Methane is 80 times more potent than carbon dioxide in heating up Earth on a 20-year timescale. Yet, just as carbon dioxide concentrations in the atmosphere keep rising, despite everything our governments claim they are doing to curb it, so do levels of methane. This dangerous gas is now at two and half times pre-industrial levels.
Category: Human Rights (Page 9 of 12)
Evan Williams is joined by Jason Goldman in an interview by Emily Chang for Bloomberg
In a challenge to the leader of the opposition, Prime Minister Trudeau said » ‘If he has a better plan, let him say it because we’ve been waiting a long time for it. But he has no plan to fight climate change, he still questions whether it exists while Canada is burning’
Stand up for Ukraine 🇺🇦
Tucker Carlson described Ukraine’s Jewish leader as “rat-like”, questioned the official story about 9/11, and claimed definitively that aliens are visiting Earth as he launched his new TV show on Twitter.
The far-right former Fox News anchor opened the next act of his career with a pro-Kremlin rant claiming that it was “obvious” Ukrainian forces were responsible for the destruction of the Kakhovka dam on Tuesday.
He referred to Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky as “sweaty and rat-like”, “a persecutor of Christians”, and in bed with American investment bankers.
That is likely ramp up the pressure on Conservative Prime Minister Rishi Sunak.
Labour could win 470 seats at the election, with the Tories plummeting to just 129, according to the baseline scenario of an MRP poll by Focaldata, which asked 10,140 people in Great Britain how they intend to vote. That would give Labour a huge majority of more than 140 seats, it said.
California Governor Gavin Newsom threatened the Florida Governor with kidnapping charges after South American migrants were flown to Sacramento as a media stunt.
Meanwhile
Salon » Texas sheriff files charges over DeSantis’ migrant stunt
In 2022, Florida paid the same contractor US$1.56 million with public funds to fly migrants from Texas to Martha’s Vineyard, Massachusetts, and for a possible second flight to Delaware that never took place. (AP)
LA Times | NY Times | Axios | The Guardian | Texas Tribune
The Human Rights Campaign issued a state of emergency for LGBTQ+ people living in the USA.
More than 525 bills were introduced in 41 states. Over 76 bills have been signed into law in various states as of June 5 – already more than double last year’s number, which was already the worst year on record.
“The multiplying threats facing millions in our community are not just perceived — they are real, tangible and dangerous,” the president of the Human Rights Campaign said in a statement. The organization also released a guidebook summarizing state-by-state anti-LGBTQ laws, as well as a “know your rights” guide for LGBTQ+ travelers and those living in hostile states.
Hundreds of anti-transgender bills proposed in state legislatures are sold as measures to protect minors—such as Idaho’s Vulnerable Child Protection Act and Montana’s Youth Health Protection Act—but advocacy groups and doctors warn that the effect is exactly the opposite.
Russia continues to live up to it’s brand as a ‘terrorist state’.
The Nova Kakhovka hydroelectric power station sits on the Dnipro River in the Kherson region which Russia occupies. Evacuations down river are underway. There is no immediate risk to the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant further down the river,
The Ukrainian nuclear energy corporation, Energoatom, put out a statement on the Telegram social media platform saying the situation at the plant, the biggest nuclear power station in Europe, was “under control”.
The Guardian | NY Times | VoA | Euronews | UN
Good news » US Interior Secretary Deb Haaland announced new protections Friday June 2, 2023 for New Mexico’s Chaco Culture National Historical Park, barring oil and gas development for 20 years within a 10-mile radius of the area.
» Media Release / Reuters / NY Times /
Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau says Ukraine matters to the World and that Russia “must not succeed”.
The genie is out of the bottle. AI will be used and misused, a tool and a weapon. The threats and opportunities will grow. Many will be harmed in the name of progress.
However, the U.S. based Council on Foreign Relations is leaving that question open »
Some experts believe this increasingly powerful technology could lead to amazing advances and prosperity. Yet, many tech and industry leaders are warning that AI poses substantial risks, and they are calling for a moratorium on AI research so that safety measures can be established. But amid mounting great-power competition, it’s unclear whether national governments will be able to coordinate on regulating this technology that offers so many economic and strategic opportunities.
Luckily the researcher had told us that they had carried out their research using ChatGPT. In response to being asked about articles on this subject, the AI had simply made some up. Its fluency, and the vast training data it is built on, meant that the existence of the invented piece even seemed believable to the person who absolutely hadn’t written it.
Huge amounts have been written about generative AI’s tendency to manufacture facts and events. But this specific wrinkle – the invention of sources – is particularly troubling for trusted news organisations and journalists whose inclusion adds legitimacy and weight to a persuasively written fantasy.
Woke up this morning to news of a horrific railroad disaster in India.
My thoughts are with the victims, victims’ families and friends, first responders, and all those affected.
NY Times | Euro News | The Guardian | NPR | VOA | Al Jazeera
“Give the world the best you have, and you will be kicked in the teeth. Give the world the best you’ve got, anyway.”
~ Hedy Lamarr
The actress Hedy Lamarr captivated audiences during the 1930s and 1940s in films like “Algiers” and “Ziegfeld Girl,” and became known as an iconic beauty. “Bombshell: The Hedy Lamarr Story,” a new documentary, showcases her overlooked achievements in technology, including her work on an invention that helped form the basis for Wi-Fi.
During WWII, the screen starlet wanted to help the Allies. So, she invented a secret communication system. The military used it a little. But in the 1960s, they finally caught up to Hedy’s invention and began using it for cellular, Wi-Fi, and GPS signals.
“You, sir, present an ongoing threat and a peril to this country, to the republic and to the very fabric of our democracy,” Judge Amit Mehta told Stewart Rhodes, adding, “For years, its clear that you have wanted the democracy in this country to devolve into violence and you have thought that violence is an acceptable means of accomplishing your ends.”
Michael J. Fox is proud to be the face of Parkison’s, but it hasn’t always been that way. The actor-turned-activist met in New York with CBC’s Harry Forestell, who is also living with Parkinson’s, to talk about learning to accept the disease and opening up about his fight in the new documentary,
19 students and 2 teachers lost their lives at the Robb Elementary School massacre in Uvalde, Texas, a year ago, on May 24, 2022. May these innocent lives rest in peace.
Not much, if anything has changed for the better. More guns. More mass shootings. Americans, as a whole, appear to have become desensitized to mass killings that occur with alarming regularity. In the year since 21 people were killed at Robb Elementary School, the US has seen at least 600 other mass shootings.
NY Times » How grief has warped the lives of the Uvalde shooting victims’ families and friends.
Mother Jones » The Uvalde Massacre Could Have Been Prevented had it not been for the disastrous police response
Axios » Politicians have expanded gun access in the US since Uvalde