Big Oil Greases the Palm | Musk v. Moscow | Tally Woe!
August 31, 2020
The Good News
79 years and counting: Ecuadorian spouses break record as the world’s oldest married couple (NBC)
“We rich nations, for that is what we are, have an obligation not only to the poor nations, but to all the grandchildren of the world, rich and poor. We have not inherited this earth from our parents to do with it what we will. We have borrowed it from our children and we must be careful to use it in their interests as well as our own.”
Big Oil Greases the Palm
(Jan Hetfleisch via Getty Images)
The American political chasm between Democrats and Republicans mirrors the economic divide between environmentalists and the fossil fuel industry. The climate crisis and lessening demand are wreaking havoc on industry profits; it’s only made worse by COVID-19. Oil companies see the writing on the wall for their inevitable demise — wind and solar power are becoming increasingly affordable, and governments are considering new policies to fight climate change by reducing the burning of fossil fuels.
Oil producers need new uses for their oversupply of oil and gas; meanwhile they’re racing to make more plastics. The latter is a two-fold problem: many markets are awash with plastic, and few countries are willing to serve as dumping grounds for global plastic waste. Africa is seen as a solution to both problems.
Kenya is one of Africa’s biggest economies, and like many countries, it has wrestled with the proliferation of plastic. In 2017, Kenya passed a stringent law against plastic bags. After China closed its ports to most plastic trash in 2018, exporters needed new dumping grounds. In 2019, America exported over a billion pounds of plastic waste to 96 countries; exports to Kenya more than quadrupled from a year earlier. Much of the waste — including the hardest-to-recycle plastics — wound up in rivers and oceans. That same year, Kenya signed onto a global agreement to stop importing plastic waste, a pact strongly opposed by the chemical industry.
Currently, the US and Kenya are in the middle of trade negotiations with President Uhuru Kenyatta, who is eager to strike a deal. At the same time, a group representing the world’s largest chemical and fossil fuel companies is lobbying hard behind-the-scenes, insisting that any trade deal include a reversal of Kenya’s strict limits on plastics and the import of American plastic trash. The group’s efforts are alarming environmental groups in Kenya and beyond that have been working to reduce both plastic use and waste.
In an April letter to the US Trade Representative Office, the American Chemistry Council’s director of international trade wrote: “We anticipate that Kenya could serve in the future as a hub for supplying U.S.-made chemicals and plastics to other markets in Africa through the trade agreement.”
The director of the Centre for Environmental Justice and Development, a non-profit based in Nairobi, said the chemistry council’s plastics proposals would “inevitably mean more plastic and chemicals in the environment. It’s shocking.”
Musk v. Moscow
- It was a harrowing plot worthy of any great spy novel. Last Tuesday, a criminal complaint filed in a Nevada federal court outlined a sinister plan in which a Russian man offered a million dollars to the employee of an unnamed Nevada company in exchange for infecting the company’s network with malware.
- The employee reported the offer to the FBI, and later worked with the bureau in a sting operation wherein he covertly recorded face-to-face meetings with the defendant, 27-year-old Egor Igorevich Kriuchkov, as they discussed the proposal. Prosecutors wrote in the complaint: “The purpose of the conspiracy was to recruit an employee of a company to surreptitiously transmit malware provided by the coconspirators into the company’s computer system, exfiltrate data … and threaten to disclose the data unless the company paid the coconspirators ransom demand.”
- Kriuchkov is alleged to have traveled from Russia to Nevada on numerous occasions to meet with the unnamed employee. The Russian wined, dined, and boozed the employee in various bars and restaurants; when discussing especially sensitive details, conversations were conducted in Kriuchkov’s rented cars.
- On Thursday, Elon Musk confirmed that the Nevada company was in fact Tesla’s Gigafactory. Besides targeting an iconic carmaker, the plot is notable for its sheer audacity and recklessness. A security researcher noted that a benefit of cybercrime is “criminals don’t have to expose themselves to unnecessary risk by conducting business in person. Flying into US jurisdiction to have malware manually installed on a company’s network is absolutely insane.” (Arstechnica)
Facebook’s Handling of Hindu Hate Speech
- Facebook has come under increased scrutiny for how it enforces its hate speech policies when the accused are members of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s ruling party. Activists say some Facebook policy officials are too close to the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).
- They accuse the company of putting its relationship with the government ahead of its stated mission of removing hate speech from its platform — especially when ruling-party politicians are involved. In July 2019, a video call took place between an employee of the watchdog group Avaaz and a senior Facebook official in India, Shivnath Thukral.
- The purpose of the call was to discuss the 180 posts that Avaaz had identified as violating the social media giant’s rules against hate speech. Halfway through the call Thukral, who had previously worked on the BJP’s 2014 election campaign, got up and walked out of the room, saying he had other important things to do. The next month, Facebook’s managing director for India denied the company has shown any bias toward the BJP.
- However, one case in point was a particularly heinous post cited by Avaaz in 2019 as violating Facebook policies; it was made by a BJP lawmaker against Bangladeshi Muslims. Despite the lawmaker calling for the immigrants to be shot, the post was not removed for over a year. In fact, of the 180 posts brought to the Facebook official’s attention in 2019, only 70 were acted upon. (Time)
Additional World News
- What you can’t Xi can’t hurt you: Blanked-Out Spots On China’s Maps Helped Us Uncover Xinjiang’s Camps (Buzzfeed)
- In Japan, Shinzo Abe’s Replacement Faces Daunting Challenges (NYT, $)
- The Pope, the Jews, and the Secrets in the Archives (Atlantic, $). Unveiling Vatican secrets more than 70 years later.
- ‘A Family Business:’ Graft Investigation Threatens Brazil’s Bolsonaro (NYT, $)
- Escape: the woman who brought her trafficker to justice (Guardian)
- More madness on the Mediterrean: 3-Year-Old Clinging to Unicorn Float Is Rescued From Sea in Greece (NYT, $)
COVID-19
- The cost of the crowds: Secret Service copes with coronavirus cases in aftermath of Trump appearances (WaPo)
- Will Trump’s Rapid Coronavirus Test Deal Help America? (Atlantic)
- Hong Kong health workers, activists urge boycott of mass testing (Reuters). Anti-vax meets anti-fascists.
- What if the First Coronavirus Vaccines Aren’t the Best? (NYT)
- I’m not throwing away my shot! Can You Get a Flu Shot Now? Yes, and Doctors Say You Should (NYT)
The Future of Work
- The new residency schemes inviting workers abroad (BBC). Are we entering the age of digital nomadism?
- The Office Is Adrift. Divinity Consultants Are Here to Save It. (NYT, $)
- When Retirement Comes Too Early (NYT, $). The “experience premium” withers away.
- The Workforce Is About to Change Dramatically (Atlantic, $)
- The history behind the home-office: Women are losing the work-from-home battle for space (CNN)
Pandemonium in Portland
(Nathan Howard via Getty Images)
- President Trump stoked fear around the weeks-long anti-racist protests and protesters in Portland, when he said in his acceptance speech last Thursday that a Joe Biden administration would “make every city look like Democrat-run Portland, Oregon. No one will be safe in Biden’s America.”
- The speech so energized Trump supporters in Happy Valley, Oregon that thousands gathered Saturday afternoon to form a 600-vehicle caravan and drive to Portland, assuring a clash with the anti-racist demonstrators already there.
- Before nine o’clock Saturday night, during a series of confrontations between members of the caravan and counter-protesters, one person had been shot and killed. Images from the scene showed a man wearing a hat featuring the logo of Patriot Prayer, a group known for engaging in violence during right wing demonstrations in Portland through the years.
- The man was also wearing a “Thin Blue Line” patch on his shorts, indicating support for the police. Advocates on both sides quickly seized on the violence as a sign of a community out of control. On Sunday, a coalition of civil rights groups called for the resignations of both Portland’s mayor and its police chief. (OPB)
Tally Woe! The Census Braces For Shoddy Results
- The US Census Bureau’s once-every-decade duty to tally the number of all persons living in the US couldn’t have happened at a worse time.
- There’s the COVID-19 pandemic, taking place in a charged political climate churning with anti-immigrant sentiment and government distrust; a cascade of IT complications; displaced people; online census responses making for an unusually complicated mess; and last minute schedule changes, including a truncated deadline for finishing, meaning quality checks will be trimmed or tossed out completely.
- Bottom line: the accuracy of this year’s count will most certainly be suspect. According to the former chief statistician within the White House Office of Management and Budget: “I am not finding any rationale that I can accept as an objective reason for rushing through, ending up with crummy data and destroying the trust in a system that depends almost entirely on the voluntary cooperation of the American people.” (NPR)
Additional USA News
- White supremacists and militias have infiltrated police across US, report says (Guardian).
- The Massacre That Emboldened White Supremacists (NYT, $)
- Turbulent times: The Social Fabric of the US Is Fraying Severely, if Not Unravelling (The Intercept)
- What Killed New York City? Affluence. (Atlantic, $)
- The Purdue Painkiller-makers: How the Sacklers Shifted $10.8 Billion of Their Opioid Fortune (Bloomberg)
- Fed Chair Unveils Sweeping Updates to American Central Banking (NYT, $)
- Don’t underestimate Trump’s base: Michael Moore warns that Donald Trump on course to repeat 2016 win (Guardian)
- Why Were Progressives Defending Aaron Coleman? (The Cut)
- Evangelicals are looking for answers online. They’re finding QAnon instead. (Technology Review). A lot more Q’s than A’s.
- Having wildfire burnout? Welp: The Biblical Flood That Will Drown California (Wired)
Logging Into Hurricane Laura
- Microsoft’s Xbox Game Studios and Asobo Studio launched their next-generation Microsoft Flight Simulator 2020 game on August 18, just in time for players to turn into virtual storm chasers.
- They gathered in the skies above the Gulf of Mexico and flew directly into the eye of Hurricane Laura as it approached the Texas and Louisiana coastlines and made landfall as a Category 4 hurricane with 150 mph winds. A YouTube user who captured the virtual experience of flying through the hurricane was able to show just how well the storm cloud formations are depicted in the game.
- To make this possible, Microsoft partnered with the Swiss company Meteoblue to map the world’s weather patterns. The result is that Flight Simulator is now simulating real world weather events with incredible accuracy. Meteoblue cofounder Mathias Muller was elated.
- “We are very happy that real-time weather is now part of Flight Simulator. It was a long journey as integrating these massive amounts of data required the solution of many problems.” Microsoft Flight Simulator has been wowing players since its release earlier this month.
- The game uses Bing Map data to map the world, combined with Azure-powered procedural generation technology to bring things like buildings and trees to life. You can even get up close to elephants and giraffes in a safari flight over Ethiopia if hurricane chasing isn’t your thing. (The Verge)
Additional Reads
- The revolutionary robo-pig: Elon Musk’s Neuralink demo shows a brain-machine interface in action & Elon Musk trots out pigs in demo of Neuralink brain implants (Vox, The Verge)
- The Brain Implants That Could Change Humanity (NYT, $)
- From the derp to the deep: Memers are making deepfakes, and things are getting weird (Technology Review).
- The fate of antiques and heirlooms in a disposable age (BBC)
- The Future of American Industry Depends on Open Source Tech (Wired). Cracking the code in Chinese competition.
- How to Destroy Surveillance Capitalism, a New Book by Cory Doctorow & Even Google engineers are confused about Google’s privacy settings (OneZero, The Verge)
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