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, January 22, 2022
Police: Truck with 100 monkeys crashes, some of them missing 1 / 4 Crates holding live monkeys are scattered across the westbound lanes of state Route 54 at the junction with Interstate 80 near Danville, Pa., Friday, Jan. 21, 2022, after a pickup pulling a trailer carrying the monkeys was hit by a dump truck. They were transporting 100 monkeys and several were on the loose at the time of the photo. (Jimmy May/Bloomsburg Press Enterprise via AP)More
Fri, January 21, 2022
DANVILLE, Pa. (AP) — A truck carrying about 100 monkeys was involved in a crash Friday in Pennsylvania, state police said as authorities searched for at least three of the monkeys that appeared to have escaped the vehicle.
The truck carrying the animals crashed with a dump truck in the afternoon in Montour County, Pennsylvania State Police Trooper Andrea Pelachick told the Daily Item.
The truck had been on its way to a lab, Pelachick said.
Authorities have asked residents who might see the monkeys to call state police at 570-524-2662.
It was unclear if any people or animals were injured in the crash.
Why citizens are losing trust in democratic governments
Edelman’s Trust Barometer for 2022 revealed that the global level of trust in government and media is dropping.
An annual online survey conducted in 28 countries and reaching over 36,000 respondents found that distrust in political institutions fell in 2021 across the world.
Among the key findings of the report was the overall lower trust in world leaders and institutions around the world, with 67% of respondents saying they worry that journalists and reporters were “purposely trying to mislead people by saying things they know are false or gross exaggerations.” The figures were 66% and 63% for government and business leaders, respectively.
These results come as the countries across the world have struggled to contain the novel coronavirus since 2020, with varying degrees of success. The Omicron variant, which was first identified in November of 2021, has spread rapidly around the world and has driven the seven day average of new cases to 3.5 million as of January 20.
A majority of survey participants believed that institutions, including businesses, governments, NGOs, and the media were not doing well on responding to health and public safety concerns of the COVID-19 pandemic. Globally, the biggest societal fears were job loss (85%), climate change (75%), and hackers and cyber attacks (71%).
Photo by: KGC-254/STAR MAX/IPx 2021 1/12/22 Protesters demonstrate against Prime Minister Boris Johnson and the 'party gate' scandal outside Parliament on 12th January 2022 in London, England, UK. Johnson is under attack from both his MPs and the public after admitting to having attended a garden party at Downing Street in May 2020 when the UK was still in lockdown.
Social divides widening
Within the United States, a clear political chasm between Democrats and Republicans exists. The Edelman Trust Index, which measures the average percent trust in NGOs, business, government and media, was 55 for Democrats and 35 for Republicans.
Although a deeply skeptical public was a consistent theme in most countries, with 59% of respondents answering that they tend to distrust information until they see evidence of trustworthiness, citizens of some countries reported lower levels of trust than others.
Democracies across the world experienced a rise in distrust in 2021. The five countries with the largest declines in their Trust Indices were Germany (-7), Australia (-6), The Netherlands (-6), South Korea (-5), and the United States (-5). Significantly, the gap in trust between high-income and low-income earners had widened to 15 points, up from 6 points in 2012.
The report noted that the cycle of distrust threatens societal stability. “Government and media feed [the] cycle of division and disinformation for votes and clicks,” the report found. This causes NGOs and business to feel pressured to “take on societal problems beyond their abilities,” leading to greater overall distrust in those institutions as well.
Opinion: Attacks on us teachers are false and frightening. I cannot stay silent.
Marieta Irwin Fri, January 21, 2022
I am a teacher. As a teacher, I have been following state Sen. Jake Chapman and his recent comments. At the opening session of the Iowa Senate this month, he said, “One doesn't have to look far to see the sinister agenda occurring right before our eyes. The attack on our children is no longer hidden. Those who wish to normalize sexually deviant behavior against our children, including pedophilia and incest, are pushing this movement more than ever before. Our children should be safe and free from this atrocious assault."
This is a direct quote. Chapman has said his comments were mischaracterized. His comment apparently originates from his desire to ban particular books from school libraries. I won’t take time to elaborate on the fact that every school library already has policies in place to decide which books are or are not on their shelves. Parents already have rights to know what students are reading in classrooms and teachers already make alternatives to required readings. I trust schools and parents to follow their protocol and arrive at a decision for that district. Chapman has also said he will introduce legislation to make it a felony for school employees to distribute obscene books. He has not explained who will get to deem a piece of literature obscene.
“Iowa has some of the best public teachers, that is why my children attend public schools. However, it is undeniable that there are some who are pushing this agenda, it is also a fact that we have had multiple teachers charged this year with sexual contact with their students. I will always stand up for what is right! I will always defend and protect our children!”
President of the Iowa Senate Jake Chapman, R-Adel, speaks before Gov. Kim Reynolds' Condition of the State address, inside the House Chamber, on Tuesday evening, Jan. 11, 2022, at the Capitol in Des Moines.
Chapman’s words about teachers are mere platitudes. He shows his real beliefs when he implies that sexual assault is common and accepted among educators. Anyone, anyone, who is accused of sexual assault, should be investigated and, if there is evidence, prosecuted. Regardless of their profession, social, economic status, or community involvement. Predators, unfortunately, can be found in many professions. Police officers, priests/ministers, judges, doctors, and politicians have been found guilty of sexual assault. But, Chapman hasn’t tried to kindle righteous indignation toward these professions or individuals. He’s targeted only teachers in an attempt to continue divisions. His comment that teachers are pushing a "sinister agenda" is untrue. The only thing educators are pushing is the science of learning, helping students build critical thinking skills, and optimizing learning for everyone.
I did not expect this school year to be easy. Teaching has never been easy. But, I did not expect it to be this hard. Chapman and others work on igniting anger toward schools and teachers but are unwilling to help. They claim that “Iowa has some of the best public teachers” and then publicly insult and debase and accuse them of abusing children.
I am a special education teacher. Because of the students that I serve, there have been times when I have been physically assaulted at school. I’ve been bitten, hit, and bruised. My worst day at school did not batter as badly as Chapman’s comments. The only difference is my students are still practicing and learning executive functioning skills. The deliberate undermining of the public education system and those that serve it is frightening.
Being a teacher in the state of Iowa is going to get much harder. So. Much. Harder.
Marieta Irwin teaches special education in northwest Iowa.
Security scanners across Europe tied to China govt, military
ERIKA KINETZ Thu, January 20, 2022
At some of the world’s most sensitive spots, authorities have installed security screening devices made by a single Chinese company with deep ties to China’s military and the highest levels of the ruling Communist Party.
The World Economic Forum in Davos. Europe’s largest ports. Airports from Amsterdam to Athens. NATO’s borders with Russia. All depend on equipment manufactured by Nuctech, which has quickly become the world’s leading company, by revenue, for cargo and vehicle scanners.
Nuctech has been frozen out of the U.S. for years due to national security concerns, but it has made deep inroads across Europe, installing its devices in 26 of 27 EU member states, according to public procurement, government and corporate records reviewed by The Associated Press.
The complexity of Nuctech’s ownership structure and its expanding global footprint have raised alarms on both sides of the Atlantic.
A growing number of Western security officials and policymakers fear that China could exploit Nuctech equipment to sabotage key transit points or get illicit access to government, industrial or personal data from the items that pass through its devices.
Nuctech’s critics allege the Chinese government has effectively subsidized the company so it can undercut competitors and give Beijing potential sway over critical infrastructure in the West as China seeks to establish itself as a global technology superpower.
“The data being processed by these devices is very sensitive. It’s personal data, military data, cargo data. It might be trade secrets at stake. You want to make sure it’s in right hands,” said Bart Groothuis, director of cybersecurity at the Dutch Ministry of Defense before becoming a member of the European Parliament. “You’re dependent on a foreign actor which is a geopolitical adversary and strategic rival.”
He and others say Europe doesn’t have tools in place to monitor and resist such potential encroachment. Different member states have taken opposing views on Nuctech’s security risks. No one has even been able to make a comprehensive public tally of where and how many Nuctech devices have been installed across the continent.
Nuctech dismisses those concerns, countering that Nuctech’s European operations comply with local laws, including strict security checks and data privacy rules.
“It’s our equipment, but it’s your data. Our customer decides what happens with the data,” said Robert Bos, deputy general manager of Nuctech in the Netherlands, where the company has a research and development center.
He said Nuctech is a victim of unfounded allegations that have cut its market share in Europe nearly in half since 2019.
“It’s quite frustrating to be honest,” Bos told AP. “In the 20 years we delivered this equipment we never had issues of breaches or data leaks. Till today we never had any proof of it.”
In addition to scanning systems for people, baggage and cargo, the company makes explosives detectors and interconnected devices capable of facial recognition, body temperature measurement and ID card or ticket identification.
Critics fear that under China’s national intelligence laws, which require Chinese companies to surrender data requested by state security agencies, Nuctech would be unable to resist calls from Beijing to hand over sensitive data about the cargo, people and devices that pass through its scanners. They say there is a risk Beijing could use Nuctech’s presence across Europe to gather big data about cross-border trade flows, pull information from local networks, like shipping manifests or passenger information, or sabotage trade flows in a conflict.
Airports in London, Amsterdam, Brussels, Athens, Florence, Pisa, Venice, Zurich, Geneva and more than a dozen across Spain have all signed deals for Nuctech equipment, procurement and government documents, and corporate announcements show.
Nuctech’s ownership structure is so complex that can be difficult for outsiders to understand the true lines of influence and accountability.
What is clear is that Nuctech, from its very origins, has been tied to Chinese government, academic and military interests.
Nuctech was founded as an offshoot of Tsinghua University, an elite public research university in Beijing. It grew with backing from the Chinese government and for years was run by the son of China’s former leader, Hu Jintao.
Datenna, a Dutch economic intelligence company focused on China, mapped the ownership structure of Nuctech and found a dozen major entities across four layers of shareholding, including four state-owned enterprises and three government entities.
Today the majority shareholder in Nuctech is Tongfang Co., which has a 71 percent stake. The largest shareholder in Tongfang, in turn, is the investment arm of the China National Nuclear Corp. (CNNC), a state-run energy and defense conglomerate controlled by China’s State Council. The U.S. Defense Department classifies CNNC as a Chinese military company because it shares advanced technologies and expertise with the People’s Liberation Army.
Xi has further blurred the lines between China’s civilian and military activities and deepened the power of the ruling Communist Party within private enterprises. One way: the creation of dozens of government-backed financing vehicles designed to speed the development of technologies that have both military and commercial applications.
In fact, one of those vehicles, the National Military-Civil Fusion Industry Investment Fund, announced in June 2020 that it wanted to take a 4.4 percent stake in Nuctech’s majority shareholder, along with the right to appoint a director to the Tongfang board. It never happened — “changes in the market environment,” Tongfeng explained in a Chinese stock exchange filing.
But there are other links between Nuctech’s ownership structure and the fusion fund.
CNNC, which has a 21 percent interest in Nuctech, holds a stake of more than 7 percent in the fund, according to Qichacha, a Chinese corporate information platform. They also share personnel: Chen Shutang, a member of CNNC’s Party Leadership Group and the company’s chief accountant serves as a director of the fund, records show.
Nuctech maintains that its operations are shaped by market forces, not politics, and says CNNC doesn’t control its corporate management or decision-making.
But Jaap van Etten, a former Dutch diplomat and CEO of Datenna, said the question was “whether or not we want to allow Nuctech, which is controlled by the Chinese state and linked to the Chinese military, to be involved in crucial parts of our border security and infrastructure.”
___
Associated Press researcher Chen Si in Shanghai and reporters Menelaos Hadjicostis in Nicosia, Cyprus, Aritz Parra in Madrid, Nina Bigalke in London, Nicholas Paphitis in Athens, Justin Spike in Budapest, Liudas Dapkus in Vilnius, Lithuania, Zeynep Bilginsoy in Istanbul and Barry Hatton in Lisbon contributed to this report.
Ivermectin’s potential to treat COVID gets a serious look in Duke University study
Richard Stradling Thu, January 20, 2022
Doctors at Duke University are leading a national study to test whether three drugs will effectively treat COVID-19, including one that has generated controversy for more than a year.
Ivermectin’s potential to treat COVID-19 has been both celebrated and ridiculed. Some consider it a miracle drug that makes vaccination against the coronavirus unnecessary. But most in the medical establishment, including government regulators, say there’s not enough proof that it works and warn that self-medicating with ivermectin can make people sick in other ways.
The Duke study, launched last summer, is the kind of comprehensive assessment of ivermectin’s ability to combat COVID-19 that has been missing up to now, said Dr. Adrian Hernandez, one of the study’s leaders.
“There were some early studies that showed that it could potentially be helpful with COVID-19, but they were not large enough to be definitive,” Hernandez said in an interview. “So we want to know either way, is it potentially beneficial or not.”
“We should understand if there are any benefits,” he said. “And if not, we should be able to report that back out to the public clearly and note what shouldn’t be done.”
Ivermectin is used to kill parasites in animals, including heartworm in dogs and gastrointestinal worms in horses and cows. Since the late 1980s, it’s also been used with millions of humans to kill parasites that cause river blindness and other illnesses.
Ivermectin is not approved to treat COVID-19, and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration warns that using the drug, especially the kind formulated for animals, can be dangerous. The FDA says it has received multiple reports of people who needed medical attention, including hospitalization, after taking ivermectin intended for livestock. Three drugs involved in NIH-sponsored study
Ivermectin is one of three drugs that Duke is testing under ACTIV-6, one of a series of studies of potential COVID-19 treatments and vaccines launched by the National Institutes of Health. Duke was chosen for the study because of its experience leading national clinical trials, said Hernandez, a cardiologist who has led large-scale trials.
The goal is to find treatments that, in conjunction with vaccines, might render COVID-19 as manageable as seasonal flu.
Up to now, doctors have mostly relied on monoclonal antibody treatments to try to keep COVID-19 patients from becoming seriously ill. But those must be administered by IV or a series of shots in a clinic or doctor’s office, making them harder to get to patients. In addition, only one of the monoclonals appears to be effective against the omicron variant of the virus, and that drug is in short supply.
The two other drugs being tested in the ACTIV-6 study are fluvoxamine, used to treat obsessive-compulsive disorder and depression, and fluticasone furoate, an inhaler medicine prescribed for asthma and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease or COPD.
All three drugs are already approved for use in humans and have a track record of being safe, Hernandez said. All three are also easy to use at home and rarely interact with other medications, making them candidates to treat mild to moderate cases of COVID-19.
“Just like we’re trying to do testing at home, we’re looking at how can you conveniently do treatment at home,” Hernandez said. “ACTIV-6 is really designed to do that.”
The three drugs were chosen for the study because they’ve shown some promise in treating COVID-19, through earlier studies and by what’s known about how they work in the body. Fluticasone, for example, is a steroid that reduces inflammation in the lungs that can cause breathing problems, which is also a primary symptom of COVID-19.
Earlier studies of ivermectin suggest it decreases reproduction of the coronavirus in the lab, but data from its use in humans was either inconclusive or incomplete.
Nearly 2,500 patients from across the country have taken part in the ACTIV-6 study. Some are referred by doctors at participating medical centers in 26 states, Hernandez said, while others learn about it online.
To qualify, study participants must have tested positive for the coronavirus within the previous 10 days and have at least two symptoms of COVID-19. They receive an overnight package with one of the drugs or a placebo (they can’t tell which), and report how they’re feeling each day by phone or online.
Researchers are looking for evidence that the drugs either shorten the time people feel sick or prevent them from getting worse and needing to be hospitalized.
Enrollment in ACTIV-6 picked up in recent weeks as the wave of new cases fueled by the omicron variant swept the country. Hernandez said researchers may have the data they need to release their results within a month or so.
For information about the ACTIV-6 study, go to activ6study.org/. Dr. Adrian Hernandez of Duke University Medical School
Dredgers spotted off Cambodian base where China is funding work -U.S. think tank
A sailor stands guard at the Cambodian Ream Naval Base in Sihanoukville
Fri, January 21, 2022 By David Brunnstrom
WASHINGTON (Reuters) -Dredgers have been spotted off Cambodia’s Ream naval base, where China is funding construction work and deeper port facilities would be necessary for the docking of larger military ships, a U.S. think tank said on Friday.
The United States, which has sought to push back against Beijing's extensive territorial claims and military expansion in the South China Sea, reiterated its "serious concerns" about China's construction and military presence at Ream.
"These developments threaten U.S. and partner interests, regional security, and Cambodia's sovereignty," a spokesperson for the State Department said.
The report from the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) think tank said the dredgers could be seen in photos released this month by the Cambodian government and in commercial satellite imagery.
"Dredging of deeper port facilities would be necessary for the docking of larger military ships at Ream, and was part of a secret agreement between China and Cambodia that U.S. officials reported seeing in 2019," the Asia Maritime Transparency Initiative at CSIS reported.
It cited a 2019 Wall Street Journal report that said the deal granted China military access to the base in return for funding facilities improvements.
Last June, Cambodian media quoted Defense Minister Tea Bahn as saying China would help to modernize and expand Ream, but would not be the only country given access to the facility.
AMTI said a Jan. 16 commercial satellite image showed two dredgers and barges for collecting dredged sand. It said other images showed both dredgers arriving between Jan. 13 and Jan. 15.
They were also visible in a photo posted on Tea Banh’s Facebook page following his Jan. 18 visit to Ream, it said, adding that the work "could mark a significant upgrade in the base’s capabilities."
"The shallow waters around Ream mean it is currently only able to host small patrol vessels. A deep-water port would make it far more useful to both the Cambodian and Chinese navies."
AMTI said construction work had continued onshore, with land clearing in several locations in the southwest of the base since fall 2021 and said this and the dredging "indicates that the base is being prepared for significant infrastructure upgrades."
The State Department spokesperson said the United States urged Cambodia "to be fully transparent about the intent, nature, and scope of the project at Ream and the role the PRC military is playing in its construction, raising concerns about the intended use of this naval facility."
PRC stands for the People's Republic of China.
Last year, Washington sanctioned two Cambodian officials over alleged corruption at Ream and imposed an arms embargo and export restrictions on Cambodia over what it said was the growing influence of China's military in the country, as well as over human rights and corruption.
(Reporting by David Brunnstrom in WashingtonEditing by Matthew Lewis and David Gregorio)
China to start building 5G satellite network to challenge Elon Musk's Starlink
Fri, January 21, 2022, 2:30 AM·5 min read
China will start building a network of a thousand satellites to provide 5G coverage within the next three months, according to state media reports.
The first batch of six low-cost, high-performance communication satellites have been produced, tested and arrived at an undisclosed launch site, according to a report by the state news agency Xinhua on Tuesday.
The company behind the project, Beijing-based start-up GalaxySpace, has said it wants to extend China's 5G coverage around the world and compete with Starlink, owned by Elon Musk's firm SpaceX, in the market for high-speed internet services in remote areas.
The Chinese constellation is small compared with Starlink, which already has around 2,000 satellites in orbit and plans to expand this to 42,000 when the network is complete.
Despite its smaller size, the 1,000-satellite Chinese network will be the first of its kind to use 5G technology.
Scientists involved in the project say this will ensure download speeds of more than 500 megabits per second with a low latency that will be a critical advantage in some demanding applications such as financial trading.
Starlink currently offers a download speed of about 110Mbps for civilian use and although it is using a different technology to 5G, it has the potential to offer 6G services in future.
Beyond the commercial rivalry, Beijing has identified Starlink, which has signed multimillion dollar contracts with the US military, as a threat to China's national security.
In 2020, researchers with the Chinese National University of Defence Technology estimated that it could increase the average global satellite communication bandwidth available to the US military from 5Mbps to 500Mbps.
The researchers also warned that existing anti-satellite weapons technology would find it virtually impossible to destroy a constellation the size of Starlink.
Zhu Kaiding, a space engineer from the China Academy of Space Technology, which is working with GalaxySpace on the project, said the Chinese project was struggling to keep pace with Starlink, which according to Musk is producing six satellites a day.
Zhu did not disclose how quickly China was producing satellites, but in a paper published in domestic journal Aerospace Industry Management in October last year, he said the Starlink programme had forced a satellite assembly line in China to increase its productivity by more than a third.
Zhu and colleagues have said that more than half the routine checks carried out at the launch site of high-frequency operations have been cancelled to save time.
The new satellites also use many components produced by private companies that have not previously been involved in Chinese space projects - a move that helped reduce the total hardware price of a high-speed internet satellite by more than 80 per cent.
Zhu said that the race against Starlink had put enormous pressure on China's space industry because "the technology is complex, the competition fierce, the deadlines tight and the workloads heavy".
It is likely that the number of civilian users of satellite internet service in China will be limited - most urban residents can access 5G through their phone and broadband services are available in most rural areas - so the most likely customers are overseas companies or the Chinese government and military.
In early 2020, GalaxySpace launched an experimental satellite to see if these unprecedented measures would affect the satellite's performance, using.terminals in sites that ranged from China's densely populated east coast to remote mountainous areas in the west of the country.
One of the biggest concerns was bad weather, according to Li Jiancheng, a lead communication technology scientist with GalaxySpace.
Although Starlink warned its users that rain or cloud can affect internet speeds or even cut off communications entirely, Li and colleagues found that the satellite could maintain download speeds of 80Mbps in the worst weather, they wrote in a paper published in Digital Communication World last year.
Two Chinese state-owned space contractors - the China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation and China Aerospace Science and Industry Corporation - have also launched their own global internet service programmes known as Hongyan and Hongyun.
Although they are smaller in scale than Starlink - the Hongyan constellation will include 324 satellites and Hongyun 156 - they will operate at different orbiting altitudes and frequencies to help China claim more of the diminishing resources in space, according to some scientists informed of these projects.
They say it is unlikely that China will launch a programme as big as the Starlink because two giant constellations in the lower orbit could significantly increase the risk of accidents.
Copyright (c) 2022. South China Morning Post Publishers Ltd. All rights reserved.
Officials: Florida manatees eating lettuce in pilot program
Cool temperatures brought dozens of manatees to the Florida Power and Light Manatee Lagoon in Riviera Beach, Fla. Wednesday, Jan 19, 2022. Last year was devastating for the gentle creatures, with a record set for mortality. The sea cows come to the power plant discharge area to bask in the warm water. (Joe Cavaretta/South Florida Sun-Sentinel via AP) CURT ANDERSON Fri, January 21, 2022
ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. (AP) — Manatees at risk of starvation because native seagrass is dying due to water pollution have for the first time started eating lettuce under an experimental feeding program, Florida wildlife officials said Friday.
The test facility on the east coast's Indian River Lagoon had its first takers of romaine lettuce Thursday, leading more manatees to join in, said Ron Mezich, chief of the effort’s provisioning branch at the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission.
“We think it's significant,” Mezich said in a remote news conference. “When the animals are there, we will continue to offer food and hope they take advantage of that.”
The program is adding cabbage and a second type of lettuce to entice the manatees, also known as sea cows. All of these are common foods given to manatees at rehabilitation facilities.
The unprecedented feeding program is a state and federal response to last year's record number of 1,101 documented manatee deaths. Many are starving to death because pollution from agricultural, urban and other sources has triggered algae blooms that have decimated seagrass beds on which manatees depend — especially during cold winter months.
About 25 to 35 manatees were seen Friday near the feeding site at a Florida Power & Light plant that discharges warm water the animals favor when water temperatures cool. Several hundred were spotted from the air in nearby areas, said Tom Reinert, south regional director for the FWC.
There are no immediate plans to expand the feeding program beyond Brevard County, officials said. It remains illegal for people to feed wild manatees on their own.
“This is a pilot program and we're trying to learn as much as we can,” Reinert said. But he added that seagrass restoration and a reduction in water pollution are the long-term answers to the starvation problem.
“We need a healthy lagoon to support the seagrass,” he said. “We can't feed all of them.”
In addition to the feeding experiment, officials are working with a number of facilities to rehabilitate distressed manatees that are found alive. These include Florida zoos, the SeaWorld theme park and marine aquariums. There were 159 rescued manatees in 2021, some of which require lengthy care and some that have been returned to the wild, officials said.
There are about 7,520 wild manatees in Florida waters currently, according to state statistics. The slow-moving, round-tailed mammals have rebounded enough to list them as a threatened species rather than endangered, although a push is on to restore the endangered tag given the starvation deaths.
A Pennsylvania woman rescued a ‘scared’ animal. No one knows what it is
Francesca Gariano Sat, January 22, 2022,
A woman in Pennsylvania has experts flummoxed by the animal she discovered outside of her home.
Christina Eyth rescued the animal earlier this week near her home in Fairfield Township after finding paw prints outside of her door. Eyth followed the tracks, assuming they had belonged to her neighbor's dog after they had gotten loose. The tracks ended up leading her to directly an unidentified animal, which Eyth said was exhibiting "scared behavior."
“I peeked outside the door and that’s whenever I noticed the animal on my left hand side and it was so scared and so cold and shivering,” Eyth recalled in an interview with NBC News. "... All I could think about is 'This animal needs help.'"
Rescuing the animal was one thing: Eyth was able to lure the animal into her basement and out of the cold. Since then, though, the animal has been a mystery.
Eyth said that first, she thought the creature might be a coyote or a dog. After calling Wildlife Works, a local rescue, and transferring the creature to their facility for care, there have only been more questions.
Morgan Barron, a certified wildlife rehabilitator at Wildlife Works, had trouble identifying what this animal could be and told NBC News she couldn’t “definitively say what it is.”
“But to err on the side of caution since they can carry rabies and since it might be a coyote, we can keep it here, get genetic testing done, and then kind of go from there," Barron explained.
Barron said that since the animal's behavior is on the timid side and it isn't exhibiting signs of aggression, she believes that the animal may be a dog. In the meantime, the animal is currently being treated for mange and is being kept in isolation.
A four-legged creature was recently rescued from freezing cold temperatures in Pennsylvania, but what exactly the animal is has left experts puzzled.
Christina Eyth said she followed paw prints to find the animal outside her basement door in Fairfield Township, WPXI reported.
Initially thinking it was a dog, she kept the animal in her basement as it was “freezing... skiddish and scared,” she said on Facebook.
TJ’s Rescue Hideaway, a local non-profit foster-based rescue organization, was called to Eyth’s home, but they weren’t sure if the animal was a dog. So Wildlife Works in Mount Pleasant was called to help identify the animal.
The organization, which specializes in deer, raccoons, mammals and rabies vector species, said it has started treatment and collected a sample to determine what the creature is. It will likely take two to four weeks before they know anything.
“What do you think I am, dog or coyote?” the organization asked on Facebook.
Morgan Barron with Wildlife Works described the animal as “very timid, very scared and not aggressive,” which leads her to believe it is a dog.
“I honestly can’t definitively say what it is, but to err on the side of caution, since they can carry rabies and since it might be a coyote ... (we will) get genetic testing done and go from there,” Barron told WPXI.
“He is eating, warm, but still scared.” Eyth said in a Facebook post. “No matter the results this animal will be helped thanks to all those involved!”
Fairfield Township is located 60 miles southeast of Pittsburgh.
The Hubble telescope just spotted a black hole giving birth to new stars
Joshua Hawkins Fri, January 21, 2022
Astronomers have finally captured a look at a black hole birthing new stars in the Henize 2-10 galaxy. The supermassive black hole in question is located roughly 34 million light-years away. Astronomers were able to take note of the black hole thanks to the Hubble telescope. The astronomers conducted a study based on their observations. The study was published in late January in the journal Nature.
Many people see black holes as a destructive force. While this has often been the case in the past, new evidence suggests black holes also play a role in the development of new stars. In fact, the black hole at the center of the Henize 2-10 galaxy is birthing new stars instead of eating them.
“Ten years ago, as a graduate student thinking I would spend my career on star formation, I looked at the data from Henize 2-10 and everything changed,” Amy Reines, the principal investigator on the new study wrote in a statement. “From the beginning I knew something unusual and special was happening in Henize 2-10.”
According to Reines, the newest capture of the galaxy provided by the Hubble telescope shows that the black hole birthing new stars is currently spewing out gas moving at around 1 million miles per hour. Because the black hole here is smaller, the outflow is moving slower than those found in larger galaxies. This, Reines and others say, is what led to the formation of new stars.
What this means for astronomers
black hole
One reason this study is important is because it will put more attention on smaller black holes. While not as large as some of their counterparts, these smaller supermassive black holes still have a very clear part to play. Reines says that black holes like the one in Henize 2-10 offer some promising possible clues. Dwarf galaxy black holes could give us an analog look at the way these space entities actually form.
Of course, there’s still a lot to break down and dig into when it comes to black holes. Seeing a black hole birthing new stars is both intriguing and inspiring.
“The era of the first black holes is not something that we have been able to see,” Reines said. “So, it really has become the big question: where did they come from? Dwarf galaxies may retain some memory of the black hole seeding scenario that has otherwise been lost to time and space.”
Diplomat says Tongan survival story fits with events 1 / 7 This photo provided by Broadcom Broadcasting shows Lisala Folau in Tonga. The incredible story of Folau, a retired carpenter who survived overnight in the ocean after the Tonga tsunami swept him out to sea, appeared to fit with events at the time, a New Zealand diplomat said Friday, Jan. 21, 2022.
(Marian Kupu/Broadcom Broadcasting via AP)More NICK PERRY Fri, January 21, 2022
WELLINGTON, New Zealand (AP) — The incredible story of a retired carpenter who survived overnight in the ocean after the Tonga tsunami swept him out to sea appeared to fit with events at the time, a New Zealand diplomat said Friday.
“It’s one of these miracles that happens,” said Acting High Commissioner Peter Lund on a satellite phone from Tonga, where communications remain patchy.
The story of 57-year-old Lisala Folau, who has disabilities that make walking difficult, has captivated people in Tonga and around the world. Some have affectionately dubbed him “Aquaman.”
In a translated interview with Tonga's BroadCom Broadcasting, Folau said he was swept out to sea at about 7 p.m. Saturday from his home on Atata island and floated overnight before making landfall on an uninhabited island.
From there, he said that he drifted or swam another eight hours to a second deserted island before finally swimming again to the main island of Tongatapu, a total journey of more than 7.5 kilometers (4.7 miles) spread over 26 hours.
Lund said that when he had his first briefing with Tongan government officials on Sunday, the day after the tsunami but before Folau was found, they told him a person was missing from Atata island.
“And they weren't very optimistic about it,” Lund said.
But officials later revised their figures to indicate no one was missing from the island.
In an interview with Britain's Sky News, Folau described how he felt during the experience.
“The scariest part to me during the ordeal was when the waves took me from land into the sea,” he said.
“What came into my mind when I was helpless at sea were two things," he added. "One, that I still had faith in God. Two, is my family. And I only remember how my family will think, at that moment, ‘Maybe he died.’”
Folau said he had been working at his home doing some painting when his brother told him a tsunami wave was moving toward the tiny island, which has a population of about 60.
A video was shot the next day on Atata by Folau's son Koli Folau, who went searching for his father. The video shows that almost nothing was left standing on the island other than a church, where many of the villagers took shelter.
What’s making ‘other-worldly’ sounds in Ohio wilderness?
Experts have odd explanation
Mark Price Fri, January 21, 2022
Eerie popping sounds are being heard in Ohio’s frozen wilderness and experts say it’s not being caused by humans, animals or insects.
The source — as crazy as it sounds — is trees.
“With temperatures getting ready to dip well below the freezing point, some of you may hear some rather alarming sounds out in the woods,” Hocking Hills State Park in Ohio wrote Dec. 20 on Facebook.
“It may sound like gunfire, ricochet or even something other-worldly. ...What you are hearing are the sounds of the trees enduring the most brutal winter weather.”
Sap in the trees can literally explode out of the bark, as temperatures fall into the single digits and lower, experts say. (A low of 3 degrees was forecast Jan. 21 at the park in southeastern Ohio.)
“Once the temps drop low enough, even the most resistant sap will freeze solid inside of the tree,” park officials said.
“What happens to water when it freezes? It expands! As the sap inside the tree freezes and expands, it can cause the trees to split under the pressure. This splitting happens abruptly and creates a terribly loud bang which can amplify across the frozen winter landscape.”
The park shared a photo showing what the splits can look like, and they are surprisingly straight, like a deep gash.
Trees are damaged during the splitting process, but they are typically resilient enough for the “cut” to heal quickly, experts say.
Attempts are being made by the park to record the often bone-chilling sounds, which staff said can leave people “completely horrified of what could be out in the woods.”
The Facebook post has gotten hundreds of reactions and comments in the past day, including people who said they’ve heard the noises, but never knew the source.
“It’s very eerie to walk through the woods and hear this!” Leah Patton Whitmore wrote.
Hocking Hills State Park is about 55 miles southeast of Columbus and is know for its “towering cliffs, waterfalls, and deep, hemlock-shaded gorges,” according to the Ohio Department of Natural Resources.
China criticizes US missile sanctions as hypocrisy Workers wearing masks stand near missiles produced by China Aerospace Science and Industry Corp.displayed during the 13th China International Aviation and Aerospace Exhibition, also known as Airshow China 2021 on Tuesday, Sept. 28, 2021 in Zhuhai in southern China's Guangdong province. China on Friday, Jan. 21, 2022 criticized Washington for imposing sanctions on Chinese companies the U.S. says exported missile technology and accused the United States of hypocrisy for selling nuclear-capable cruise missiles. (AP Photo/Ng Han Guan)More
Fri, January 21, 2022
BEIJING (AP) — China on Friday criticized Washington for imposing sanctions on Chinese companies the U.S. says exported missile technology, and accused the United States of hypocrisy for selling nuclear-capable cruise missiles.
The United States announced penalties on three companies it said were engaged in unspecified “missile technology proliferation activities." It said they were barred from U.S. markets and from obtaining technology that can be used to make weapons.
“This is a typical hegemonic action. China strongly deplores and firmly opposes it,” said Foreign Ministry spokesperson Zhao Lijian. “China urges the United States to immediately correct its mistakes, revoke the relevant sanctions and stop suppressing Chinese enterprises and smearing China.” China accounted for about 5% of global weapons exports in 2016-20, according to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute. The United States was the top global exporter, accounting for 37% of the total in 2016-20.
Cruise missiles and long-range ballistic missiles are regarded as among China's strengths in weapons technology.
Zhao defended Beijing's controls on weapons exports. He said China opposes proliferation of weapons of mass destruction and strictly controls exports of missiles.
“Normal cooperation between China and relevant countries doesn't violate any international law and doesn't involve proliferation" of weapons of mass destruction, Zhao said.
Zhao pointed to U.S. plans to sell Australia's government Tomahawk cruise missiles capable of carrying nuclear warheads.
“The United States has overtly pursued double standards,” Zhao said.
The latest U.S. penalties apply to China Aerospace Science and Technology Corp. First Academy, China Aerospace Science and Industry Corp. Fourth Academy and Poly Technologies Inc. and their subsidiaries.
Chinese social media users believe Canada deliberately sent Omicron through 'poison' letter
Bryan Ke Thu, January 20, 2022, 11:53 AM·2 min read
Chinese social media users have supported Beijing’s narrative that Canada sent a package of “poison” into China’s capital, explaining how the Omicron variant of COVID-19 entered the city.
One viral post on Weibo suggested that someone “deliberately” sent the alleged contaminated letter to Beijing, further warning other users to “be alert toward international mail,” according to Insider.
“The people of certain countries, the blackness in their hearts is powerful!” the Weibo user wrote. “At every turn, it's the responsibility of a foreign country,” another user declared.
Beijing had placed an office building on lockdown on Saturday after officials recorded the first entry of the Omicron variant in the city, NextShark previously reported. The government said the person infected by the variant did not leave the city and did not make contact with another confirmed case in the past 14 days.
Pang Xinghuo, deputy director of the Beijing Center for Disease Prevention and Control, suspected that the person got infected through “an object from overseas,” a 22-page letter from Toronto that arrived in Beijing on Jan. 11.
The Beijing Center for Disease Prevention and Control claimed to have tested 54 other packages from “the same source” and discovered strains of the Omicron variant on five of the packages. People who handled the letter are now under quarantine, while eight people who might have contact with it tested negative, South China Morning Post reported.
The Public Health Agency of Canada has debunked Beijing’s narrative, explaining that “the virus is primarily transmitted through the air,” CBC reported.
“While mail may be contaminated, the risk of COVID-19 infection when handling paper mail or cardboard packages, including international mail, is extremely low," the health agency said in a statement. “We know that the virus is most frequently transmitted when people are in close contact with others who are infected with the virus (either with or without symptoms)."
The World Health Organization and the United States’ Centers for Disease Control and Prevention also said that there is a low risk of getting infected after touching contaminated surfaces.
Although there is no scientific evidence behind it, some Chinese scientists reportedly promoted the “cold chain theory” to explain how COVID-19 entered China before the pandemic. The theory suggests that the virus arrived in the country through imported frozen food.
Exclusive-Myanmar junta backs Telenor unit sale after buyer M1 pairs with local firm - sources Telenor's logo is seen in central Belgrade
Thu, January 20, 2022 By Poppy McPherson and Fanny Potkin
BANGKOK (Reuters) -Lebanon's M1 Group will partner with a Myanmar firm to take over Norwegian telco Telenor's business in the Southeast Asian country after its military junta sought a local buyer, three sources familiar with the matter told Reuters.
Telenor https://www.reuters.com/business/media-telecom/telenor-sells-myanmar-operations-m1-group-105-mln-2021-07-08, one of the biggest foreign investors in Myanmar, said in July it was selling its operations there to M1 Group for $105 million, retreating from a country that has slid into chaos after a military coup in February last year.
Its exit has been mired in difficulties as the junta piles pressure on telecom and internet companies to install surveillance technology and bars senior executives from leaving the country.
Military leaders late last year rejected the sale solely to M1.
Instead, they privately approved a partnership between M1 Group and Myanmar's Shwe Byain Phyu Group, the three sources said. Two of the sources said Shwe Byain Phyu would be the majority shareholder. They declined to be identified because of the sensitivity of the matter.
Shwe Byain Phyu is a group of companies with interests in gem mining and petrol stations. Its chairman, Thein Win Zaw, is a director of Mahar Yoma Public Company, part of a consortium that has a stake in the military-owned telco Mytel, corporate records show. He did not respond to a request from Reuters for comment on the sale and his links to the military.
An October order from the office of junta leader Min Aung Hlaing seen by Reuters instructed officials at the Ministry of Transport and Communications, the regulatory body, to reject the sale to M1 Group, which is owned by the family of Lebanese Prime Minister Najib Mikati.
The order did not state a reason but the sources familiar with the matter said the junta favoured a local buyer.
Representatives of M1 Group, which is based in Beirut, did not immediately answer phone calls from Reuters seeking comment. A junta representative did not respond to requests for comment.
The decision was not made public and one person briefed on the matter said it was not conveyed to Telenor.
A spokesperson for Telenor said it was waiting for a response to its application for regulatory approval of the sale and declined to comment further.
In November, Reuters reported https://www.reuters.com/world/asia-pacific/telenor-sale-myanmar-unit-stalls-junta-seeks-local-buyer-participation-sources-2021-11-09 that several Myanmar firms had expressed an interest in buying Telenor Myanmar’s operations and that M1 had held talks with Shwe Byain Phyu about a partnership.
The two firms made a joint proposal to take over the Telenor unit that was accepted by the junta leadership a month later, the industry sources said.
Two of the sources said the new venture would be named Atom.
SURVEILLANCE CONCERNS
Activists have expressed concerns that Telenor's exit could deepen the junta's surveillance of the population. It is one of four telecom operators in Myanmar, alongside Qatar's Ooredoo, state-backed MPT and Mytel, which is part-owned by a military-linked company.
Activist group Justice for Myanmar called on Telenor on Friday to suspend the sale.
"The fact that Shwe Byain Phyu is a buyer, a conglomerate with known links to the Myanmar military, deepens the risk to Myanmar people, whose personal data is exposed through the sale," spokesperson Yadanar Maung told Reuters.
Telenor has said its handover to a new buyer would include all assets, including call data records, in accordance with licence obligations.
Reuters found last year telecom and internet service providers had been secretly ordered https://www.reuters.com/world/asia-pacific/how-myanmars-military-moved-telecoms-sector-spy-citizens-2021-05-18 in the months before the coup to install intercept technology that would allow the army to eavesdrop on the communications of citizens.
Telenor said https://www.reuters.com/world/norways-telenor-says-myanmar-unit-sale-came-after-juntas-pressure-surveillance-2021-09-15 in September it was pulling out of the country to avoid European Union sanctions after “continued pressure” from the junta to activate the technology.
Since the Feb. 1 coup, Myanmar security forces have killed more than 1,400 people and arrested thousands to try to crush opposition, the non-governmental organisation Assistance Association for Political Prisoners said.
The junta disputes the casualty figures.
The military seized power alleging widespread fraud in a November 2020 election won by a landslide by the civilian government led by Aung San Suu Kyi. International and local monitoring groups said there were no major irregularities with the vote.
The junta has imposed nationwide and regional shutdowns of mobile data, making it harder for democracy activists to organise protests. It also issued a confidential order https://www.reuters.com/world/asia-pacific/exclusive-after-pressuring-telecom-firms-myanmars-junta-bans-executives-leaving-2021-07-05 in July restricting senior foreign telecom executives from leaving the country without permission.
(Reporting by Poppy McPherson and Fanny Potkin; editing by Barbara Lewis and Carmel Crimmins)
‘Mystery whale’ spotted in Washington’s Puget Sound is one of the world’s longest
Spotting it may have been a “rare gift,” experts said.
The Pacific Whale Watch Association said Jan. 20 the visitor was actually a fin whale, one of the longest species of whales on the planet.
“Experts have confirmed that the mystery whale in Puget Sound last week was indeed a fin whale,” the association said on Facebook. “Fin whales are second to the blue whale as the longest whales on Earth.”
Fin whales can grow up to 85 feet, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. The whale’s spotting in Puget Sound was very rare, experts said.
The fin whale spent a week near Seattle’s northern shoreline, according to Orca Network, a nonprofit dedicated to the Pacific Northwest’s whale population.
“To have such an impressively large and gorgeous being spend time this far inland in our urban waterways is a rare gift,” the group said on Facebook. “These encounters were deeply moving experiences.”
Fin whales have V-shaped heads and can be easy to distinguish because of the fin on its back, NOAA said. The species was targeted by the whaling industry decades ago, which severely lowered their populations.
The fin whale is listed as an endangered species and is also considered depleted under the Marine Mammal Protection Act, according to NOAA.
“It may still be around, so keep those eyes peeled,” the Pacific Whale Watch Association said of this particular fin whale.
These machines scrub greenhouse gases from the air – an inventor of direct air capture technology shows how it works
Klaus Lackner,
Professor of Engineering and Director of the Center for Negative Carbon Emissions, Arizona State University
Thu, January 20, 2022, One 'mechanical tree' is about 1,000 times faster at removing carbon dioxide from air than a natural tree. The first is to start operating in Arizona in 2022. Illustration via Arizona State University
Two centuries of burning fossil fuels has put more carbon dioxide, a powerful greenhouse gas, into the atmosphere than nature can remove. As that CO2 builds up, it traps excess heat near Earth’s surface, causing global warming. There is so much CO2 in the atmosphere now that most scenarios show ending emissions alone won’t be enough to stabilize the climate – humanity will also have to remove CO2 from the air.
The U.S. Department of Energy has a new goal to scale up direct air capture, a technology that uses chemical reactions to capture CO2 from air. While federal funding for carbon capture often draws criticism because some people see it as an excuse for fossil fuel use to continue, carbon removal in some form will likely still be necessary, IPCC reports show. Technology to remove carbon mechanically is in development and operating at a very small scale, in part because current methods are prohibitively expensive and energy intensive. But new techniques are being tested this year that could help lower the energy demand and cost.
We asked Arizona State University Professor Klaus Lackner, a pioneer in direct air capture and carbon storage, about the state of the technology and where it’s headed. What is direct carbon removal and why is it considered necessary?
When I got interested in carbon management in the early 1990s, what drove me was the observation that carbon piles up in the environment. It takes nature thousands of years to remove that CO2, and we’re on a trajectory toward much higher CO2 concentrations, well beyond anything humans have experienced.
Humanity can’t afford to have increasing amounts of excess carbon floating around in the environment, so we have to get it back out.
Not all emissions are from large sources, like power plants or factories, where we can capture CO2 as it comes out. So we need to deal with the other half of emissions – from cars, planes, taking a hot shower while your gas furnace is putting out CO2. That means pulling CO2 out of the air.
Since CO2 mixes quickly in the air, it doesn’t matter where in the world the CO2 is removed – the removal has the same impact. So we can place direct air capture technology right where we plan to use or store the CO2.
The method of storage is also important. Storing CO2 for just 60 years or 100 years isn’t good enough. If 100 years from now all that carbon is back in the environment, all we did was take care of ourselves, and our grandkids have to figure it out again. In the meantime, the world’s energy consumption is growing at about 2% per year. One of the complaints about direct air capture, in addition to the cost, is that it’s energy intensive. Can that energy use be reduced?
Two large energy uses in direct air capture are running fans to draw in air and then heating to extract the CO2. There are ways to reduce energy demand for both.
For example, we stumbled into a material that attracts CO2 when it’s dry and releases it when wet. We realized we could expose that material to wind and it would load up with CO2. Then we could make it wet and it would release the CO2 in a way that requires far less energy than other systems. Adding heat created from renewable energy raises the CO2 pressure even higher, so we have a CO2 gas mixed with water vapor from which we can collect pure CO2. Climeworks, a Swiss company, has 15 plants removing carbon dioxide from the air. Climeworks
We can save even more energy if the capture is passive – it isn’t necessary to have fans blowing the air around; the air moves on its own.
My lab is creating a method to do this, called mechanical trees. They’re tall vertical columns of discs coated with a chemical resin, about 5 feet in diameter, with the discs about 2 inches apart, like a stack of records. As the air blows through, the surfaces of the discs absorb CO2. After 20 minutes or so, the discs are full, and they sink into a barrel below. We send in water and steam to release the CO2 into a closed environment, and now we have a low-pressure mixture of water vapor and CO2. We can recover most of the heat that went into heating up the box, so the amount of energy needed for heating is quite small.
By using moisture, we can avoid about half the energy consumption and use renewable energy for the rest. This does require water and dry air, so it won’t be ideal everywhere, but there are also other methods. Can CO2 be safely stored long term, and is there enough of that type of storage?
I started working on the concept of mineral sequestration in the 1990s, leading a group at Los Alamos. The world can actually put CO2 away permanently by taking advantage of the fact that it’s an acid and certain rocks are base. When CO2 reacts with minerals that are rich in calcium, it forms solid carbonates. By mineralizing the CO2 like this, we can store a nearly unlimited amount of carbon permanently.
For example, there’s lots of basalt – volcanic rock – in Iceland that reacts with CO2 and turns it into solid carbonates within a few months. Iceland could sell certificates of carbon sequestration to the rest of the world because it puts CO2 away for the rest of the world.
There are also huge underground reservoirs from oil production in the Permian Basin in Texas. There are large saline aquifers. In the North Sea, a kilometer below the ocean floor, the energy company Equinor has been capturing CO2 from a gas processing plant and storing a million tons of CO2 a year since 1996, avoiding Norway’s tax on CO2 releases. The amount of underground storage where we can do mineral sequestration is far larger than we will ever need for CO2. The question is how much can be converted into proven reserve. Klaus Lackner tests direct air capture technologies in his lab. Arizona State University
We can also use direct air capture to close the carbon loop – meaning CO2 is reused, captured and reused again to avoid producing more. Right now, people use carbon from fossil fuels to extract energy. You can convert CO2 to synthetic fuels – gasoline, diesel or kerosene – that have no new carbon in them by mixing the captured CO2 with green hydrogen created with renewable energy. That fuel can easily ship through existing pipelines and be stored for years, so you can produce heat and electricity in Boston on a winter night using energy that was collected as sunshine in West Texas last summer. A tankful of “synfuel” doesn’t cost much, and it’s more cost-effective than a battery. The Department of Energy set a new goal to slash the costs of carbon dioxide removal to US0 per ton and quickly scale it up within a decade. What has to happen to make that a reality?
DOE is scaring me because they make it sound like the technology is already ready. After neglecting the technology for 30 years, we can’t just say there are companies who know how to do it and all we have to do is push it along. We have to assume this is a nascent technology.
Climeworks is the largest company doing direct capture commercially, and it sells CO2 at around 0 to ,000 per ton . That’s too expensive. On the other hand, at per ton, the world could do it. I think we can get there.
The U.S. consumes about 7 million tons of CO2 a year in merchant CO2 – think fizzy drinks, fire extinguishers, grain silos use it to control grain powder, which is an explosion hazard. The average price is -0. So below 0 you have a market.
What you really need is a regulatory framework that says we demand CO2 is put away, and then the market will move from capturing kilotons of CO2 today to capturing gigatons of CO2. Where do you see this technology going in 10 years?
I see a world that abandons fossil fuels, probably gradually, but has a mandate to capture and store all the CO2 long term.
Our recommendation is when carbon comes out of the ground, it should be matched with an equal removal. If you produce 1 ton of carbon associated with coal, oil or gas, you need to put 1 ton away. It doesn’t have to be the same ton, but there has to be a certificate of sequestration that assures it has been put away, and it has to last more than 100 years. If all carbon is certified from the moment it comes out of the ground, it’s harder to cheat the system.
A big unknown is how hard industry and society will push to become carbon neutral. It’s encouraging to see companies like Microsoft and Stripe buying carbon credits and certificates to remove CO2 and willing to pay fairly high prices.
New technology can take a decade or two to penetrate, but if the economic pull is there, things can go fast. The first commercial jet was available in 1951. By 1965 they were ubiquitous.
Why we can’t reverse climate change with ‘negative emissions’ technologies Klaus Lackner is a Scientific Advisor to Carbon Collect and holds shares in the company, which is working with Arizona State University on developing an air capture device. He also advises Aircela, which is developing a household-scale system to convert ambient carbon dioxide into synthetic fuel. Lackner’s work in carbon management has over three decades been supported by research grants from private companies, foundations, universities and the U.S. Department of Energy.
