All posts by Marshall Brain

Pandemics

With months to go before people are vaccinated, COVID prepares to murder thousands per day in the United States and Around the world

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US is ’rounding the corner into a calamity,’ expert says, with Covid-19 deaths projected to double soon

“If anything, we are rounding the corner into a calamity,” Wen said. “We’re soon going to exceed well more than 2,000 deaths, maybe 3,000, 4,000 deaths every single day here in the US.” That projection has been echoed by other experts including Dr. Jonathan Reiner, a professor of medicine at George Washington University, who predicted Wednesday the country’s daily death toll would likely double in 10 days, and soon see “close to 4,000 deaths a day.”

America Is Trapped in a Pandemic Spiral

The spiral begins when people forget that controlling the pandemic means doing many things at once. The virus can spread before symptoms appear, and does so most easily through five P’s: people in prolonged, poorly ventilated, protection-free proximity. To stop that spread, this country could use measures that other nations did, to great effect: close nonessential businesses and spaces that allow crowds to congregate indoors; improve ventilation; encourage mask use; test widely to identify contagious people; trace their contacts; help them isolate themselves; and provide a social safety net so that people can protect others without sacrificing their livelihood. None of these other nations did everything, but all did enough things right—and did them simultaneously. By contrast, the U.S. engaged in …

It is amazing that such an advanced and highly developed nation can behave so poorly in this crisis. But here we are, and 250,000+ deaths is a doomsday situation if there ever was one.

The Dakotas lead the world in COVID-19 deaths per capita

“The Doomsday Book” by Marshall Brain lays out this scenario in amazing detail and offers solutions to prevent this doomsday scenario from unfolding. You can order the book today on Amazon and other retailers.

Pandemics

The Dakotas Deserve an “F or F-” for their behavior in the U.S. COVID Crisis

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This is such an amazing, damning video:

The Dakotas lead the world in COVID-19 deaths per capita

This video contains so many memorable quotes, such as:

  • “It is so bad, the Dakotas North and South lead the world right now on a per capita basis when it comes to the number of people who are dying on a daily basis.”
  • “Politics has affected so much of what is happening here. People will fight you on the facts.”
  • “If you were grading it, it would be an F, probably and F-. It’s that bad.”
  • “In South Dakota, the debate over wearing a mask continues statewide… Around 50% of South Dakotans say they do not wear a mask.”

See also:

North, South Dakota resist COVID-19 restrictions despite infection rates

“Among the Reddest of Red states, North Dakota largely put individual liberties ahead of collective health initiatives, only requiring masks once hospitals were overwhelmed. Neighboring South Dakota still has not.”

“The Doomsday Book” by Marshall Brain lays out this scenario in amazing detail and offers solutions to prevent this doomsday scenario from unfolding. You can order the book today on Amazon and other retailers.

Global Warming, Government, Warnings

‘Republicans Remain Opposed to Any Policies That Would Reduce Fossil-Fuel Use’

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‘Republicans Remain Opposed to Any Policies That Would Reduce Fossil-Fuel Use’

Back in the U.S., the relief of Donald Trump’s long good-bye will begin yielding to the stark reality that his party remains fundamentally pathological. No issue highlights this depressing reality more clearly than climate change. For more than a decade, the GOP has stood alone among major right-of-center parties in industrialized democracies worldwide in its refusal to endorse climate science. But during the Trump era, the party’s rhetorical emphasis shifted. The major Republican point of agreement is now to insist on fossil-fuel use as an inherent good.

This is a worst-case-scenario when it comes to Climate Change – an entire political party and tens of millions of voters all opposed to solving the problem at the root of the climate change crisis. The only hope we have is to stop burning fossil fuels immediately, and start pulling carbon back out of the atmosphere, and to probably deploy geoengineering measures as well. To have an entire political party opposing these measures is planetary suicide.

Geoengineering: A Horrible Idea We Might Have to Do
Geoengineering May Be the Answer to Climate Change

“The Doomsday Book” by Marshall Brain lays out this scenario in amazing detail and offers solutions to prevent this doomsday scenario from unfolding. You can order the book today on Amazon and other retailers.

Global Warming, Rainforest Collapse, Wildfires

With Wildfires increasing, We can see climate change happening before our very eyes

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20 signs that the climate crisis has come home to roost – From Alaska to Wyoming, evidence shows the climate is off-kilter in the West.

The massive wildfires this summer left an unprecedented trail of destruction, burning millions of acres.

it’s impossible to deny the role a warming planet plays in today’s blazes. “Something’s happening to the plumbing of the world,” Newsom said.  “And we come from a perspective, humbly, where we submit the science is in and observed evidence is self-evident that climate change is real, and that is exacerbating this.”

The Science of Wildfires: Why They’re Getting Worse | WSJ
Historic heat fuels California wildfires

“The Doomsday Book” by Marshall Brain lays out this scenario in amazing detail and offers solutions to prevent this doomsday scenario from unfolding. You can order the book today on Amazon and other retailers.

Global Warming, Government, Warnings

The world’s coming fresh water crisis will be a catastrophe for many major cities

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We can see the fresh water catastrophe coming, but will we do enough in time to avert it? This video lays out the problem:

Explained | World’s Water Crisis | FULL EPISODE | Netflix

According to the video, these cities are on the brink of a fresh water crisis unless action is taken:

  • Cape Town, South Africa
  • Sao Paulo, Brazil
  • Melbourne, Australia
  • Jakarta
  • London
  • Beijing
  • Istanbul
  • Tokyo
  • Bangalore
  • Barcelona
  • Mexico City

Other well known problem areas are dry places like Las Vegas, Saudi Arabia (and many other desert areas in the Middle East and Africa), parts of China and India, etc. These places currently rely on aquifers that are going to soon be empty.

Some of the large urban areas are coastal so they will eventually resort to mass desalination (with its own pollution and energy problems, but better than dying of thirst), but a place like Mexico City or Las Vegas may not be so lucky.

This article paints a dire picture:

More than 3 billion people affected by water shortages, data shows – UN warns about consequences of not conserving water and tackling climate crisis

Water shortages are now affecting more than 3 billion people around the world, as the amount of fresh water available for each person has plunged by a fifth over two decades, data has shown. About 1.5 billion people are suffering severe water scarcity or even drought, as a combination of climate breakdown, rising demand and poor management has made agriculture increasingly difficult across swathes of the globe.

With human populations continuing to rise, the problems only get worse unless something causes the human population to crash.

One possible solution is purely economic. Municipal water in a place like Las Vegas might be a penny per gallon today. If it rises to 50 cents or a dollar per gallon, then people will treat water differently. It might mean the end of golf courses and giant artificial lakes in the desert:

Government, Warnings

Misinformation is dividing people, destroying facts and skewing reality

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This is a fascinating article with a number of real world examples of how misinformation, disinformation and malinformation are destroying civil society:

Misinformation Has Created a New World Disorder – Our willingness to share content without thinking is exploited to spread disinformation

Online misinformation has been around since the mid-1990s. But in 2016 several events made it broadly clear that darker forces had emerged: automation, microtargeting and coordination were fueling information campaigns designed to manipulate public opinion at scale. Journalists in the Philippines started raising flags as Rodrigo Duterte rose to power, buoyed by intensive Facebook activity. This was followed by unexpected results in the Brexit referendum in June and then the U.S. presidential election in November—all of which sparked researchers to systematically investigate the ways in which information was being used as a weapon.

An example:

Take, for example, the edited video of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi that circulated in May 2019. It was a genuine video, but an agent of disinformation slowed down the video and then posted that clip to make it seem that Pelosi was slurring her words. Just as intended, some viewers immediately began speculating that Pelosi was drunk, and the video spread on social media. Then the mainstream media picked it up, which undoubtedly made many more people aware of the video than would have originally encountered it.

A pair of solutions:

In a healthy information commons, people would still be free to express what they want—but information that is designed to mislead, incite hatred, reinforce tribalism or cause physical harm would not be amplified by algorithms. That means it would not be allowed to trend on Twitter or in the YouTube content recommender. Nor would it be chosen to appear in Facebook feeds, Reddit searches or top Google results.

Until this amplification problem is resolved, it is precisely our willingness to share without thinking that agents of disinformation will use as a weapon. Hence, a disordered information environment requires that every person recognize how he or she, too, can become a vector in the information wars and develop a set of skills to navigate communication online as well as offline.

The ultimate expression of this will be AI that can detect things like hate speech, misinformation, lies, intentionally altered or falsified content, etc. and effectively eliminate them from the public square. When that happens, the world will be a much better place.

Asteroids

An asteroid almost hit Earth – How did astronomers miss it?

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How did astronomers miss this asteroid that just almost hit Earth?

The asteroid swooped by our planet at such a narrow distance that even the International Space Station was farther away than the rock at its closest approach. The space rock made its pass on November 13th, and while it could have endangered satellites orbiting our planet, it doesn’t appear to have done any harm and passed by safely. 2020 VT4 set a new record for close passes by asteroids, coming close than any space rock that didn’t actually enter Earth’s atmosphere and become a meteor.

There are four problems that humans face with asteroids right now:

  • As demonstrated here, asteroids often come close to Earth without being detected until after the fact
  • Therefore it is quite possible that asteroids are coming close to Earth without ever being detected
  • Out of all of the asteroids that could affect Earth, we have only cataloged a fraction of them
  • If an asteroid were known to be on a collision course with Earth, we currently have no way/plan to stop it

The 2013 asteroid in Russia was about 50 feet (16 meters) in diameter:

Meteor Strikes Russia, Over 1,000 Believed Injured

“The Doomsday Book” by Marshall Brain lays out this scenario in amazing detail and offers solutions to prevent this doomsday scenario from unfolding. You can order the book today on Amazon and other retailers.

Nuclear Bombs, Terrorism

Will World War 3 start with a strike on Iran?

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There is concern that departing President Trump will do something irrational in the waning days of his tenure and that it will have large-scale repercussions. For example:

Trump Sought Options for Attacking Iran to Stop Its Growing Nuclear Program

From the article:

“President Trump asked senior advisers in an Oval Office meeting on Thursday whether he had options to take action against Iran’s main nuclear site in the coming weeks…. A range of senior advisers dissuaded the president from moving ahead with a military strike. The advisers — including Vice President Mike Pence; Secretary of State Mike Pompeo; Christopher C. Miller, the acting defense secretary; and Gen. Mark A. Milley, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff — warned that a strike against Iran’s facilities could easily escalate into a broader conflict in the last weeks of Mr. Trump’s presidency.”

Iran’s response was nearly immediate:

Iran warns of ‘crushing response’ if Trump targets nuclear site

Iran has warned of a strong response if Donald Trump goes ahead with plans to use the twilight of his presidency to mount a strike on Iran or its allies in the region… Iranian government spokesman Ali Rabiei warned against such an attack. “Any action against the Iranian nation would certainly face a crushing response,” he said.

And soon WW3 could be underway. For example, Israel may want to get involved:

Iran warns of ‘crushing’ response after report Trump mulled military strike

“If I were the Iranians, I would not feel at ease,” Israeli Energy Minister Yuval Steinitz said, according to Reuters, referring to the reports… “It is very important that the Iranians know that if, indeed, they suddenly dash toward high levels of enrichment, in the direction of nuclear weaponry, they are liable to encounter the military might of the United States — and also, perhaps, of other countries,” Steinitz said on Israel’s Army Radio.

Saudi Arabia is making noises as well:

Saudi minister says nuclear armament against Iran ‘an option’

Meanwhile, Trump is trying other dubious paths before he is ousted:

Trump officials rush to auction off rights to Arctic National Wildlife Refuge before Biden can block it; Officials aim to sell drilling rights to the pristine wilderness’s coastal plain before the president-elect takes office

The Trump administration is asking oil and gas firms to pick spots where they want to drill in Alaska’s Arctic National Wildlife Refuge as it races to open the pristine wilderness to development and lock in drilling rights before President-elect Joe Biden takes office.

See also:

Trump aides privately plot a flurry of moves in their final 10 weeks

“The Doomsday Book” by Marshall Brain lays out this scenario in amazing detail and offers solutions to prevent this doomsday scenario from unfolding. You can order the book today on Amazon and other retailers.

Global Warming, Warnings

Scientists say net zero by 2050 is too late

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Scientists say net zero by 2050 is too late

From the article:

CRC quotes British Professor of Energy and Climate Change Kevin Anderson as saying the world is currently on a path to 3–5ºC warming by 2100. He warned that a 4°C warmer future is “incompatible with an organised global community”. That sort of temperature rise is “beyond adaptation”, he said, because it will “devastate the majority of ecosystems and has a high probability of not being stable”.

A further problem is that climate change is not one thing, but many. Humans must take extraordinary steps now or watch a disaster unfold through multiple mechanisms:

This video describes one path to net-zero:

Is 100% Renewable Possible By 2050? – Interconnectors

But it is too little too late. The pace of change must accelerate dramatically.

“The Doomsday Book” by Marshall Brain lays out this scenario in amazing detail and offers solutions to prevent this doomsday scenario from unfolding. You can order the book today on Amazon and other retailers.

Pandemics

The COVID virus appears to be spreading uncontrollably in the United States

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Case numbers for COVID-19 in the United States grow nearly every day now. The NYTimes put it this way:

“The infection rate continues to shatter records: On Friday, public health officials reported more than 181,000 new cases across the country. It was only eight days earlier that the U.S. reported its first 100,000-case day.”

And this article from the Atlantic is talking about exponential spread that is likely to occur unless intense steps are taken to slow the virus down:

It’s Time to Hunker Down – A devastating surge is here. Unless Americans act aggressively, it will get much larger, very quickly.

From the article:

“Almost every day, America is breaking new records in confirmed cases: They are up 40 percent from just one week ago. These cases are not confined to a region or a state; the whole nation is in the midst of a terrible surge…. This is not a “casedemic”—the false notion that we just have better testing and detection, without any real change in the underlying risk for illness and death. It’s true that we missed a lot of cases in the spring because we didn’t have enough tests, and that we are catching more of them now. But it’s not just confirmed cases that are on the rise. The United States is also experiencing a steep increase in hospitalizations, as well as about 1,500 reported deaths a day…”

Everyone who gets COVID potentially spreads it to 2 or 3 other people, and without measures to contain this spread, the virus can experience exponential growth. Why is this happening?

  • People are letting their guard down
  • People are “tired of the virus”, they want it to be over, they want to stop thinking about it, they want to return to normal
  • Some people, fantastically, continue to believe that the virus is a hoax

A South Dakota ER nurse shared the sobering reality of the coronavirus in a CNN interview – On ‘New Day’ with Alisyn Camerota, Jodi Doering shared horror stories of patients not believing COVID-19 was real even as they lay dying from it.

“I have a night off from the hospital. As I’m on my couch with my dog I can’t help but think of the Covid patients the last few days. The ones that stick out are those who still don’t believe the virus is real. The ones who scream at you for a magic medicine and that Joe Biden is (g)oing to ruin the USA. All while gasping for breath on 100% Vapotherm. They tell you there must be another reason they are sick. They call you names and ask why you have to wear all that ‘stuff’ because they don’t have COViD because it’s not real.”

It is impossible to believe that this is happening, but it is happening. People who do not believe that the virus is real take no precautions, and they spread the virus freely.

“The Doomsday Book” by Marshall Brain lays out this scenario in amazing detail and offers solutions to prevent this doomsday scenario from unfolding. You can order the book today on Amazon and other retailers.