DO YOU KNOW JAMES HANSEN?

    From Worldometer (new  COVID-19 deaths yesterday):

        DAY  USA  WORLD   Brazil    India    South Africa

June     9    1093     4732        1185        246       82

July    22     1205     7128        1293      1120      572

Aug    12     1504     6556        1242       835      130

Sept     9     1208      6222       1136      1168       82

Oct     21     1225      6849         571       703       85

Nov    25     2304    12025        620         518      118

Dec    30      3880    14748      1224        299      465

Jan     14     4142    15512       1151        189      712              

Feb      3       4005    14265       1209       107      398

          25       2414    10578        1582       119      144

Mar     2        1989     9490        1726        110      194

          17        1289     9736        2736       171       74

          24          936   10206        3158       277       55

          25        1405   10470        2244       249     121

          26        1165   10331        2639        257    163

          30          873   10854        3668        355      78

          31         1115   12301         3950       458      58

April   6           906   11787         4211        631       37

           7          873   12996         3733        684      79

         13          819   12848         3687      1026      68

Summary:   

• Oh my, India had 185,248 new cases yesterday.  Their new deaths number is back to the bad old days of September and July.
• Michigan had 10,277 new cases, the highest in the nation, the same as Bangladesh.

About that Johnson & Johnson vaccine halt, from the New York Times:

To give you a little context, the risk of getting struck by lightning in a given year is one in 500,000.  So people should be careful about getting hit by lighting, but we don't go outside thinking, "Today is the day I'm going to die of lighting strikes."

The scary part of the above is that while the chance of you being hit by lighting is 1 in 1.2 million (NYT had got their info from somewhere else), this means that 270 Americans each year are struck by a lightning bolt.  That is per year, or for someone like me who is 80 years old, for all those years , the odds were 1 in 1530.  I'm still alive.

In case you were wondering why the box of the vaccine says Janssen and not Johnson & Johnson, probably has to do with the name of a Belgian research and drug company founded by Dr. Paul Janssen.  J&J purchased Janssen in 1961.

James Hansen is perhaps the best known researcher in global climate warming.  He is a year younger than me.  I first began to know of him when he testified a third of century ago in Congress, and later met him at a couple of conferences.  His home base has been Columbia University.  He evolved into a climate activist and has been arrested a few times.  He was a visiting student at the University of Kyoto in the mid-60's.  More than half a century later, he and Makiko Sato sent me this remarkable update, beginning with:

The date of peak cherry blossom bloom has been recorded in Kyoto Japan for 1200 years.  The date of peak bloom this year, 26 March, is the earliest in the 1200-year record (top graph).  Map above: March temperature in Japan has increased about 3°C (~5°F) in the past century.

Clearly, the average global temperature has been increasing:

On March 1 he suggested that the Monarch Butterfly was equivalent to the canary in the coal mine:

Then in mid-March:

Activism is not fun.  The pay is bad (usually zero or less).  It’s hard work to get any attention.  Hard-core activists (not dilettantes like Bill McKibben and me) put a lot on the line, even their lives.  The commitment and bravery of indigenous people is inspiring.  The hardest thing about activism is that it often seems to have little effect, if any. The Race to Save the World, a film by Joe Gantz, will be released on Earth Day, April 22.  The link is to a 9-minute trailer.  The film realistically captures characters who take real risks and the impacts on their loved ones and on themselves.  Implicitly it raises questions about the best way to achieve environmental goals.  It’s not like 1970 when the public could see pollution in the air and in the water – activists could bring 20,000,000 people into the streets for the first Earth Day. That first Earth Day was 51 years ago when 20 million marched for Humanity and Planet Earth.  The theme this year is Restore our Earth.  Here is what is planned for April 20-22:

• April 20
  
• Global Youth Climate Summit led by Earth Uprising.
• Of course Greta Thunberg will be there.
• In the evening, there will be the Hip Hop Caucus presenting We Shall Breath, a virtual gathering.
• Nothing to do with the climate, but on this day at 10AM PDT will be the next Apple Event.  What will they introduce this time?
• April 21
• Educational International will lead the Teach for the Planet:  Global Education Summit.
• Activists from every continent will argue on why we need transformative climate education now.
• April 22...Earth Day
• President Joe Biden will have a global climate summit.
• In parallel, Earthday.Org will have its second Earth Day Live digital event starting at Noon EDT.

A rabbit-napping?  Darius, the world's longest rabbit is missing in England.  He is 4 feet and 3 inches long as the Guinness record holder.  Darius is a Continental Giant rabbit.  There is a reward of $2750.   His is a family of tragedies, for his son Simon died while traveling from London Heathrow to Chicago O'Hare in 2017 on a United Airlines flight.  Funny, but they look so different.  Simon to the left.

Finally a father and daughter singing O Solo Mio:

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