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.

Veterans Day

Today is Veterans Day in the United States.

• Note that the World War I armistice was signed on the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month. ...
• There were around 21.8 million veterans in the United States as of 2010.
• There are around 9 million veterans over the age of 65.
• Around 1.6 million veterans are women.
• Military.com’s  history of veterans day…

Let We the People ensure vets get all the benefits they’ve earned. 

Worldwide (Map) 
November 10, 2021 – 251,624,400 confirmed infections; 5,076,300 deaths
November 26, 2020 – 60,334,000 confirmed infections; 1,420,500 deaths
Total vaccine doses administered: 7,365,272,360

US (Map) 
November 10, 2021 – 46,793,200 confirmed infections; 759,100 deaths
November 26, 2020 – 12,771,000 confirmed infections; 262,145 deaths

SA (Tracker) 
November 10, 2021 – 2,924,625 confirmed infections; 89,435 deaths
November 26, 2020 – 775,510 confirmed infections; 21,2010 deaths
South Africa’s recent Covid tracker >> 

News blues…

How are UK, US, Italy, New Zealand, Canada, France, Singapore, and other countries dealing with Covid vaccine mandates ? A quick glance …
From Atlantic Monthly:

…breakthrough infections remain a statistical inevitability despite our very, very excellent vaccines. We’ll need to get comfortable with them as we learn to live with the coronavirus long term.

• A breakthrough infection is a logistical nightmare.  “A positive test sets in motion huge hassles and anxieties for anyone you’ve been in contact with,” says Alexis C. Madrigal, a co-founder of the COVID Tracking Project at The Atlantic who recently contracted COVID.
• But your immune system is ready to handle it. “A breakthrough, despite what it might seem, does not cause our defenses to crumble,” my colleague Katherine J. Wu wrote this summer. “Vaccines reinforce the defenses we already have.”
• We still don’t know how easily vaccinated people spread COVID.  “We might not reach a consensus on just how contagious breakthrough infections are, and that’s okay….”

***

New political ads: Electile Dysfunction  (2:04 mins)
The Lincoln Project:

Rebuild  (0:57 mins)
Last week in the Republican Party  (2:06 mins)

Healthy planet, anyone?

Getting your point across...

Tuvalu's foreign minister, Simon Kofe, says his country is looking at ways to retain statehood
even if it disappears due to climate change and rising sea levels. 
Photograph: Tuvalu Foreign Ministry/Reuters

Tuvalu's Foreign Minister Simon Kofe spoke to attendees at the COP26 climate summit and around the world while knee-deep in the ocean to show the effect of rising sea levels. >> 
Tuvalu will continue to raise awareness about the complexities of sea levels rise as it seeks to maintain state hood.

Tuvalu is looking at legal ways to keep its ownership of its maritime zones and recognition as a state even if the Pacific island nation is completely submerged due to the climate crisis….
“We’re actually imagining a worst-case scenario where we are forced to relocate or our lands are submerged,” the minister, Simon Kofe, [said].
“We’re looking at legal avenues where we can retain our ownership of our maritime zones, retain our recognition as a state under international law. So those are steps that we are taking, looking into the future.” 

Nor is it "just" Pacific islands suffering effects of melting glaciers and rising sea level, Tangier Island – a Virginia fishing town home to about 400 people - is losing ground faster than previously thought, highlighting how climate change threatens U.S. coastal communities >> 

Meanwhile, back at the ranch…

Infrastructure is, indeed, a critical need in the US, even in cosmopolitan San Francisco and the East Bay. This became clear today as I drove through the cities of El Cerrito (home to the band Credence Clearwater Revival), small and cozy Albany, and Berkeley, site of the esteemed University of California campus. While these cities’ roads don’t have the extreme potholes of South African roads, they are, nevertheless, decrepit, cracked, patchy; in some spots – College Avenue, for example, it’s as if one is driving on loose gravel.
Shock at the state of the cities’ roads, however, was outweighed by the thrill of visiting these cities after several years’ absence. While I lacked time, today, to park and explore (I plan to do that “soon”) I noticed much that has changed and more that remains the same. I look forward to visiting as a tourist on foot – with camera – and sharing what I discover. What’s clear already, though, is that even cities age, sometimes, as I discovered, not gracefully.
The Biden Administration’s infrastructure bill – disappointing as it is in its paring down of what is vitally needed – addressing the effects of climate change - passed not a moment too soon.

***  

Is it the pandemic or am I "just" nuts?

Insomnia evolves into obsessive attention to iPhone battery level graphs,
and turned into “art” depicting new levels of obsession….

Transitions

Healthy planet, anyone?

A reminder of the premise behind Healthy planet, anyone?: Out-of-whack global systems create unknowns with complexities that are, first, difficult to understand… then collectively to agree that the understandings are accurate, then collectively to create and operationalize plans to address the out-of-whackiness, then to convince diverse humanity collectively to adhere to those plans.
The out-of-whack system, meanwhile, increasingly squeezed by human exploitation, creates environments whereby pathogens can easily cross from animals to humans and spread with devastating results, including HIV/AIDS, Ebola, SARS, Covid-19….
Healthy planet, anyone? seeks to highlight efforts both to address and highlight this new reality and efforts to stymie growing threats.
Today, how “…the banking industry’s pledges to help fight global warming are vague and unenforceable.”

Banks and other financial institutions took over COP26’s main stage Wednesday as companies holding assets totaling more than $130 trillion committed to hit net-zero emissions by 2050, a deadline scientists say is critical to limiting global temperature increases to 1.5 degrees Celsius. Under auspices of the Glasgow Financial Alliance for Net Zero, a coalition led by U.N. special envoy Mark Carney, the industry has pledged to shift trillions of dollars away from fossil fuels as part of a global effort to keep temperatures below the catastrophic level.
…
But absent regulation, banks are establishing their own voluntary guardrails, which environmental advocates and some shareholders are eyeing with suspicion. Within their own ranks, banks are debating how to build reporting frameworks that will give credibility to their net-zero efforts. That could include imposing rules on the companies they finance.
Read “A $130T climate promise is greeted with suspicion” >> 

It’s not only about banks, or fossil fuel companies, or multinational corporations, or political systems despoiled by mega-donors, or even out-of-whack political systems that allow politicians supported by mega-donors to hold entire nations hostage. It’s all the above, and much more.
Humans try to fight back. Most recently, a crowd of angry climate protestors spotted Democrat “Joe Manchin, West Virginia senator - and mascot for America’s well-heeled but clueless political class - driving his silver Maserati” . Protesters also confronted Manchin aboard his luxury yacht .

It's the system that's corrupt and not just Joe. But good to know who is good ole bought off Joe. 
Systems out-of-whack allow the rise of people out-of-whack….

Meanwhile, back at the ranch…

South Africa, Nov 7, 2021          California, Nov 7, 2021

Let there be light: California has successfully transitioned to Standard Time.

Earthly paradise

Time changes in California tomorrow, so we enjoy the day …

News blues…

A little news goes a long way….

With Britain’s authorization this week of Merck’s new drug molnupiravir, and a cash infusion into antiviral R&D, the outlook for antiviral treatments is brighter.
Unlike vaccines that can prevent infection, antivirals act as a second line of defense, slowing down and eventually arresting progression of a disease when infections occur. They’re also important when effective vaccines aren’t available against viral diseases….
But developing antivirals is an expensive and difficult endeavor. That’s especially true for acute respiratory diseases, for which the window for treatment is short. In the case of SARS-CoV-2, the coronavirus that has unleashed the devastating COVID-19 pandemic, researchers have resorted to repurposing old drugs or compounds that were being tested against other diseases.
“That’s typical,” says Katherine Seley-Radtke, a medicinal chemist at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County. “Every time a new virus emerges or an old one re-emerges, you pull out what’s there in the cupboard to see what works.”
Read “How the rise of antivirals may change the course of the pandemic” >> 

***

The Lincoln Project. Let’s revisit my all-time personal favorite Lincoln Project’s ads, Nationalist Geographic  (0:57 mins)

Healthy planet, anyone?

Having access to reliable and affordable energy is important to people, so it’s understandable that governments support energy access. But if these subsidies support the consumption of fossil fuels it comes with a large downside, air pollution and accelerated climate change.
Countries around the world agreed to reduce fossil fuel subsidies. It is one of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) that they want to reach by 2030. View the SDG-Tracker to find all of the available measures to track the SDGs.
In many countries fossil fuel subsidies are extremely high. The New York Times reports that in Venezuela subsidies were so high that “a dollar could once theoretically buy about 5 billion gallons of gasoline.” This would be “more than enough to supply the state of Michigan for a year.”
Venezuela was an extreme case. But as the map shows there are many countries with very large subsidies: several are higher than $100 per person per year. In others, it’s higher still.
Read more about fossil fuel subsidies >> 

Meanwhile, back at the ranch…

A friend joined me today for a walk along the beach, passed the bird sanctuary, and to the area we call Shangri-La   - my version of a down-to-earth earthly paradise.
A photo essay (taken with my iPhone so not great photos but they communicate the gist of the walk – 13,695 steps on my iPhone pedometer….)

Winter flyway birds: curlews, sanderlings, avocets, Marbled Godwits...

Looking north west, toward San Francisco (left horizon)

San Francisco in the north west,  from beach and bird sanctuary

Looking south, toward Shangri-la

Entering Shangri-la

View of one section of Shangri-la, looking north (towards San Francisco) 

What do I love about Shangri-la? It sits right on the beach yet it is modest. (Give it another 10 years, and residents will worry about sea level rise and water intrusion, but for now... enjoy!

***

A rare item these days, this public phone situated on the beach walkway actually gets a dial tone...

Remembering Wilma Chan.
Last week, longtime Alameda County supervisor and former Assembly Majority Leader Wilma Chan died after being struck by a motorist during a morning walk.

***

Tomorrow we "fall back" to standard time. 

OCD me? Not sleeping well means time on my hands at odd hours of the night and early morning. I've taken - as before - to making patterns with my iPhone's battery charging level indicator.  

Fun for insomniacs....

     California, Nov 6, 2021          South Africa, Nov 6, 2021.
The change in California time will give us an extra hour to snooze... or walk... or do something else.   

Guy Fawkes

News blues…

In Britain and out there in the former British colonies, We the People celebrate Guy Fawkes, aka Guy Fawkes Day, Bonfire Night, and Fireworks Night on 5 November. This celebration derives from 5 November 1605 when Guy Fawkes, a member of the Gunpowder Plot, was arrested while guarding explosives the Catholica plotters had placed beneath the House of Lords to assassinate Protestant King James I and his parliament. Celebrating that the king had survived, people lit bonfires around London; and months later, the introduction of the Observance of 5th November Act enforced an annual public day of thanksgiving for the plot's failure. More on this history >> 
The day also marks the day during South Africa’s Second Boer War when an effigy of Paul Kruger, then President of the South African Republic, was burned in public for the first time.

Healthy planet, anyone?

“It’s our lives on the line” Thousands of young protesters marched through the streets of Glasgow to demand urgent action from world leaders at the U.N. climate conference and stave off catastrophic climate change.

…campaigners and pressure groups have been underwhelmed by the commitments made so far, many of which are voluntary, exclude the biggest polluters, or set deadlines decades away.
"We are in a disaster that is happening every day," activist Vanessa Nakate said of life in her home country Uganda, which has one of the fastest changing climates in the world. "We cannot keep quiet about climate injustice."
Read more >> 

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Something to plan for: Half world’s fossil fuel assets could become worthless by 2036 in net zero transition >> 

***

Not a conspiracy theory: the energy charter treaty (ECT) allows energy corporations to sue governments for billions over policies that could hurt their profits.

… New data … shows a surge in cases under the energy charter treaty (ECT), an obscure international agreement that allows energy corporations to sue governments over policies that could hurt their profits.
Coal and oil investors are already suing governments for several billions in compensation for lost profits over energy policy changes. For example, the German energy company RWE is suing the Netherlands for €1.4bn (£1.2bn) over its plans to phase out coal, while Rockhopper Exploration, based in the UK, is suing the Italian government after it banned new drilling near the coast.
“It’s a real threat [to the Paris agreement]. It’s the biggest threat I am aware of,” said Yamina Saheb, a former employee of the ECT secretariat who quit in 2018 to raise the alarm.
Read  more >> 

Meanwhile, back at the ranch…

With Covid, climate change, lack of effective action on any front that matters in the grand scheme of things… these days, life is a challenge.
But look around you. Notice the moment-by-moment gifts presented to humans as we go about our day. Here’s my “back yard” – a public park and marine preserve – that is particularly gorgeous this time of year. 

Take the time to notice your surroundings … and give thanks by, maybe, picking up and disposing of a plastic bag or discarded plastic bottle….

Coots, aka mud hens, love the marina this time of year.

In California, the sun rose at 7:40 am and set at 6:05am.
In South Africa, the sun rose at 5:01am and will set at 6:23am. 

What a difference…

What a difference two years make - or not.
About two years ago, an unidentified and virulent illness began circulating. That illness, Covid-19, has gone on to claim more than 5 million confirmed deaths around the world.
Alas, WHO says Europe is “once again at center of Covid pandemic” with cases at near-record levels and 500,000 more deaths forecast by February 
Worldwide (Map) 
November 4, 2021 –248,312,000 confirmed infections; 5,026,000 deaths
November 5, 2020 – 48,136,225 confirmed infections; 1,225,915 deaths
November 4, 2019 - 0 confirmed infections; 0 deaths
Worldwide vaccinations: 7,147,376,200 That’s 7.1 billion.

US (Map) 
November 4, 2021 – 46,261,150 confirmed infections; 750,580 deaths
November 5, 2020 – 9,487,470 confirmed infections; 237,730 deaths
November 4, 2019 - 0 confirmed infections; 0 deaths

SA (Coronavirus portal) 
November 4, 2021 – 2,922,800 confirmed infections; 89,220 deaths
November 5, 2020 – 730,500 confirmed infections; 19,585 deaths deaths
November 4, 2019 - 0 confirmed infections; 0 deaths

CDC Covid tracker 

News blues…

In Colorado, the surge in Covid cases could force hospitals to ration services. The increase can be attributed in part to the almost 40% of the state population that has not been vaccinated  And, the UK is the first country to approve oral antiviral molnupiravir to treat Covid. Pills can be taken twice daily at home and priority will be given to elderly patients and those with health vulnerabilities  

Will anti-vaxers take pills?
Are we about to uncover another layer of anti-vaxer philosophy?

***

The Lincoln Project:

Last Week in the Republican Party  (2:03 mins)

Healthy planet, anyone?

Good news on the human front: Diwali begins. Last year, while in KZN, the Diwali celebration had me prick up my ears: sounds like gun shots at night had me nervously asking neighbors what, if anything, had gone on overnight. (It is way more likely, in America, that what sounds like gunfire, is is gunfire – rather than a happy celebration.) I learned,  “Oh, that’s Diwali…” – the Hindu festival of lights. I'd heard fire crackers /fire works. This, as South Africa, a smaller country than the US (albeit about 3 times larger than California), has diverse cultures living in close proximity. Diwali is part of what happens in small and large communities – and shared by all – with no gunfire or crazy shooters involved. A nice change of pace. Enjoy pictures >> 

Meanwhile, back at the ranch…

Time change afoot. There’s an ongoing conversation about the necessity for some states to practice day light savings time and for other states not to practice. As all things in the US, it’s complicated . For this year, at least, in the US day light savings time began on Sunday, March 14 and will end, Sunday, November 7, at 2:00am. Pic DLST. 

As shown here, today, in California, the sun rose at 7:38am and will set at 6:06am. (The chance of rain – 10% - was way off: it rained quite nicely overnight.)
In South Africa, the sun rose at 5:02am and will set at 6:23am.

Ah, sunlight... gonna miss you.

Spooky

News blues…

In April 2020, two studies on Covid-19 came out identifying obesity as a significant risk factor for serious illness and death. Doctors were scrambling to understand why coronavirus gave some people mild symptoms and left others so sick they were gasping for air.

[Many countries are ramping up action] as officials begin to recognize diet-related diseases such as obesity, hypertension and diabetes have made their citizens much more vulnerable during the pandemic. Some states in Mexico recently went as far as banning junk food sales to children— on top of the country’s existing taxes on sugary drinks and fast food. Chile was already deep in its own crackdown on unhealthy products, having imposed the first mandatory, national warning labels for foods with high levels of salt, sugar and fat along with a ban on marketing such foods to kids.
[In the US] there has been no such wake-up call about the link between diet-related diseases and the pandemic. There is no national strategy. There is no systemswide approach, even as researchers increasingly recognize that obesity is a disease that is driven not by lack of willpower, but a modern society and food system that’s almost perfectly designed to encourage the overeating of empty calories, along with more stress, less sleep and less daily exercise, setting millions on a path to poor health outcomes that is extremely difficult to break from.
Read “Diet-related diseases pose a major risk for Covid-19. But the U.S. overlooks them” >> 

***

COVID-19 still rages, but some US states reject federal funds to help. As the resurgent COVID-19 pandemic burns through the rural U.S. state of Idaho, health officials say they don't have enough tests to track the disease or sufficient medical workers to help the sick. 

***

The Lincoln Project: Anti-American  (1:10 mins)

Healthy planet, anyone?

Will COP cop to climate-related challenges? Or will it be just more blah, blah, blah?  …

***

There Is No Reason To Trust Brazil’s Climate, Deforestation Pledges 

The U.S. has held on-again, off-again talks with [Brazil’s] Bolsonaro government over climate and deforestation since the beginning of the Biden administration, which sees its attempts to bring Brazil back to the table on environmental concerns as a centerpiece of its efforts to reestablish the United States’ own leadership role in global climate efforts.
But Brazil’s “new” pledges are far less ambitious than they seem at first glance, experts say.
The emissions goal is “just a correction” to a previous policy that far-right President Jair Bolsonaro’s government outlined in December, said Marcio Astrini, the executive secretary of São Paulo-based Climate Observatory.
The 2020 target would’ve allowed Brazil to emit 400 million additional tons of carbon than it would have under pledges the country made in 2015. The new pledge merely puts Brazil back on the same path it had already plotted six years ago, when then-President Dilma Rousseff signed the country onto the Paris Climate agreement.
“They just aligned the numbers to have the same emissions pledges for 2030 that the country already had in 2015,” Astrini said. The Bolsonaro government, he added, is “running to the past while the world is no longer the same, the climate emergency has [worsened] and countries are being called to look to the future.”
…
There is little, if any, reason to trust that the Bolsonaro administration is serious about curbing greenhouse gas emissions or stopping the razing of the Amazon, the world’s largest rainforest. Much like former President Donald Trump, Bolsonaro has turned his nation into a global pariah on climate issues. He didn’t even show up for COP26 in Glasgow.
Read the article  >>

Meanwhile, back at the ranch…

As mentioned in an earlier post - Alaska has high rates of vocal anti-vaxers… and high rates of Covid-19 infections - among the highest rates in the US.
A family member who lives in Anchorage – fully vaccinated with three doses and masked when in public – reports Sunday night’s neighborhood Halloween party was hosted by a man infected with Covid-19. He was inside the house while party goers cavorted outside… and the party was well attended.