Monday, January 24, 2022

Scientists Warn that Sixth Mass Extinction Has ‘Probably Started’

 The death of democracy is not likely to be an assassination from ambush. It will be a slow extinction from apathy, indifference, and undernourishment.

— Robert Maynard Hutchins, born  in 1899


Boris Johnson’s staff accused of more rule-breaking parties inside No 10 BBC. Insider commentary



Bitter Fruit: Marshall McLuhan and the Rise of Fake News Quillette : “There’s more blame for the corrupted MSM to go around than just to McLuhan.”

 

FedEx Asks FAA to Let It Install Anti-Missile Lasers on Planes Gizmodo I can’t even….


Godzilla v. Mothra, 5G Edition

5G goes live in the US and sparks international chaos: British Airways and Cathay Pacific become latest carriers scrambling to change transatlantic flights over safety fears around airports as AT&T and Verizon activate their networks at 90% Daily Mail Note Japan’s JAL and ANA have also cancelled flights. And:

Delta Air Lines released a statement that the company ‘is planning for the possibility of weather-related cancellations caused by the deployment of new 5G service in the vicinity of dozens of U.S. airports starting as early as Wednesday.’ 

 

What’s up with 5G and airplanes?! YouTube (dcblogger). A must watch for understanding the technical issues. Makes clear that the FCC has abjectly misrepresented what France has done and that France actually tested…with a much safer and lower power 5G implementation than in the US, and that there really is some risk.

 

Emirates, Air India, and others cancel flights due to AT&T and Verizon’s 5G rollout The Verge. Kevin W: “America now being declared a no-fly zone.”


 EUGENE VOLOKH ON the right to defy criminal demands.


Scientists Warn that Sixth Mass Extinction Has ‘Probably Started’

Vice: “Over the past 450 million years, life on Earth has been devastated by at least five mass extinctions, which are typically defined as catastrophes that wipe out more than 75 percent of species in a short amount of time. Many scientists have proposed that we are entering a Sixth Mass Extinction, this time driven by human activity, though debates still rage over the validity and consequences of this claim. Now, a team led by Robert Cowie, research professor at the University of Hawaii’s Pacific Biosciences Research Center, argues that “the Sixth Mass Extinction has begun on land and in freshwater seems increasingly likely,” according to a recent article published in Biological Reviews.  “We consider that the Sixth Mass Extinction has probably started and present arguments to counter those who would deny this,” said the team, which also included biologists Philippe Bouchet and Benoît Fontaine of the Muséum National d’Histoire Naturelle in Paris, France, in the article. “Denying it is simply flying in the face of the mountain of data that is rapidly accumulating, and there is no longer room for skepticism, wondering whether it really is happening,” added the authors…”