It’s possible that I shall make an ass of myself. But in that case one can always get out of it with a little dialectic. I have, of course, so worded my proposition as to be right either way (K.Marx, Letter to F.Engels on the Indian Mutiny)
Saturday, December 21, 2019
Toxic smoke shrouds Sydney amid a heatwave which has seen an area the size of Belgium ablaze.
The colossal task of fighting New South Wales' unprecedented bushfires falls largely to a band of doctors farmers and factory workers who at 70,000-strong are the world's largest volunteer fire service.
Read story: http://u.afp.com/JFbr
POST FORDISM
Ethiopia is pulling out all the stops, hosting its first gathering of superfans of the classic Volkswagen beetle, who hope to fuel love for the curvy, easy-to-maintain car.
Ethiopia's first satellite was sent into space, a landmark achievement for the ambitious country that also caps a banner year for Africa's involvement in space.
It will send back data on the environment and weather patterns in the Horn of Africa -- a boon for a country dependent on agriculture and forestry and vulnerable to flood, drought and other climate perils.
A Flyer from the CLAC, the IWW and Montreal Antifascist
Submitted by MattLeGeek on Sun, 09/29/2019 - 22:18
1. GOVERNMENTS WON’T SAVE US
Those who benefit from poisoning the land and exploiting people you care about won’t be reformed. They’ll make it seem like they hear your voices and occasionally put on grand spectacles to temporarily appease your anger. They’ll encourage you to channel your anxiety into pointless practices that only reinforce individualism. So while some of us compete to take shorter showers or to reduce our trash output, government officials, universities, and corporations shamelessly invest in more pipelines, host uncritical academic conferences, or fly jets to fancy meetings where empty promises are made.
The impact of human emissions of greenhouse gases on climate has been known since the late 19th century. The view that carbon dioxide affects global warming has been widespread since the 70s. Since the 80s and 90s, observations and computer models have overwhelmingly pointed to human-made activities as important factors in climate change. It’s been more than 30 years since the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) was created to compile information and advise world governments on how to minimize the anthropogenic (human-induced) climate change that has already claimed innumerable human lives and caused the extinction of many other animal species. This same panel now says we only have 10 years left before we reach a point of no return towards the death of this planet. Our countries are consuming the bulk of the planet’s resources. Yet here we are, asking for the same colonial governments and political class that put us in this mess to ban plastic straws and increase carbon taxes. We have been begging them for decades now. It’s time we start taking power ourselves.
2. CAPITALISM AND THE CLIMATE CRISIS
Capitalism is a socioeconomic and political system under which a privileged few own what the rest of us need to survive. That means the worth of sentient beings and plants is based on their ability to generate wealth. It’s the idea that land, workplaces, trees, animals, housing, and water, are to be owned privately by individuals or corporations, which gives them power to exploit these things however they want, regardless of our concerns, needs, and well-being. This economic system is why corporations are free to build fossil fuel infrastructures on unceded Indigenous land as governments use militarized police to suppress any form of resistance.
To exist, capitalism must uphold hierarchy, power, and obedience. That’s why your acts of rebellion are framed differently than their acts of systemic violence (e.g. stealing food from Walmart vs stealing land from Indigenous peoples). Our efforts towards a better future are meaningless without a radical departure from the system that made violence and destruction the normal (and legal) state of affairs.
3. COLONIALISM, RACISM, AND DESTRUCTION
To be green is to also to oppose colonialism and racism. Both of these things have everything to do with the climate crisis.
Atmospheric pollution can’t be calculated without taking into account past and present colonial realities. Our understanding of how different countries contribute to climate change must take into account historical greenhouse gas emissions, and most importantly, who profits from the destruction. Industries and empires have been built on the labor of Black and Indigenous people and other people of color. Canadian and American companies murder land defenders for minerals in Latin America and Africa, poison air and waterways in Asia, and put our trash on boats to be dumped far from our eyes.
Repeatedly in Canadian history, ecological devastation has been used as an intentional weapon against Indigenous peoples. Overhunting of bison by settlers led to famine in the Prairies in the 19th century, which was consciously encouraged by the Canadian government under John A. Macdonald as a tool of genocide to “clear the West.” Such practices continue to this day. Grassy Narrows is an Indigenous community near Ontario’s border with Manitoba; its water was contaminated by tons of mercury dumped into its water system by an upstream paper mill. One study estimated that 90 per cent of the population suffers from some degree of mercury poisoning, which can cause everything from cognitive impairments to hearing loss and emotional changes. The heavy metal can be passed from mothers to babies they carry, making it a problem that lasts generations. This is the legacy of Canadian colonialism and genocide; for many people the ecological catastrophe is already centuries old.
In so many ways, the most oppressed always pay the price for Western lifestyles and the out-of-control growth that accompanies them. Droughts, floods, and famines, are increasingly common and displaced people need new places to call home. Thus, as we fight climate change, we must also fight the system of borders that values some lives above others. We must fight the police entering migrants’ homes in the middle of the night to take parents away. We must fight the construction of a migrant prison in Laval that has kids growing up behind bars. We must fight against oil wars that leave entire countries destroyed. We must fight white-supremacy whether it takes the form of neo-fascist militias, conservative columnists, or colonial states claiming sovereignty over Indigenous land. Ultimately, we must also confront anyone who accepts any of this is without feeling profound anger. We can’t allow the most privileged people on this planet to use terms like « overpopulation » or « migrant crisis » because they are too scared and selfish to stand up to real perpetrators of the destruction of our world.
4. RESIST SCAPEGOATING AND THE FAR RIGHT
Certain groups are taking advantage of the catastrophes taking place to put their own hateful and nightmarish ideas into practice.
Following hurricane Katrina that devastated New Orleans in 2005, white supremacist militias took advantage of the disaster to murder random Black people they found trying to survive the floods. More recently, in 2019 in both Christchurch, New Zealand, and El Paso, Texas, neo-nazi gunmen committed massacres, killing dozens of people of color, in attacks which they explicitly framed as being to “save the environment.” All over the world, many people in the rich nations which are creating the most ecological damage are demanding tighter border controls and restrictions on immigration, often citing the need to protect natural resources. At the same time, some racists suggest that there are too many people in the world and target racialized people and people in the Global South with coercive “population control” measures. Here in Quebec, members of far right anti-immigrant groups have sometimes found themselves welcomed in environmentalist spaces and mobilizations, while the concerns of people of color and anti-racists have been simply brushed aside.
This legacy of eco-fascism must be confronted, otherwise the movement to save the planet could very easily find itself manipulated and turned into an instrument to oppress and do violence to those already most directly harmed by the catastrophes capitalism has unleashed.
5. WHAT WE CAN DO!
Reject legality, especially when laws are made by colonial states (e.g. Canada, Quebec) unrecognized by the first inhabitants of the land.
Listen to and make space for Indigenous voices in the struggle against the colonial and capitalist destruction of ecosystems.
Recognize when our struggles are being co-opted by political parties or companies to amass sympathy and capital.
Avoid political parties, non-profits, or anyone pretending to fight domination while reproducing power hierarchies.
Learn about alternative (anarchist, communist, feminist, anticolonial) ways of organizing social life.
Attack the symbols of capitalist power: banks, mining companies and multinational corporations.
Make the fight against all forms of oppression an active part of your militancy and do your part to ensure the burden of dealing with uncomfortable realities linked to climate change don’t fall on the shoulders of those patriarchy deems responsible for the role of care.
Practice consensual decision-making and cultivate consensual relationships.
Get informed, end isolation by finding accomplices within your communities, and build networks of resistance with others who are willing to stand up to power.
Only take calculated risks and practice security culture.
Oh and obviously if we’re going to get arrested, let’s make it worth it.
This flyer was written and is distributed on unceded Indigenous land and a gathering place known to he Kanien’kehá:ka (Mohawk) Nation as Tiohtiá:ke (Montreal).
OTHER GROUPS AND RESOURCES OF INTEREST
Food Against Fascism - foodagainstfascism.org/
Solidarity Across Borders - solidarityacrossborders.org/
Jeunes Socialistes pour le Pouvoir Populaire - JSPP - pouvoirpopulaire.wordpress.com/
Montreal counter-information - mtlcounterinfo.org/
Artistic rendering of the microbiome. Credit: Valerie Altounian / AAAS
Researchers at the University of Toronto have discovered how a brief disruption to a molecular pathway in the guts of mice before they are born can compromise adult immunity to a common and often deadly intestinal virus.
The researchers found that in utero inhibition of molecular signalling in the 'lymphotoxin pathway,' long known as important in the development of the immune system, prevented a robust antibody response in adult mice to rotavirus—which in humans causes an estimated 215,000 deaths annually, mostly in the developing world.
That early disruption limits the ability of the immune system to later trigger and generate production of Immunoglobulin A (IgA) antibodies, the researchers showed. It also interferes with the nature and function of cells in the gut that support the antibody response, called mesenteric lymph node stromal cells.
"It was surprising that these non-immune stromal cells were so important to the immune response," says Jennifer Gommerman, a professor of Immunology at U of T and principal investigator on the study. "It turns out that stromal cells affect the ability of immune B cells to produce IgA that neutralizes rotavirus. We're just beginning to understand the influence these stromal cells can have."
The journal Science Immunology published the study today.
Gommerman says the findings highlight the growing importance of research on the environment in which immune cells function. "We typically think of a lymph node as just a bag of lymphocytes, but there is also this supporting structure that clearly has an active role in shaping immunity."
The study's first author, postdoctoral fellow Conglei Li, identified a broad subset of stromal cells that affect the immune response to rotavirus. But the key players are likely a subset of that subset, Gommerman says. New technology known as single-cell RNA sequencing should soon enable researchers to identify many more of those cells, she adds.
That work could in turn lead to a better understanding of the genetic and environmental factors that may undermine immunity to rotavirus in the developing world, where rotavirus vaccines are much less effective than in high-resource settings.
Gommerman says that while several dysfunctions in the immune system likely contribute to reduced immunity to rotavirus in low-income countries, the current study offers a hint that prevention may be possible.
"The thinking would be that if you're pregnant in a resource-depleted area, you may take a dietary supplement at a specific point to ensure proper development of tissues that support immunity, and which enable a vaccine to be more effective," she says.
That kind of intervention is likely a long way off, says Gommerman, and replicating her results in human pregnancy presents obvious ethical problems. A more immediate next step for her lab is a collaborative study on IgA immune responses to other pathogens such as norovirus, another highly contagious disease.
A focus on single pathogens is useful in studies of IgA, says Gommerman, because so many factors can influence IgA response. "If you simplify the system of study, you get more predictable kinetics and can ask more discrete questions," she says. "We've made a contribution with that approach, on a question that has been percolating in several labs for years. That feels good."
In first, Switzerland shuts down ageing nuclear power station
by Agnès Pedrero
Switzerland runs some of the world's oldest nuclear infrastructure
One of four Swiss nuclear power stations was permanently disconnected Friday after 47 years of service, marking a first in Switzerland, as the country begins to gradually phase out atomic energy.
The decision to press the "off" button for good at the ageing Muhleberg plant in western Switzerland came amid soaring upkeep costs, and leaves the wealthy Alpine nation with three remaining nuclear plants in service.
"This is the first ever decommissioning of a power reactor in Switzerland," Swiss energy company BKW, the plant operator, said in a statement.
Since it was commissioned in November 1972, the plant had pumped out some 130 billion kilowatts per hour of electricity, which is enough to cover the current electrical consumption of the Swiss capital Bern's some one million inhabitants for more than a century, BKW said.
The shutdown of the plant officially began at 12:30 pm (1130 GMT), with the decisive button-push transmitted live on Swiss television.
But the full decommissioning process is expected to take around 15 years, with reuse of the site likely possible from 2034.
'Truly historic'
"This is truly a historic day," Swiss Environment Minister Simonetta Sommaruga told public broadcaster RTS earlier this week.
"The halt of the Muhleberg nuclear plant provides opportunities (for growth) of hydraulic energy and solar power," she said.
The plant had become the site of repeated protests amid a raging debate about nuclear safety in Switzerland that intensified following the 2011 Fukushima nuclear disaster in Japan.
In the aftermath of Fukushima, Switzerland announced plans to phase out nuclear energy and close its four plants, but no clear timeline has been set.
In early 2013, Muhlberg's operating license was even extended indefinitely, but just months later, its operator announced its plans to shut it down.
But the decision to close the plant, which has covered around five percent of Switzerland's energy consumption, was not politically motivated, BKW said.
"This was a business decision," the company told AFP in an email.
"If we had wanted to keep running our plant in the long term, we would have needed to invest heavily to respond to the technical requirements stipulated by the Swiss Nuclear Safety Inspectorate (ENSI)," it said.
But the closure does mark a clear first step in Switzerland's planned nuclear phase-out, leaving three plants in operation: Gosgen, Leibstadt and Beznau.
The latter houses two reactors, including one that turned 50 earlier this month, making it Europe's oldest functioning reactor and the third oldest in operation worldwide.
But despite their advanced age and Switzerland's stated ambition to gradually exit nuclear—which accounts for about a third of its current power generation—there are no immediate plans to shut down the remaining reactors.
In a popular vote three years ago, the Swiss rejected a call to speed up the phaseout of the plants by decommissioning all reactors over the age of 45.
As a result, the reactors can run for as long as ENSI deems them safe, or for as long as their operators find it financially viable to invest in the required safety upgrades.
Flickr is losing money, and CEO Don MacAskill is asking users of the photo sharing website for financial help
CROWDSOURCING CAPITALISM
by Jefferson Graham
DECEMBER 20, 2019
Credit: CC0 Public Domain
It's rare for a tech company to let people in on a dirty little secret. Many of them lose lots of money in their pursuit of customers.
So, it was refreshing to read this honest take on the fate of photo enthusiast website Flickr from the company's owner, Don MacAskill, on Thursday.
His plea begins like this: "Flickr—the world's most-beloved, money-losing business—needs your help."
MacAskill wants people to sign up for $50 yearly subscriptions, which he's offering at holiday discounts of $36, and notes that the price will be going up next year.
In his note, he talks about how his family-run firm SmugMug two years ago bought Flickr from Yahoo, where it "was losing tens of millions of dollars a year." He says SmugMug rescued the company, and saved "tens of billions" of photos from being erased.
"So, we took a big risk, stepped in, and saved Flickr. Together, we created the world's largest photographer-focused community: A place where photographers can stand out and fit in."
How dire is the situation?
"It's not that dire," MacAskill tells U.S. TODAY. "But we do need to get more cash in the door."
He says less than 1% have signed up for the Pro accounts, and that if he could get just over 1%, that would be enough to keep the lights on.
More importantly, MacAskill says he wrote the letter to get honest feedback from customers on whether they're interested in Flickr continuing. "Is this the right way to go? We're about to find out."
Flickr is one of the earliest photo sharing sites, and was purchased by Yahoo in 2005, and it fell on hard times. Yahoo's new owner Verizon sold it to MacAskill in 2017.
But Flickr is still losing money. His solution to make it viable was to eliminate free accounts for storing thousands of photos and convert users into paying customers, at $50 yearly. That change began at the beginning of the year.
"It's losing a lot less money than it was," he says. "But it's not yet making enough....We cannot continue to operate it at a loss as we've been doing."
Flickr is home to over 100 million accounts and tens of billions of photos, he says, offering ad-free browsing and sharing that doesn't include social media tracking, like Facebook.
"We've gone to great lengths to optimize Flickr for cost savings wherever possible, but the increasing cost of operating this enormous community and continuing to invest in its future will require a small price increase early in the new year, so this is truly the very best time to upgrade your membership to Pro."
What happens if customers don't respond?
He says he has several backup plans. "This is a way to find out if we need to go to one of them."
Novartis eyes give-away of costly therapy for babies
Swiss pharmaceutical giant Novartis draw praise and criticism over its give-away
Swiss pharmaceutical company Novartis is preparing to give away 100 doses of the world's most expensive drug, which treats a rare childhood disorder, but its recipient selection process has drawn criticism. DECEMBER 20, 2019
The company announced this week that starting next month, its AveXis unit will begin distributing doses of Zolgensma, a one-time gene treatment for spinal muscular atrophy, also known as SMA.
The disease affects about 1 in 10,000 births, and which results in death or the need for permanent ventilation by the age of two in 90 percent of cases.
Novartis said a total of 100 doses—which cost around $2 million a pop—would go to eligible patients who are "under the age of two and are a citizen or legal resident of a country where the therapy is not yet approved by regulatory authorities."
The therapy was approved by US regulators in May, but approval in Europe and Japan for instance has been delayed until next year.
Novartis stressed in a statement that AveXis so far had only one facility licensed to produce the therapy, and that the company's first obligation was to provide it where it had been approved or was pending approval, as well as to clinical trials.
"We work diligently to get two more facilities licensed in 2020," it said.
As for the giveaways, Novartis said the intention was for a long-term commitment, with additional doses added to the program on a rolling six-month basis based on patient need and the expansion of capacity.
Novartis said AveXis had worked with an independent bioethics advisory committee to develop the programme, which it insisted was "anchored in principles of fairness, clinical need and global accessibility to best determine the equitable global distribution of a finite number of doses."
'Blinded selection'
It would not favour any child or country over another, it said.
A third party would administer "a blinded selection" every two weeks from a pool of patients proposed by their treating physicians who had been proven to be medically eligible, it said.
Novartis stressed that patients not picked in one selection round would automatically be submitted to the pool of candidates for the next selection as long as they remained medically eligible.
But the process drew criticism.
TreatSMA, a British advocacy group for the disorder, praised Novartis for trying to increase access, but it said it had "yet to be convinced that a health lottery is an appropriate way of meeting the unmet medical needs in this severe disease."
France's AFM-Telethon, which works to raise donations to find treatments for SMA and genetic disorders, went further, criticising the programme as a cruel "lottery" offered to "parents whose children afflicted with spinal muscular atrophy are condemned to death in the short term."
"How can one envisage even for a second that the life of a child can be the big prize in a lottery," the organisation asked on its website. SEE https://plawiuk.blogspot.com/search?q=BIG+PHARMA
