News blues…
The news media repeatedly repeats repeated news: Trump refuses to face reality; Republicans support Trump no matter what; Covid 19 crisis continues to surge; Covid-19 decimates We the People; Trump tweets while the US burns; corruption reigns; comedians try to make light of tragedy….Healthy futures, anyone?
Australia’s latest State of the Climate Report finds,Rising levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, mostly from fossil fuel burning, has driven more dangerous bushfires, rising sea levels and a rapid rise in the days where temperatures reach extreme levels.
“What we are seeing now is beyond the realm of what was possible previously,” said Dr Jaci Brown, director of CSIRO’s Climate Science Centre.”
Among the key findings, the report said Australia’s climate had warmed by 1.44C since 1910 with bushfire seasons getting longer and more dangerous. Australia’s oceans had warmed by 1C and were acidifying.
In a briefing to reporters on Tuesday, Dr Karl Braganza, manager of climate environmental prediction service at the bureau, said … “What we are seeing now is a more tangible shift in the extremes and we are starting to feel how that shift in the average is impacting on extreme events.
“So we don’t necessarily feel that 1.44C increase in average temperature, but we do feel those heatwaves and we feel that fire weather.”
Read the article, “Rising levels of carbon dioxide increasing extreme weather events in Australia.”
Only a decade or two ago it was widely thought that tropical forests and intact natural environments teeming with exotic wildlife threatened humans by harboring the viruses and pathogens that lead to new diseases in humans like Ebola, HIV and dengue. But a number of researchers today think that it is actually humanity’s destruction of biodiversity …creates the conditions for new viruses and diseases… to arise—with profound health and economic impacts in rich and poor countries alike. In fact, a new discipline, planetary health, is emerging that focuses on the increasingly visible connections among the well-being of humans, other living things and entire ecosystems. Is it possible, then, that it was human activity, such as road building, mining, hunting and logging, that triggered the Ebola epidemics …is unleashing new terrors today? … “We invade tropical forests and other wild landscapes, which harbor so many species of animals and plants—and within those creatures, so many unknown viruses,” David Quammen, author of Spillover: Animal Infections and the Next Pandemic, recently wrote in the New York Times. “We cut the trees; we kill the animals or cage them and send them to markets. We disrupt ecosystems, and we shake viruses loose from their natural hosts. When that happens, they need a new host. Often, we are it.”
Meanwhile, back at the ranch…
I recommend treating pandemic fatigue with limited, safe, masked social interactions with friends and colleagues. Be prepared for side effects: Wanting more interactions with friends!Successfully engaging with friends after months of lockdown feels liberating. Afterwards, however, lockdown feels like imprisonment. Lockdown isolation is stressful. One rebels, but… stays home, again.
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A word of warning to anyone thinking of doing business in South Africa: Expect costly delays!Protect yourself – even if things “sound” feasible and appear straight-forward.
Do not expect any busines-person to show up on the agreed upon schedule.
What can go wrong is likely to go wrong!
Unfortunately, I’m discovering this the hard way: financial loss, threated law suits, avoidance and displacement of responsibility….
Not to be cryptic, but for now, best I express chagrin, not air details.
To date, this extended stay in South Africa has confined me to a home not my own, and far from my immediate family; strained relationships with my extended family; included verbal abuse and insults from my mother; had a bad actor threaten to rape and kill me; put me in front of a local magistrate to request a restraining order; illegally (unbeknownst to me) carried licensed firearms in my vehicle in an (unsuccessful) effort, on behalf of my mother, to turn them in to local police….
Things can only get better.
Right?
