A Little Good News

[GordMay]

Lobster boat tracking coming to protect whales, fishery
America's lobster fishing businesses could be subjected to electronic tracking requirements to try to protect vulnerable right whales [population ±360] and get a better idea of the population of the valuable crustaceans...
More ➥ https://phys.org/news/2021-08-lobste...s-fishery.html

[GordMay]

Since the beginning of the pandemic, researchers worldwide have been looking for ways to treat COVID-19. And while the COVID-19 vaccines represent the best measure to prevent the disease, therapies for those who do get infected remain in short supply.

A new groundbreaking study [1] from the University of Michigan reveals several drug contenders already in use for other purposes, including remdesivir, and one dietary supplement, that have been shown to block or reduce SARS-CoV-2 infection in cells.

The therapies they discovered are well positioned for phase 2 clinical trials, because their safety has already been established.

More about:
“Existing drugs kill SARS-CoV-2 in cells”
Could the next therapy for COVID-19 already be at your local pharmacy?
➥ https://labblog.uofmhealth.org/lab-r...rs-cov-2-cells

[1] "Morphological cell profiling of SARS-CoV-2 infection identifies drug repurposing candidates for COVID-19" ~ by Carmen Mirabelli et al
➥ https://www.pnas.org/content/118/36/e2105815118

[GordMay]

It's official: You can't buy leaded gasoline for cars anywhere on Earth
Leaded gasoline has finally reached the end of the road, the UN environment office [UNEP] said Monday [1], after Algeria, the last country in the world to use it, stopped selling the highly toxic fuel.

Petroleum containing tetraethyllead, a form of lead, was first sold almost 100 years ago, to increase engine performance. It was widely used for decades, until researchers discovered that it could cause heart disease, strokes, and measurable intellectual impairment in children [brain damage], and millions of premature deaths.

Most rich nations started phasing out the fuel in the 1980s, but it was still widely used in low- and middle-income countries until 2002, when the UN launched a global campaign to abolish it.
Leaded gas is still used in aviation fuel [avgas], for small planes.

[1] “Era of leaded petrol over, eliminating a major threat to human and planetary health” ~ UNEP
➥ https://www.unep.org/news-and-storie...-and-planetary

[GordMay]

Weather-related disasters increase over past 50 years, causing more damage, but fewer deaths

Climate change leads to more extreme weather, but early warnings save lives.

Weather disasters are striking the world four to five times more often, and causing seven times more damage, than in the 1970s, the United Nations weather agency reports [1].

But these disasters are killing far fewer people.

In the 1970s and 1980s, they killed an average of about 170 people a day, worldwide.
In the 2010s, that dropped to about 40 per day, the World Meteorological Organization [WMO] said in a report [1], that looks at more than 11,000 weather disasters in the past half-century.

In the 1970s, the world averaged about 711 weather disasters a year, but from 2000 to 2009 that was up to 3,536 a year or nearly 10 a day, according to the report, which used data from the Centre for Research on the Epidemiology of Disasters in Belgium. The average number of yearly disasters dropped a bit in the 2010s to 3,165, the report said [1].

Most death and damage, during 50 years of weather disasters, came from storms, flooding, and drought.

The five most expensive weather disasters since 1970 were all storms in the United States, topped by 2005's Hurricane Katrina.

The five deadliest weather disasters were in Africa and Asia, topped by the Ethiopian drought and famine in the mid-1980s, and Cyclone Bhola in Bangladesh in 1970.

More about ➥ https://public.wmo.int/en/media/pres...e-damage-fewer


[1] “WMO Atlas of Mortality and Economic Losses from Weather, Climate and Water Extremes (1970 – 2019)” ~ Published 31 August 2021
WMO-No. 1267 ➥ https://library.wmo.int/doc_num.php?explnum_id=10769

[GordMay]

Monoclonal antibody treatments for COVID

An early analysis of a Canadian-led study [1], a preprint not yet peer-reviewed, found one dose of a monoclonal antibody treatment ['Sotrovimab'], developed by GlaxoSmithKline and Vir Biotechnology, reduced the risk of COVID progressing from mild to serious illness, in high-risk people, by 85 per cent, compared with a placebo.

Despite the pricey costs (typically $2,000 per dose), and logistical challenges [the drugs, for the most part, are administered via intravenous infusion], when given within five to 10 days of testing positive for COVID, monoclonal antibodies can slow the disease, by blocking the virus, once inside the body, from invading new cells and replicating.

Monoclonal antibodies aren’t a magic bullet, that will treat all. While the drugs seem well-tolerated, they can cause side effects, like diarrhea and rash, though in fairly small numbers. What’s more, bringing someone who has tested positive for COVID into a medical space, that has adequate ventilation, personal protective equipment, and skilled staff to infuse the drug, and watch people for possible reactions, requires a lot of infrastructure, in an already stretched system.

Monoclonal antibodies have proven beneficial, for high-risk people [including those with obesity, asthma, heart failure or chronic kidney disease and people over age 55] who have mild to moderate disease. If you have more than that, you start requiring oxygen or hospitalization; in which case, not only is there no benefit, in terms of survival from these monoclonal antibodies, there may even be a signal of increased risk of death, though it’s hard to know if that’s simply because those people were already too sick, to begin with.

There’s also a finite treatment window. The antibodies have to be given within 10 days after symptoms begin.


Pre-Print, not yet peer reviewed:

[1] “Early Covid-19 Treatment With SARS-CoV-2 Neutralizing Antibody Sotrovimab” ~ by Anil Gupta et al
➥ https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1...96v1.full-text

[GordMay]

Tuna conservation is working

Conservation efforts are reaping rewards for tuna, according to the International Union for Conservation of Nature’s (IUCN) latest ‘Red List’ of threatened species [1].

Four commercially fished tuna species have shown signs of recovery, thanks to countries enforcing fishing quotas:
Atlantic bluefin tuna (Thunnus thynnus),
southern bluefin tuna (Thunnus maccoyii),
albacore (Thunnus alalunga)
and yellowfin tunas (Thunnus albacares).
However, southern bluefin tuna is still endangered, and some regional tuna populations are struggling. So too are many species of shark and ray.
And, the world’s largest lizard, the Komodo dragon (Varanus komodoensis), has been newly flagged as endangered.
“I think the good news is that sustainable fisheries are possible,” says marine biologist Beth Polidoro.

More about ➥ https://www.nationalgeographic.co.uk...ing-scientists

[1] “IUCN ‘Red List’ of threatened species ➥ https://www.iucnredlist.org/

[GordMay]

"Climate science is supporting lawsuits that could help save the world” ~ by Quirin Schiermeier

Governments have failed to slow climate change quickly enough, so activists are using courts to compel countries and companies to act — increasingly with help from forefront science.

One particularly relevant field is source attribution, a growing branch of science that seeks to identify the relative contributions that various economic sectors and activities have made to climate change. “Causality is a key aspect in climate cases,” says legal scholar Petra Minnerop. “Any science that might convince judges that greenhouse-gas emitters are liable for their actions or inaction could be a game changer.”

Much more ➥ https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-021-02424-7

See also:
“Global trends in climate litigation: 2021 snapshot”
➥ https://www.lse.ac.uk/granthaminstit...2021-snapshot/

And:
"The UCS Science Hub for Climate Litigation: Resources and Opportunities for Experts"
➥ https://www.ucsusa.org/resources/sci...ate-litigation

[GordMay]

The World’s Biggest Plant to Suck Carbon Dioxide From the Sky Is Up and Running

Operators say the 'Orca' Direct Air Capture [DAC] plant can suck 4,000 tonnes of CO2 out of the air every year, and inject it deep into the ground, to be sequestered [mineralised].
According to the US Environmental Protection Agency, that only equates to the emissions from about 870 cars, or less than 1% of the yearly emissions from a single coal plant.
The plant cost between US$10 and 15m to build, Bloomberg reported.

More ➥ https://gizmodo.com/the-world-s-bigg...m-t-1847636362

And ➥ https://www.timebulletin.com/worlds-...ts-in-iceland/

[GordMay]

“End-of-life management: Solar Photovoltaic Panels” ~ by International Renewable Energy Agency [IRENA]

The world’s total annual electrical and electronic waste (e-waste) reached a record of 41.8 million metric tonnes in 2014. Annual global PV panel waste was 1,000 times less in the same year.
Yet by 2050, the PV panel waste added annually could exceed 10% of the record global e-waste added in 2014.
As the analysis contained in this report shows, the challenges and experiences with e-waste management can be turned into opportunities for PV panel waste [almost entirely glass and aluminum, with a tiny amount of lead and silver] management in the future.
If fully injected back into the economy, the value of the recovered material could exceed USD 15 billion by 2050.

More About [brief] ➥ https://www.irena.org/publications/2...voltaic-Panels

Full Report ➥ https://www.irena.org/-/media/Files/...anels_2016.pdf

[GordMay]

“Australian bush fires belched out immense quantity of carbon” ~ by Smriti Mallapaty
The extreme bush fires that blazed across southeastern Australia in late 2019 and early 2020 released 715 million tonnes of carbon dioxide into the air — more than double the emissions previously estimated from satellite data, according to an analysis [1] published Sept. 15 in Nature.
It’s not all bad news, however. Another paper [2] in Nature reports that much of this plume of carbon might have been indirectly sucked up, by a gigantic phytoplankton bloom in the Southern Ocean.
Wildfire smoke infused the Southern Ocean with iron, nourishing phytoplankton. A huge bloom of the microscopic plants sucked up carbon, equivalent to as much as 95% of the emissions from the fires.
The question remains as to where the carbon taken up by the plankton eventually goes, and whether it makes it back out into the atmosphere.
More about ➥ https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-021-02509-3

The papers:

[1] “Vast CO2 release from Australian fires in 2019–2020 constrained by satellite” ~ by Ivar R. van der Velde et al
➥ https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-021-03712-y

[2] “Widespread phytoplankton blooms triggered by 2019–2020 Australian wildfires” ~ by Weiyi Tang et al
➥ https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-021-03805-8

[Joh.Ghurt]

Originally Posted by GordMay

Wildfire smoke infused the Southern Ocean with iron, nourishing phytoplankton. A huge bloom of the microscopic plants sucked up carbon, equivalent to as much as 95% of the emissions from the fires.

That sound as if Mother Nature doesn't believe CNN's doomsday predictions, but instead has some self-regulation mechanisms in place to take care of things. What a pity for CNN and all the Apocalypse-Merchants. Business as usual is so unnewsworthy and is bad for the quarterly results. Ted Turner of CNN should really lodge a formal complaint with Mother Nature about this. How dares she!

[Mike OReilly]

Originally Posted by Joh.Ghurt

That sound as if Mother Nature doesn't believe CNN's doomsday predictions, but instead has some self-regulation mechanisms in place to take care of things. What a pity for CNN and all the Apocalypse-Merchants. Business as usual is so unnewsworthy and is bad for the quarterly results. Ted Turner of CNN should really lodge a formal complaint with Mother Nature about this. How dares she!

Logical BS. If this were true, then climate would never change. And your CNN complaint is simply childish. CNN doesn't make any predictions. They report the science, which is predicting serious negative outcomes (based on current climate).

[Gadagirl]

www.theguardian.com/business/2021/sep/16/exxon-bp-congress-climate-crisis

Exxon and BP called to testify on climate after ‘troubling’ new documents
Congressman calls documents related to the fossil fuel industry’s efforts to discredit climate science ‘very concerning’

US congressional investigators say they have uncovered “very concerning” new documents about ExxonMobil’s disinformation campaign to discredit climate science.

Representative Ro Khanna, a leading critic of the petroleum industry on the House oversight committee, said the documents came to light ahead of a hearing next month to question the heads of large oil companies about their industry’s long history of undermining the evidence that burning fossil fuels drove global heating.

[GordMay]

China to stop funding overseas coal projects

Chinese President Xi Jinping has said that China would no longer fund the construction of new coal-fired power projects overseas, at the United Nations General Assembly.

China has supported coal projects in developing countries, including Indonesia and Bangladesh, and has been under heavy diplomatic pressure to put an end to the financing, to help the world meet the goals of the Paris climate agreement to reduce carbon emissions.

Xi Jinping Translator: (07:49)"... We need to accelerate transition to a green and low carbon economy and achieve greener recovery and development. China will strive to reprieve carbon dioxide emissions before 2030, and achieve chief carbon neutrality before 2060. This requires tremendous hard work and we will make every effort to meet these goals. China will step up support for other developing countries in developing green and low-carbon energy, and will not build new coal-fired power projects abroad ...” Xi said in a pre-recorded video address, at the annual UN gathering.

English Transcript ➥ https://www.rev.com/blog/transcripts...ech-transcript

And ➥ https://www.rev.com/transcript-edito...link&ts=455.42

[JPA Cate]

Covid 19 related good news:

A team of doctors, plus a Reuters photographer have trekked over rough terrain after a landslide closed the road into a remote Himalyan village in order to offer vaccine to the people of the village. Quite a challenging hike, good pics.

More here: https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-09-...ages/100490846

Always like a little good news, I do!

Ann
__________________
Who scorns the calm has forgotten the storm.