Boris Johnson was a natural-born US citizen but gave up his citizenship to hold political office in the UK.
Boris Johnson was a natural-born US citizen but gave up his citizenship to hold political office in the UK.
We’re used to viruses that have narrow cell types they can infect. Rhinoviruses can infect mucus membranes in the head and maybe throat. Influenza can infect the same plus lung tissue.
These coronaviruses can infect so many cell types. Because it’s spread via the air, it almost always infects mucus membranes of the head first, then moves to lungs (or maybe it infects lungs first in some people). So we think of it as a respiratory virus at first.
Now we know it can infect tissues of the gut, fat, T cells, and the testes. There was a wave of orchitis/epididymitis that was discovered to be coronavirus caused. I’m not sure if it’s considered COVID, I think COVID is the respiratory disease caused by coronavirus, but not sure about other diseases. Similar to how the varicella virus causes two diseases: chicken pox and shingles.
At one point in time, the goal was to remain below 1.5C heating (I forget over which time frame), with the worst effects kicking in at 2.0C. I believe one of the recent IPCC reports suggest to stay near 2.0C, we have to sequester carbon using a process that’s not invented yet.
I believe that current thought is that we will reach 2.0 C of heating even if we stop fossil fuel usage, entirely, tomorrow.
My post was pretty pessimistic, but the reality is pretty bad. The reason that all that carbon was sequestered prior to burning it is that plant life existed before fungi for a significant amount of time. Plants would sequester carbon, die and fall, then remain and not rot.
Today, sequestering carbon can only be done by adding biomass. Trees sequester carbon until they die, then release all of the carbon back into the atmosphere (either quickly in a forest fire or slowly as they rot). Existing forests really aren’t doing much sequestering once they reach steady-state biomass (growing trees balanced by rotting trees).
I have no idea what the cycle is in the ocean, though. I know it’s 70% of Earth’s photosynthesis. Maybe the situation is not quite as dire.
The future is uncertain, perhaps humanity will figure out methods to mitigate things. There are thoughts that injecting synthetic volcano ash into the atmosphere might be feasible with today’s technology. This would emulate the cooling effect seen with volcanic eruptions that reach high enough. The effect can last a couple of years.
Unless Biden decides not to run, I’m almost certainly going to vote for him. Not voting or voting third party puts us closer to authoritarian leaders.
Although at this point, I’m kind of wondering if the GOP has it right on climate change. If climate change is a giant volcano, humanity is free-falling directly into it. The GOP wants to point headfirst and tuck our arms by our side to speed towards it. The DNC wants to deploy a parachute that will ensure we slow down, but still fall into the volcano much more slowly and painfully.
Sorry Earth. Humanity fucked it up. We were too stupid to figure out fossil fuels and greenhouse gasses early in industrialization. When it was realized at first, greedy business executives hid it from society. When society at large became aware of it, we were too selfish to give up fossil fuels. By the time green energy was made feasible, it was too late to avoid 2C, which may trigger positive feedback processes that humans have no hope of controlling.
I’m not falling into the trap of “it’s too late so let’s not do anything and drill, baby, drill”, but some days I wonder if the radical energy policy will extend the suffering.
Anyways, hope everyone has a great Thursday!
This is my account on this instance. Jerboa search doesn’t give me a ton of communities when I’m logged into my main lemmy.zip account. And I haven’t figured out a way to load a community manually on mobile that allows me to subscribe with my .zip account, so I add subscriptions infrequently on my laptop.
I think, because it’s a new platform that most of us want to see succeed, everyone is far more active to ensure the communities get established. If there’s a couple of days without a post in one of the 3d printing communities I subscribe to, someone will post a random print they find useful or ask a question about a new filament to keep it active. This low stress discussion is great.
The 3d printing community on that other site ais great, but sometimes it feels like posts don’t gain traction unless it’s on a 1 cubic meter Voron that can print PEEK (translation: very expensive/unique). On the Lemmy communities, there’s more discussions on Enders and Anycubics (translation: most common budget printers).
It’s a civil trial. The court won’t forcibly take anything from him.
I was defrauded by someone who lied on a house condition report, and the house needed $20k in work to not be condemned. I had paperwork the previous owner left in a closet that showed they were aware of the extent of the damage years before selling the house, but it was not disclosed.
Our attorney said “you can win this case. But you’ll win a $20k judgement. If they don’t pay, you have to sue again for failure to pay. If they die (they were elderly) legally the estate has to post in the local paper a notice. If you catch that notice within a couple of weeks, you will be able to claim $20k from the estate. If you miss this window, you’re SOL.”