In Between Times 1-12-2024
Center left took out Harvard pres., Polarization, Brazil's savanna is burning, Tech innovations to be excited about
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Politico: The right is dancing on Claudine Gay’s grave. But it was the center-left that did her In.
Fundamentally what “did her in” was Ms. Gay’s plagiarism. (And she still enjoys employment at Harvard with a $900k/year salary.) But it took some courage from people on the center left to call her out given her credentials and blessing from the Harvard Corporation. Many people on the center left, especially honest academics, realized that even though Ms. Gay might be on their side in the “culture wars” (maybe, maybe not) her crime necessitated punishment regardless.
Principle, for once, won out.
It must be noted that had one of Ms. Gay’s students done the same as she did, they would have been sent home in disgrace. In fact, between 2020 and 2021 twenty-seven students were removed from Harvard for plagiarism and other Honor Code violations similar to Ms. Gay’s transgressions.
(From Politico)
But there’s a strange thing missing from this moment of conservative agit-prop victory: The people who actually made decisions about Gay, who were almost all on the left and the center-left. In other words, exactly who you’d expect to be in the mix at a liberal university.
Rather than a monolith to be attacked by MAGA die-hards, elite higher ed is a world with significant existing tensions between the moderate and not-so-moderate left. Conservatives may have fanned the flames, but the divides that defined Gay’s tenure — over DEI, over Israel/Gaza, over speech and even over how seriously to take her plagiarism — were among folks well outside the far-right universe. As such, it’s a lesson for all sorts of other blue-state organizations, from think tanks to businesses to the Democratic Party.
Click here for the article.
Washington Post warns of “violent political threats”
It is interesting that the left points to January 6th and the right points to the Covid/Floyd riots across the country and the attack on the White House in 2020. Either way people on both sides know they are stoking flames and that is a sad thing to say.
How polarized is your country?
For the record we don’t buy Indonesia (but we could be wrong).
Clearing in Brazil's savanna region surges to highest level since 2019
As we reported last week, deforestation in the Amazon rain forest is down sharply. Unfortunately in the steppe region to the south, where soy beans grow well, and cattle can roam, the land continues to be cleared at a furious pace.
(From ABC)
The National Institute for Space Research reported that 7,852 square kilometers (3,000 square miles) of vegetation had been torn down in the Cerrado biome between January and December 2023, especially in the states of Maranhao, Bahia and Tocantins.
This is the highest level since 2019, when the agency recorded its first full year of deforestation in the Cerrado, home of more than 800 species of birds and nearly 200 mammals, according to the non-profit WWF, or 30% of the nation's total biodiversity.
Some of the most emblematic animals include jaguars, giant armadillos and anteaters, tapirs and maned wolves.
Click here for the article.
The Cerrado is under assault
But isn’t this what we did to the Great Plains? (Not that this is an excuse.) We wonder what government incentives encourage this type of farming in Brazil.
And we’re not just talking about the Brazilian government. Most of the soy grown in the Cerrado goes to China whose agricultural policy (some might say artificially) encourages the soy industry in central Brazil.
China ramps up Brazil soy, corn purchases
China’s soybean imports from Brazil grew substantially in November during a period traditionally dominated by freshly harvested US supplies, Reuters reported, citing China’s General Administration of Customs.
The customs data showed Brazil shipped 5.2 million tonnes of soybeans to China in November, a 108% increase year-on-year.
10 climate tech innovations that give us hope for 2024
Lots of great stuff here. We particularly like the developments in geothermal energy. Consider that the Earth has a molten core, filled with energy. It would be interesting if we could tap it like a giant (and clean) nuclear reactor.
Event
January 17 @ 12:00 pm - 1:00 pm EST
Online Content moderation from the trenches: Veterans who have fought the fight
Location: Online
Online content moderators have a difficult and thankless job: delivering results and determining what you see on the web. But what do they actually do, and how do they do it? Hear from actual moderators who have served at some of the largest social media platforms in the world and are now at the forefront of content moderation in the technology space.
Join us for a rollicking discussion on the past, present and future of online content moderation with people who have overcome some of the most trying situations in the history of the internet.