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ALWAYS LOOK ON THE BRIGHT SIDE OF LIFE…
There’s been a silver lining hiding behind all of the doom and gloom about spiking energy prices and weaponized fossil fuel deliveries. It may hasten the adoption of renewable energy sources, whether it be those already in existence or the invention of new ones. Per the Associated Press,
Spiraling energy costs caused by various economic factors and the Ukraine war could be a turning point toward cleaner energy, the International Energy Agency said in a report Thursday. It found the global demand for fossil fuels, including coal, oil, and natural gas, is set to peak or plateau in the next few decades. The report looked at scenarios based on current policies and said that coal use will fall back within the next few years, natural gas demand will reach a plateau by the end of the decade and rising sales of electric vehicles mean that the need for oil will level off in the mid-2030s before ebbing slightly by mid-century. Total emissions are currently going up each year, but slowly. “Energy markets and policies have changed as a result of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, not just for the time being, but for decades to come,” said the IEA’s executive director Fatih Birol. A surge in demand following COVID-19 pandemic restrictions lifting and bottlenecks in supply chains have also contributed to soaring energy prices.”
Climate activists rejoice! The world may actually end up ditching dirty fossil fuels sooner than you thought. https://bit.ly/3TYGnYD
ZERO-COVID CONTINUES.
As promised in the recent Communist Party Congress, Beijing is doubling down on its zero-Covid-19 policy. Per Reuters,
Chinese cities from Wuhan in central China to Xining in the northwest are doubling down on COVID-19 curbs, sealing up buildings, locking down districts and throwing millions into distress in a scramble to halt widening outbreaks. China on Thursday reported a third straight day of more than 1,000 new COVID cases nationwide, a modest tally compared with the tens of thousands per day that sent Shanghai into a full-blown lockdown earlier this year but enough to trigger more restrictions across the country. Guangzhou, China's fourth-biggest city by economic output and the provincial capital of Guangdong, on Thursday sealed up more streets and neighbourhoods and kept people in their homes as new areas were deemed high-risk in a COVID resurgence that persisted into its fourth week.
Remember when the West was locked down and China was open for business and partying? Seems like another lifetime at this point. https://reut.rs/3TXuvGg
EBOLA QUESITONS.
The Ebola virus outbreak is festering in Africa. Some Western media outlets are questioning whether Uganda has it under control. Per DW,
Concerns are growing that an outbreak of Ebola in Uganda could get out of control. Ebola is a highly infectious and often deadly disease. Uganda's Health Minister Jane Ruth Aceng said on Monday (October 24) that another nine people had tested positive for Ebola and that the number of people with Ebola in Uganda's capital, Kampala, had risen to 14 within 48 hours. Two days later on October 26, official figures from the country's Health Ministry indicated that 109 people had been infected and 30 people had died since the outbreak began just over a month ago.
EBOLA ANSWERS.
If you go by what the Africa CDC says, there’s no cause for concern. They’ve got it. Per Reuters,
Africa's top public health body said on Thursday that the Ebola outbreak in Uganda was "not getting out of hand" and that it was still under control, despite an increase in cases that have spread to the capital Kampala. "The Ebola outbreak in Uganda is not getting out of hand ... it is still under control," Ahmed Ogwell Ouma, acting director of the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention, said at an online briefing. Ouma also said that at the moment it was not possible to give any projections for the future spread of the disease.
The one thing that is really worrying at this point is that, unlike the Ebola Zaire strain, Ebola Sudan does not have a vaccine that works against it. https://reut.rs/3TMTMmP
THE FUTURE IS NOT NOW.
We love the metaverse here. We think it’s the future. Unfortunately, that doesn’t mean that the future is now. Investors seem to believe that the future isn’t even tomorrow, next week, or next year. Per Reuters,
Wall Street is losing patience over Meta (META.O) boss Mark Zuckerberg's enormous and experimental bets on his metaverse project that helped drive up the company's overall costs by a fifth in the third quarter. Investors rushed to dump Meta Platforms Inc's stock after hours, pushing it down 20% and wiping $67 billion off its market value after the company posted its fourth straight decline in quarterly profit. The Facebook-parent said its overall expenses could rise as much as 16% next year and anticipates that operating losses at Reality Labs - the unit responsible for bringing the metaverse to life - "will grow significantly" next year. One Meta shareholder had recently voiced concerns calling the company's investments "super-sized and terrifying". Analysts on Wednesday called them "confusing and confounding" and Meta's inability to cut costs "extremely disturbing".
Meta is ahead of its time. But then again, so was the Apple Newton and we all know how that went. https://reut.rs/3FnkEWb
FLYING NUNS.
God may be a lot of things to a lot of people. One thing that’s certain, the Almighty doesn’t pay the bills here on Earth. That’s why religious people all over the world are stuck trying to make money to not go hungry. A group of nuns in California have found an interesting way to keep the convent lights on. Per the BBC,
There's nothing unusual about the building or the land around it, except that there's a small group of women, wearing pristine white habits, burning incense, and singing hymns as they walk in step blessing their cannabis plants. These women are the "Sisters of the Valley," better known as the Weed Nuns. Lead by Sister Kate, the women are members of a self-proclaimed enclave of nuns who identify as healers and feminists, but more importantly, business people. They do not represent an official religion. "I chose an industry that is messed up," Sister Kate says. "It's going to probably be messed up and I'm probably going to have to do a lot of dancing and sidestepping." She's referring to all the confusing technicalities in the laws surrounding California's cannabis industry.
These nuns will be flying high. How high? So high that they can touch the sky. https://bbc.in/3Dhp1Q5
Thanks for reading. Let’s be careful out there.
