A Little Good News

[GordMay]

“Virginia becomes first state in US south to abolish death penalty”
Advocates hope the move will lead to an end to capital punishment elsewhere in south, where most executions occur.
Virginia Governor Ralph Northam signed legislation on Wednesday making Virginia the 23rd state to abolish the death penalty, in a dramatic shift for a state, which had the second-highest number of executions in the United States.
“There is no place today for the death penalty in this commonwealth, in the south, or in this nation” Northam said, shortly before signing the legislation.
More ➥ https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2021/...-death-penalty

[GordMay]

Bald eagle populations soar in lower 48 states

The number of American bald eagles has quadrupled since 2009, with more than 300,000 birds soaring over the lower 48 states, government scientists said in a report [1] Wednesday.

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service said [1] bald eagles, the national symbol that once teetered on the brink of extinction, have flourished in recent years, growing to more than 71,400 nesting pairs and an estimated 316,700 individual birds.

Bald eagles reached an all-time low of 417 known nesting pairs in 1963 in the lower 48 states. But after decades of protection, including banning the pesticide DDT and placement of the eagle on the endangered species list in more than 40 states, the bald eagle population has continued to grow.

The bald eagle was removed from the list of threatened or endangered species in 2007.

[1] “U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Final Report: Bald Eagle Population Size: 2020 Update”
➥ https://www.fws.gov/migratorybirds/p...-size-2020.pdf

[GordMay]

“Coronavirus pandemic slowdown has made the oceans quieter, which has been good for whales”
Not only has pandemic helped accelerate the end of commercial whale hunting, ambient noise in the world’s oceans is also way down.
“... [Iceland's] Visitor numbers have been hit hard by the coronavirus pandemic. But the global slowdown has actually been good for the whales, as human interference has decreased. Ambient noise in the world’s oceans from cruise ships, sonar and construction is way down ...”
Much more ➥ https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/c...-been-n1262175

[GordMay]

Eating Popcorn May Help Reduce Risk of Cardiovascular Disease

Popcorn is a whole grain, and therefore an excellent source of fiber and polyphenols. The fiber provided in popcorn helps remove cholesterol from the body, thereby reducing this substance that can be harmful to heart health.
Polyphenols are plant compounds that act as antioxidants in the body. When we consume them through whole food sources, we are aiding our body in ridding itself of free radicals and toxins that can cause cellular damage and ultimately chronic illnesses.

According to a 2014 study [1], published in Nutrition, Metabolism,& Cardiovascular Diseases, among a group of 7,172 adults, those whose diets had the highest levels of polyphenols, had a 46 percent lower risk of cardiovascular disease, compared to study subjects with the lowest levels of dietary polyphenols.

According to research [2], presented at the 243rd National Meeting & Exposition of the American Chemical Society (ACS) in 2012, researchers, from the University of Scranton, found that a single serving of popcorn not only contains over 70 percent of the RDA of whole grains, it also packs more polyphenols per serving than fresh corn or any of the fruits the researchers compared the snack to.

However, if popcorn tastes good [prepared using butter and oil], these benefits are, essentially, canceled.

[1] “Inverse association between habitual polyphenol intake and incidence of cardiovascular events in the PREDIMED study” ~ by A. Tresserra-Rimbau et al
➥ https://www.nmcd-journal.com/article...008-8/fulltext

[2] “Popcorn: The snack with even higher antioxidants levels than fruits and vegetables” ~ American Chemical Society
➥ https://www.sciencedaily.com/release...0325173008.htm

[geoleo]

Originally Posted by GordMay

“NASA Supercomputing Study Breaks Ground for Tree Mapping, Carbon Research”
NASA is counting trees that had never been included in the maps; a breakthrough for research, and the fight against global warming.
Researchers at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, in Greenbelt, Maryland, are teaming up with international scientists, to map all trees on Earth, and thereby establish the basis for measuring planetary carbon storage.

The team integrated a powerful calculation algorithm on one of the world’s most powerful supercomputers, the University of Illinois’ Blue Waters. They thus formed a model capable of recognizing individual trees, or small groups of trees, over multiple terrains. To do this, scientists manually surveyed 90,000 individual trees using high-resolution satellite images from West Africa. This region has the advantage of having arid and semi-arid zones where many isolated trees grow; these have never been included in previous assessments. In addition to locating and counting the trees; the program measures the diameter, coverage, and density of their crowns, i.e. from the top of the trunk to all the branches. As a result, they can analyze variations in these data according to land use and climate.

More ➥ https://www.nasa.gov/feature/goddard...arbon-research

See ➥ https://youtu.be/NLB_M6Z83iE

“Satellites could soon map every tree on Earth” ~ by
Niall P. Hanan & Julius Y. Anchang
An analysis of satellite images has pinpointed individual tree canopies over a large area of West Africa. The data suggest that it will soon be possible, with certain limitations, to map the location and size of every tree worldwide.
➥ https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-020-02830-3

“An unexpectedly large count of trees in the West African Sahara and Sahel” ~ by Martin Brandt et al
➥ https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-020-2824-5

Next NASA will be counting snakes . Snake population is important for land subsidence.

[geoleo]

Originally Posted by GordMay

Site of former coal mine being fitted with solar farm

A coal mine turned waste depot in the northeast of England is to undergo a retrofit that will utilize a range of sustainable technologies and design features, with those behind the project hoping over 1,000 metric tons of carbon dioxide will be saved annually thanks to the changes.

The £8.3 million ($11.37 million) project to update the Morrison Busty depot in County Durham will center around the construction of a 3 megawatt solar farm that will power the site's operations.

In addition, electric vehicle charging points will be integrated into the development's design, while a battery storage system will also be built.

Natural gas heating will be replaced with air source heat pumps — devices which, as the Energy Saving Trust puts it, "absorb heat from the air" — while office buildings will, among other things, benefit from new windows and doors as well as LED lighting.

The depot, which is located in the village of Annfield Plain, traces its roots back to the 1920s, when it was known as the Morrison Busty Colliery. The coal mine closed down in 1973.

Today, the site hosts equipment stores and houses fleet vehicles for services such as household waste collection, street lighting and road maintenance. It's also home to, among other things, a household waste recycling center and horticultural nursery.

More ➥ https://bidstats.uk/tenders/2020/W52/741474316

Video ➥

If its such a great trash dump why not put those pesky nuke spent fuel rods down there?

[geoleo]

Originally Posted by GordMay

“Coronavirus pandemic slowdown has made the oceans quieter, which has been good for whales”
Not only has pandemic helped accelerate the end of commercial whale hunting, ambient noise in the world’s oceans is also way down.
“... [Iceland's] Visitor numbers have been hit hard by the coronavirus pandemic. But the global slowdown has actually been good for the whales, as human interference has decreased. Ambient noise in the world’s oceans from cruise ships, sonar and construction is way down ...”
Much more ➥ https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/c...-been-n1262175

Iceland kills hundreds of whales a year and exports the whale meat to Japan, the libs who run Iceland there are ok with it. They also murder any Polar Bear who happens to make it over from Greenland. Iceland was on its way to being the new disney world in fake tourist "attractions " when covid hit. "See the fantastic ICE Cave" only $25 a ticket. and such --------Now they are hoping that the new volcano eruption will bring the tourists backy. lolol

[GordMay]

Originally Posted by geoleo

Next NASA will be counting snakes . Snake population is important for land subsidence.

Thanks, for this interesting, informative, and revolutionary news! [not]

“Land Subsidence” ~ USGS
Land subsidence occurs when large amounts of groundwater have been withdrawn from certain types of rocks, such as fine-grained sediments.
➥ https://www.usgs.gov/special-topic/w...center_objects

Results from a meta-analysis literature review of global land subsidence have been reported in a Policy Forum of Science. [1]
The findings warn that land subsidence – the sinking of land surfaces – will impact 19% of the world’s population within the next two decades. This environmental change will ultimately have significant economic consequences for many regions around the world.

Gerardo Herrera Garcia and his colleagues conducted the study by analyzing the groundwater depletion and subsequent land subsidence at 200 sites in 34 nations over the last century. The authors say that factors that cause subsidence, such as high population density and groundwater demand for irrigation, will be exacerbated in the years to come due to the droughts and increased aridity brought on by climate change.

The researchers say that policies that protect against groundwater removal and monitor damage will be key to confronting global land subsidence. In their report, they describe a model they have developed that they say offers "a key first step toward formulating effective land-subsidence policies that are lacking in most countries worldwide."

The model uses spatial and statistical analyses to identify the risk of land subsidence in certain areas based on factors like flooding and groundwater depletion caused by human activities. The tea showed that their model was able to identify subsidence and non-subsidence areas with 94% accuracy when compared to independent validation datasets.

[1] “Mapping the global threat of land subsidence” ~ by Gerardo Herrera-García et al
“Subsidence, the lowering of Earth's land surface, is a potentially destructive hazard that can be caused by a wide range of natural or anthropogenic triggers but mainly results from solid or fluid mobilization underground. Subsidence due to groundwater depletion (1) is a slow and gradual process that develops on large time scales (months to years), producing progressive loss of land elevation (centimeters to decimeters per year) typically over very large areas (tens to thousands of square kilometers) and variably affects urban and agricultural areas worldwide. Subsidence permanently reduces aquifer-system storage capacity, causes earth fissures, damages buildings and civil infrastructure, and increases flood susceptibility and risk. During the next decades, global population and economic growth will continue to increase groundwater demand and accompanying groundwater depletion (2) and, when exacerbated by droughts (3), will probably increase land subsidence occurrence and related damages or impacts. To raise awareness and inform decision-making, we evaluate potential global subsidence due to groundwater depletion, a key first step toward formulating effective land-subsidence policies that are lacking in most countries worldwide ...”
➥ https://science.sciencemag.org/content/371/6524/34

[GordMay]

“We can protect only a subset of the ocean; which piece should we choose?” ~ by Berly McCoy
Researchers [1] have pioneered a novel way to identify marine areas that, if protected, will bolster food security, and safeguard marine life, all while reducing carbon emissions - how strategically designating marine protected areas may kill three birds with one stone
“... The researchers found that strategic protection of 21 percent of the ocean would safeguard more than 80 percent of endangered species, up from the approximately one percent that are currently protected. Strategic protection of 5.3 percent of the ocean would result in an increase in 7.5 million metric tons of seafood and protection of just 3.6 of the ocean would prevent the release of more than one billion tonnes of carbon dioxide into the water column, mostly from bottom trawling ...”
More about ➥ https://www.anthropocenemagazine.org...an-we-thought/

[1] “Protecting the global ocean for biodiversity, food and climate” ~ by Enric Sala et al
➥ https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-021-03371-z

[GordMay]

It’s APRIL FOODS DAY!
This year, on Thursday, April 1st join in for a virtual food drive, to help your local community.
Providing food to those in need can be difficult at the best of times. With COVID-19, that task just got a whole lot harder. Please donate now to put a smile on someone’s face and food on their table.

Click here to donate to Food Banks Canada’s local COVID-19 fund ➥ https://foodbankscanada.akaraisin.co...onations/start

[GordMay]

US companies are expected to see their strongest profit growth in nearly 20 years

The global economy sunk into recession, last year, as the coronavirus pandemic forced businesses worldwide to close or reduce operations, to curb the spread of the respiratory disease. The US economy contracted by 33% in the second quarter of 2020.

But analysts in the third quarter of 2020 began raising their earnings expectations for that quarter, and beyond. FactSet foresees US gross domestic product expanding by 5.7% in 2021, higher than the projected 4% rate on December 31.

Earnings for S&P 500 companies are expected to rise by 6%, in the first quarter of 2021, according to FactSet data.
A 6% increase would mark the largest rise since the firm starting tracking the bottom-up EPS estimate, in early 2002.
The energy and materials sectors are on track to post double-digit increases in earnings.
The projected 6% increase stands out, in part, because a bottom-up EPS estimate usually decreases during a quarter. FactSet said during the past five years, the estimate has recorded a decline of 4.2% during a quarter, and during the past 15 years, it has tended to post a decrease of 5.1%.

See ➥ https://www.factset.com/hubfs/Websit...ht_032621A.pdf

And ➥ https://insight.factset.com/topic/earnings

[GordMay]

REEs Fredom

There are 17 metals called rare earth elements [REEs]. China has dominated the rare earth market for years, and accounts for about 80% of U.S. imports of rare earth metals, and compounds. Demand for the metals is growing, as clean energy products, such as wind turbines and electric cars, which use the metals, become more popular. REEs are also used in defense technology, and some in Washington, D.C., are fearful that China could use the metals. as leverage over the U.S. in the future.

UCore aims to rip that hegemony away from China.

The company is aiming to build one of the first U.S. rare earth separation facilities, in Ketchikan, Alaska. The facility will use cutting-edge technology, rapid solvent extraction [RapidSX], to separate out the critical elements, from feedstock shipped in from U.S.-allied countries. Once UCore is bringing in revenue, it plans to open its nearby Bokan-Dotson Ridge mine, and use ore from there, to form a completely domestic supply chain.
The separation facility will start by producing 2,000 tons of throughput per year, with the ultimate goal of growing that number to 5,000 tons. The initial throughput of the facility could supply enough dysprosium for 1 million electric vehicles and, at peak, something like 3 million electric vehicles.
There is currently only one functioning U.S. rare earth element mine, Mountain Pass, in California. That mine, which is operated by MP Materials Corp., produces light rare earths, but still ships the raw product to China for separation, although it has plans to build a separation facility.
More ➥ https://ucore.com/

[GordMay]

Worlwide minimum corporate tax

There are two main barriers to raising taxes on global corporations. One is ideological. Some people are convinced that the best way to run an economy, is to leave money in the hands of the rich, and the big companies, because they will use that money to make us all wealthier.

Critics of that idea point to the fact that, as taxes on companies, and the people who own them, have shrunk in rich countries, so has the share of wealth going to the poor and middle class. During the years corporate tax rates have been falling, the rich have gotten richer, and they've gotten richer faster, compared to everyone else.

But the second barrier to raising taxes on big corporations is the same one faced by States like New York, trying to tax their own wealthy people. The threat of higher taxes makes people move away to places where taxes are lower.
With a good tax accountant, you don't even have to move. All you have to do is make sure the beneficial owner, a legal corporation, officially resides in that low tax regime. Ireland, for example, offers corporate tax rates as low as 12.5 percent, for companies that do business there.
In order to earn revenue, countries compete in a race for the bottom.
For instance, in 2014, by claiming it was actually earning its money under Irish tax law, Apple paid a tax rate estimated at 0.0005 per cent. That’s right; for every $1,000,000 in profit, they would have paid about $5 in tax.

Janet Yellen on minimum global corporate income tax:

“Remarks by Secretary of the Treasury Janet L. Yellen on International Priorities to The Chicago Council on Global Affairs” ~ April 5, 2021
Excerpt:
“... Another consequence of an interconnected world has been a thirty-year race to the bottom on corporate tax rates. Competitiveness is about more than how U.S.-headquartered companies fare against other companies in global merger and acquisition bids. It is about making sure that governments have stable tax systems that raise sufficient revenue to invest in essential public goods and respond to crises, and that all citizens fairly share the burden of financing government. President Biden’s proposals announced last week call for bold domestic action, including to raise the U.S. minimum tax rate [from 21% to 28%], and renewed international engagement, recognizing that it is important to work with other countries to end the pressures of tax competition and corporate tax base erosion. We are working with G20 nations to agree to a global minimum corporate tax rate that can stop the race to the bottom. Together we can use a global minimum tax to make sure the global economy thrives based on a more level playing field in the taxation of multinational corporations, and spurs innovation, growth, and prosperity ...”
More ➥ https://home.treasury.gov/news/press-releases/jy0101

[GordMay]

Some good news from around the world on Tuesday
With much of the world struggling through the COVID-19 pandemic, there are still some good-news stories to report. Here's a brief video roundup.
➥ https://www.cbc.ca/player/play/1882020931927

[GordMay]

Meet the 9-year-old girl whose simple act of kindness during COVID-19 spurred an army of volunteers
Hana Fatima's small pandemic gesture snowballed into volunteer delivery network the “Good Neighbour Project”, a volunteer delivery network dedicated to providing on-the-ground support to assist vulnerable people and health care workers with the groceries, essential supplies and medication they need during the COVID-19 pandemic.
More ➥ https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toron...tima-1.5980113

Good Neighbour Project ➥ https://www.goodneighbourproject.com/