eeek! More variants

Worldwide (Map) 
July 14, 2022 - 558,366, 400 confirmed infections; 6,357,300 deaths
July 15, 2021 – 1,888,565,400 confirmed infections; 4,061,275 deaths
July 16, 2020 – 13,558,000 worldwide: confirmed infections; 585,000 deaths

US (Map) 
July 14, 2022 – 88,967,000 confirmed infections; 1,022,000 deaths
July 15, 2021 – 33,952,000 confirmed infections; 608,120 deaths
July 16, 2020 - 3,500.000 confirmed infections; 138,000 deaths

SA (Coronavirus portal) 
July 14, 2022 - 3,998,000 confirmed infections; 101,900 deaths
July 15, 2021 – 2,236,800 confirmed infections; 65,595 deaths
July 16, 202o - 311,050 confirmed infections; 4,460 deaths

Posts from:
July 15, 2021, “Heavy heart” >>
July 16, 2020, “Doin’ the numbahs!” >>

News blues

Meet “Centaurus”, the latest coronavirus variant, aka BA.2.75, overtaking in speed of transmission, the extremely transmissible BA.5 variant.

“Centaurus” was first detected in India in early May. Cases in the UK have since risen steeply – and apparently faster than those of the BA.5 variant, also present in India, and is rapidly displacing the previously dominant BA.2 variant in many countries.
BA.2.75 has also since been detected in about 10 other countries, including the UK, US, Australia, Germany and Canada.
The European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC) designated it a “variant under monitoring” on 7 July, meaning there is some indication that it could be more transmissible or associated with more severe disease, but the evidence is weak or has not yet been assessed.

Read more >> 

Fulltime job these days to keep up with variants, subvariants, boosters….

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On war and culture war

More Russian men look to avoid military service >> 

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The Lincoln Project:
Rep. Jamie Raskin’s closing remarks  (2:30 mins)
Herschel Walker’s Green New Deal  (Good air, bad air? Say what? This man is the Republican Party’s nominee for US Senate, 2022. (0:46 mins)
Proud Boys  (0:55 mins)
The GOP’s Crazy Candidates  (2:24 mins)

Healthy planet, anyone?

Since humans in “leadership” positions insist climate change is a “hoax”  , or “fake news” , while they spread disinformation, geophysics continues “business as usual”. Just this week, for example, two glaciers displayed the stresses they faced before succumbing – and the growing dangers of continuing to ignore our planet's warming.

 
Read “Rising global temperatures are weakening glaciers in mountainous areas, where millions of people rely on these reservoirs as a source of water”, watch the videos, and believe your eyes....

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Think climate change is “someone else’s fault”? Not so. It’s yours and mine, too. We’ve been ineffective in shutting out the caps-in-hand politicians who fully rely on corporate donations.
Read more about it.
Summary:

Corporations are facing increased scrutiny over their political spending—particularly when their stated values seem to contradict their lobbying efforts. A 2020 report by the Center for Political Accountability offers abundant examples, including corporations that have publicly demanded racial equality while contributing to groups and candidates that promote racial gerrymandering and corporations that purport to be concerned about climate change while donating to groups that challenge the EPA’s clean-power plan. In this groundbreaking article the authors argue that companies should halt political spending entirely to reduce the risk of blowback and enable executives to focus attention and resources on running their companies.
From the article:
…hypocrisy—has become endemic in the corporate world as a direct consequence of the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2010 decision in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission. That ruling freed corporations to fund political candidates and dark-money campaign committees (organizations that do not have to disclose their donors).
As a result, companies now donate to help elect candidates they hope will do their industry’s bidding or support a specific cause, even as they publicly advocate for the opposite stance.

Read more from Harvard Business Review >> 

This reality is beginning to catch up with “us”… as “a new analysis provides the first measurement of nations’ liability in stoking the climate crisis.”

© Guardian graphic. Source: Callahan et al., 2022, “National attribution of historical climate damages”.
Note: Losses calculated using emissions from countries’ territorial boundaries in 2010 US dollars.

…Dartmouth researchers combined a number of different models, showing factors such as emissions, local climate conditions and economic changes, to ascertain the precise impact of an individual country’s contribution to the climate crisis. They looked for these links over a period spanning 1990 to 2014, with the research published in the journal Climatic Change.
What they found was a perniciously uneven picture – rich nations in northerly latitudes, such as those in north America and Europe, have done the most to fuel climate change but have not yet been severely harmed by it economically. Countries such as Canada and Russia have even benefitted from longer agricultural growing seasons and reduced deaths from the cold as winters have warmed.

Read “Nearly $2 trillion of damage inflicted on other countries by US emissions” 

Research puts US ahead of China, Russia, India and Brazil in terms of global damage as climate expert says numbers ‘very stark’ 

Meanwhile, back at the ranch…

My mother passed away, in her sleep, one year ago. Today would have been her 89th birthday. I wasn’t there when she died. Not only had the Care Center shut down due to another Covid surge, but I’d departed South Africa 6 weeks prior to her death. I’d been in the country for longer than one year, due to Covid, lockdown, cancelled air travel, and caring for my mother, her interests, her dogs, her property. Moreover, I’d brought my son-in-law from Alaska to caretake my mother until I returned. After I departed, he, however, wasn’t allowed to visit her, again due to the Covid surge.
I tried my best to protect and care for my mother during that difficult time.
Good training for caring for my bestie over the next few weeks.

The last days before surgery are the most challenging. 

Mary’s ready for surgery – “Now! Today!” she says. “Waiting is the hardest.”
I’ll be back posting as soon as I can, under the circumstances.
Meanwhile, a task for you: strategize on – and implement – ways to address our planet’s ongoing crisis.