Coronavirus Live Updates : NPR

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U.N. Predicts Rise In Diseases That Jump From Animals To Humans Due To Habitat Loss : Coronavirus Live Updates : NPR

A new United Nations report warns that more diseases that pass from animals to humans, such as COVID-19, are likely to emerge as habitats are ravaged by wildlife exploitation, unsustainable farming practices and climate change.

These pathogens, known as zoonotic diseases, also include Ebola, MERS, HIV/AIDS and West Nile virus. They have increasingly emerged because of stresses humans have placed on animal habitats, according to the U.N. Environment Program report Preventing the Next Pandemic: Zoonotic diseases and how to break the chain of transmission, released on Monday.

10 products you may not realise are threatened by the CO2 shortage

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10 products you may not realise are threatened by the CO2 shortage

In total, the world consumes about 80m tonnes of CO₂ per year. Annual CO₂ emissions are currently around 32 billion tonnes, but we have experienced the worst CO₂ supply shortage in decades in the UK. Most of the UK's CO₂ demand is met as a byproduct from the fertiliser industry that generally closes operations during the summer months. We do produce CO₂ from many other sources, but despite the development of CO₂ capture technologies, these are not deployed at the commercial pace needed to actually be able to use it.

 Most people think of carbon dioxide as a waste product that is causing global warming but it turns out the world uses it for a wide variety of foods and industries. Often waste products are actually valuable products if can be processed and moved to an appropriate location. 

 

I was listening to the radio this morning and they’re talking about police abuse. 👮

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I was listening to the radio this morning and they’re talking about police abuse. 👮

I don’t agree with the tough tactics against so called bad officers or saying that there are just some bad apples in the force that can just be rooted out. That’s terribly unfair to the individual officers and leads to zero accountability to governments they represent.

Too often institutions crucify individual actors rather than have accountability. Why reform police departments, when you can go after bad cops? It’s the perfect excuse for government agencies that are resistant to rooting out corruption.

B. F. Skinner and the behavioralists in the 1960s pointed out we are all creatures of our environment – we’re just rats in the Skinner box. Police officers are just workers in their institution, they enforce the laws and norms they are tasked to do in the way they are told to do it.

If we want to fix things, we need to look at reworking and replacing bad institutions rather than making scapegoats out of individuals.

July 7, 2020 Morning

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Good morning! Happy Tuesday. Partly sunny and 63 degrees at the Green Mountain National Forest. There is a south-southeast breeze at 6 mph. 🍃. The dew point is 61 degrees. Not super hot but I expect it to get warmer later on.

Cooking up some eggs and sausage for breakfast. 🍳 I expect a hot day today but I’m fine with that. It should be a nice day and I’ll cool off down at Grout Pond later on in the day. 🏊

Today will be mostly sunny 🌞, with a high of 78 degrees at 4pm. Four degrees below normal, which is similar to a typical day around June 16th. Maximum dew point of 65 at 4pm. Muggy though. South wind 6 to 9 mph. That will help. A year ago, we had mostly sunny skies. The high last year was 81 degrees. The record high of 97 was set in 1988.

Solar noon 🌞 is at 12:57 pm with sun having an altitude of 69.5° from the due south horizon (-0.9° vs. 6/21). The golden hour 🏅 starts at 7:51 pm with the sun in the west-northwest (295°). 📸 The sunset is in the west-northwest (303°) with the sun dropping below the horizon at 8:34 pm after setting for 3 minutes and 27 seconds with dusk around 9:07 pm, which is 22 seconds earlier than yesterday. 🌇 The best time to look at the stars is after 9:53 pm. At sunset, look for possible thunderstorms 🌩 and temperatures around 71 degrees. The dew point will be 64 degrees. There will be a south-southeast breeze at 8 mph. Today will have 15 hours and 12 minutes of daytime, a decrease of one minute and 4 seconds over yesterday.

Tonight will have isolated showers and thunderstorms. ⚡ Mostly cloudy ☁, with a low of 65 degrees at 3am. Four degrees above normal. Maximum dew point of 65 at 6pm. South wind 5 to 8 mph. Chance of precipitation is 20%. In 2019, we had mostly clear skies. It got down to 57 degrees. The record low of 43 occurred back in 1969.

On this day in 1981, U.S. President Ronald Reagan appoints Sandra Day O’Connor to become the first female member of the Supreme Court of the United States. 👩That’s almost as cool as sliced bread, which is sold for the first time by the Chillico the Baking Company in 1921.🍞

Hot, humid and wet this weekend. 😰 Saturday, a chance of showers, then showers likely and possibly a thunderstorm after 2pm. Mostly cloudy, with a high near 80. Chance of precipitation is 70%. Maximum dew point of 70 at 12pm. Sunday, showers likely and possibly a thunderstorm. Partly sunny, with a high near 81. Chance of precipitation is 70%. Maximum dew point of 68 at 11am. Like a swamp. Typical average high for the weekend is 82 degrees.

Looking ahead, there are 17 weeks until Election Day 2020 🗳️ when the sun will be setting at 4:40 pm with dusk at 5:10 pm (Standard Time). On that day in 2019, we had partly sunny skies, with rain showers and temperatures between 53 and 30 degrees. Sounds nice compared to the hot weather of recent. But I was so sick last year with Lyme. Typically, the high temperature is 53 degrees. We hit a record high of 75 back in 1990.

Near Dusk