Stephan: The anti-vaxxer death cultists at a personal level I see as pathetic and rather sad. At a social level, however, they are dangerous and threatening to the wellbeing of the country. They really will believe any kind of nonsense however stupid and wrong, it just has to come from an accepted MAGAt-world source.
Believers in treating COVID-19 with ivermectin have reportedly branched out in terms of their recommended treatments for the virus, which now include inhaling food-grade hydrogen peroxide.
NBC News reporter Ben Collins, who follows multiple pro-ivermectin and anti-vaccine Facebook groups, writes on Twitter that many of these groups have now become “radicalized” and are pushing for even more exotic remedies for COVID-19.
The problem these groups are encountering, writes Collins, is that their followers have quickly learned that ivermectin alone won’t do the trick.
“So,” writes Collins. “They developed a makeshift ‘protocol.’”
And what does this “protocol” entail?
Much of it, notes Collins, seems to be made up on the fly.
“Obviously, keep taking the ivermectin and hydroxychloroquine, the ivermectin groups say,” writes Collins. “But also gargle iodine. Buy a nebulizer and inhale food-grade hydrogen peroxide. Anything but the vaccine.”
Stephan: If you read me regularly you know that I have been telling readers for years now to pay attention to the insurance rates along the coastal communities because when they start to skyrocket, if you live along a low coast it is time to pay close attention to what is projected to happen in your area and act on what you learn. This is just a first story of a trend that is going to see a trillion-dollar real estate collapse as coastal real estate and, indeed, whole areas of coastal cities become submerged.
A house under construction in South Gulf Cove, Fla., a town ninety minutes south of Tampa on Gasparilla Sound. Credit: Eve Edelheit for The New York Times
Florida’s version of the American dream, which holds that even people of relatively modest means can aspire to live near the water, depends on a few crucial components: sugar white beaches, soft ocean breezes and federal flood insurance that is heavily subsidized.
But starting Oct. 1, communities in Florida and elsewhere around the country will see those subsidies begin to disappear in a nationwide experiment in trying to adapt to climate change: Forcing Americans to pay something closer to the real cost of their flood risk, which is rising as the planet warms.
While the program also covers homes around the country, the pain will be most acutely felt in coastal communities. For the first time, the new rates will also take into account the size of a home, so that large houses by the ocean could see an especially big jump in rates.
Federal officials say the goal is fairness — and also getting homeowners to […]
Stephan: This business of coastal submergence is not limited to the U.S., and it is becoming clear to countries that are particularly threatened that their entire national life is going to be radically changed. Consider Malaysia.
Malaysia coastline showing projected coastal submergence
A major economic and societal catastrophe may soon confront one of Southeast Asia’s most important economies: Malaysia. So powerful and transformative could be this event that it could potentially disappear up to 12,745 sq km of national coastline. And this natural event will likely start happening within a decade or so. As a result, Malaysia will be forced to put new national priorities in place – before it is too late.
If this natural calamity does take place, it will result in a major portion of Malaysia’s national heritage being given over to the sea. Critically, it will have a ruinous impact on the people and economy of Malaysia, as storm surges and massive coastal flooding, in effect, swallow up huge areas of their homeland.
To put this potential disaster in graphic real estate terms, so that the enormity of the problem is made abundantly clear, the total loss of prime land could come up to 1,274,500ha of urban coastline and fertile agricultural landmass. Or put another way, it could result in […]
Stephan: As I predicted it is going to take years to undo the corruption of Trump. He very deliberately gutted all the regulatory agencies to bias them to favor the corporate rich. The fact that his corruption would harm thousands, perhaps millions of people was of no consequence. That is one of the strangest things about MAGAt world. The people harmed the most are often his supporters, but they don't seem to understand or care.
Scientists at the Environmental Protection Agency have provided The Intercept with new information showing that senior staff have made chemicals appear safer — sometimes dodging restrictions on their use — by minimizing the estimates of how much is released into the environment.
The EPA gauges the potential risk posed by a chemical using two measures: how toxic the agency considers it and how much of the substance the public will likely be exposed to. Whistleblowers from the EPA’s New Chemicals Division have already provided The Intercept with evidence that managers and other officials were pressuring them to assess chemicals to be less toxic than they actually are — and sometimes removing references to their harms from chemical assessments.
Now new documents, including meeting summaries, internal emails, and screenshots from the EPA’s computer system, along with interviews with whistleblowers and other EPA scientists, show that the agency’s New Chemicals Division has avoided calculating the exposure to — and thus the risk posed by — hundreds of chemicals and have repeatedly resisted calls to change that policy even after scientists have shown that […]
Stephan: Here is yet another story reporting on what our failure to deal with climate change is leading to. The failure of the Democrats to get their act together, coupled with the corruption and incompetence of Manchin, Sinema, and a few others, and the just plain nasty jerkiness of the Republican Party are producing crises like the mental health issues reported in this article. Time is running out. We should be coming together as a nation, and instead, we are splitting apart. If we are to get through climate change we have to make wellbeing our first priority. Failure to do this will condemn us to untold misery and much death.
Credit: Thomson Reuters Foundation
LONDON — As climate change drives a surge in deadly disasters – and harsh scientific warnings of worse to come – young people are struggling with growing “eco-anxiety” about the future of the planet and their own lives, psychologists say in a new study.
But their feelings of anger, fear and powerlessness arise less from the environmental damage itself than the unwillingness of adults to stop it, despite the availability of solutions and overwhelming evidence of the risks, the research finds.
“Eco-anxiety is a sign of mental health, an entirely appropriate response to what’s going on,” said Caroline Hickman, a psychotherapist and lead author of an international study set to be published in the medical journal The Lancet.
Luisa Neubauer, a German climate campaigner with the Fridays for Future students’ movement, said inaction by world leaders on global warming “is too much to handle, too much to accept”.
“What does it mean for young people to see the world fall apart while we have solutions at hand, while we know how to stop it? Government is pushing […]
