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Daily Archives: May 18, 2022

State of the Global Climate 2021

“Four key climate change indicators – greenhouse gas concentrations, sea level rise, ocean heat and ocean acidification – set new records in 2021. This is yet another clear sign that human activities are causing planetary scale changes on land, in the ocean, and in the atmosphere, with harmful and long-lasting ramifications for sustainable development and ecosystems, according to the World Meteorological Organization (WMO). Extreme weather – the day-to-day “face” of climate change – led to hundreds of billions of dollars in economic losses and wreaked a heavy toll on human lives and well-being and triggered shocks for food and water security and displacement that have accentuated in 2022. The WMO State of the Global Climate in 2021 report confirmed that the past seven years have been the warmest seven years on record. 2021 was “only” one of the seven warmest because of a La Niña event at the start and end of the year. This had a temporary cooling effect but did not reverse the overall trend of rising temperatures. The average global temperature in 2021 was about 1.11 (± 0.13) °C above the pre-industrial level. “It is just a matter of time before we see another warmest year on record,” said WMO Secretary-General Prof. Petteri Taalas. “Our climate is changing before our eyes. The heat trapped by human-induced greenhouse gases will warm the planet for many generations to come. Sea level rise, ocean heat and acidification will continue for hundreds of years unless means to remove carbon from the atmosphere are invented. Some glaciers have reached the point of no return and this will have long-term repercussions in a world in which more than 2 billion people already experience water stress.”

Robophobia

University of Colorado Law Review > Printed > Volume 93 > Issue 1 > Robophobia by Andrew Keane Woods “Robots—machines, algorithms, artificial intelligence—play an increasingly important role in society, often supplementing or even replacing human judgment. Scholars have rightly become concerned with the fairness, accuracy, and humanity of these systems. Indeed, anxiety about machine bias… Continue Reading

Research – older people using TikTok to defy ageist stereotypes

The Guardian: “Older TikTok users are using the online platform, regarded as the virtual playground of teenagers, to defy ageist stereotypes of elderly people as technophobic and frail. Research has found increasing numbers of accounts belonging to users aged 60 and older with millions of followers. Using the platform to showcase their energy and vibrancy,… Continue Reading

Google Immersive view coming soon to Maps

engadget: “Google Maps is getting an “Immersive View” that will offer users digitally rendered looks at major US cityscapes, Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai told the audience at Google’s I/O 2022 keynote [on May 11, 2022].  The new feature uses computer vision and AI to blend Maps’ existing Street View function with aerial photography to create high-resolution… Continue Reading

Whistleblower Reprisal Investigation: Colonel Yevgeny S. Vindman

Whistleblower Reprisal Investigation: Colonel Yevgeny S. Vindman, U.S. Army (DODIG-2022-097) “Administrative Investigations – We conducted this investigation in response to a complaint filed with the DoD Hotline on August 18, 2020, alleging that various administration officials, including former President Donald J. Trump, took actions against Lieutenant Colonel (LTC) YevgenyVindman (the Complainant), U.S. Army, while he… Continue Reading

Over 75 Percent of Long Covid Patients Were Not Hospitalized for Initial Illness

The New York Times: “More than three-quarters of Americans diagnosed with long Covid were not sick enough to be hospitalized for their initial infection, a new analysis of tens of thousands of private insurance claims reported on Wednesday. The researchers analyzed data from the first few months after doctors began using a special diagnostic code… Continue Reading

Global Farming on the front lines: How Ukraine’s farmers are dodging bombs to feed the world

Grid: “The country [Ukraine] is a major supplier of key staples — in particular corn, wheat and sunflower oil. Countries around Europe and beyond depend on the land long known as a “bread basket” of Europe; there were nearly 50,000 active farms across Ukraine prior to the war. In the most recent estimates, roughly 10… Continue Reading