H. Holden Thorp, - Science
Stephan: Another of the crises we face is that criminal Trump and his administration have done everything they can debasing, defunding, and destroying the government's role in science, and science itself. Now, suddenly, we need science. This piece published in Science, the most prestigious and establishment honored scientific journal in the world, is science's response.
“Do me a favor, speed it up, speed it up.” This is what U.S. President Donald Trump told the National Association of Counties Legislative Conference, recounting what he said to pharmaceutical executives about the progress toward a vaccine for severe acute respiratory syndrome–coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), the virus that causes coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19). Anthony Fauci, the long-time leader of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, has been telling the president repeatedly that developing the vaccine will take at least a year and a half—the same message conveyed by pharmaceutical executives. Apparently, Trump thought that simply repeating his request would change the outcome.
China has rightfully taken criticism for squelching attempts by scientists to report information during the outbreak. Now, the United States government is doing similar things. Informing Fauci and other government scientists that they must clear all public comments with Vice President Mike Pence is unacceptable. This is not a time for someone who denies evolution, climate change, and the dangers of smoking to shape the public message. Thank goodness Fauci, Francis Collins [director of the U.S. National Institutes of Health (NIH)], and their colleagues across federal agencies are willing to soldier on and are gradually […]
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Saturday, March 14th, 2020
Dan Levin, - The New York Times
Stephan: I have always considered the obsession some people have with what other people do with their genitals and hearts a mental disorder. One reinforced by the Abrahamic thinking that is so much a part of christofascist thinking. But I worry that other issues underneath all the layers of Covid-19 and Trump are getting lost. I've done a number of stories about the anti-choice movement, but it is now time to also talk about what is happening to the transgender community. I am going to cover this trend, which I consider very pernicious, and anti-wellbeing.
“This is just going to make it harder for trans kids to be able to find their true happiness,” said Peyton Badalucco, seen here with his mother, Nicole Benson, at the Idaho State Capitol. Credit: Kim Raff/The New York Times
BOISE, Idaho — By the time Peyton Badalucco came out to his mother as transgender, he had been secretly binding his chest in a desperate attempt to hide his body. He was 14 years old and so miserable that he could barely muster the emotional strength to leave the house.
Coming out led to months of counseling, a medical diagnosis of gender dysphoria and, finally, hormone therapy when he was 15. He lost several friends while transitioning, he said, but as his body changed, his depression and anxiety faded, and he stopped worrying about what people thought.
“Once I got over that,” said Peyton, now an 18-year-old high school senior, “I just started feeling a lot more free to be who I truly am.”
Read the Full Article
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Saturday, March 14th, 2020
, - National Audubon Society
Stephan: Remember a short while ago the story I ran about criminal Trump permitting the logging of a particularly important ancient forest in Alaska, in the interest of corporate greed? Well, here is some excellent news, his scheme has been thwarted.
Spruce Grouse in Alaska Credit: Nick Jans
JUNEAU, ALASKA – A federal judge rejected yesterday an enormous commercial timber harvest and road-building plan for Prince of Wales Island in the Tongass National Forest of Southeast Alaska. The judge ruled that project approval violated the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), which sets standards for public engagement on federal projects that will alter the environment, and the Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act (ANILCA), which requires federal agencies to evaluate how federal use of public lands will affect subsistence uses and needs. The court found that the Forest Service “presented local communities with vague, hypothetical, and over-inclusive representations of the Project’s effects over a 15-year period.” It’s not yet clear whether the Forest Service will have to abandon the project entirely, because the judge has not yet decided on a legal remedy. Read the court ruling.
The U.S. Forest Service had green-lighted a sweeping 15-year logging scheme over a 1.8-million-acre project area across Prince of Wales and surrounding islands, part of a program […]
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Saturday, March 14th, 2020
ROBERT KUNZIG, - National Geographic
Stephan: To successfully navigate climate change we need to develop a completely different way of living in the earth -- that's right in not on. Here is an example of what I mean. It is not a question of can we, it is a question of will we, or will greed, incompetence, and stupidity condemn us to endless suffering, illness and death.
Credit: Luca Locatelli/National Geographic
In Amsterdam I met a man who revealed to me the hidden currents of our lives—the massive flows of raw materials and products deployed, to such wonderful and damaging effect, by 7.7 billion humans. Our shared metabolism, you might say. It was a crisp fall morning, and I was sitting in a magnificent old brick pile on the Oosterpark, a palace of curved corridors and grand staircases and useless turrets. A century ago, when the Dutch were still extracting coffee, oil, and rubber from their colony in Indonesia, this building had been erected as a colonial research institute. Now it houses assorted do-gooder organizations. The one Marc de Wit works for is called Circle Economy, and it’s part of a buzzing international movement that aims to reform how we’ve done just about everything for the past two centuries—since the rise of the steam engine, “if you need to pinpoint a time,” de Wit said.
De Wit is 39, […]
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Saturday, March 14th, 2020
Tina Casey , - CleanTechnica
Stephan: This is a follow up on the earlier story I did on the Perovskite development in solar panel technology. This is excellent news.
Panasonic is among the companies readying low-cost perovskite solar cells for the market
Credit: Panasonic.
The cost of solar power is sinking practically by the day, and the next new “hot” solar cell material — perovskite — will push costs down even more. So far you can’t get perovskite solar cells in stores but this year will bring a trickle into the market, and a batch of new research suggests that the trickle will become a flood. When that happens, look out. The thermal coal market is already in the toaster and perovskite could fry it to a crisp while also dragging natural gas down along, too.
Perovskite For More & Cheaper Solar Cells
Perovskite is a naturally occurring mineral (aka calcium titanate) that has been known to science since its discovery in the Ural mountains in 1839.
Science may have known perovskite, but researchers didn’t fully cotton on to its photovoltaic properties until the 1950s.
Synthetic perovskite is relatively inexpensive and easy to make, which brings up the prospect of using it as a substitute for silicon, the […]
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