A vast superyacht built for Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen has been sold for almost £200m and is now available to rent for anyone with for about £1m a week, a life of luxury on the high seas. The 126-metre Octopus was the world’s largest yacht when she was built for Allen in 2003

The eight-deck Octopus has 13 guest suites, including a private owner’s deck. There is also a cinema, a gym, a spa, a basketball court, a pool (which converts into a dancefloor) and a pizza oven. The onboard recording studio has been used by Mick Jagger, Bono,  It features not one but two helicopters, two submarines and space for seven tenders and a large SUV. The yacht has quarters for up to 63 crew.

Secret buyer nabs Microsoft grandee’s superyacht for £200m | Microsoft | The Guardian

 Virgin Galactic has reopened ticket sales for its space flights at a starting price of $450,000 a seat. Prospective customers will have the option to buy single seats, friends and family packages, or reserve the whole plane.

 Dead zones develop when fertilizers and nutrients from farmland drain into oceans or lakes, creating an algae bonanza that eventually dies and decomposes. As the algae decompose, it depletes the waters of oxygen, suffocating species that live in the area.

Studies show that fish in hypoxic waters change what they eat, which affects what people can catch. Dead zones also make commercially important species like shrimp less available in the Gulf and kill fish and crabs off the coast of the Pacific north-west.

 The fertilizer pollution has caused an estimated $2.4bn in damage to fisheries and marine habitat every year since 1980, the Union of Concerned Scientists said in a study.

Scientists recently surveyed the bottom of the Gulf of Mexico around Louisiana and Texas and what they discovered was a larger-than-average area of oxygen-depleted water – a “dead zone” where nothing can live, about 4m acres of habitat in the Gulf are unusable for fish and bottom-dwelling species.

The waters off Oregon have had hypoxic areas every year since 2002. But this was a record year in Oregon as well. In Oregon, the global climate crisis is making the problem worse: warmer waters hold less oxygen than cold waters, encouraging the growth of dead zones. In addition, as more carbon is absorbed into the oceans, the waters become more acidic – in turn making it harder for creatures like shellfish and crabs to grow their shells.

In 2001, a task force of state and federal agencies set a goal of keeping the dead zone’s five-year average to no greater than 1,900 sq miles. This summer’s dead zone is about three times larger than that. 

 “Without a significant, concentrated effort to reduce nitrogen runoff from farms and livestock operations, Gulf Coast communities will continue to bear the costs of the dead zone,” said Rebecca Boehm, an economist with the Union of Concerned Scientists food and environment program in a statement.“The dead zone has not meaningfully shrunk in the last 30 years, and we are no closer to the goals set by the Hypoxia Task Force. Policymakers need to rethink their strategy, or we will find ourselves back here next year with the same bad news.”

Dead zones spread along Oregon coast and Gulf of Mexico, study shows | Oceans | The Guardian

 The World Health Organization estimates, roughly 11 billion vaccine doses will be needed to end the pandemic worldwide. 

Despite lofty pledges from rich nations to give away vaccine doses, COVID-19 vaccination in poorer countries is making little headway.

WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus has been tirelessly and relentlessly reminding rich industrialised nations of their moral obligation to provide Coronavirus vaccines to the world’s poorest countries and always the answer was promises made.

Of the 640 million doses scheduled to be delivered by early August, just 163 million have arrived. 

The Biden administration is spending $3.5 billion (€2.9 billion) to buy up 500 million vaccine doses from the US pharmaceutical multinational Pfizer for COVAX. The US government is to donate those advanced mRNA vaccines developed by Pfizer’s German partner BioNTech to the world’s poorest nations. But, the Biden administration has said it would cut in half its $4 billion commitment to the COVAX initiative to help pay for the purchase of the Pfizer shots. But that’s money recipient countries need to get the vaccine to people in their villages, for example, to help pay for the logistics and delivery. The fact that Pfizer’s CEO is raising the price of a single dose of the COVID shot is also evidence of complete failure. 

Two major churches, have been asking German Health Minister Jens Spahn’s ministry for leftover vaccine doses. The aid groups have been carrying out vaccination campaigns in Africa for decades, for instance against Ebola and measles, and they have the necessary infrastructure.

But, Germany’s government has rejected bilateral aid through such established channels. According to a letter from the Federal Ministry of Health, because “donations to third countries regularly require the prior consent of the manufacturer.”

Opinion: Vaccine divide underscores the moral bankruptcy of the West | Opinion | DW | 06.08.2021

In an open letter, 21 leading U.S. scientists urged Biden and federal lawmakers to “go big on climate action and to do so now.”

They say, “As our nation reels from extreme heatwaves, drought, wildfires, and abnormally warm ocean waters fueled an early start to a projected more active than normal Atlantic hurricane season, we are reminded that climate change is here and already exerting a fearsome toll on people, critical ecosystems, and our economy.”

The letter, organized by the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS), emphasizes how “science shows that we must take immediate action to sharply reduce heat-trapping emissions to limit the worst climate change impacts, protect public health and lives, and limit economic harms. We also have a tremendous opportunity to invest in a climate-resilient economy, powered by clean energy, which can bring benefits to all communities in a just and equitable way.” 

Once more the sentiments are sincere but the solutions indicated short-sighted. They point to Biden’s initial American Jobs Plan as a way forward and call for a wishlist of policies.

● Implementing a program to achieve robust power sector emissions reductions

 ● Fully funding clean energy tax incentives 

● Bolstering transmission development and grid modernization 

● Facilitating the replacement of polluting resources with clean alternatives 

● Supporting a fair transition for fossil fuel workers and communities 

● Improving the efficiency of our energy use, for example through funding low-income home energy and weatherization assistance programs. 

● Helping transit agencies and school districts buy electric buses 

● Incentivizing electric vehicle (EV) purchases 

 ● Electrifying medium- and heavy-duty vehicles 

 ● Deploying EV charging infrastructure

But as this blog often says, if wishes were horses, all beggars would ride. Even if these by some degree of miracle do get enacted, the fundamental problem of the economic law of capital accumulation and market expansion to achieve ever-greater profits remain untouched.

 During a pandemic Five of the most profitable health insurance companies in the U.S. brought in over $11 billion in profits in the second quarter of 2021.

Between April and June of this year, UnitedHealth Group, Aetna, Anthem, Cigna, and Humana reported profits of $4.37 billion, $2.78 billion, $1.8 billion, $1.47 billion, and $588 million, respectively, in sharp contrast with the hardships faced by many Americans, albeit some customers will see rebates in premiums if they hold health insurance in the future.

According to a Commonwealth Fund study published last month, 36% of insured adults in the U.S. surveyed between March and June reported struggling with medical bills. Unsurprisingly, the 45% of the population that was infected with Covid-19, lost income or lost their employer-based coverage had higher rates of medical debt.

“A lot of public health departments are really still struggling to find funds for contact tracing [and] testing even when the local insurer was sitting on huge profits,” Dr. Joshua Sharfstein, vice dean for public health practice and community engagement at Johns Hopkins University explained, adding “I think part of the dysfunction of the U.S. response was the fact that money was accumulating in one part of the healthcare universe while it was desperately needed in another part.”

 The Commonwealth Fund released a report showing that even as the U.S. spends far more as a percentage of GDP on healthcare than other rich countries, its for-profit system once again ranks dead last when it comes to access, efficiency, equity, and outcomes.

‘This Ain’t Right!’: Top US Insurers Made $11 Billion in 2nd Quarter | Common Dreams News

As was expected, American and NATO withdrawal did not mean peace had been brought to the Afghan peoples. The Taliban have managed to take control of vast parts of the countryside and now has concentrated attacks on a number of large cities including Kunduz, Herat and Lashkar Gah. In southern Nimroz province, the capital of Zaranj appeared to be the first provincial capital to fall to the Taliban. US aircraft pounded Taliban positions in southern Afghanistan’s Helmand province as the insurgents closed a major border crossing with neighbouring Pakistan. In Helmand’s provincial capital, Lashkar Gah, airstrikes destroyed a market in the centre of the city – an area controlled by the Taliban. The Taliban now control nine out of the 10 districts of the city.

General Kenneth McKenzie, head of the US Army Central Command, told reporters in Kabul, “The Taliban are attempting to create a sense of inevitability about their campaign. They are wrong,” he said.”Taliban victory is not inevitable.” Famous last words?

The Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office advises British citizens to “leave now by commercial means because of the worsening security situation”, adding: “The level of consular assistance the British embassy can provide in Afghanistan is extremely limited, including in a crisis. Do not rely on the FCDO being able to evacuate you from Afghanistan in an emergency. Terrorists are very likely to try to carry out attacks in Afghanistan. Specific methods of attack are evolving and increasing in sophistication. You should note an overall increased threat to western interests in Kabul. Follow the instructions of local authorities. There is a high threat of kidnapping throughout the country.”

United Nations’ Afghanistan envoy, Deborah Lyons, explained Afghanistan had now entered a “new, deadlier, and more destructive phase.”

Vassily Nebenzia who is Russia’s UN Ambassador expressed concern at the level of deterioration. “With the withdrawal of foreign forces, the outlook looks grim.” He added that “the prospects of slipping into full scale and protracted civil war, unfortunately, is a stark reality,” 

A new report from Carnegie UK shows wellbeing in England has decreased in the last year while loneliness and mistrust in the government have increased. The decline in wellbeing started before the pandemic and continued to drop as the country entered its first national lockdown in March 2020.

The charity predicts that when it reports on 2020/21 levels later this year, this decline will be even worse. 

Sarah Davidson, chief executive of Carnegie UK, said anybody who has lived through the last year and a half will have become “so aware of the fact that the things that affect our experience of life goes so much wider than simply things which are captured by by economic data. So much of what we’ve talked about during this pandemic has really reflected the complexity of our lives and the fact that things like our personal relationships, and the extent to which we can influence decisions … and even things like our access to green spaces has an impact,” she said. “All of these things actually tell you something really important about the quality of our life.”

The number of adults in England feeling lonely has been increasing since 2017 and in the last year jumped by 44%, from 2.6 million to 3.7 million. Meanwhile, trust in government is at an-all time low following a nearly 40% drop from 2018/19 to 2019/20 (from 31% to 19%).

The charity is proposing a new measure of national progress – gross domestic wellbeing, or GDWe – to measure whether life is getting better or worse. The latest GDWe score, based on ONS data, was 6.79 out of 10 for 2019/20, compared with 6.89 for 2018/19, its lowest level since 2015/16.

“We’re not saying that economic factors are not important, because they are, and the model of wellbeing that we talk about highlights the importance of balancing social, economic, environmental [and] democratic outcomes … In order to properly capture what’s important to people’s lives, you really need to measure all these things,” Davidson said. She added that this data, which shows wellbeing falling in multiple measured areas, including relationships and governance, should then be used to influence policy decisions.

Wellbeing in decline in England as loneliness rises, report shows | Health | The Guardian

 Space Command, at RAF High Wycombe,  is the UK’s first command centre and is aimed at protecting the country’s interests in space. It will also provide command and control for all of the UK’s space capabilities, including the UK’s Space Operations Centre, RAF Fylingdales, SKYNET and others.

The UK is spending an additional £1.4bn on space capabilities over the next 10 years.

 The United Nations head of climate change, Patricia Espinosa, says a little over half of all countries which signed the Paris accord have submitted updated proposals to curb emissions.

In a statement, Espinosa said, “I call on those countries that were unable to meet this deadline to redouble their efforts and honour their commitment under the agreement.”

The deadline for submissions passed on July 30. China and India who rank first and third respectively as the world’s worst emitters of greenhouse gases have remained silent. 

In the 2015 Paris Agreement,  signatories of the accord was given until the end of 2020 to submit their own determined targets, known as Nationally Determined Targets (NDTs). The pandemic meant that the COP 26 climate conference in Glasgow was postponed to November this year.

The amount of natural disasters appears to be have created a sense of urgency from the climate chief, with Espinosa saying, “recent extreme heat waves, droughts and floods across the globe are a dire warning that much more needs to be done, and much more quickly, to change our current pathway. This can only be achieved through more ambitious NDCs.”

Some of the worlds smaller countries are taking the Paris agreement seriously. Fifteen countries with what can be considered relatively low rates of carbon emissions submitted pledges this week. The group which includes Sri Lanka, Israel, Malawi, Barbados, Malaysia, Nigeria and Namibia, set themselves ambitious targets.

Carbon emissions: China, India miss UN deadline to update targets | News | DW | 31.07.2021