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Hundreds of requests for details on the specifics of the container shipping backlog. So, I spent 3 days calling sources, digging for details and gathering information on the substantive issue at hand. The epicenter of the problem is not what is being outlined by financial media, corporate media and politicians who have a specific interest in distracting from the issues at hand. This has nothing to do with COVID-19. The issues being discussed today relate to events that happened a long time ago. As a matter of fact, it was so predictable that Amazon, Walmart, UPS, FedEx, Samsung, The Home...

A newly examined ice core shows what may be the chemical traces of supernovae that exploded a thousand years ago. Yuko Motizuki of the RIKEN research institute in Wako, Japan, and colleagues analysed the nitrate content of an ice core drilled at Dome Fuji station in Antarctica. Nitrate is produced in the atmosphere by nitrogen oxides, which in turn should be created by the gamma radiation from a supernova. Motizuki's group found high nitrate concentrations in three thin layers about 50 metres deep. Because snow gradually builds up into layers of ice, depth indicates age. After calibrating this icy calendar...

A simple molecule in the atmosphere that acts as a "detergent" to breakdown methane and other greenhouse gases has been found to recycle itself to maintain a steady global presence in the face of rising emissions, according to new NASA research. Understanding its role in the atmosphere is critical for determining the lifetime of methane, a powerful contributor to climate change. The hydroxyl (OH) radical, a molecule made up of one hydrogen atom, one oxygen atom with a free (or unpaired) electron is one of the most reactive gases in the atmosphere and regularly breaks down other gases, effectively ending...

Frustrated European officials alerted the US to Volkswagen's emissions cheating scam after the European Commission failed to act on the intel for years, German media reported on Friday. [...] "Officials from the EU informed the US environment group ICCT about the possible cheating on nitrogen oxide emissions," Mary Nichols, who heads the California Air Resources Board, told WirtschaftsWoche. The weekly reported that the European Commission had been told by a Volkswagen supplier of the cheating as early as in 2011. ...

A DEVASTATING burst of gamma-rays may have caused one of Earth's worst mass extinctions, 443 million years ago. A team of astrophysicists and palaeontologists says the pattern of trilobite extinctions at that time resembles the expected effects of a nearby gamma-ray burst (GRB). Although other experts have greeted the idea with some scepticism, most agree that it deserves further investigation. GRBs are the most powerful explosions known. As giant stars collapse into black holes at the end of their lives, they fire incredibly intense pulses of gamma rays from their poles that can be detected even from across the universe...

Ship operators who reduce pollution by observing a speed limit while entering the Port of Long Beach will be rewarded with lower dockage rates. The reduced dockage rates are part of the port's Green Flag Incentive Program, an annual $2.2 million clean air initiative that provides financial incentives and recognition to those who voluntarily reduce their speeds. The tariff reduction plan was approved Monday by the Board of Harbor Commissioners. Under the program, carriers will qualify for a 15 percent discounted Green Flag dockage rate during the following year if 90 percent of their vessels comply with a 12-knot speed...

Coniferous forests may produce more smog components than traffic does, calculations suggestMaybe Ronald Reagan was right after all about trees being big polluters. A new study suggests the Scotch pine and other northern evergreens may emit more nitrogen oxides -- key components of smog -- than all the cars and industrial plants on the planet.It has been known for years that some plants emit small amounts of nitrogen oxides. Now, a team of Finnish and U.S. researchers has found that Scotch pine needles increase those emissions substantially when they are exposed to ultraviolet radiation from the sun. This led the...