Steady as she goes

News blues…

President Ramaphosa’s State of the Nation Address (SoNA) . The first 10-plus minute are greetings; scroll to 10:35 mins to begin the speech.
Post-speech commentary: Tough times ahead….
Then, sign up for a webinar on President Ramaphosa’s speech: Unpack the SoNA. 

***

How dangerous is South Africa's coronavirus variant? Good overview of coronavirus variants and vaccines …. (15:18 mins)

***

Why are vaccines given in the upper arm?
According to Atlantic staff writer Katherine J. Wu,: 

Targeting shots to the deltoid muscle hits a perfect sweet spot for vaccines, distributing their contents quickly, without diluting or destroying the important ingredients. Muscles are rife with blood vessels, which disperse the vaccine’s contents throughout the body and provide a conduit for immune cells to move back and forth from the injection site. They are also naturally chock full of “messenger” immune cells, which can quickly grab hold of the bits of the vaccine that resemble the coronavirus and carry them to the rest of the immune system. This baton pass kick-starts the production of antibodies and other disease-fighting molecules and cells.
Injecting a vaccine directly into the blood would water it down too quickly, depriving immune cells of the opportunity to learn from it. Spiking it into a fattier tissue, such as the buttocks, would slow the process down too much because fat isn’t laced with as many blood vessels, and is also lacking in many of those crucial messenger cells.

***

The Lincoln Project 

Blood  (0:55 mins)

Healthy planet, anyone?

Weekly averages of CO2 levels in the atmosphere 

31 January 2021: 417.12 ppm 

This time last year: 414.50 ppm 

10 years ago: 392.19 ppm 

Pre-industrial base: 280 

Safe level: 350 

Atmospheric CO2 reading from Mauna Loa, Hawaii (part per million). Source: NOAA-ESRL

Scientists have warned for more than a decade that concentrations of more than 450ppm risk triggering extreme weather events and temperature rises as high as 2C, beyond which the effects of global heating are likely to become catastrophic and irreversible. 

***

Biden's new conservation corps stirs hopes of nature-focused hiring spree:

Nearly a century ago, the US faced unemployment at 25% and environmental woes such as flooding along major rivers and extensive deforestation. President Franklin Delano Roosevelt decided to tackle these emergencies simultaneously by creating the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) as part of his New Deal.
Through its nine-year existence, Roosevelt’s “Tree Army” put an impressive 3 million jobless Americans to work. All in all, CCC enrollees planted more than 3bn trees, paved 125,000 miles of roadways, erected 3,000 fire lookouts, and spent 6m workdays fighting forest fires. The artifacts from this ambitious effort – such as trails and structures dotting the Grand Canyon national park or the Pacific Coast Trail – are beloved today.
… Now, as the ongoing pandemic has wrought the greatest economic downturn since the Great Depression, Roosevelt’s public jobs programs are back in the spotlight. As part his recent climate policy spree, Biden announced the establishment of a “Civilian Climate Corps Initiative” that could harness the energy of the very generation that must face – and solve – the climate crisis by putting them to work in well-paying conservation jobs.
After Biden’s omnibus executive order, the heads of the Department of the Interior, the Department of Agriculture and other departments have 90 days to present their plan to “mobilize the next generation of conservation and resilience workers”, a step toward fulfilling Biden’s promise to get the US on track to conserve 30% of lands and oceans by 2030.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch…

Still running around like a crazy lady… and one set of buyers dropped out without making an offer. But… the buyer who has made an offer, and received a counteroffer, will be back tomorrow afternoon … and bring the “money man” with him. There’s still hope of a sale.

***

In Howick, my mother still getting stronger….
In California, my daughter visited my houseboat. To cap, I’d purchased an elderly houseboat 1.5 years ago, lived in it for 6 mos, returned to SA to take care of my mother for 3 mos, got locked down, and I’m still here.
I pay marina fees each month yet no one is taking care of my boat while I’m away. Friends who agreed regularly to check in on the houseboat have not done so. Nevertheless, according to my daughter, the boat “looks good; some leaf litter but no damage”.
Yay! Things are looking up….