Black Friday?

News blues

Omicron. It’s got a name. Until today, the new Covid “variant of concern” was B.1.1.529. Now reborn as Omicron 

"Based on the evidence presented indicative of a detrimental change in COVID-19 epidemiology, the TAG-VE has advised WHO that this variant should be designated as a VOC, and the WHO has designated B.1.1.529 as a VOC, named Omicron," the statement said.
The variant was first discovered by South African health authorities and has sparked a forceful reaction across the world with a number of countries banning travelers from several southern African countries.

Watch: “’Real alarm’ around the world” as Omicron spreads  (10:29 mins)
Watch: Omicron “500 times more infections than Delta variant”  (13:59 mins)
Is it not time for a concerted, worldwide effort to vaccinate people everywhere? Despite anti-vaxers’ mindset, the vast majority of people around the world want vaccinations but have little access to vaccines. If Americans have enough vaccine to offer 3 doses to anyone who seeks jabs, we must expand effective distribution.

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The Lincoln Project: Last Week in the Republican Party  (1:44 mins)
Cringe-worthy: Trump junior trumpets Trump senior – and both Trumps appear to think it’s really cool 

Meanwhile, back at the ranch…

Not much going on back at this ranch. I’m in limbo, stuck between worlds – CA and SA – due to timing of Covid booster (I’m due December 20 and, no, cannot get it even one day earlier) and, now, Omicron (assuming I can find a flight there, I cannot afford another round of Lockdown in SA and/or quarantine on either continent).

Thanks!

Worldwide (Map)
November 25, 2021 – 259,820,000 confirmed infections; 5,180,150 deaths
November 4, 2021 – 248,312,000 confirmed infections; 5,026,000 deaths
November 25, 2019 - 0 confirmed infections; 0 confirmed deaths
Worldwide vaccinations: 7,522,787,000

US (Map) November 25, 2021 –48,107,120 confirmed infections; 775,630 deaths
November 4, 2021 – 46,261,150 confirmed infections; 750,580 deaths
November 25, 2019 - 0 confirmed infections; 0 confirmed deaths

SA (Coronavirus portal)
November 25, 2021 – 2,950,035 confirmed infections; 89,660 deaths
November 4, 2021 – 2,922,800 confirmed infections; 89,220 deaths
November 25, 2019 - 0 confirmed infections; 0 confirmed deaths

New York, US
The Tough Guy balloon is displayed on Sixth Avenue during the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day parade.
Photo: Jeenah Moon/AP
More Thanksgiving Day photos >> 

News blues

Irony of ironies: While too many Americans continue to refuse vaccinations – due to vaccine infringing on their “freedoms” – Africans struggle to access vaccinations.

John Nkengasong, head of the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (Africa CDC) said recently, “What we are seeing now is a lot more vaccines coming in and the uptake is challenged because of the logistics and delivery... It’s not necessarily about hesitancy, it’s about moving vaccines from the airport to the arms (of people), it’s about logistics.”
Africa is far from reaching the African Union’s aim of fully vaccinating 70% of people by the end of 2022. Only 6.6% of Africa’s population of 1.2 billion is fully vaccinated, as countries struggle with the logistics of accelerating vaccine roll-outs. Read more >> 

Meanwhile, back at the ranch…

Since it is Thanksgiving in the US, let’s give thanks for our wonderful world. I took these pix in my backyard – a marine preserve and park on San Francisco Bay. 

Below: I’ve planned for years to photograph this “slice of watermelon” that graces a local estuary and lagoon. Yesterday I finally did it.

Further confusion?

News blues

With tens of millions of Americans continuing to refuse to get vaccinated, do the new pills actually give Biden one more tool in blunting the impact of the coronavirus? Hmmm. Read more >> 
Given the last two years’ enormous confusion surrounding all things pandemic, I wonder: Will these pills deliver more rounds of “Confusion R Us”?
In other words, do these antiviral pills, in fact, replace vaccines?
No.
“The new antiviral pills are not good alternatives for coronavirus vaccines and do not replace the current Covid-19 vaccines. Rather, these new medicines …are actually developed to help infected individuals to recover from the deadly virus… people can't use them to enhance their immunity.” 

Healthy planet, anyone?

Energy. We need it. But how do we create and recreate energy and efficiently dump fossil fuels and the fossilized political economy that supports it?
Energy is the issue of the current moment. (That is, other than, y’know, a raging pandemic, corruption, politics, corrupt politics and politicians, immigration and refuge, climate refugees… indeed, the list goes on and on…)
South Africa presents a nutshell example of global energy difficulties.
Eighty-seven percent of SA’s electrical energy derives from coal. Since 2014, Eskom, the national energy provider, has struggled to deliver electricity. Eskom uses the term Eskom, “load shedding” to describe this struggle that turns electricity off – no power at all - for hours at a time many days per week, any time of year. Eskom defines load shedding as “a measure of last resort to prevent the collapse of the power system country-wide. When power is insufficient, Eskom can thus either increase supply or reduce demand to bring the system back into balance.” (A far simpler and more accurate definition: “we turn off your electricity even as we raise your rates – and, other than complain as you sit in the dark, there’s nothing you can do about it.”
SA, however, has pledged to reduce its overall carbon dioxide emissions between now and 2030 as part of global efforts to tackle climate change. The country faces enormous obstacles in doing so >> 
At the same time, South Africa has plans to build new coal-fired power stations during the climate crisis. This is being challenged in court for breaching the rights of current and future generations. 
South Africa and renewables: South Africa’s renewable plan…

... picked 25 wind- and solar-power projects to be built by private developers, part of a plan to reduce the nation’s reliance on coal for electricity and end rolling blackouts that are curbing economic growth.
The bidders will add 2,583 megawatts of capacity to the grid using clean-energy technologies….The projects total about 50 billion rand ($3.3 billion) of investment and will create 13,900 job opportunities >> 
More on SA’s renewables: “The real deal with renewable energy in South Africa — unpacking the suite of options and inherent problems – acknowledge and unacknowledged >> 
South Africa uses nuke energy, too, with Koeberg, its nuclear power station, installed capacity of 1,940MW, generating around 5% of South Africa's electricity. Koeberg, built in 1984, is Africa’s only nuke power plant.

Recent comments from Eskom chief operating officer Jan Oberholzer about what is going on at Koeberg nuclear power station were refreshingly frank, and for that, he is to be commended. Whether anyone living near the plant — and that includes everyone in Cape Town and surrounds — will be able to sleep after fully digesting what he had to say is another matter.
Speaking to the press about Eskom’s status as we head into the summer months, Oberholzer said he was “extremely concerned” about the two trips to the unit one reactor at Koeberg (on 30 August and 24 October). He added that he was “horrified” at the number of staff who had left Koeberg in recent times, “taking away with them years of experience”. Some had resigned despite having no other job offers. Rumours abound that there have been as many as 200 resignations from Koeberg recently. 

Meanwhile, back at the ranch…

Gearing up for Thanksgiving.

The two national Thanksgiving turkeys are seen in the Rose Garden of the White House before a pardon ceremony in Washington on Nov. 19, 2021.
Photo: Susan Walsh/AP

Peanut Butter and Jelly won't be at the Thanksgiving table this year.

This season’s two national turkeys, Peanut Butter and Jelly, received a presidential pardon.
"With the power vested in me, I pardon you," President Biden said to Peanut Butter at a White House ceremony Friday.
After he spared Peanut Butter from becoming dinner, Biden encouraged the turkey to share his thoughts: "Go ahead, say something."
"Gobble, gobble," Peanut Butter replied.

Build back better?

News blues

Still searching, after all this time: where did what became the virulent Covid-19 pandemic start? The search for origins – “wet” market, lab, somewhere else – comes full circle, from Wuhan’s or Hunan’s “wet”/live-animal markets to the political hot potato of a “leak” in a Chinese lab and now back to the markets. A recent analysis by evolutionary virologist Dr. Michael Worobey indicates, “the pandemic wasn’t triggered by a leak in a Chinese lab…or by a Chinese accountant…” and that “it becomes very difficult to explain the pattern if the outbreak didn’t start at the market.”
Read the article >> 

***

What’s next with the pandemic? The next turn hinges on three unknowns  >>

Healthy planet, anyone?

The US House of Representatives passed the second – and most “progressive” part of Prez Biden’s Build Back Better bill. Now it goes to the Senate…where, no doubt, it will be whittled down to meaninglessness… and, if passed at all, will be toothless against real climate change and vitally needed social protections. What’s in it? >> 
Or am I overly cynical?
Perhaps. But cynicism is well founded. Take, for example, the moribund US Senate’s years’ long fight against banning “forever chemicals” such as PFAS, aka “forever chemicals, a class of compounds used across dozens of industries to make products resistant to water, heat, stains and grease. The chemicals are especially common in food packaging because they repel grease and liquid, which prevents paper products from disintegrating. Passage of the bill “is far from certain and a fight with industry allies in the Senate looms.” >> 
This is life in America where Republicans are horrified by passing anything that smacks of supporting, y’know, actual regular, hard-working humans…

Meanwhile, back at the ranch…

More fall photos

A passel of ponderous pelicans

Above and below: two collections of curios cormorants

This is a family of mallards: two males, one female and two "sex undetermined".
Despite their coloring, the two white ducks (right) are also mallards.
Turns out mallards easily interbreed with other ducks species and these two are excellent examples.
Not a new species, but variation in mallard-ness. 

Is The Fix in?

Worldwide (Map) 
November 18, 2021 - 255,235,950 confirmed infections; 5,128,300 deaths
November 19, 2020 – 56,188,000 confirmed infections; 1,348,600 deaths
October 22, 2020 – 41,150,000 confirmed infections; 1,130.410 deaths
Total vaccine doses administered: 7,562,351,850

US (Map) 
November 18, 2021 - 47,424,000 confirmed infections; 767,450 deaths
November 19, 2020 – 11,525,600 confirmed infections; 250,485 deaths
October 22, 2020 – 8,333,595 confirmed infections; 222,100 deaths

SA (Coronavirus portal) 
November 18, 2021 - 2,926,950 confirmed infections; 89,550 deaths
November 19, 2020 – 757,145 confirmed infections; 20,556 deaths
October 22, 2020 – 708,360 confirmed infections; 18,750 deaths

Daily Maverick

News blues

Anyone else notice that US news is reporting less about Covid and the devastation it is visiting upon humanity? Scanning US online news outlet shows US news favors America’s whackidoodle politics and politicians, the slow moving but nevertheless ongoing American coup/insurrection, the latest shootings in the US … and minimal coverage on Covid.
British news continues to cover Covid. From The Guardian:

A steep rise in Covid-19 cases in Europe should serve as a warning that the US could also see significant increases in coronavirus cases this winter, particularly in the nation’s colder regions…
However, there is more cause for optimism as America enters its second pandemic winter, even in the face of likely rises in cases.
Evidence shows vaccine-conferred protection against hospitalization and death remains high several months after inoculation, vaccines for children older than 5 can reduce Covid transmission, and new antiviral medications hold the promise of making Covid-19 a treatable disease.
Read more >> 

Moreover, one study finds front-page stories about Covid-19 pandemic were sensationalist and unhelpful >>

***

The Lincoln Project:
Biden delivered  (0:59 mins)
Last week in the Republican Party  (2:18 mins)

Healthy planet, anyone?

Abbotsford, a town is Canada’s province of British Columbia, is experiencing massive flooding with a death toll set to rise after…

Torrential rains pummeled swathes of western Canada’s British Columbia and Washington state in the US in recent days – dumping a month’s worth of rain in two days in some areas – causing floods and mudslides that swallowed stretches of highways and forced the evacuation of thousands of people. One person has been killed and several have been reported missing.
Abbotsford, one of Canada’s most intensively and diversely farmed areas, was among places hardest hit. Home to more than 1,200 farms, it supplies half of the dairy, eggs and poultry consumed by British Columbia’s 5.2 million residents.
Aerial footage showed several barns engulfed by flood waters. 
Read more >> 
And
… torrential rains and mudslides destroyed roads and left several mountain towns isolated. At least three people are missing. Some 18,000 people are displaced in the Pacific Coast province…
…The flooding is the second weather-related calamity to hit British Columbia in the past few months. A massive wildfire in the same region as some of the devastation destroyed an entire town in late June.
"These are extraordinary events not measured before, not contemplated before…”
That disaster could be the most expensive in Canadian history
Read more >> 

Not to dismiss or undermine that horror of such flooding and the “extraordinary events not measured before”….but… it is incorrect to write “These are extraordinary events not measured before, not contemplated before…”.
Warnings about such events both have been measured and issued before.
One issue? 

Warnings - from scientists, geologists, water and flood experts, etc. – for decades went unheeded. Why? 

Such warnings were at odds with the desires of people and systems hoping to generate huge wealth from the area. Judging by the numbers of farms and towns now affected, wealth was generated. The underlying geology and geomorphology, however, remained.

Recently, as events unfolded, Abbotsville officials …

reiterated their call for everyone to get out a few hours after Abbotsford said the Barrowtown Pump Station was in imminent danger of failing….
“The best thing we can do is monitor water levels and monitor the Nooksack River levels,” director of engineering David Blain said. “We’ll know what the situation could become should the pumps stop acting.”

But…
The long-term backstory on this area?

To understand the flood crisis currently gripping the Sumas Prairie area in eastern Abbotsford, you have to understand the history of the area, and the roles played by the Nooksack River and what was once Sumas Lake. You need to know why Barrowtown Pump Station exists. And you need to know why, if it fails (and maybe even if it doesn’t), the lake will return.

Read the backstory that details how, why, when, and who benefitted from not heeding the warnings >> 
Upshot?
We the People are in the thick of man-made disasters put in place by the mentality that “we can fix nature and make it work for us.
What’s required is the mentality that “we can learn from and work with nature to live physically and psychologically healthier lives.
In which direction are we heading?
Hmmm, COP(out) 26 answered that question.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch…

Band o coots

In my neck of the woods? Best time of year on the beach. I enjoy it while I can....

Speak louder than words

Healthy planet, anyone?

It’s years since I visited Oakland’s Museum of California – now known as MOCO – and learned that bees sang for their supper. Put another way, bees, upon alighting on a plant – sing an appropriate song to induce the plant to release its nectar and feed the bee. 
Now, I learn that bees scream when attacked by murder hornets  A recent study:

… published in the Royal Society Open Science journal… revealed that bees release a “rallying call for collective defence” against the hornets. The previously undiscovered signal, now known as an “anti-predator pipe, shares acoustic traits with alarm shrieks, fear screams and panic calls of primates, birds and meerkats”…
Bees produce the sound by vibrating their wings or thorax, elevating their abdomens and exposing a gland to release a pheromone.

. Will humans learn the even a fraction of what makes our wonderful planet tick before we destroy all of nature?

***

Meantime, let’s enjoy photo collections of other amazing critters and their habit.
Nature under threat: a Cop26 photographic competition 
Avian adventurers: BirdLife Australia 2022 calendar.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch…

More amazing critters. Took these pix with an actual camera on my walk today.

American wigeon

Brown pelicans and white pelicans, plus other shore birds

COP(out) 26

News blues…

RIP South Africa’s F. W. de Klerk

***

New political ads (and commentary): Joe Manchin (2:04 mins)
Meidas Touch: GOP Lies  (0:38 mins)

Healthy planet, anyone?

COP(out) 26. Another potential moment to address critical issues associated with climate change wasted. Disappointed – again - but not surprised. And, to top it off, “leading figures took to the floor for what they hoped would be the final time, to exhort each other to cooperate in the interests of people threatened by the climate crisis around the world”:

At stake is the world’s chance of holding global heating to 1.5C above pre-industrial levels, the tougher of the two temperature goals in the 2015 Paris climate agreement and a “planetary boundary” beyond which the ravages of climate breakdown will rapidly become catastrophic and irreversible.
Read more >> 

We know what we face, but we cannot agree on who should make the most money from the current situation. (See Joe Manchin ad, above.)
Meanwhile… PPE and “pandemic-related plastic waste" continues to pour into our oceans:

Some 8 million metric tons of pandemic-related plastic waste has been created by 193 countries, about 26,000 tons of which is now in the world’s oceans, where it threatens to disrupt marine life and further pollute beaches….
The findings, by a group of researchers based in China and the United States, were published this month in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences journal. Concerns had been raised since the start of the coronavirus pandemic that there would be a boom in plastic pollution amid heightened use of personal protective equipment and rapid growth in online commerce. The study is among the first to quantify the scale of plastic waste linked to the health crisis.
The impact of the increase in plastic waste has been keenly felt by wildlife.
This according to a Dutch scientist-founded tracking project.

Read “The world created about 8 million tons of pandemic plastic waste, and much of it is now in the ocean” >>  

Coverage from the COP26 U.N. climate summit 

The UK’s chief scientist correctly states that “changes in behaviour are needed to tackle climate crisis.”
 Ah, the one thing most of us humans refuse to do – indeed, cannot figure out how to do: change our behaviour/behavior …

Meanwhile, back at the ranch…

Life in my corner of the universe is good – for now. There’s no question that my modest condo on the park and beach will suffer the ravages of rising sea levels in the future. Sure, it’ll take another decade or two, but coastal flooding is on its way. Plus side of that? The waterfowl and shorebirds, ground squirrels, opossums, raccoons, and other critters will do fine (well, as fine as they can, given the ongoing toxicity of garbage pouring into the environment).
I carried binoculars during yesterday’s beach walk. Crowds of brown and white pelicans, cormorants, gulls of all shapes and sizes, sanderlings, curlews, Marbled Godwits, bowditches, avocets, wood ducks, ruddy ducks, grebes, and the usual flocks of mallards and Canada geese; quite the scene for our feathered friends – and those who admire them.
And, yes, I regularly find PPE – particularly masks – littering beach walkways. And yes, I regularly pick up and dispose of these discards into provided plastic garbage bins, lined with more plastic. This to, y’know, ensure garbage is placed into the correct receptacle to ensure it’s placed into the formal stream of garbage before ending up in the informal Great Pacific Garbage Patch .

I’ve been commenting on our – humanity’s – unconscious attitude toward garbage for many years. Moreover, my sculpture series, “Heedlessness” address this attitude. Riffing from a line of Rumi's poetry - "Heedlessness is a pillar that sustains our world, my friend" - I researched the location and dispensation of our planet's largest landfills. The Great Garbage Patch appears to beat all human attempts to formalize landfill.
What to say?
We humans do our best. Unfortunately, as COP(out) 26 demonstrates, that’s just not good enough.