Neither Taiwan nor Japan conducted widespread coronavirus testing. Neither implemented countrywide “stay-at-home” lockdowns. And yet, as of April 13, the coronavirus-related death rate in both Taiwan and Japan is less than one death per million residents, compared to Spain’s mortality rate of over 350 deaths per million residents - and Spain went into total lockdown a month ago. What did Taiwan and Japan do right? The full answer to that question is still being worked out, but the widespread use of facemasks in both countries clearly played a major role in limiting viral spread. Facemasks broke the chain of transmission when infection rates were low, nipping contagion in the bud.
Are some government responses to the coronavirus more successful than others? By “successful”, I mean preventing virus-related deaths. Deaths as a percentage of a country’s population is a decent proxy for how many residents are infected, as well as the rate of serious infection - at least for developed countries with similar age demographics and where medical care is roughly similar. (Confirmed coronavirus cases is a poor indicator of virus prevalence, because so few people have been tested.)
So let’s look at the death rates as of April 10…
In contrast to ideologues, reformers still have faith in the current system’s capacity to make things better. To reformers, the system needs to be fixed, not overturned. Reformers identify specific problems and propose narrow solutions. Ideologues identify existential threats and fight for “structural change”. Reformers are cool. Ideologues are hot, hot, hot. Of course, reformers can get excited about their vision of change but they tend to lack the ideologue’s righteous passion.
Here’s a definition of hope: “the perceived ability to execute envisioned routes to desirable future goals.” Hopeful people are able to envision pathways to success and feel confident in their ability to follow those pathways to achieve their goals. Socially mobile societies tend to be full of hopeful people, because they provide a foundation for hope: opportunity, personal experience, and the example of others.
The above headlines are referencing the April 5 Coronavirus Task Force Press Briefing, during which President Trump and task force members discuss the anti-malaria drug hydroxychloroquine as a possible treatment for coronavirus. Here are the relevant excerpts, with some text underlined for emphasis…
For some weeks now, President Trump has been hyping the potential of the drug hydroxychloroquine to treat COVID-19. Governor Cuomo has has expressed similar sentiments: “The president is optimistic about these drugs and we are all optimistic that it could work”. Yet only Trump gets slammed by the media for “peddling false hopes” by “touting unproven drugs”. For example…
The dinosaurs never went extinct. Let’s keep it that way.
A few years ago, Pew Research conducted a survey on what Americans considered essential to their version of the American Dream. A majority of respondents endorsed “freedom of choice in how to live”, “Have a good family life”, and “retire comfortably”. Just 11% endorsed “to become wealthy”.
Yards make up roughly 17 percent of the continental United States: almost four times the land area taken up by national, state, and regional parks. And those yards are dominated by turf grass, because Americans love their lawns. Which is a shame since lawns tend to be pollinator wastelands and most terrestrial life on earth depends on the labor of pollinators. I’m talking birds and bees.
By March 4, California had reported 53 confirmed cases of COVAD-19 while New York had reported 11 cases. At the time, there had been one coronavirus-related death in California and none in New York. Fast-forward to the March 26 death count*. California: 65. New York: 365. Why did New York spiral out of control?
We have to go beyond categorical, either/or thinking to solve the problem of agriculture and the environment. It’s not about organic versus conventional. It’s about how to grow more food on less land while reducing environmental harm. So that soils remain healthy, more land reverts to wild habitat, and the rest of the biosphere isn’t poisoned by pesticides and fertilizer run-off (including manure).
These are 30 TV series or mini-series that were rated over 90% on Rotten Tomatoes by both critics and audience:
Germany, Iceland, New Zealand, the Shetland Islands, Ireland, the bucolic English countryside…Wouldn’t it be great to visit these places and partake of their wonders and exotic allure? And we can! Maybe not in person, but on our devices of choice. I’m not talking travel shows but deeply satisfying, immersive thrillers and crime dramas - the high quality type, with believable characters, plausible plots, and fully-realized worlds that suck you in, even those with subtitles.
Whatever keeps people from completing high school and getting at least some practical post-secondary education or training is keeping them from moving up the socioeconomic ladder. Could be substance abuse, cognitive/learning issues, poor English skills, impulsive temperament, emotional dysfunction, family dysfunction, peer influence, and/or neighborhood effects. To name a few possibilities.
But causation is not destiny. Motivations and behaviors change in response to real-life outcomes and opportunities.
Yes, a large majority of people under 60 who have been infected with the coronavirus have only mild symptoms. And I guess if someone is only concerned about their own health, that's enough to be cavalier about the possibility of getting sick. But higher risk individuals can get seriously ill and, given how contagious the coronavirus appears to be, the more people who get sick with mild symptoms, the more people who will get seriously sick in the general population.
As the above excerpt illustrates, status is about access to scarce resources in competitive situations. Higher status means greater access….Of course, one doesn’t want to be too obvious about one’s status aspirations - that reeks of desperation, which is a low-status emotion. Then again, once a person takes their high status for granted, it ceases to be sought or protected so strenuously. Ah, what a pleasant way to live: comfortable, confident and secure.
Obviously there’s no one-to-one association between GDP and CO2 emissions. Other factors come into play, like the particular fuel mix used to generate electricity in a given locale. Speaking of which, look at France…
To quote The Economist, the new American socialist “is not a cuddly Scandinavian social democrat who would let companies do their thing and then tax them to build a better world. Instead, he believes American capitalism is rapacious and needs to be radically weakened.” But what’s wrong with opting for the cuddly way of market-friendly welfare states?…Of course, the socialists have an answer.
“Around the world, forests are shrinking due to deforestation, urban development and climate change, but in Europe that trend has been reversed. …Large areas of the continent have seen a forest boom that means today more than two-fifths of Europe is tree-covered. Between 1990 and 2015, the area covered by forests and woodlands increased by 90,000 square kilometres - an area roughly the size of Portugal.”
— Europe bucks global deforestation trend, Johnny Wood/World Economic Forum July 25, 2019
A few years ago, social scientists Tom Hirschl and Mark Rank analyzed individual income trends in the US population and found that most American workers moved up the socioeconomic ladder as they got older. Based on their findings, Hirschl and Rank estimated that by age 60, almost 70 percent of the working population would experience at least one year in the top 20 percent of US income distribution and about half would spend a total of at least four years there. Wow – that’s a lot of social mobility…Who are these people?