Swiss women win major climate court case

A group of 2,000+ senior women in Switzerland have won a court case that may force European governments to do more about climate change:

The European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) ruled Tuesday that Switzerland had not acted urgently to achieve climate targets, leading victims, who are mostly in their 70s, to suffer physically and emotionally while potentially placed at risk of dying.

The women, part of a group called KlimaSeniorinnen (Senior Women for Climate Protection), filed the lawsuit nine years ago.

The court’s judgment is binding, cannot be appealed, and could “influence the law in 46 countries in Europe including the UK,” the BBC reported.

I found this in Ars Technica: https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2024/04/2000-senior-women-win-biggest-victory-possible-in-landmark-climate-case/. More information on senior women fighting climate change at https://19thnews.org/2024/01/climate-grandmothers-environmental-activism/:

These are the climate grannies. They’ll do whatever it takes to protect their grandchildren.

And more good news from FutureCrunch (bolding mine):

FBI confirms huge decline in crime in the United States
New data from over 13,000 agencies, covering all of 2023, have shown that there was a 13% decline in murder last year (the largest one-year decline ever recorded); a 6% decline in violent crime, likely the lowest rate since the late 1960s; and a 4% decline in property crime. Fox News has been strangely silent.

Online breast cancer risk calculator

A 5-Minute Quiz Revealed Olivia Munn’s Breast Cancer Risk. You Can Take It Too.

Article is about 1,100 words: https://time.com/6952723/breast-cancer-risk-assessment-tool/.

What is the Breast Cancer Risk Assessment Tool?
Who should take it?
Where do mammograms fit in?
Future innovations

Released in 1989 by the National Cancer Institute, the online questionnaire takes less than five minutes to complete and pretty accurately predicts a woman’s risk of developing breast cancer…. The questionnaire—also known as the Gail Model after its developer Dr. Mitchell Gail at the National Cancer Institute—is about 98% accurate in predicting risk of breast cancer in most women.

Here’s the calculator: https://bcrisktool.cancer.gov/calculator.html.

And random good news from Future Crunch (now calling its newsletter Fix the News):

Lichtenstein’s parliament just voted 24-1 to legalise same-sex marriage. The African Development Bank says Africa will have 11 of the 20 fastest-growing economies in the world this year. McKenzie Scott has now given away $16.5 billion from the fortune she came into after divorcing Amazon founder Jeff Bezos. Fewer middle-aged people are dying from cancer in the UK than at any other point in the last 25 years. Gene editing for sickle cell disease is expensive, but it’s going to get a lot more accessible.

Good news from 2023

Yes, the US and the world have serious problems. Yes, we are looking at an uncertain future. And yes, lots of things have gotten better and better:

Cancer? “European cancer mortality for 2023 was estimated to be 6.5% lower for men and 3.7% lower for women than in 2018, the United States reported cancer death rates have fallen by a third in the last three decades, Australia reported significant reductions in skin cancer in under 40s, there were major breakthroughs in treatments for colon, skin, bladder and cervical cancer…”

AIDS? “Two decades ago, the disease seemed unstoppable, killing two million people a year, but today, it’s a very different story. In July, the United Nations revealed that in 2022, deaths fell to 630,000, there were an estimated 1.3 million new infections, the lowest since the early 1990s, and only 130,000 new infections in children, the lowest since the 1980s.”

Clean energy? “Humanity will install an astonishing 413 GW of solar this year, 58% more than in 2022, which itself marked an almost 42% increase from 2021. That means the world’s solar capacity has doubled in the last 18 months, and that solar is now the fastest-growing energy technology in history. …If solar maintains this kind of growth, it will become the world’s dominant source of energy before the end of this decade.”

Electric vehicles? “Global electric vehicle sales increased by 36% this year, bringing the world’s total to 41 million electric vehicles. The shift is remarkable: just two years ago, one in 25 cars sold globally was an electric vehicle. This year it will be one in five, and by 2025, one in two. The IEA now says that electric vehicle sales, like solar installations, are tracking ahead of its net zero scenarios. In the United States, where the media spent much of the year insisting there’s been a slowdown, sales were up 50%…”

Suicide? “Over the past three decades, global suicide rates have fallen by more than a third, thanks primarily to rising living standards in the two most populous countries in the world.”

Women’s rights? “Uzbekistan passed a law giving women greater legal protection against gender-based violence, the Netherlands and Switzerland amended their laws to introduce a consent-based definition of rape, Sierra Leone passed landmark legislation advancing women’s rights, Oman passed a law prohibiting the termination of employment due to pregnancy, childbirth or breastfeeding. In China, a new law protecting women against discrimination and sexual harassment came into effect…”

And dozens more! https://futurecrunch.com/goodnews2023/. Sign up for their free weekly good-news email.

Malaria vaccine

The deadliest animal is the mighty mosquito, which kills more than 1 million people a year. Almost 700 million people contract a mosquito-borne illness each year. Mosquitoes carry serious diseases like malaria, dengue fever, West Nile virus, Zika virus and chikungunya that not only kill, but also result in pain, disability and prolonged illness.

Among mosquito-borne diseases, malaria is the most deadly. Scientists believe it has killed more people than any other disease spread by the insects in history. And it remains stubbornly present in the modern world: there were 619,000 deaths and 247m cases of malaria in 2021.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/oct/26/malaria-mosquito-vaccine-disease

A new vaccine is 67%-75% effective, and half the cost ($2-$4) of the previous vaccine (from 2021). Cost is very important in poor countries. And, although the US managed to eradicate malaria here in 1951, global warming and international travel make the US vulnerable again. Florida has had locally-spread malaria this year. (And you do not want to hear about the risks from dengue…)

AIDS in Africa

Amazing progress: more than 25 million lives have been saved.

Twenty years ago, HIV/AIDS was a death sentence in this region (sub-Saharan Africa). The cemeteries were full every weekend – adults cut down in their prime; children dying without access to treatment. The virus permeated every aspect of life.

Today, the HIV epidemic has faded from the headlines. It is considered by many to be a manageable condition like diabetes, thanks in no small part to an extraordinarily successful US public health initiative, that few in America may have heard of.

President George W. Bush’s State of the Union address in January 2003 was dominated by Iraq, a significant moment in the lead-up to the US’s catastrophic invasion of the country.

But few could have predicted the impact of the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR)

…

Despite being one of the world’s poorest countries, Lesotho is a success story.

In 2005, according to UNAIDS data, nearly 20,000 people in the tiny country died of HIV. That number has been reduced four-fold.

The country has reached a key milestone set out by UNAIDS: 90% of people living with HIV know their status; 90% with confirmed HIV are on treatment and 90% of those on treatment are virally suppressed.

About 2,000 words: https://www.cnn.com/2023/03/11/africa/aids-epidemic-crossroads-africa-intl-cmd/index.html

Lawsuits against fossil fuel industry

In 2005, I was the lead counsel on behalf of the US in one of the biggest corporate accountability legal actions ever filed. That trial proved that the tobacco industry knew it was selling and marketing a harmful product, that it had funded denial of public health science, and had used deceptive advertising and PR to protect assets instead of protecting consumers.

Today, the fossil fuel industry finds itself in the same precarious legal position as the tobacco industry did in the late 1990s. The behaviour and goals of the tobacco and petroleum industries are pretty similar – and there are many similarities in their liabilities.

Both industries lied to the public and regulators about what they knew about the harms of their products. Both lied about when they knew it. And like the tobacco industry while I was in public service, the deceptive advertising and PR of the fossil fuel industry is now under intense legal scrutiny.

And the tide is beginning to turn. More than 1,800 lawsuits have been filed over climate liability worldwide.

Full article (890 words): https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/jul/05/us-lawsuit-big-tobacco-big-oil-fossil-fuel-companies

How one city cut gun violence in half

Snippets from the article:

Omaha 360’s strategy is “collaboration, prevention, intervention, enforcement, reentry and support services,” said Willie Barney, CEO and founder of the Empowerment Network. Barney said the program began as a small initiative with seven people, some from the Empowerment Network and others working for the city.
…
Now, places like Boston; Chicago; Kansas City, Missouri; Little Rock, Arkansas; Minneapolis and Tulsa, Oklahoma, are having early conversations about what a similar program might look like in their cities, Barney said.

How it works

Omaha 360 is focused on addressing immediate threats of gun violence as well as the underlying issues that contribute to it….

Lack of employment was a top issue among young people that the group spoke with, Barney said, especially during the summer months.

“The country is not facing one gun violence problem,” Abt said. “It’s facing at least four” — everyday community violence, domestic and intimate partner violence, mass shootings and suicide.

The police department also teaches deescalation tactics, a common move among law enforcement across the nation to try and defuse potentially violent situations.

“A significant portion of our sworn law enforcement officers are crisis intervention team-trained,” Gray said.

https://abcnews.go.com/US/omaha-nebraska-cut-gun-violence-half-become-model/story?id=96799185. About 1,700 words.

Good news: The world really is getting better (2022)

The Atlantic ran an article about the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation’s Goalkeepers Report. Some interesting bits:

Since 1990, poverty and hunger have declined dramatically while life spans have increased on every continent. According to the report, the share of global smokers has declined by about 20 percent; children are roughly 30 percent less likely to be malnourished or stunted; rates of tuberculosis have similarly declined by about one-third; maternal deaths per live births have declined by 40 percent; the prevalence of neglected tropical diseases such as dengue and leprosy has declined by roughly 70 percent; and the share of the global population with access to toilets and safe plumbing has increased by 100 percent….

These lifesaving programs cost a fraction of a rich nation’s GDP. From a utilitarian standpoint, they represent some of the greatest bargains on Earth….

In 1990, more than 8 percent of children died before their fifth birthday. But that figure fell to 3.6 percent in 2021….

Finally, for hundreds of years, economists and philosophers have worried that overpopulation would deplete the world’s resources and lead to mass starvation. But that hasn’t happened. Thanks to scientific breakthroughs such as the Green Revolution, the number of famine victims in the 2010s was lower than in any decade on record. In the 1870s—one of the most famous decades in the history of scientific and technological development—142 people per 100,000 died of famine globally. Today’s rate of famine deaths is about 99 percent lower than that of the late 1800s, despite the world’s population being roughly five times larger.

Article (about 1,070 words): https://www.theatlantic.com/newsletters/archive/2022/09/bill-melinda-gates-foundation-goalkeepers-report-poverty/671415/.

Download the 2022 report (52 page PDF): https://www.gatesfoundation.org/goalkeepers/downloads/2022-report/2022-goalkeepers-report_en.pdf.

Flu shots vs Alzheimer’s Disease

This is from 2020:

Flu (influenza) and pneumonia vaccinations are associated with reduced risk of Alzheimer’s disease, according to new research reported at the Alzheimer’s Association International Conference^® (AAIC^®) 2020…

Amran and team found having one flu vaccination was associated with a lower prevalence of Alzheimer’s (odds ratio 0.83, p<0.0001), and among vaccinated patients receiving the flu vaccine more frequently was associated with an even lower prevalence of Alzheimer’s (odds ratio 0.87, p=0.0342). Thus, people that consistently got their annual flu shot had a lower risk of Alzheimer’s. This translated to an almost 6% reduced risk of Alzheimer’s disease for patients between the ages of 75-84 for 16 years.

The researchers found the protective association between the flu vaccine and the risk of Alzheimer’s was strongest for those who received their first vaccine at a younger age — for example, the people who received their first documented flu shot at age 60 benefitted more than those who received their first flu shot at age 70.

From NPR (https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2020/07/27/894731147/flu-shot-and-pneumonia-vaccine-might-reduce-alzheimers-risk-research-shows):

People who got at least one flu shot had a 17% reduction in risk, Amran says. And people who got regular vaccinations saw their risk drop another 13%….

Those who received a pneumonia vaccine before age 75 were at least 25% less likely to be diagnosed with Alzheimer’s.

So these vaccines by themselves don’t make a huge difference (although as a free bonus, you’re protected against flu and pneumonia), but they help, and they give us more clues. Full story: https://aaic.alz.org/releases_2020/vaccines-dementia-risk.asp.

Universal basic income (UBI)

Experiments are showing that, at least in some cases, the simplest and most effective solution to poverty is… giving people money.

More than twenty pilot programs are taking place across the country. Many other programs attempt to help poor people: food stamps, welfare, Section 8 housing vouchers (“which often have stringent rules and leave many poor families ineligible.“) Perhaps we could combine all these programs into one simpler, less expensive program.

The pilot is testing whether giving poor families a financial cushion can have a demonstrable impact on their physical and psychological health, job prospects and communities…

While Leo used a few bucks from Compton Pledge for a fried rice dinner, the rest of it went to more pressing causes: a $250 car diagnostic tool enabling him to take on more mechanic jobs, a college textbook for his 23-year-old stepdaughter Lesley, a few hundred dollars sent to his ailing mother in Guatemala, and payments towards a $3,000 payday loan that has accrued nearly $1,000 in interest fees in less than two years.

September 2021: Inside the Nation’s Largest Guaranteed Income Experiment. https://time.com/6097523/compton-universal-basic-income. (3,700 words.)

And:

Zohna Everett choked up as she described the immediate impact the payments had on her life. She quit driving for DoorDash, which gave her the time to find a job as a factory worker at Tesla’s plant in Fremont, 60 miles from Stockton. She was able to escape a dysfunctional marriage and move into her own home. “For me, it was a steppingstone. It got me to where I was okay by myself,” she says. “It was right on time. Everything in me was just like, ‘Oh, thank you so much, Lord.’”

…A mountain of evidence shows how tightly income inequality correlates with crime rates, education levels, drug abuse, incarceration, intimate-partner violence, and physical and mental health, which together cost billions upon billions of tax dollars.

October 2022: Universal Basic Income Has Been Tested Repeatedly. It Works. https://www.washingtonpost.com/magazine/2022/10/24/universal-basic-income/. (5,900 words, long but very good.)