Yet another?

News blues

Ten billion vaccine doses have been administered globally, according to , according to the Our World in Data project at the University of Oxford, 

…[this] milestone reflects the astonishing speed with which governments and drug companies have mobilized, allowing many nations to envision a near future in which their people coexist with the virus but aren’t confined by it.
The milestone… has not been arrived at equitably, even though 10 billion doses could theoretically have meant at least one shot for all of the world’s 7.9 billion people.
In the wealthiest countries, 77 percent of people have received at least one dose, whereas in low-income countries the figure is less than 10 percent. As North America and Europe race to overcome Omicron surges by offering boosters, with some nations even contemplating a fourth shot, more than one-third of the world’s people, many of them in Africa and poor pockets of Asia, are still waiting for a first dose. The United States has administered five times as many extra shots — about 85 million — as the total number of doses administered.

Read more >> 
Alas, vaccine and vaccinations follow new variants. Are we in for yet another round of mutated variant?

It's officially called "omicron BA.2," and this week scientists detected cases of it in several U.S. states, including California, Texas and Washington.
Although BA.2 is currently rare in the U.S., scientists expect it to spread in the country over the next month. There's growing evidence that it's just as contagious as — or possibly a bit more contagious than — the first omicron variant, called "omicron BA.1."
… Back in November, when scientists in South Africa and Botswana discovered omicron, they didn't find just one version. They found three, called BA.1, BA.2 and BA.3 by the Phylogenetic Assignment of Named Global Outbreak Lineages at the University of Edinburgh.
… Over the past several weeks, omicron BA.2 has begun to surprise scientists. And it's starting to look like it can, in some countries, outcompete its sibling omicron BA.1 — and, really, any other variants.

Read “A second version of omicron is spreading. Here's why scientists are on alert” >> 

Healthy planet, anyone?

Last September, pushed by students, Harvard University stopped investing in fossil fuel companies and did not renew their investments – an endowment totaling $53 billion – in the energy sector. This was biggest win yet for the climate divestment movement that applied a popular anti-apartheid activist tactic to get colleges, banks, charitable foundations, and religious organizations to stop funding oil and gas firms.

Yet… there’s now an institutional backlash…. the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) — a Koch-linked nonprofit that helps state legislators craft right-wing policy—is writing model bills to protect fossil fuel investments, in essence making divestments like Harvard’s illegal. Their framework prohibits “discrimination” against fossil fuel companies by requiring state treasurers and comptrollers to withdraw government funds from banks, insurance companies, pension funds, and other financial institutions that “boycott” investing in oil and gas firms. …
[N]umerous institutions have already successfully disinvested in fossil fuels – up to $40 trillion from the industry’s reach so far. But if ALEC has its way, with the support of sympathetic red states and conservative legal scholars, it could strike a blow to one of the climate movement’s most effective tools.

Read an interview with Connor Chung, a Harvard Class of 2023 student who has been closely involved with Fossil Fuel Divest Harvard >> 

More good news (for reg’lar folks  promoting healthy living for a healthy planet): Federal judge Rudolph Contreras, US District Court for the District of Columbia, invalidated a massive oil and gas lease for 80 million acres in the Gulf of Mexico. He ruled the lease sale was invalid because the Department of Interior's analysis did not fully take into account the climate impacts of the leases.
Read more >> 

Meanwhile, back at the ranch…

Way back in the day, I spent several weeks living on the beach in a makeshift plastic tent on the Gulf of Aqaba/Eilat. Back then, Sharm el-Sheikh housed nothing but a small dome-shaped dive shack. And a small cave where I spent my “honeymoon” with my new husband – and a hungry rat. (The rat came out at night to rummage through our backpacks for food while we slept outside under the amazing night sky and Milky Way.)
Back then, Sharm supported about half a dozen visitors at any one time. These days, Sharm el-Sheikh is an Egyptian beach resort town  with a population of 73,000.
Why am I riffing on the past?

Today’s view from the beach – looking southwest across the bay towards South San Francisco at low, low tide – reminded me of sitting on the beach at Dahab and looking towards Jordan and of sitting on the reef at Sharm and looking across the Gulf towards Saudi Arabia.

 

Good times.