CharonY

Regarding your first citation, Goklany is an engineer and has been an advisor under the Trump administration and is known to misrepresent climate research and is known to work with think tanks known to promote climate change denial. The paper is also an opinion paper and does not discuss actual attitudes among the population. The second paper basically argues that higher income countries should shoulder more of the burden and allow low-income countries establish a better standard, something that is in discussion and there is little disagreement that limiting climate change has to be equitable. Especially as the high-income countries already reaped the benefits. Third paper discusses the divergence of opinion within countries. But as I noted even among low-income countries the majority of the population considers the climate change a threat. How much depends obviously on immediate impact and other concerns. I.e. folks on islands with risk of flooding see it as a critical essential threat, whereas folks in Poland have some of the lowest concerns (despite higher overall standard of living). In other words, data suggests that almost everywhere climate change is considered to be a significant concern. The fact that you can find folks who disagree does not change that.

In microbiology one of the criteria is often the exchange of nutrients. While control of other bacteria is a benefit, it is usually not described as a mutualistic interaction. Rather the interaction between the bacteria would be characterized as amensalism (e.g. one bacterium harms a pathogenic one). I suspect in an ecological research context these interactions could be described as mutualistic, but not sure about that.

And it should be added that all these talks an urgency are not useless- they do influence policy. Despite China's continued heavy reliance on coal, they were at least motivated to also heavily invest in green energy (around 25% of their energy, I believe), India is at 40% Sweden at 60% while USA and Canada are somewhere between 12-18%, I believe. An issue is that transitioning can be costly and painful and folks want to avoid these costs, as you mentioned. The problem only is that it is only externalizing the costs, as droughts, floods, heat-associated health care costs, biodiversity issues, food safety issues, etc. are also costly and someone is going to have should them. The strength of capitalism is the short feedback loops that keep the economy going. The weakness is the in-built shortsightedness due to these feedback loops.

I addressed that above, policy is about a larger scale. Using this type of argument we wouldn't have any laws, regulations or society, as feeding your belly would always take precedence. That being said, Sub-Saharan folks are not idiots. If they notice their wells drying up, they do wonder what is happening. Also, it is not that all folks there are constantly on the brink of starvation, either. The polls do show that over half of the folks in the region see climate changes as a substantial threat, indicating that quite a few folks there see a link between climate change and challenges to their lives. You seem to think that folks somehow stop thinking when hungry, but quite a few likely will think why their harvests are failing, why areas are flooding and so on. Now, information flow are a bit more limited there, but many African government are acutely aware of the issues (again, policy). In other words, contrary to your claims it is not that the folks are unaware or uncaring about climate change. And I do not think your example is particular helpful to understand attitudes. It is not about asking a drowning person whether they want to prioritize climate actions over getting fished out of the water. It is about talking to folks about their risk that their area might get under water and how to prevent that. Yes exactly, that is what the various UN reports are calling for in their call for net zero. High-income nations should provide more assistance in reaching climate goals and also to to change the system in high-income, high emission. A Canadian person able to cut their average consumption in half would have the impact of ten Gambians cutting their emission to zero. The net zero focusses specifically on high emitters, and also puts the onus on them to transfer green energy to those who cannot afford it. You know, in global collaborative fashion to counter a global threat. Instead, there is a lot of niggling and downplaying local risks, so that we can pawn of much of the issues to the next generations.

Actually in many cases the reverse is true. High-income nations have more options to deal with climate change. Especially developing countries have been calling folks to do more as they will be more impacted by food and water insecurity, for example. A pew survey shows that e.g. 71% of folks in Kenya think it is a major threat (vs 9% thinking no threat), which is higher than e.g. global economy worries (58%).Even in Nigeria, where ISIS is an ongoing threat (especially at time of polling) the differential between ISIS as the major threat (61%) was not that far away from climate worries (41%, with 21% no threat) and was more or less on par with global economy worries (49%). https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2019/04/18/a-look-at-how-people-around-the-world-view-climate-change/ So I think that we cannot really assume attitudes of low-income countries based on our rather cozy situation. Ultimately you have to ask them. And there is an UN study doing just that https://www.undp.org/publications/peoples-climate-vote And the overall findings are that the highest concerns are (unsurprisingly) among small island development states. While it is overall true that lower income countries have a lower belief in climate change as an emergency, it still sits at 58% at the lowest. Dividing by region, the difference between Western Europe and NA to Sab-Saharan Africa is about 10% (72%-61%). There is quite a difference between countries within a region, with South Africa sharing similar worries as Canada and Poland having fairly low worries (still 59%) which is similar to India. But overall, the assertion that developing countries just ignore climate or do not think it is relevant at all, appears to be inaccurate. That being said, if you argue that day-to-day worries are higher, that would be accurate for everyone. The trouble is that using that as the guiding post, there would be virtually no space for any types of policy, as they are systemic and the impact on the individuals day-to-day are often hard or impossible to predict. That would basically put us into a perpetual paralysis and we might only consider doing something once the dam is broken.

A couple of things, China still relies too much on coal, but green energy has been pushed heavily in their energy portfolio. Not enough, and there has been some backsliding, but they are for example leaders in solar energy, for example. Also important to note that a lot of carbon emission is outsourced to China (i.e. production). So it is doubly important to have global policies in place that create favourable conditions for green energy (and unfavourable for fossil fuels) so that China is further encouraged to continue that road. The alternative is of course to use the situation elsewhere as an excuse to do nothing and then complain when things get bad. We did nothing when we were the top producers and now we won't do anything because someone else produces more.

For that, it is important to look at per capita emission. Every person is going to contribute, but how much depends on the system they are in. High-income countries tend to have a higher carbon footprint, but certain countries, such as Canada, Australia and US are pretty high on that list, as are certain Middle Eastern country. An important driver seems to be the source for electricity, where many European countries have done more to reduce emissions.

I think the issue is that we have known that it was coming for decades. With some sort of addressing the issue back then the impact could have been larger with modest changes. The urgency now is really driven but the fact that weather patterns seem to change within our lifetime whether it is true or not. Sure, we likely can leave it to future generations to sort out. However empirically we have seen that without urgency we won't do anything. And heck even with, we barely care. I mean, who notices 6 million or more deaths, nowadays anymore?

Here is the report on the analyses: https://zenodo.org/record/7754299 with a preface from the authors, discussing the unusual situation. In addition to potential pressure from the Chinese government, there is also the possibility of issues with data sharing. In an ideal system, open data sharing in science would be the norm. The issue is that it puts researchers with heavy data generation components at a distinct disadvantage and I think that worldwide there is no funding system that I am aware of that really takes that into account.

OP asks about biology. There is no way that biology can be used to determine nationality.

Both, very young women as well as older women are at higher risk. However, in larger studies the highest risk groups appears to be in women above 30. The risk in younger women, has been shown to drop with better care. I believe a study referred to the risk as a "J" shape (as opposed to an "U" shape). I think that varies a lot, depending on country and associated care. I do not remember the details very well, so I would have to check, if interested. But I believe that on average in the US the first and second deliveries had lower risk than a high number (five or more). However, it has since then be argued that high number of pregnancies are associated with factors that also correlated with lack of health care access (e.g. income and region). In part this is supported by the observation that first pregnancies in low care settings (but I do not recall whether it was a US study) is also associated with higher mortality.

It should be noted that a international group of folks looked at the data and found racoon dog DNA.

Moreover, regardless of obesity, maternal death is mostly preventable. Additional care is often needed for obese mothers, but lack of access to this care is ultimately the key element. And although I presume that this is not the rationale behind the post, these line of reasoning have often been used to explain care discrepancies (i.e. putting the onus on the individual), whereas the effect of structural elements are much more pertinent.

Psst. I am old. I probably would have added myspace, too.

Oh no, the US system is bad however you look at it. It is just shows that it is disproportionately bad for certain disadvantaged folks. I.e. there is extra badness baked into the issues on top.

I am focusing on infant mortality as I recall at least the rough order of magnitudes. In some US states (again, before the pandemic) black infant death rates in some states (e.g. Kansas, Lousiana etc.) were up to 16 per 100 (average around 10 or so). That is roughly in the range of countries like the West Bank, Honduras, Mongolia etc. However it is way lower than e.g. India, South Africa or Eritrea for example (around 30ish, as a side note, many Island countries, including African ones are doing remarkably well relative to their wealth). Overall Africa is probably not a good comparison for these measures, as a while back they were topping the list in terms of infant mortality, but by now they also have countries with the highest improvements in that measure. I.e. the infant mortality does not yet seem to flatten out. In contrast in the US the numbers have been flat for a long time. There have been some increases in infant mortality which might be correlated with economic downturns (again, before the pandemic). Also, another study I read showed that highest income black women had similar birth outcomes as the poorest white women. This gap has been well-known for quite a while and quite a few have historically taken the stance that it is because of genetics (certain folks were heavily promoting the perceived physiological differences of black folks). As it now turns out, and a bit related to the Academies of Science report I linked elsewhere, much of it is down to underservicing especially black communities, but to a worrying degree the quality of care specifically black women receive. There are quite a bit of stereotypes out there, ranging from race-based assumptions of pain tolerance, drug abuse and other myths, resulting in some cases wrong treatments. It is one of the reason why EDI in research is getting so many voices, as these issues can creep into day to day activities that are hard to measure. I mean, certain folks get threatened by black folks, regardless of their political leanings (socially black folks tend to be more conservative, but obviously many do not want to align themselves to slavery apologists or consider them thugs). But at the same time they used to be more disenfranchised and were less likely to vote. Among certain younger folks that might be changing, but I rather think that folks just overall don't care them and like to put the blame on genetics or just general inferiority (making bad choices or something like that). That would also explain the hatred for CRT, despite the fact that this framework actually reduces the view on individual racism and points more to structural failings (e.g. under resourced hospitals in black communities).

There were several initiatives from the Chinese CDC to look for sources in 2020 and they took various samples from the market itself, including animals. Why they have been released and then removed is anyone's guess at this point. Whether they found animal DNA, well that depends on which traces have been found and matched to racoon dog, if they looked for wrong markers (or not at all) they may have not found it in the first place. I.e. it could simply be sloppy work, which is not unheard of in high-throughput sequencing, and considering under which pressures the initial analyses were done. The issue with authoritarian and non-transparent government is that it is often really difficult to distinguish malice from incompetence (also note that during that time of initial sampling lab-leaks were not high on list of likely scenarios yet).

What is mortifying to me, when I saw those data years back is the discrepancy between black and white women, even if accounting for income (I think it also incorporated infant deaths). I don't recall the exact numbers anymore, but essentially the outcome were not very different from many developing countries. The pandemic then made it worse.

What I find fascinating is that the tactics of creating these alternate realities is straight up from Goebbel's strategy book. And this includes terms and tactics like isolating folks from "mainstream media (Luegenpresse)", rile against social Marxism (whatever that is) and so on. There is barely a change in wording. It is so weird that with all the knowledge of our past, we collectively forget things just like that.

New analysis of SARS-CoV-2 positive swabs indicated heavy presence of racoon dog DNA, suggesting that those (illegally) sold animals adds weight to the suggestion of the market as a possible spillover source. https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2023/03/covid-origins-research-raccoon-dogs-wuhan-market-lab-leak/673390/

Thank you for that. Now I have the idea of Florida as a kind of porous East Germany in my mind. I doubt that control will be anywhere near that level, but at the same time I think it will galvanize a certain subset of folks who want to believe (like the hardcore communists in the East Bloc). And following iNow's line of thinking it is likely more about getting folks emotionally riled up to show up to elections (especially local ones, I would guess). But I do like the change in perspective inasmuch that even a fully authoritarian government can only do so much to brainwash folks. And to be fair, facebook is probably doing the heavy lifting here.

The governor of Florida (who is likely going to be a presidential candidate) has banned what he essentially called "woke" topics from textbooks. Often with rather unclear guidelines https://abcnews.go.com/US/textbook-publishers-left-dark-florida-rejects-long-list/story?id=84244697 After math textbooks, apparently social studies are next on line and publishers are trying to sanitize US history https://www.nytimes.com/2023/03/16/us/florida-textbooks-african-american-history.html including removing mentioning of race in the account of the arrest of Rosa Parks. Overtly, this is of course an attempt to galvanize the base, but also a clear attack on academic freedom (which is far more limited in K12 ), using authoritarian tactics. To me, it also seems like an attempt to brainwash the youth into a narrow mindset that would make them amenable to GOP ideology. I am now wondering if folks have any thoughts or insights into how effective (and lawful) these tactics are going to be?

Can you provide an example? The report focuses mostly on race and adjacent factors as there is a well-documented history of issues. The general thrust of the argument is to incorporate more detailed measurable parameters rather than pre-classifications. So a study would try to factor in things like income or perhaps other well-studied wealth indicators, rather using a more vague classifier such as "working class". Unless, of course it is well defined via other parameters. There may also be good ways to incorporate ethnicity, it is just that the practice has been highly problematic resulting in non-reproducible outcomes (in good scenarios) to devastating misunderstandings and resultant harm in medical practice.

Recently we had a discussion on nature vs nurture in this forum and I have mentioned the difficulties of looking at complex traits as directly and firmly genetically linked. Specifically I mentioned the misuse of race and ethnic groups in this context. Now I cam a cross a publication of the National Academies which elaborates on this issue: https://nap.nationalacademies.org/26902 A summary can be found here: https://www.nationalacademies.org/news/2023/03/researchers-need-to-rethink-and-justify-how-and-why-race-ethnicity-and-ancestry-labels-are-used-in-genetics-and-genomics-research-says-new-report Much of it is a call for more precision, but also highlight the harm of misconceptions which can arise from sloppy work.

Or you can also look into population density.