Friday Morning Links

Assorted content to end your week.

- Vaibhav Upadhyay and Krishna Mallela discuss the development of new COVID-19 vaccines, and the hope that they'll offer more protection as variants continue to evolve. Ofra Amir et al. examine the effect of booster vaccinations - finding that a third COVID vaccine remains effective at preventing severe disease, but that a fourth offers substantial additional protection. Siouxsie Wiles summarizes what we know about the rapidly-spreading BA.4 and BA.5 Omicron variants which appear to combine Omicron's infectiousness with Delta's propensity for infecting deep lung tissue. And Andreas Zollner et al. study the possible connection between viral antigens in the gut and long COVID. 

- Seth Klein calls out the Libs for a climate policy which relies on their traditional philosophy of doing nothing by halves which can be done by quarters, rather than serving as a meaningful response to the urgent need to avert climate breakdown. And as an example of how progress actually is possible through focused public action, Nick Romeo discusses how Oslo has managed to outpace nearly all other jurisdictions in its climate change policy through thorough carbon budgeting. 

- Avit Bhowmik and Neil Grant point out that trying to bolt carbon capture and storage onto business as usual is at best a delay tactic, while Chloe Farand writes about the fossil fuel sector's demand to put the public on the hook even for that fatally flawed concept. Frances Schwartzkopff and Natasha White report on the dishonesty of financial asset managers who have tried to claim to run green funds while refusing to count fossil fuel assets which are held passively. And Craig Welch writes in depth about the problems with relying on forests as carbon offsets when they're vulnerable to the very droughts and diseases exacerbated by climate change. 

- Finally, Max Sawicky weighs in on the recognition that the majority of inflation in the U.S. can be traced directly back to corporate profiteering. And Lindsay Owens offers an account of businesses' earnings calls in which they openly discussed plans to exploit consumers while falsely claiming they're responding to outside factors.