The Coronavirus Called America’s Bluff

The United States also had an early warning of the new virus—but it, too, suppressed that information. In late January, just as instances of COVID-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus, began to appear in the United States, an infectious-disease specialist in Seattle, Helen Y. Chu, realized that she had a way to monitor its presence. She had been collecting nasal swabs from people in and around Seattle as part of a flu study, and proposed checking them for the new virus. State and federal officials rejected that idea, citing privacy concerns and throwing up bureaucratic obstacles related to lab licenses.

#Coronavirus #America #Empire

For decades, scientists puzzled over the plastic ‘missing’ from our oceans – but now it’s been found

This “missing” plastic has been a longstanding scientific question. To date, the search has focused on oceanic gyres such as the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, the water column (the part of the ocean between the surface and the sea bed), the bottom of the ocean, and the stomachs of marine wildlife.

#Oceans #Plastic #ClimateChange #HumanFootprint

Italian Inmates Are Looting Methadone and Setting Prisons on Fire in Violent Coronavirus Protests

Eleven people are dead after protests erupted in 27 prisons Monday. Inmates took staff hostage, launched mass breakouts, lit fires, and scaled the roofs of prisons. Most of the deaths appear to have been overdoses of methadone looted from prison clinics, but at least one was from smoke inhalation, according to Francesco Basentini, the director of the Italian prison system.

#Italy #Coronavirus #Prison #

What would happen if the world reacted to climate change like it’s reacting to the coronavirus?

“The entrenched power and staying with the status quo is what differentiates climate change from this particular crisis,” says Boeve. “That is something that a lot of people are working on, and that is changing. It’s becoming more and more hard politically to justify taking donations of fossil fuel companies, for example. That is starting to shift.”

#ClimateChange #Coronavirus #Earth #Humanity