Sunday, December 22, 2019


Ruthless Joe Biden Admits He'll Sacrifice Hundreds of Thousands of Blue-Collar Workers for His Green Dream

You've got to give it to Democrats: they freely admit they do not care one bit about blue-collar workers. They don't. They're the party by and for leftist academics, illegal immigrants, and SJW whackjobs. Although this has been the case for at least a few decades, they've always pretended to care about John Doe. Not any longer. All pretenses are dropped.

Case in point: Joe Biden admitting during Thursday's Democratic presidential debate that he's more than willing to hang out blue-collar workers to dry in order to pursue a costly and largely useless green dream:

"Would you be willing to sacrifice some of that growth, even knowing potentially that it could displace thousands, maybe even hundreds of thousands of blue-collar workers in the interest of transitioning to that greener economy," the moderator asked Biden.

Instead of beating around the bush, Biden simply admitted that "the answer is yes."

Yes, he's quite willing to destroy those people. Hundreds of thousands of them -- and their families.

This is downright shocking. Of course Democrats like Biden also pretend that they're going to "re-train" or "re-educate" those same workers, but everybody with an IQ of 60 or over (indeed, that almost includes chimpanzees) knows that this isn't going to happen. You can't just send those folks back to school. Instead, they'll end up unemployed, sitting at home, feeling useless because they're no longer able to take care of themselves, let alone provide for their families.

It's sickening. This is how little Democrats care about blue-collar workers -- the very people who form the backbone of American society and the nation's economy.

The good news? Team Trump only has to use this video and air it all year long in the Rust Belt states. They don't even have to add anything to it. Just this clip and end it with "I am Donald Trump and I approve this message." That's enough.

SOURCE 





UK: After Brexit, let’s embrace gene editing

EU rules are killing vital innovation in biotech.

Virus-resistant tomato, disease-resistant rice, stem-cell treatment for paralysis, for heart disease, for spinal-chord injury and even for cornea repair — these are just some of the many innovations made possible through gene editing.

Canada has created permissive rules for these technologies, as has Japan, where scientists are working night and day to find therapeutic treatments that root out cancer and the Zika virus.

In Europe, however, the prospects are bleak. Bureaucrats and politicians are stifling the speed with which scientists can make breakthroughs available to consumers and patients. Granted, wealthy elites will always be able to fly to Tokyo or the Mayo Clinic in Minnesota to get treatments. But for Brits who cannot afford this, we need laws and regulations that will allow for the research and development of innovative treatments.

Gene editing is effectively banned throughout the EU. The slightest word in favour of innovative technologies such as CRISPR (a prominent genome-editing technology) gets you yelled at by politicians and EU-funded NGOs alike. With Brexit on the horizon, the UK has a unique opportunity to embrace innovation.

There is some light at the end of the tunnel on the continent. At the Global Forum for Food and Agriculture (GFFA) in Berlin next month, approximately 70 ministers of agriculture from around the world intend to adopt a communiqué about the global direction of agriculture. The hope is that these delegates will recognise the value in technologies like gene editing.

In Germany, some green activists like the Youth Greens seem to be waking up to the problem. Several activists have warned that strict regulation makes the application of gene technologies more expensive, meaning only big corporates can afford it.

However, we cannot rely on what happens internationally. Britain has an obligation to its citizens to allow scientists to develop new cures and new foods for the 21st century. Brexit offers a unique opportunity to rethink biotech regulations as we break away from the EU’s anti-science dogma. We cannot let Britain lag behind in global innovation.

SOURCE 





Obesity is bad for the planet

Journal article below.  The war on fat continues

The Environmental Foodprint of Obesity

Faidon Magkos  et al.

Abstract

Emissions of greenhouse gases (GHG) are linked to global warming and adverse climate changes. Meeting the needs of the increasing number of people on the planet presents a challenge for reducing total GHG burden. A further challenge may be the size of the average person on the planet and the increasing number of people with excess body weight. We used data on GHG emissions from various sources and estimated that obesity is associated with ~20% greater GHG emissions compared with the normal‐weight state. On a global scale, obesity contributes to an extra GHG emissions of ~49 megatons per year of CO2 equivalent (CO2eq) from oxidative metabolism due to greater metabolic demands, ~361 megatons per year of CO2eq from food production processes due to increased food intake, and ~290 megatons per year of CO2eq from automobile and air transportation due to greater body weight. Therefore, the total impact of obesity may be extra emissions of ~700 megatons per year of CO2eq, which is about 1.6% of worldwide GHG emissions. Inasmuch as obesity is an important contributor to global GHG burden, strategies to reduce its prevalence should prioritize efforts to reduce GHG emissions. Accordingly, reducing obesity may have considerable benefits for both public health and the environment.

SOURCE 



Could sidewalks and buildings combat air pollution?

Is it possible to create sidewalks, buildings and other city structures that help lower air pollution and further clean our cities?

Well believe it or not, the answer could be “yes” – at least according to researchers at a company called Graphene Flagship partners.

Working with experts from a number of prestigious universities including the Israeli Institute of Technology, University of Bologna, and University of Cambridge, among others, the firm has developed a graphene-titania photocatalyst that degrades up to 70 percent more atmospheric NOx than standard nanoparticles in tests on real air pollution.

In laymen’s terms, that means this compound, when spread on buildings and sidewalks, absorbs pollution out of the air over time.

Although the level of air pollution in the U.S. has dropped dramatically in recent decades, it nevertheless remains a top priority of environmental and health officials. Thus, researchers are continually seeking new and improved ways to reduce harmful pollutants like NOx and volatile organic compounds in the atmosphere. Using photocatalysts such as titania might be a great way to accomplish this, according to the researchers.

How did the researchers develop their process? As reported in Science Daily, they did so in the following manner:

By performing liquid-phase exfoliation of graphite — a process that creates graphene — in the presence of titania nanoparticles, using only water and atmospheric pressure, they created a new graphene-titania nanocomposite that can be coated on the surface of materials to passively remove pollutants from the air. If the coating is applied to concrete on the street or on the walls of buildings, the harmless photodegradation products could be washed away by rain or wind, or manually cleaned off.

As for how they could apply this technology, Xinliang Feng, Graphene Flagship Work Package Leader for Functional Foams and Coatings, explains:

“Photocatalysis in a cementitious matrix, applied to buildings, could have a large effect to decrease air pollution by reducing NOx and enabling self-cleaning of the surfaces — the so-called “smog-eating” effect. Graphene could help to improve the photocatalytic behaviour of catalysts like titania and enhance the mechanical properties of cement.

In this publication, Graphene Flagship partners have prepared a graphene-titania composite via a one-step procedure to widen and improve the ground-breaking invention of “smog-eating” cement. The prepared composite showed enhanced photocatalytic activity, degrading up to 40% more pollutants than pristine titania in the model study, and up to 70% more NOx with a similar procedure.

SOURCE 




Australian bushfire crisis: fire chief’s city slicker claims not relevant, says Campbell Newman

Former premier Campbell Newman has blasted a prominent former fire chief for blaming intense bushfires on climate change, saying Lee Johnson never raised the issue when he headed emergency services in Queensland.

“He had a solid two years where he could have come to me and ­expressed, one on one, these views that he’s now espousing. I have no recollection of him doing so,” Mr Newman said.

Mr Johnson, commissioner of Queensland Fire and Emergency Services when Mr Newman led the state, was one of the six former fire chiefs who accused Scott Morrison this week of abandoning bushfires raging across the country and offering “no moral leadership” on climate change.

As part of the Emergency Leaders for Climate Action group funded by Tim Flannery’s Climate Council and spearheaded by former NSW fire chief Greg Mullins, Mr Johnson said firefighters were seeing the effects of climate change “first-hand”.

He called for a national strategy to tackle extreme weather linked to climate change, saying the Brisbane River flooding he ­witnessed as fire chief in 2011 ­amounted to an “inland tsunami”.

“I can feel the tsunami of public opinion rolling on to Canberra,” Mr Johnson said.

Mr Newman, Queensland LNP premier from 2012-15, challenged Mr Johnson’s expertise on bushfires and climate change, saying he found it curious all his group “seem to be urban guys”.

“Mr Johnson’s career was particularly about urban firefighting,” Mr Newman said. “There is a world of difference between urban and rural firefighting. Urban firefighters are about spraying lots of water and chemical foams and stopping fires, whereas rural firefighters know they have to use fire as a tool, in terms of hazard-reduction burns and backburning.”

Mr Newman said he never recalled Mr Johnson saying, as fire commissioner, that the state was not doing enough hazard-­reduction burning or other land management. As premier, Mr Newman said, he was also very concerned about tensions between urban, unionised firefighters under Mr Johnson’s leadership and rural fire services.

“Behind the scenes, city-based firefighters were trying to exert control operationally, in a quite profound way, over the rural and volunteer fire services. They pushed back,” he said. “So here we have this schism between urban and rural firefighters, and Lee Johnson suddenly jumps into this area on bushfires … I would prefer to hear the views of experienced volunteer rural firefighters.”

He accused Mr Johnson of “hysterical nonsense” in calling Brisbane floods an inland tsunami when records showed much worse events. “When Lee Johnson starts talking about weather, he needs to do his homework,” he said.

Mr Newman said he felt compelled to “cry foul” because bushfires had resulted from poor land management, not climate change.

“I am sick and tired of people like Mr Johnson telling people from their positions of trust and respect in the community that things are unprecedented when they are not,” he said.

Emergency Leaders, which has grown to 29 former fire chiefs since its formation in April, says it will convene a national summit early next year to devise a bushfire strategy with strong emphasis on ­climate change. The former fire chiefs, almost all with distinguished careers involving urban brigades, want an immediate end to burning fossil fuels.

Mr Johnson left his Queensland fire chief’s position in December 2014 following a report on the “hostile” work environment for women in the service.

Report author Margaret Allison found evidence of sexual harassment and bullying, and “systematic problems” in dealing with them.

SOURCE 

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