Sunday, July 10, 2022

Sunday Afternoon Links

This and that for your Sunday reading.

- The Economist reports on new research estimating that COVID-19 vaccines saved 20 million lives in their first year of availability - though that reality makes it all the more galling that there's been so little progress both in ensuring greater availability of existing vaccines for lower-income people, and developing new versions to address the flood of variants. Alice Park discusses why it's important to vaccinate the young children whose doses have only recently been approved. And Rick Howe writes that the elimination of any public health measures in the midst of a raging pandemic leaves the inescapable impression that we don't value the lives of immunocompromised people.

- Stephen Wentzel reports on Niki Ashton's push to ensure that the Canada Revenue Agency uses its resources to crack down on tax avoidance by the wealthy, not to add injury to insult for CERB recipients. 

- Sam Pizzigati offers a reminder that obscene wealth is invariably the result of a combination of luck and ruthlessness. And Michael Grabell reports on a stark example of both being torqued to extreme levels, as shipping and transportation magnates are extracting massive windfall profits from their own refusal to cooperate with customers. 

- Qingchen Chao and Wang Yang estimate China' viable renewable energy production at four times the amount of power needed to meet all current global electricity demand. And Simon Evans reports on the latest UK wind power contract which has produced prices a fraction of the cost of fossil fuel gas generation.

- Finally, Umair Haque discusses how the U.S.'s obsession with constant self-reliance and competition leads to ambient stress for everybody.

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