID-19 risks might wonder: Isn’t there someone who needs this more than I do?
As a medical ethicist and social philosopher, I believe people have good reason to feel vaccine guilt. But at the same time, they have every reason to still get vaccinated.
Vaccine guilt began nearly as soon as COVID-19 vaccinations did. The first COVID-19 vaccines were authorized for emergency use in December 2020, and eligibility was narrowly restricted to front-line health care workers, other essential workers and those whose age or medical conditions placed them at greatest risk if they contracted COVID-19. But even among this first at-risk cohort, reports emerged of vaccine recipients feeling vaccine guilt.
With the U.S. now administering millions of doses a day and President Joe Biden vowing to expand eligibility to every adult by May 1, 2021, or possibly earlier – and some states reaching this target sooner – one might think vaccine guilt is going away. But it isn’t.
Why you should expect more Suez-like supply chain disruptions and shortages at your local grocery store
Again with the toilet paper
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| A Target in Sheridan, Colorado, was very low on paper towels in November 2020. AP Photo/David Zalubowski |
The price of oil rose, and companies fretted as hundreds of ships carrying everything from coffee and cattle to toys and furniture were delayed.
Experts estimated that every hour traffic remained stuck cost the global economy over US$400 million in lost trade.
Yet many people I spoke with, including students and professional colleagues, didn’t seem to have a clue about what was happening, why it mattered or how it affects them.
As a supply chain expert, I was truly surprised. If nothing else, the COVID-19 pandemic should have made it abundantly clear how easily a disruption in the supply chain or a sudden increase in demand for a product can lead to empty grocery store shelves and other problems that might directly affect you.
Without a change of course, I expect this problem to only get worse.
Tuesday, April 13, 2021
Policies defined by racism
By Robert Reich
The House minority leader, Kevin McCarthy, declares it a “crisis … created by the presidential policies of this new administration.”
The Arizona congressman Andy
Biggs claims “we go through some periods where we have these surges, but right
now is probably the most dramatic that I’ve seen at the border in my lifetime.”
Donald
Trump demands the Biden administration “immediately complete the wall, which
can be done in a matter of weeks — they should never have stopped it. They are
causing death and human tragedy.”
“Our
country is being destroyed!” he adds.
In fact, there’s no surge of migrants at the
border.
U.S. Customs and Border Protection apprehended 28 percent more migrants from January to February this year than in previous months. But this was largely seasonal.
Two years ago, apprehensions increased 31 percent during the same period. Three
years ago, it was about 25 percent from February to March. Migrants start
coming when winter ends and the weather gets a bit warmer, then stop coming in
the hotter summer months when the desert is deadly.
To
be sure, there is a humanitarian crisis of children detained
in overcrowded border facilities. And an even worse humanitarian tragedy in the
violence and political oppression in Central America, worsened by U.S. policies
over the years, that’s driving migration in the first place.
But the “surge” has been fabricated by Republicans in order to stoke fear – and, not incidentally, to justify changes in laws they say are necessary to prevent non-citizens from voting.
Republicans continue to allege – without proof – that the 2020 election was rife with fraudulent ballots, many from undocumented immigrants.
Over the past six weeks
they’ve introduced 250 bills in 43 states designed to make it harder for people
to vote – especially the young, the poor, Black people, and Hispanic-Americans,
all of whom are likely to vote for Democrats – by eliminating mail-in ballots,
reducing times for voting, decreasing the number of drop-off boxes, demanding
proof of citizenship, even making it a crime to give water to people waiting in
line to vote.
EDITOR'S NOTE: In Rhode Island, state Trumplicans are trying to stop efforts to make easier voting measures adopted during the pandemic permanent parts of RI election law, using the same false narrative being used by the national GOP. CLICK HERE for details.
AIDS Care on-line art auction begins April 22
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They're loud and proud in Charlestown
DEM Offers Tips on Preventing Conflicts with Coyotes
Coyotes are keenly
intelligent, extraordinarily adaptable, and willing to eat almost any available
food – whether natural, including small animals, birds, insects, and fruits;
scavenged roadkill; or easily obtainable human-provided sources such as
garbage, pet food, birdseed, and compost. The key to minimizing interactions
and conflicts with coyotes is reducing food sources available to them around
our homes and neighborhoods.
Coyotes
that rely on natural food sources remain wild and wary of humans. Feeding
coyotes – or any wild animal – however, makes them less fearful of people and
they can become casual or even bold when encountering people.
Did they say drink Beetlejuice?
No. Beetroot Juice Consumption May Help Improve Cardiovascular and Cognitive Health
Science News Staff / Source
Aging is hallmarked by reduced
nitric oxide production with associated detriments to cardiovascular and
cognitive function.
“We are really excited about our
findings, which have important implications for healthy aging,” said Professor Anni Vanhatalo, a researcher at the College of Life
and Environmental Sciences at the University of Exeter.
How worried should you be about coronavirus variants?
A virologist explains his concerns
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| A COVID-19 patient in an ICU unit in a hospital in Capetown, South Africa, in December 2020. A variant emerged in South Africa that has since spread to other parts of the world. Other new variants could emerge elsewhere. Rodger Bosch/AFP via Getty Images |
I am a virologist and vaccinologist, which means that I spend my days studying viruses and designing and testing vaccine strategies against viral diseases.
In the case of SARS-CoV-2, this work has taken on greater urgency. We humans are in a race to become immune against this cagey virus, whose ability to mutate and adapt seems to be a step ahead of our capacity to gain herd immunity. Because of the variants that are emerging, it could be a race to the wire.
Monday, April 12, 2021
Filippi doesn’t know how government works
Or if he does, he’s offering up a twisted point of view
By
Will Collette
The
Rhode Island General Assembly just passed and Governor McKee signed the landmark
“Act
on Climate” bill that actually requires the state to take its goals to fight the causes and impacts of climate change seriously. The four towns Flip
represents are perhaps the four most vulnerable to climate-driven sea level
rise, severe storms and changes to fish habitats in the state.
But
for reasons he does not actually explain, Flip has been adamantly opposed to
actually doing something real to prevent the threats to our economy, homes and
lives from the changing climate.
When
the bill passed and McKee signed it, Flip put out an extraordinary statement (above, left) conjuring up the specter of empowered “unaccountable bureaucrats” who will
impose terrible costs on small businesses, municipalities and low income Rhode
Islanders (as if he has ever expressed any concern about them in the past.
According
to e-mails put out by the state Trumplican Party, this bill will force you to
give up your home heating furnace, your car, maybe your whole house. It will
make the tragic loss of incandescent light bulbs pale by comparison.
And
it will be done to you by nameless, faceless, unaccountable bureaucrats. They
will come in the middle of the night to seize your propane grill.
This
is all total crap, of course, showing that Flip is either ignorant about how
government and law works, or is just deliberately lying. You pick.
 |
| Filippi yelling about something (Steve Ahlquist) |
Every
public employee is accountable to a chain of command. They do not get to scheme
up evil things to do to the citizens with impunity. Flip is insulting each of
them by implying that they do.
Scarcely
a week goes by without some public employee - civil service or political - getting excoriated in the media for doing something that causes complaint. Hardly a
month goes by without someone who messed up getting fired or resigning under
pressure.
I
don’t spend a lot of time worrying about what some anonymous public employee
might do. That time is better spent worrying about what arrogant or corrupt
elected officials might do.
As
for the changes to our lives that might come from this legislation and more
generally from collective efforts to fight climate change, let’s reflect on the
purpose of government.
The
Preamble
to the US Constitution demands that government “form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic
Tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare, and
secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity.”
That
mandate led to many changes just in my own 71 years on this planet. When I was
growing up in Pawtucket, we had a backyard incinerator to burn trash. The
textile mills along the Blackstone River dumped anything they wanted into said
river.
We
were just figuring out how to run mass vaccination programs to stop smallpox
and polio and debating over whether vaccination should be mandatory. We had
cars putting out black exhaust from leaded gas while riders were free from seat
belts and airbags.
I
got my smallpox and polio vaccinations and didn’t catch either disease but did
suffer through all of the “routine” childhood diseases – measles, rubella,
mumps, whooping cough, etc. – things that should no long plague any child
except those with anti-vaxxer parents.
That
backyard incinerator is gone, as are the textile mill toxics (along with the
mills themselves, though that’s another story). The Blackstone is now clean and
a National Park.
Cars
have changed. Appliances have changed. Just about everything mechanical or
electronic has changed as science and technology advances. Homes have changed –
most people think about energy savings and efficiency not because some pointy
headed bureaucrat told them to, but because it’s in their self-interest.
Filippi
and the Trumplicans are trying to get you worked up about your oil furnace as
if the bill signing means you must “CALL YOUR HEATING OIL COMPANY TO SAY GOODBYE,” as the RI
Trumplican Party March 29 e-mail heading screamed.
Frankly,
I wish I could do that. Though I like our oil dealer, I have no love of oil. After
Cathy and I returned to Rhode Island and set up our home in Charlestown, our
oil furnace broke. Natural gas, which we had in DC, was not an option, though
propane was.
I
journeyed up to the Veissman
heating showroom at their Warwick headquarters to try to learn more about
high-efficiency heating and ultimately ended up buying their furnace. It’s a
good furnace, for oil, but it’s still oil. According to the technicians during
their annual check-ups, it runs at “top efficiency” for oil, which is around
88-89%.
Given
the high price of oil, not to mention our interest of cutting our carbon
footprint, we took advantage of the now defunct Solarize
Charlestown program to get solar panels installed on our roof. It cut our electric
bills by more than half and we generally get a monthly check from National Grid
for the excess electricity our panels generate. On Friday, we got our monthly
check for $52.87.
We
used RISE to
get a free energy audit that spotted further ways we could save energy and
money from simple and inexpensive improvements, such as adding insulation in
key areas or changing a vent.
We
would add a residential-sized wind turbine if Charlestown allowed it – which
it doesn’t.
My
point is that like so many other changes, we may chafe at the initial
investment or early inconvenience, but the odds are we will like the results or at minimum get used to them.
In
every aspect of life, bureaucrats work to implement decisions our elected officials
make to “promote the general welfare.” Whether we like them or not, we adjust.
I
quit smoking in 1990 largely because smoking restrictions were getting on my
nerves. It was the best personal health decision I ever made, not to mention a
welcome change to family and friends who had endured my smoke.
We
all have our opinions about the changes we have had to make to cope with the
pandemic. If we had adhered to the restrictions earlier and more strictly, we
might have saved half a million lives.
Finally,
Flip’s display of ignorance about the Act on Climate law completely neglects to
note that we do not make such serious changes without support and community effort.
From Congress to the State House to Town Hall, we should expect to see support
for changes to our carbon footprint come in many forms, ranging from subsidies
to tax credits.
On
that subject, while Charlestown is still in the budget process, why not add a property tax INCENTIVE to
encourage more Charlestown property owners to invest in energy efficiency?
That’s one way to help keep Quonnie from drowning.
 |
| Most of Charlestown's high priced property threatened by climate-driven sea level rise and storms |
By all measures, COVID is much worse than the flu
Substantially higher burden of COVID-19 compared to flu, new research shows
Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center
Overall, the team demonstrated
that COVID-19 cases resulted in significantly more weekly hospitalizations,
more use of mechanical ventilation and higher mortality rates than influenza.
COVID-19 and influenza are both contagious respiratory viral diseases that can lead to pneumonia and acute respiratory failure in severe cases.
However, detailed
comparison of the epidemiology and clinical characteristics of COVID-19 and
those of influenza are lacking.
"COVID-19 has been compared to influenza both by health care professionals and the lay public, but there's really limited detailed objective data available for comparing and contrasting the impact of these two diseases on patients and hospitals," said corresponding author Michael Donnino, MD, Critical Care and Emergency Medicine physician at BIDMC.
"We compared patients admitted
to BIDMC with COVID-19 in spring 2020 to patients admitted to BIDMC with
influenza during the last five flu seasons. We found that COVID-19 causes more
severe disease and is more lethal than influenza."
I’m pregnant. Here’s why I decided to get the coronavirus vaccine.
Though the official advice from health authorities remains cautious, the evidence is piling up.
Liz Essley Whyte, Reporter for the Center for Public Integrity
I’m a journalist who’s spent the last year reporting on the U.S. government’s response to the pandemic. But one thing my job teaches me every day is how little I know.
So as a pregnant woman, I thought it would be
prudent to follow the advice of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
and ask my doctor whether I should get a COVID-19 vaccine.
His answer: “It’s a personal choice.”
That wasn’t exactly useful advice, though I understood
why he gave it. If you’re like most Americans wondering whether to get a
coronavirus vaccine, the medical and scientific experts have one thing to say:
“Yes!” We have gold-standard scientific evidence proving the vaccines are safe
and effective. But if you’re pregnant, the official answer can be a lot more
confusing.
That’s because the initial clinical trials for the coronavirus vaccines excluded anyone pregnant or lactating, following the decades-long norm for new medical treatments. There are many reasons for this: Pregnant women are more complicated physiologically, and scientists must evaluate the health of both mother and fetus.
The practice also relates to the history of a drug
called thalidomide: Regulators writing rules for clinical
trials in the 1970s could look at the recent discovery that the drug many
doctors had prescribed for morning sickness caused babies to be born with
missing limbs or other birth defects.
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