{"id":56345,"date":"2021-01-06T09:46:10","date_gmt":"2021-01-06T14:46:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=56345"},"modified":"2021-01-09T10:55:07","modified_gmt":"2021-01-09T15:55:07","slug":"three-major-threats-to-life-on-earth-that-we-must-address-in-2021","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=56345","title":{"rendered":"Three Major Threats to Life on Earth That We Must Address in 2021"},"content":{"rendered":"

Three Major Threats to Life on Earth That We Must Address in 2021<\/a><\/h3>\n
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Pulp Mills on a December night, Wauna, Oregon. Photo: Jeffrey St. Clair.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Large parts of the world\u2014outside of China and a few other countries\u2014face a runaway virus, which has not been stopped because of criminal incompetence by governments. That these governments in wealthy countries cynically set aside the basic scientific protocols\u00a0released<\/a>\u00a0by the World Health Organization and by scientific organizations reveals their malicious practice. Anything less than focused attention to managing the virus by testing, contact tracing, and isolation\u2014and if this does not suffice, then imposing a temporary lockdown\u2014is foolhardy. It is equally distressing that these richer countries have pursued a policy of \u201cvaccine nationalism<\/a>\u201d by stockpiling vaccine candidates rather than a policy for the creation of a \u201cpeople\u2019s vaccine<\/a>.\u201d For the sake of humanity, it would be prudent to suspend intellectual property rules and develop a procedure to create universal vaccines for all people.<\/p>\n

Although the pandemic is the principal issue on all of our minds, other major issues threaten the longevity of our species and of our planet. These include:<\/p>\n

Nuclear Annihilation<\/strong><\/p>\n

In January 2020, the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists\u00a0set<\/a>\u00a0the Doomsday Clock to 100 seconds to midnight, too close for comfort. The clock, created two years after the first atomic weapons were developed in 1945, is evaluated annually by the Bulletin\u2019s Science and Security Board, who decide whether to move the minute hand or keep it in place. By the time they set the clock again, it may well be closer to annihilation. Already limited arms control treaties are being shredded as the major powers\u00a0sit<\/a> on close to 13,500 nuclear weapons (more than 90 percent of which are held by Russia and the United States alone)…<\/p>\n

\u2026click on the above link to read the rest of the article\u2026<\/p>\n

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Three Major Threats to Life on Earth That We Must Address in 2021 Pulp Mills on a December night, Wauna, Oregon. Photo: Jeffrey St. Clair. Large parts of the world\u2014outside of China and a few other countries\u2014face a runaway virus, which has not been stopped because of criminal incompetence by governments. That these governments in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,4,5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-56345","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-economics","category-environment","category-geopolitics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/56345","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=56345"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/56345\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=56345"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=56345"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=56345"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}