In COVID hearing, #Pfizer director admits: #vaccine was never tested on preventing transmission.
“Get vaccinated for others” was always a lie.
The only purpose of the #COVID passport: forcing people to get vaccinated.
Claim Publisher and Date:Rob Roos MEP on 2022-10-11
Rob Roos, an Dutch member of the European Parliament with a history of reiterating conservative talking points, claimed that the Pfizer director admitted that their COVID-19 vaccine was never tested on preventing transmission. On the show Tucker Carlson Tonight, Roos claimed that the delivery of the vaccine was “one of the greatest scandals of our time.” Many anti-vaccine advocates are sharing this news on social media under the hashtag #PfizerGate. The tweet and video have been shared by over 30k. The post implies both the company and public health officials misled the public in order to increase vaccination rates.
The claim is rated false. Pfizer didn’t claim to have tested its COVID-19 vaccine’s ability to prevent transmission, and this information was clearly available in press releases published by the European Medicines Agency as well as the published study containing results from Pfizer’s clinical trials. In fact, when the FDA announced the emergency authorization of the Pfizer COVID vaccine back in December 2020, they stated, “at this time, data are not available to make a determination about how long the vaccine will provide protection, nor is there evidence that the vaccine prevents transmission of SARS-CoV-2 from person to person.” The COVID-19 vaccine clinical trials were designed to study the vaccine’s safety and efficacy in preventing symptomatic disease, not transmission.
Epidemics in Media and Collective Media counters Roos’ claim and contextualizes how COVID-19 vaccine efficacy can be more accurately communicated in the media. “The downside of our digital landscape is that complex concepts can easily be reduced to sound bites and social media posts. These are then used out of context to make false claims, significantly undermining immunization campaigns. The important takeaway from COVID messaging is not that vaccinated people won’t contract the virus, but that they are far less likely to get seriously ill or die from the disease,” explains Foss.
Newswise — PORTLAND, Ore., Oct. 20 — A new report from the University of Oregon’s School of Journalism and Communication’sAgora Journalism Center found that Oregonians are unequally served by local news media and that some communities have few places to turn for local news. The report also describes how journalists and civic leaders are deeply worried about the state’s ability to confront its challenges at a time when the number of news outlets is declining, news audiences are shrinking and misinformation is on the rise.
The report, “Assessing Oregon’s Local News and Information Ecosystem 2022,” is co-authored by Agora Journalism Center’s Research Director Regina Lawrence and Director Andrew DeVigal as well as two UO School of Journalism and Communication doctoral students. The research is the first effort to comprehensively count the number of legacy and start-up news outlets around Oregon and assess the state’s local news and information ecosystem. It includes an interactive map of news outlets around the state that are regularly producing original local news.
It also involves an extensive review of research demonstrating the importance of local news to community civic health; insights from interviews with over two dozen Oregon journalists, experts and civic leaders; and recommendations for strengthening our local news ecosystem.
“At a time when Oregon, like so many states around the country, is facing critical challenges, it’s important to recognize the irreplaceable role of local news in our state’s civic health. The decline in local news production in Oregon mirrors national trends, but Oregon can learn from initiatives being tried in other states and be a leader in reversing the decline,” Lawrence said.
The authors say the report’s findings raise concerns about Oregon’s news and information infrastructure because research shows that areas without local news have lower rates of civic engagement, higher rates of polarization and corruption, and a diminished sense of community connection.
“The evidence is increasingly clear that the civic health of communities is inextricably linked to the future of local news. Our analysis represents a step toward evaluating the state of the local news and civic information ecosystem in Oregon. We’re eager to collaborate with others who care about strengthening Oregonians’ access to trusted news and information based on the recommendations we outline in the report,” DeVigal said.
The report includes examples of how many of Oregon’s legacy news outlets are finding ways to adapt, innovate and grow despite the increasingly challenging environment. It also highlights innovations happening around the country to encourage more collaboration among newsrooms to leverage limited resources, guidance and tools from journalistic support organizations, and efforts in some states to implement public funding to sustain local news.
The Agora Journalism Center at the UO School of Journalism and Communication is the University of Oregon’s forum for the future of local news and civic health in Oregon and beyond. The center was formed in 2014 with the foundational belief that the health of democracy and journalism are inextricably linked. Since then, the center has been a critical champion for the idea that professional journalism must become more participatory and collaborative with the public if journalism is to meaningfully improve communities’ information health and earn the public’s trust in local news media.
About the University of Oregon
The University of Oregon, established by the Oregon legislature in 1876, is a premier public research university that serves its students and the people of Oregon, the nation, and the world through the creation and transfer of knowledge in the liberal arts, the natural and social sciences, and the professions. It is designated by the Carnegie Foundation as a top-tier research university and is a member of the prestigious Association of American Universities, a group of more than 60 leading public and private research universities in the United States and Canada. The UO offers over 300 degree and certificate programs. The UO’s tradition of interdisciplinary research continues today in major centers and institutes involving hundreds of researchers, students and supporting staff members. They range from the Phil and Penny Knight Campus for Accelerating Scientific Impact to the Institute of Molecular Biology, the Institute of Neuroscience to the Center for High Energy Physics and the Oregon Humanities Center. In addition, the National Security Agency recently designated the UO a National Center of Academic Excellence in Cyber Defense Research, and the UO’s new Center for Translational Neuroscience seeks to inform public policy while translating this knowledge into clinical applications and novel therapies.
Europe is waking up to a troubling reality: It may soon lose its NATO benefactor in Ukraine.
With conservatives poised to make gains in the upcoming U.S. elections, NATO’s most generous donor to Ukraine’s war effort may suddenly seem much more parsimonious in 2023.
The possibility has put the spotlight on the gap between American and European aid.
Already, it’s been a tough sell to get all of Europe’s NATO members to dedicate 2 percent of their economic output to defense spending. Now, they are under increasing pressure from the U.S. to go even further than that. And that comes amid an already tough conversation across Europe about how to refill its own dwindling military stockpiles while simultaneously funding Ukraine’s rebuild.
Still, the mantra among U.S. Republicans — whom polls show are favored to take control of one of two chambers of Congress after the November elections — has been that Europe needs to step up.
“Our allies,” said Tim Burchett, a Tennessee Republican who sits on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, “need to start addressing the problem in their own backyard before they ask us for any more involvement.”
While European governments have opened their wallets and military stockpiles to Ukraine at record levels, Washington’s military assistance to Kyiv still dwarfs Europe’s efforts. It’s a disparity Republicans are keen to highlight as they argue Russia’s war in Ukraine is a much greater threat to Europe than it is to the U.S.
The result could be a changing tenor out of Washington if Congress falls into conservative control.
“It’s horrible what the Russians are doing,” Burchett added, but said he sees China and drug cartels as “more threatening to the United States of America than what’s going on in Ukraine.”
2 percent becomes the baseline
Since Moscow launched its assault on Ukraine, European capitals have pledged over €200 billion in new defense spending.
NATO allies pledged in 2014 to aim to move towards spending 2 percent of GDP on defense within a decade, and an increasing number of governments are taking this promise seriously. But the Biden administration wants them to go even further.
The 2 percent benchmark is just “what we would expect” from allies, U.S. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin said earlier this month. “We would encourage countries to go above that 2 percent because we’re gonna have to invest more in expanding industrial bases and making sure that we’re doing the right things to replace” some of what was provided to Ukraine.
“As we step up our own sizable contributions to NATO capabilities and readiness,” the document says, “we will count on our Allies to continue assuming greater responsibility by increasing their spending, capabilities, and contributions.”
It’s an aspiration that will be hard for many European policymakers, who themselves face economic woes at home. The U.K., for instance, has committed to hitting a 3 percent defense spending target but recently acknowledged the “shape” of its increase could change as recent policy changes roil the economy.
The Biden administration has taken a path of friendly encouragement toward Europe, rather than haranguing its partners.
But Republicans are not as keen to take such a convivial tone. And if they take control of Congress, Republicans will have more of a say over the U.S. pursestrings — and the tone emerging from Washington.
“I think people are gonna be sitting in a recession and they’re not going to write a blank check to Ukraine,” House Republican leader Kevin McCarthy told Punchbowl news earlier this week.
“There’s the things [the Biden administration] is not doing domestically,” he added. “Not doing the border and people begin to weigh that. Ukraine is important, but at the same time it can’t be the only thing they do and it can’t be a blank check.”
US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin said earlier this month that the benchmark of 2 percent of GDP spent on defense is what is expected from allies | Omar Havana/Getty Images
Republicans are likely eyeing the polls, which show a slim but growing chunk of Americans saying the U.S. is providing too much support to Ukraine. The figure has risen from 7 percent in March to 20 percent in September, according to a Pew Research Center poll. And it now stands at 32 percent among Republican-leaning voters.
So while President Joe Biden continues to ask Congress to approve more Ukraine aid packages, observers say there could be more skepticism in the coming months.
“It’s becoming harder because the sense is that we’re doing it all and the Europeans aren’t,” said Max Bergmann, director of the Europe Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.
And while noting that “in some ways, that’s unfair” due to the economic cost of the war to Europe, he said that on the military side aid for Ukraine and spending on defense industrial capacity is now “the new 2 percent.”
In European capitals, policymakers are watching Washington closely.
“For Europeans, the idea that U.S. politics matters — that what happens in the midterm election will have implications for what will be expected of us from [our] U.S. ally — is something that is taken more and more seriously,” said Martin Quencez, a research fellow at the German Marshall Fund’s Paris office.
The Brussels view
But back in Brussels, some officials insist there’s little reason for worry.
“There is broad, bipartisan support for Ukraine,” said David McAllister, chair of the European Parliament’s Foreign Affairs Committee.
Indeed, while the more Donald Trump-friendly wing of the Republican Party is opposed to continuing aid to Ukraine, more traditional Republicans have actually supported Biden’s aid for Kyiv.
“If there was a Republican majority in congressional committees, I expect an impact on debates about which weapons to supply to Ukraine, for example,” McAllister said in an email. “Ultimately, though, the president maintains considerable control over foreign policy.”
McAllister, a member of Germany’s conservative Christian Democratic Union, said Europe is already increasing its defensive investments and aid to Kyiv, pointing to an EU initiative to train Ukrainian soldiers and a recent bump up for an EU fund that reimburses countries for military supplies sent to Ukraine.
Polish MEP Witold Waszczykowski, the Foreign Affairs Committee’s vice chair, also said in an email that he doesn’t expect a Republican-dominated Congress to shift Ukraine policy — while urging Washington to put more pressure on Europe.
“Poland and other Eastern flank countries cannot persuade Europeans enough to support Ukraine,” said Waszczykowski, a member of the conservative ruling Law and Justice party.
The “smell of appeasement and expectations to come back to business as usual with Russia,” the Polish politician said, “dominates in European capitals and European institutions.”
The fact is the Great Barrier Reef is doing exceptionally well. Church bells should be ringing. People should be celebrating. We will always worry about the GBR because it is precious. But there are more pressing matters than coral that has been waxing and waning and a climate that has been warming and cooling for eons. Popular media won’t report this good news, of course, so Dr. Peter Ridd will.
“Greenpeace Wrong — The Great Barrier Reef Is Thriving!” reads the headline for an article posted by Dr. Jay Lehr and Tom Harris on the conservative website, “America Out Loud.” The article cites a recent report by the Australian Institute of Marine Science (AIMS), which says that some parts of the Great Barrier Reef are at their highest in 36 years. Indeed, this is very good news for the world’s largest coral ecosystem. The Institute said that coral in the Great Barrier Reef is resilient and has recovered from past disturbances. However, when factoring in the loss of coral since 2014, the increase measures a modest rise of 3%. The Great Barrier Reef has suffered four bleaching events since 2016. Rising global temperatures due to the buildup of greenhouse gasses in the Earth’s atmosphere continue to pose a threat to the reef, scientists say. The report explicitly says, “These gains can be lost quickly with another large-scale disturbance that causes extensive mortality.” This can hardly be described as “doing exceptionally well.” Therefore, the claim that the GBR is “thriving” is mostly false.
Luisa Marcelinol, Research Assistant Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering at Northwestern University explains…
It is very good news that the coral cover in most areas of the Great Barrier Reef (GBR) is increasing over the past couple of years (between 33 and 36% of hard coral cover over the north, central and south GBR) but since 2014 and due to intense heatwaves and a severe cyclone during 2014- 2017, GBR coral cover dropped to 10% (Northern GBR) to 25% (Southern GBR). In other words, the increased coral cover – albeit a positive trend – is dwarfed by the loss of coral cover over the bleaching events of the past 6 years. As an example, let me show what the numbers mean. Throughout the Northern GBR coral cover dropped down to 10% of its pre-bleaching baseline. Then it partially rebounded by 33-36%. This means that the coral cover went up from 10% to 13%, a net increase in only 3%.
A PNAS paper in 2012 by researchers at the Australian Institute of Marine Sciences (AIMS) who have been monitoring the GBR coral cover for the past few decades, described a tremendous loss of coral cover, from 28% to 14% between 1985 and 2012 because of severe tropical cyclones, coral bleaching episodes, and predation by crown-of-thorns starfish (COTS) outbreaks. The recent news of recovery in the GBR brings hope to conservation groups, park managers, scientists, and the public at large. It shows that because the last couple of years have been relatively mild regarding cyclones, heatwaves, and COTS outbreaks some coral species have been able to rebound, which speaks to the resilience of the reef. It remains to be seen if only some species have rebounded, and if there is loss of diversity, which may reduce future resilience, or if most species have rebounded. But we should not be dismissing the severe effect that climate change-induced ocean warming is bringing to coral reefs in the GBR and throughout the world; in the last 6 years, heatwaves have caused massive coral bleaching and unprecedented loss of coral cover throughout the tropics. Future projections of ocean warming assuming business-as-usual carbon dioxide emissions are expected to bring more intense and frequent heat waves and cyclones, which will lead to massive bleaching and death of corals every year and little to no time to recover from stress. If we do not take climate action, coral reefs will likely be lost.
The fact is the Great Barrier Reef is doing exceptionally well. Church bells should be ringing. People should be celebrating. We will always worry about the GBR because it is precious. But there are more pressing matters than coral that has been waxing and waning and a climate that has been warming and cooling for eons. Popular media won’t report this good news, of course, so Dr. Peter Ridd will.
“Greenpeace Wrong — The Great Barrier Reef Is Thriving!” reads the headline for an article posted by Dr. Jay Lehr and Tom Harris on the conservative website, “America Out Loud.” The article cites a recent report by the Australian Institute of Marine Science (AIMS), which says that some parts of the Great Barrier Reef are at their highest in 36 years. Indeed, this is very good news for the world’s largest coral ecosystem. The Institute said that coral in the Great Barrier Reef is resilient and has recovered from past disturbances. However, when factoring in the loss of coral since 2014, the increase measures a modest rise of 3%. The Great Barrier Reef has suffered four bleaching events since 2016. Rising global temperatures due to the buildup of greenhouse gasses in the Earth’s atmosphere continue to pose a threat to the reef, scientists say. The report explicitly says, “These gains can be lost quickly with another large-scale disturbance that causes extensive mortality.” This can hardly be described as “doing exceptionally well.” Therefore, the claim that the GBR is “thriving” is mostly false.
Luisa Marcelinol, Research Assistant Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering at Northwestern University explains…
It is very good news that the coral cover in most areas of the Great Barrier Reef (GBR) is increasing over the past couple of years (between 33 and 36% of hard coral cover over the north, central and south GBR) but since 2014 and due to intense heatwaves and a severe cyclone during 2014- 2017, GBR coral cover dropped to 10% (Northern GBR) to 25% (Southern GBR). In other words, the increased coral cover – albeit a positive trend – is dwarfed by the loss of coral cover over the bleaching events of the past 6 years. As an example, let me show what the numbers mean. Throughout the Northern GBR coral cover dropped down to 10% of its pre-bleaching baseline. Then it partially rebounded by 33-36%. This means that the coral cover went up from 10% to 13%, a net increase in only 3%.
A PNAS paper in 2012 by researchers at the Australian Institute of Marine Sciences (AIMS) who have been monitoring the GBR coral cover for the past few decades, described a tremendous loss of coral cover, from 28% to 14% between 1985 and 2012 because of severe tropical cyclones, coral bleaching episodes, and predation by crown-of-thorns starfish (COTS) outbreaks. The recent news of recovery in the GBR brings hope to conservation groups, park managers, scientists, and the public at large. It shows that because the last couple of years have been relatively mild regarding cyclones, heatwaves, and COTS outbreaks some coral species have been able to rebound, which speaks to the resilience of the reef. It remains to be seen if only some species have rebounded, and if there is loss of diversity, which may reduce future resilience, or if most species have rebounded. But we should not be dismissing the severe effect that climate change-induced ocean warming is bringing to coral reefs in the GBR and throughout the world; in the last 6 years, heatwaves have caused massive coral bleaching and unprecedented loss of coral cover throughout the tropics. Future projections of ocean warming assuming business-as-usual carbon dioxide emissions are expected to bring more intense and frequent heat waves and cyclones, which will lead to massive bleaching and death of corals every year and little to no time to recover from stress. If we do not take climate action, coral reefs will likely be lost.
In 2016, 137.5 million Americans voted in the presidential election. For some, casting their ballot wasn’t easy. Six years later, voters are the most polarized they’ve been in decades.
How do we sustain a republic? Restore faith in the election process, says Gretchen Macht. Macht is an assistant professor of mechanical, industrial and systems engineering at the University of Rhode Island and the founding director of URI VOTES.
Established in 2017 with the aim of using data and technological advances to help shorten voter wait times and improve voting procedures, URI VOTES takes an engineer’s approach to election science. Macht and her team of graduate and undergraduate students study voting through various lenses: voting in person versus voting by mail, how the accessibility of polling places affects persons with disabilities, strategies to avoid COVID infection in polling places, election law, allocating election resources, and the arrangement of polling place facilities, among them.
Simply put, URI VOTES studies how a system – an election – functions and how to improve it.
According to Macht, “People will believe the outcome of an election under two conditions: one, their person won; two, their voting experience was easy.”
She notes some of the issues in the past presidential election were related to the length of time it took election administrators to count mail ballots. “When the counts didn’t meet voters’ expectations, they thought things were wrong with the election.”
Recently named an election expert by the Board of MIT’s Elections Lab, Macht says, “My elections work is a calling. It is inspiring to watch democracy at work, and now it’s become a question of how can I continue to make this happen? How can I continue to help?”
Newswise — Trying to understand people we disagree with can feel like an effort hardly worth making, particularly in contentious political environments in which offering even the smallest olive branch to the opposition can be perceived as betraying our own side. Research in Psychological Science, however, suggests that cross-partisan empathy may actually make our political arguments more persuasive, rather than softening our convictions. This holds true for even the most politically partisan among us.
“Empathizing across differences can not only help us better understand people’s perspectives but also make us more convincing advocates of our own beliefs,” said Luiza A. Santos, who conducted this research with Jan G. Voelkel, Robb Willer, and Jamil Zaki (Stanford University). People who are encouraged to value empathy across party lines are also more likely to support bipartisan cooperation and less likely to report hating people on the other side of a political issue, Santos added.
To explore how belief in the utility of empathy can decrease partisan animosity and increase political persuasiveness, Santos and colleagues conducted a series of four studies involving 3,650 Democrat and Republican participants in the United States.
In the first study of 411 participants, the researchers found that people who placed more value on cross-partisan empathy were also more likely to desire bipartisan cooperation and to hold less animosity toward the other political party. A follow-up study of 688 college freshmen revealed that students with more cross-partisan empathy were likelier than less empathetic students to report having more friends with different political beliefs.
Cross-partisan empathy isn’t a static trait, however—and Santos and colleagues’ work suggests that even the most politically partisan individuals may be open to walking in the opposition’s shoes.
A third study involved 1,551 participants using Amazon Mechanical Turk. When they read text arguing for or against the value of cross-partisan empathy, participants reacted as you might expect: Those in the high-utility condition, which emphasized increased understanding of the opposition, reported a greater desire for bipartisan cooperation and less out-party animosity, moral superiority, and desire to socially distance from political out-group members. Those in the low-utility condition, which emphasized the threat to their own beliefs, had the opposite response.
The strength of this response wasn’t the same for everyone, though. Whereas the effects were relatively small for participants with mild political beliefs, staunch Democrats and Republicans in the high-utility condition reported significantly larger decreases in animosity and moral superiority toward out-group members.
“These findings indicate that strong partisans can be moved by beliefs about cross-partisan empathy. If anything, our manipulations had, in some cases, stronger effects on more partisan individuals,” Santos and colleagues wrote.
Finally, the researchers put these findings to the test by having 1,000 participants read a high- or low-utility argument on the value of empathy before writing a message to a member of the opposing party intended to change their beliefs about gun control laws. Each of these messages was then shared with a participant who identified with that party, so that Democrats read messages written by Republicans and vice versa.
Through analyzing the text of each message, the researchers found that participants in the high-utility condition were nearly twice as likely to use conciliatory language to express cross-partisan empathy. This included trying to find common ground, represented by terms like “we all want” and “I agree,” as well as using perspective-taking language like “I understand that” to acknowledge the reader’s existing beliefs. They were also more likely to focus on common goals such as safety and on institutions like the U.S. Constitution rather than directly discussing more contentious concepts like crime and violence. Despite the more empathetic tone of the high-utility participants’ messages, condition-blind coders rated these messages as arguing for similarly strong political positions as those in the low-utility condition.
Readers from the opposing party rated the high-utility writers as being more likable and persuasive than low-utility writers and reported less animosity toward high-utility writers’ political parties after reading those messages. They were also more likely to soften their views on gun laws after reading a high-utility message, Santos added.
“In other words, people’s belief in the utility of empathizing not only improved intergroup feelings but also helped create greater common ground,” she said.
It remains to be seen how long the effects of cross-partisan empathy may last after an interaction, she noted. There may also be differences in how empathy influences asynchronous communication, such as letter writing, versus face-to-face conversations.
“Believing in cross-partisan empathy’s usefulness helps people attain shared goals of decreasing partisan animosity and building consensus around critical issues. In this light, cross-partisan empathy can be a valuable resource—an instrumental tool for not only connecting minds but also changing them,” Santos and colleagues concluded.
Reference
Santos, L. A., Voelkel, J. G., Willer, R., & Zaki, J. (2022). Belief in the utility of cross-partisan empathy reduces partisan animosity and facilitates political persuasion. Psychological Science, 33(9), 1557–1573. https://doi.org/10.1177/09567976221098594
Newswise — In widely covered remarks during an interview with 60 Minutes correspondent Scott Pelley, President Biden claimed, “the pandemic is over.” Biden elaborated, adding, “we still have a problem with COVID, we’re still doing a lot of work on it, but the pandemic is over. If you noticed, no one’s wearing masks, everybody seems to be in pretty good shape. And so I think it’s changing, and I think this is a perfect example of it.”
According to the Washington Post, Biden’s remarks caught some senior officials off guard, particularly since the U.S. government has started its fall vaccination campaign. Although the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention announced more relaxed COVID-19 guidelines last month, the agency specifically said that the pandemic was not over in a press release issued on August 11th. Therefore, this statement has earned a rating of “Half True.”
With the rollout of boosters of life-saving vaccines, new treatments, and a large population already infected, the U.S. is in a less vulnerable place than it was in 2020. However, the death toll, while lower than before, is still at around 400 deaths per day from COVID-19 in the U.S. Many health experts say we’re not out of the woods yet.
“Saying that the pandemic is over has much larger and more serious ramifications, it means we take away resources allocated by Congress and other agencies. We must be careful about saying it is over. We still need resources to continue vaccination and to address vaccine hesitancy.” says Bernadette Boden-Albala, MPH, DrPH, Founding Dean and Director of the UCI Program in Public Health.
The end of masking restrictions and relaxing of other major guidelines has given many Americans a sense of moving on from the national health crisis that has festered for more than two years. Biden’s remarks, though perhaps an oversimplification, reflect national sentiment. However, COVID-19 is still very much evident in our U.S. population, and will likely continue for the foreseeable future.
“This is in great part due to human behaviors and motivations,” says Halkitis, “including subpar vaccination uptake, which continues to place all of us at risk for infection.”
There may be two sides to the debate about certain aspects of wind power, but the amount of oil they use is not one of them.
Despite the numbers, memes continue to make the rounds on social media claiming the technology is worthless because of the costs to produce them, and the oil required to lubricate its gears.
For example, one Twitter post reads, “the turbine has to spin continually [sic] for 7 years just to replace the energy it took to manufacture.” See other similar posts here, here and here.
The fact is that wind turbines recoup the energy required to build them within a year of normal operation, according to researchers, earning these claims a rating of False.
Jack Brouwer is a professor of mechanical & aerospace engineering at the University of California, Irvine. He is also the director of UCI’s Advanced Power and Energy Program and the National Fuel Cell Research Center.
I refute the claim that “wind power is inefficient and unnecessarily expensive.” Data regarding wind power costs has been published by many organizations, for example by the International Renewable Energy Association (IRENA) as presented below, which show that wind power costs have been dropping very significantly in the last decade and are becoming competitive with fossil fuel combustion power generation prices on an energy basis (note current prices for onshore wind less than $0.05/kWh and for offshore wind less than $0.10/kWh). And these prices are likely to continue to decline into the future as the market size and turbine sizes continue to increase. Regarding the inefficiency claim, wind turbines can convert wind energy into electricity at efficiencies in the range of 20-40%, but efficiency is an inconsequential metric that should not be used to determine the value of wind power since the input wind energy is renewable and available at zero cost, which is very different from the efficiency metric as applied to fuel generation for which fuel must be purchased.
Stephen C. Nolet, Principal Engineer and Senior Director, Innovation & Technology at TPI Composites, Inc. has this to say…
There are “notionally” many studies that have offered different conclusions (depending on the bias of the author). However, the consistent response I have seen which always contains a range of time (based upon turbine and siting conditions) report that the embodied energy of the installed turbine (which includes the entire energies in materials, transportation, erection and projected O&M over the life of the turbine) is returned in operation between 4 – 7 mo (120 to ~200 days).
Mark Bolinger, an engineer at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory has this to add…
“With proper maintenance, wind turbines should be expected to operate for 20 years or longer (industry projections these days are more like 30 years), which means that over their lifetime, wind turbines repay their energy debt many times over.”
“Wind is one of the cheapest forms of electricity generation that exists today.”
The Inflation Reduction Act that President Biden signed on Tuesday includes a $79 billion injection for the Internal Revenue Service (IRS). Many political figures and members of the media are reacting incredulously to this long-sought budget increase for the nation’s tax agency. In discussing this budget increase, Senator Chuck Grassley suggested in an interview on Fox News last week that the IRS “are they going to have a strike force that goes in with AK-15s already loaded, ready to shoot some small-business person in Iowa with these? Because I think they are going after middle class and small business people…” On August 11th, Fox News host Brian Kilmeade warned his viewers that “Joe Biden’s new army” of armed IRS agents could “hunt down and kill middle-class taxpayers that don’t pay enough.” We find these hyperbolic claims to be false. Although the IRS intends to hire more people, Treasury Department officials say not all new hires will work on enforcement and increased revenues won’t come from middle-income earners. Treasury Secretary Janet L. Yellen directed IRS Commissioner Charles P. Rettig not to use the new funding to increase enforcement of taxpayers earning less than $400,000. The IRS is a bureau of the Treasury Department.
Overall, IRS audits dropped by 44% between 2015 and 2019, according to a 2021 Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration report. Last year the Treasury Department had proposed a plan to hire roughly 87,000 IRS employees over the next decade if it was allocated enough money. The IRS will be releasing final numbers for its hiring plans in the coming months, according to a Treasury official. But those employees will not all be hired at the same time, they will not all be auditors and many will be replacing employees who are expected to quit or retire.
The IRS currently has about 80,000 employees, including clerical workers, customer service representatives, enforcement officials, and others. The agency has lost roughly 50,000 employees over the past five years due to attrition, according to the IRS. More than half of IRS employees who work in enforcement are currently eligible for retirement, said Natasha Sarin, the Treasury Department’s counselor for tax policy and implementation.
Budget cuts, mostly demanded by Republicans, have also diminished the ranks of enforcement staff, which fell roughly 30% since 2010 despite the fact that the filing population has increased. The IRS-related money in the Inflation Reduction Act is intended to boost efforts against high-end tax evasion, Sarin said.
The Inflation Reduction Act appropriated $79 billion over 10 years to the IRS to improve three areas: taxpayer service, enforcement, and operations. Since 2012, it has been widely reported on the degree to which budget appropriations have resulted in declining service levels, aging IT, and falling staffing levels. Commissioner of the Internal Revenue Charles Rettig, an appointee of President Trump, has repeatedly sought budget increases to jump start the hiring and technology to more sophisticated audits of higher income individuals, businesses and crypto-assets. Given the aging infrastructure, computer systems that are out of date, and a filing backlog, the expenditures have long been needed.
This appropriation is intended to help implement a plan to improve the IRS’s infrastructure in each of these areas. According to IRS data, in FY2012 the IRS had nearly 90,000 full-time employees. As a result of budget reductions, retirements, hiring freezes, the number of employees had dropped 12.9% to 78,661 in FY 2021.
Restoring the IRS to previous staffing levels with new employees is more likely to help the average taxpayer than threaten them in any way. Moreover, hiring new enforcement staff including auditors, requires time and new personnel need training. Within its FY2021 budget, examination and collections personnel comprised more than five times the budget as investigations, consistent with prior years. New initiatives to combat fraud in higher income brackets require more sophisticated technology and better trained personnel.
New CDC guidance is final proof, that these vaccines do not offer any protection against spread!
Claim Publisher and Date:Twitter users on 2022-08-11
On Thursday, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention revised their guidelines on minimizing the impact of COVID-19. Much of the updates involve the lifting of quarantine requirements to those exposed to the virus. For example, social distancing is now recommended to be done as needed based on individual health risk and community transmission level. The new guidelines also deemphasize screening people with no symptoms, and update COVID-19 protocols in schools. One major point that has grabbed the attention of skeptics of the leading authority of public health in the U.S. is how the recommended prevention strategies no longer draw a distinction between people who are vaccinated and those who are not. People who are exposed to the virus no longer must quarantine at home regardless of their vaccination status. Although the new guidelines still emphasize the importance of vaccination and other prevention measures, including antiviral treatments and ventilation, many are using the new guidelines as proof that the vaccines don’t work. We find this claim false. The recommended vaccines to prevent severe illness from COVID-19 have been proven to be effective.
Previous guidance suggested that someone who was unvaccinated and was in close contact with someone infected should quarantine for five days, even if they tested negative and had no symptoms. A vaccinated person could skip quarantine. Under the new guidelines, there is no quarantine recommendation. Does this invalidate the efficacy of the vaccines? No. The new guidelines could be construed as a pragmatic approach on the current climate, after taking cautious measures for over two years.
The CDC said it is making changes now because vaccination and prior infections have granted many Americans some degree of protection against the virus, and treatments, vaccines and boosters are available to reduce the risk of severe illness.
The COVID-19 vaccines, such as the authorized vaccines by Pfizer and Moderna, are effective at preventing serious illness. As mentioned in previous fact checks, many studies show that they are also effective at preventing infection. More information on the effectiveness and safety of the vaccines can be read here.
At a campaign event in Georgia, Herschel Walker, the former NFL star who is running for Senate and endorsed by President Trump, shared his thoughts on the “Green New Deal” and efforts to curb climate change with government policy. Walker suggested that U.S. climate efforts were pointless because “China’s bad air” would simply move over into American “air space.”
“We in America have some of the cleanest air and cleanest water of anybody in the world,” Walker begins at about the 24 mark in the video of his speech. Under the Green New Deal, he said, the U.S would spend “millions of billions of dollars cleaning our good air up. … Since we don’t control the air, our good air decided to float over to China’s bad air so when China gets our good air, their bad air got to move. So it moves over to our good air space. Then now we got to clean that back up, while they’re messing ours up.”
“So what we’re doing is just spending money,” he continued. “Until these other countries can get on board and clean what they got up, it ain’t going to help us to start cleaning our stuff up. We’re already doing it the right way.”
We find nearly every aspect of this claim to be completely inaccurate. Walker’s description of how air circulates around the world is not correct, nor is the simplification of his assessment of “clean air” and “bad air.” The United States does not actively “clean” air now or under the proposed “Green New Deal.” The “Green New Deal” is a nonbinding resolution introduced in Congress in 2019 that lays out a broad vision for how the country might tackle climate change over the next decade in order to achieve net-zero greenhouse gas emissions. It didn’t pass the Senate vote. The Green New Deal does not address traditional air pollutants nor does it propose to spend “millions of billions of dollars cleaning our good air up.” Facts on the “Green Neal Deal” can be read here.
“Bad” air does not take over “good” air or vice versa. Yes, some forms of air pollution can travel to other places. Near-surface pollutants, such as sulfur dioxide and particulate matter, can be lofted to high altitudes where strong winds can transport high concentrations across oceans to other continents. However, greenhouse gases, primarily carbon dioxide, are responsible for climate change. These greenhouse gasses accumulate in the Earth’s atmosphere on a global scale as a result of human activity, particularly the burning of fossil fuels, which traps heat and warms the entire planet. Also, to suggest curbing pollutants from its local source is pointless because some other locality’s pollutants will take over is missing the point. These harmful air pollutants affect local residents the most. Read more about the harmful effects of air pollution here, here and here.
“Each of these gases can remain in the atmosphere for different amounts of time, ranging from a few years to thousands of years,” the Environmental Protection Agency has explained. “All of these gases remain in the atmosphere long enough to become well mixed, meaning that the amount that is measured in the atmosphere is roughly the same all over the world, regardless of the source of the emissions.”
“There can be enhanced concentrations near point sources and urban areas, but the levels of atmospheric CO2 over the US aren’t drastically different than over China,” Davis said in an email, referring to carbon dioxide. He noted that in April 2020, carbon dioxide levels over China and the U.S were within three to four parts per million of each other.
In other words, there is no American “good air” or Chinese “bad air.” When it comes to greenhouse gases, everyone ultimately shares the “air” — and the concentration of heat-trapping gases in the atmosphere isincreasing. This is raising the global average temperature, which is also causingother effects, such as sea level rise, ice melt and more extreme weather.
U.S. consumer prices were 9.1 percent higher in June than a year earlier, the biggest annual increase in four decades. Gasoline prices are one of the major factors, as the price of gas affects commuters, the delivery of food and other goods, as well as those aching to travel this summer. The good news is that the price of gas has fallen in recent weeks by about 40 cents per gallon, the longest decline since the collapse in energy demand in early 2020, when the pandemic kept many consumers at home. Nevertheless, gas is still averaging about $4.57 per gallon (as of July 15) according to AAA. That’s a pretty steep leap up from the average of $3.15 per gallon we were paying last year.
So of course, gas prices and domestic energy production have become a political tool that Republicans use to condemn the policies of the Biden administration. On July 14, Ohio Republican congressman Jim Jordan tweeted, “Inflation isn’t getting better until gas prices go down. And how do you get gas prices down? Drill DOMESTICALLY. Sadly, Joe Biden and the Democrats refuse to.” The tweet was shared by thousands.
We rate this claim as mostly false due to its inaccuracy. Policies and decisions by the Biden administration have nothing to do with the current price of gasoline. The one-two punch of recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic followed by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is the reason for the high gas prices. The price of crude oil, which is a major factor in the price of domestic fuel, is controlled by the supply and demand of oil globally. According to the American Petroleum Institute (API), the main factors impacting gasoline prices are the cost of global crude oil (61 percent), refining costs (14 percent), distribution and marketing costs (11 percent) and federal and state taxes (14 percent). In other words, when the price of a barrel of crude oil rises in the global market, we see an eventual rise in the price of gas domestically.
There’s no specific body or policy that regulates the oil and gas industry in the U.S. but federal, state and local governments each regulate various aspects of oil and gas operations. Who regulates what mostly depends on land ownership and whether the territory is covered by federal regulations or state laws.
In general, according to research by the American Geosciences Institute (AGI), most drilling and production is regulated by state laws, while federal regulations mostly safeguard water and air quality, worker safety, and exploration and production on Native American and federal lands.
U.S. crude production currently stands at 11.6 million barrels per day, according to the latest data from the U.S. Energy Information Administration. That’s below March 2020 levels, when the country was producing 13 million barrels per day of crude oil.
Farzin Mou, vice president of intelligence at Enverus, an energy analytics company, warns that boosting supply was not easy even before the coronavirus pandemic wreaked havoc on the supply chain.
“The point from which you drill a rig to the point that you can turn it online, it takes about six to eight months typically,” she said.
Now add in the difficulties that oil producers are facing to procure materials like sand and steel, and it becomes clearer that producers are unlikely to provide a quick fix to current gas prices.
In an analysis published Washington Post in March, Glenn Kessler answers the question, “Can the U.S. truly change oil prices by encouraging more drilling and allowing pipelines?”
Not really. The United States in 2020 was the biggest oil producer in the world and also the biggest consumer — but it is just one player in a global oil market. (“Oil” includes crude oil, all other petroleum liquids, and biofuels.) Much of what happens in the market is beyond the government’s control.
In 2021, the United States slipped to third place in oil production, behind Russia and Saudi Arabia. That’s mainly because large shale companies committed to Wall Street that they would continue to limit production and return more cash to shareholders — “an effort to win back investors who fled the industry after years of poor returns,” according to the Wall Street Journal. Scott Sheffield, chief executive of Pioneer Natural Resources, told investors in February: “$100 oil, $150 oil, we’re not going to change our growth rate.”
Following the horrific mass shootings in the United States, social media is rife with discussions on gun laws and regulations. Friday morning’s news of the assassination of former Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe by a gunman has brought the issue of strict laws on gun ownership to light. How could this happen in a country with only one firearm-related death in all of 2021? Since 2017, there have been 14 gun-related deaths in Japan, a remarkably low figure for a country of 125 million people. Compare that to the 45,222 people who died from gun-related injuries in the U.S. in just one year (2021).1
Republican Congressional candidate Lavern Spicer has chimed in on this shocking assassination by tweeting, “How did Shinzo Abe get assassinated when guns are banned in Japan? Liberals, care to explain?” Her tweet was shared by thousands. We find this claim to be misleading and inaccurate.
Firstly, guns are not banned in Japan but are regulated by very strict gun ownership laws.
This backgrounder by the Council on Foreign Relations explains how guns are regulated in Japan…
Gun control advocates regularly cite Japan’s highly restrictive firearm regulations in tandem with its extraordinarily low gun death rate. Most years, fewer than one hundred Japanese die from gun violence in a country of 125 million people. Most guns are illegal in the country and ownership rates, which are quite low, reflect this.
Under Japan’s firearm and sword law [PDF], the only guns permitted are shotguns, air guns, guns with specific research or industrial purposes, or those used for competitions. However, before access to these specialty weapons is granted, one must obtain formal instruction and pass a battery of written, mental, and drug tests and a rigorous background check. Furthermore, owners must inform the authorities of how their weapons and ammunition are stored and provide their firearms for annual inspection.
Some analysts link Japan’s aversion to firearms with its demilitarization in the aftermath of World War II. Others say that because the overall crime rate in the country is so low, most Japanese see no need for firearms.
Secondly, by asking “liberals” to explain, Spicer is suggesting that gun laws don’t prevent gun violence, since those who identify with “liberal” political beliefs tend to support stricter gun control measures. However, the simple fact that this act of violence is so rare in Japan supports the idea that gun control in Japan is working. Yes, culture is one reason for the low rate, but gun regulation is a major one, too. The result is a situation where citizens and police seldom use guns. The fact that the shooter of Shinzo Abe most likely used a “homemade gun”2 to get past laws restricting the sales of firearms and ammunition, proves that guns are harder to obtain in Japan.
According to a recently published article on Vox, gun regulations in other countries reflect a significant difference in recorded instances of gun violence.
No other high-income country has suffered such a high death toll from gun violence. Every day, more than 110 Americans die at the end of a gun, including suicides and homicides, an average of 40,620 per year. Since 2009, there has been an annual average of 19 mass shootings, when defined as shootings in which at least four people are killed. The US gun homicide rate is as much as 26 times that of other high-income countries; its gun suicide rate is nearly 12 times higher.
A 2022 report from the University of Washington revealed that, while the US had more than four firearm homicides per 100,000 people in 2019, Japan had almost zero. Comparing high-income countries in the World Bank with the rate of firearm homicide per 100,000 people, the US had 4.2, Australia had 0.18 and Japan 0.02, the report found.
In 2013, the country hit a record high for gun crime, with 40 criminal cases of guns being fired, but it has followed a downward trend since.
There are also strict laws about how many gun shops are allowed to open – in most of the countries’ 47 prefectures, a total of three gun shops can operate in each prefecture.
