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Wednesday, September 15, 2021

Sunspots 850

Things I have recently spotted that may be of interest to others*:




ChristianityChristianity Today reports that former President Trump no longer calls himself a Presbyterian, but a non-denominational Christian, and that there are many other people who have made similar changes.

Environment: Gizmodo reports that California law now requires companies to prove that objects they manufacture are actually recycled before they can be labeled as recyclable. The report says that less than 20% of supposedly recyclable plastics are actually recycled.

Gizmodo also reports on a study showing that young people are pessimistic about the future of the world's environment, and angry at governments for doing so little about this.

Health: FiveThirtyEight reminds us that the anti-vaxx movement has been around since long before COVID, and that, although now Republicans are more anti-vaxx, years ago, the parties had about the same number of vaccine-rejecters.

Science: Gizmodo reports that Komodo dragons, and many other species, are in danger of extinction.

The graphic used in these posts is from NASA, hence, it is free to use like this.

*I try not to include items that require a password or fee to view.

Thanks for reading.

5 comments:

chuck said...

At this point democrats have decided to be the party of science, and that the other side is anti-science. So they reinforce their positions in opposition to the anti-science group.

Martin LaBar said...

That seems to be the way it works. Thanks.

Weekend Fisher said...

One of the unfortunate effects of the split field in social media is that conservatives and liberals interact with each other even less than before. It makes people even less aware of others' actual views, and susceptible to believing things that are fairly far removed from what "the others" are actually saying.

I'm going to take a guess that I might spend more time reading conservative voices than you all do. From their point of view, opposition to mandates in order to be able to hold a job or participate in society isn't an anti-vax stand but anti-coercion / anti-manipulation / anti-surveillance one. And on that side of the house, those issues are viewed as being tightly connected.

Take care & God bless
Anne / WF

Martin LaBar said...

Thanks for your comment. Your guesses are both most likely correct. I probably don't take in as much right-sided information. Some people take in too much (on one side or the other.)

I understand the anti-control argument, but we already require public school kids to have vaccines of various kinds, and, although there are people who protest this, there aren't nearly as many of them as protest COVID vaccination mandates.

Weekend Fisher said...

There are definitely plenty of people concerned about the COVID shots, and dozens of factors that contribute to that.

I am wholly on board with anyone's desire to take any vaccine they want, even an experimental one that's not fully approved yet if it makes them feel safer, so long as there is full disclosure of the occasional adverse event so that everyone's consent is informed consent. But mandating something that has no long-term safety profile is not smart, and we would do well not to get so caught up in the heat of the moment that we make poor long-term policy choices.

Take care & God bless
Anne K