Scientists trace heat waves back to individual fossil fuel companies, with potentially sweeping courtroom implications

[-rick-]

AFAIK FFP3 masks protect the wearer and prevents spread. The other masks provide little protection for the wearer and stop large particles which at the time some speculated would help limit spread to others. Once the science came out that properly analysed how covid spread (a lot of smaller particles that go through/around masks that don't seal to the face) the advice should have changed to have everyone wear the better masks.

 

Our country was quite an outlier on this. The person making decisions on masks in the NHS was a nurse with no training in infectious diseases, at the COVID enquiry she was insisting that masks weren't effective despite all the evidence presented there and elsewhere. I get the distinct impression there was pressure caused by the lack of supplies that lead to hesistation recommending anything better than cloth/low quality surgical style masks. Personally I think this is one of the bigger mistakes made in this country - prioritising managing the situation rather than being very clear on facts. Too often the government focussed on 'the message' rather than communicating what was known, this may have helped short term with getting people to do what they wanted but it sowed massive distrust that continues to this day.

 

The big caveat to all this masks only work if worn properly and at population scale plenty of people don't like wearing them or make half assed efforts. In those cases masks can provide a false sense of security. Without good ventilation indoor spaces are still a problem even with masks (because masks aren't perfect) and it's again one of those areas where England is an outlier. Many other countries, including Scotland, have tightened ventilation requirements for buildings to ensure more fresh air (something that is a good idea even ignoring covid or other infectious diseases).

[Spinny]

When we talk about science today, unfortunately we are talking about a world which has drastically changed over the past 50 years and become almost unrecognisable. Science is now dominated by business and academic career interests. China floods academic journals with junk papers and now many written by AI engines. For an academic science career today you need to publish many papers and get cited by colleagues, it has become a sick game. Millions of people have PhDs. Professors have their names on many papers but barely read them. Peer review has become corrupted and politicised. Science is as riddled with cronyism as any other discipline. Findings and theories ''authorities'' don't like and which challenge commercial interests are blocked. Journal editors favour papers that suit their commercial interests. Large double blind medical trials are expensive and are almost exclusively only those funded by commercial interests i.e. Big Pharma. It really isn't what you think it is.

 

Science is associated with truth. Hard science and engineering has revolutionised our world. So anyone that can claim their product, drug, treatment, theory, or vested interests is backed by 'science' knows they will make money. Enormous incentives to cheat a little here and there, to bin the negative results and only publish the positive ones.

 

Selling medicines to the well is great business. You can charge ten or a hundred times the production costs for a patented drug. Off patent drugs are your commercial enemy. If everyone realised taking vitamin D hugely reduced your covid risk the market for vaccines and patented drugs for covid would collapse. Big Pharma carefully targets medics and others that control prescribing, they spend vast sums lobbying politicians. Jonathan Van-Tam now works as a senior medical consultant to Moderna. Many find a revolving door between officialdom and big pharma. There is a reason that happens. It is not good.

 

[sgt_woulds]

25 minutes ago, Spinny said:

If everyone realised taking vitamin D hugely reduced your covid risk the market for vaccines and patented drugs for covid would collapse. 

 

 

 

Or just getting a dose of sunshine.  Of the 'mistakes' made in hard lockdown, stopping people from visiting parks or open countryside was misguided for a range of health reasons.  

 

But you are overstating the facts, as have many anti-vaxers.  Vitimin D on its own will not reduce the risks enough to obviate the need for vaccines, but it may improve their effectiveness.  

 

Can vitamin D supplements help protect against covid-19? | New Scientist

 

At any rate, getting out into the sunshine and fresh air will certainly make you feel better and reduce stress.  Lower stress = reduced rates of inflamation.  When inflamation is reduced the body can make better use of its immune system to target infection.

[-rick-]

@Spinny

 

You highlight many real issues there but I think that just reinforces the point I was trying to make, that you can't take any single paper or single scientist saying something as a fact or true. The process of science relys on lots of work repeating, refining, proposing alternative explanations and only when you get to the point where there is broad consensus amongst the scientists in the field can you call something basically settled. This process removes a lot of the noise you highlight but it takes a long time and is not something a layperson (or even a scientist from another field) can really usefully engage with.

 

Even when something is considered settled, say climate change, just because the fundamental principles are settled the precise details are still discussed. From my limited understanding the scientific debates are now along the lines of if the models have been too conservative and the actual effects of climate change will be worse than previously expected.

Edited September 18 by -rick-
Added tag to Spinny so make clear who I was replying to

[SteamyTea]

2 hours ago, sgt_woulds said:

Can vitamin D supplements help protect against covid-19? | New Scientist

Have you read this, in this week's comic?

 

Vitamin D supplements may lower your level of one type of vitamin D

Taking vitamin D2 supplements seems to reduce levels of vitamin D3 in our body

By Chris Simms

18 September 2025

 

Vitamin D supplements are recommended during the darker months in many countries

Olga Pankova/Getty Images

 

Taking one type of vitamin D supplement seems to cut the levels of another type that is more easily used by the body, which could affect our immune system.

Our bodies create vitamin D when ultraviolet rays in sunlight convert a protein called 7-dehydrocholesterol in the skin into a type of vitamin D known as vitamin D3. When sunlight is sparse during autumn and winter, countries like the UK recommend people take supplements.

 

Two forms of these supplements are available: vitamin D3, or cholecalciferol – which normally comes from lanolin, a waxy substance on sheep’s wool – and vitamin D2, or ergocalciferol, which mainly comes from mushrooms. It was thought that it didn’t really matter which one you took.

But now, Emily Brown at the University of Surrey, UK, and her colleagues have performed a meta-analysis of 11 previously published randomised-controlled trials on vitamin D supplements, with a total of 655 participants.

They found taking vitamin D2 supplements can lead to a drop in the body’s concentration of vitamin D3. Why this happens, or if vitamin D3 supplements reduce vitamin D2 levels, isn’t entirely clear.

 

Furthermore, in many of the studies, the vitamin D3 levels were lower in people taking vitamin D2 than they were in control groups not taking any vitamin D supplements. “This is a previously unknown effect,” says Brown.

A 2022 study suggests vitamin D2 and D3 have overlapping but different roles in supporting immune function. Only vitamin D3 seems to stimulate the type-I interferon signalling system, for instance, which provides a first line of defence against bacteria and viruses.

Brown says the findings suggest vitamin D3 supplements may be more beneficial for most individuals than vitamin D2, but adds personal considerations need to be taken into account, such as wanting to avoid animal products.

They also don’t mean people should just stop taking vitamin D2, she says. “Your total vitamin D level will still be sufficient if you are taking vitamin D2 supplements, but you might find that it’s less effective and you might lose out on those additional functions in terms of immune support.”

Ouliana Ziouzenkova at The Ohio State University points out studies have shown that among older people, the conversion of vitamin D3 to its active form called calcitriol can be less efficient, so D2 supplementation may be particularly beneficial in this population.

 

Chronic inflammation messes with your mind. Here's how to calm it

From depression to dementia, we are now realising the profound impacts of long-term inflammation on the brain. A better understanding of the underlying mechanisms is unlocking new treatments to protect our cognitive function and mental health

 

“In the absence of any evidence for negative effects, if someone who is vegan is deficient in vitamin D, opting for a D2 supplement over no supplement remains the likely prudent choice,” says Bernadette Moore at the University of Liverpool in the UK.

Plant-based vitamin D3 has started to become more accessible. For instance, a tomato has been gene-edited to produce vitamin D3, but trials are ongoing.

Team member Susan Lanham-New, also at the University of Surrey, hopes the research will remind people of the importance of vitamin D supplements. “There are many people in the United Kingdom and other areas of northern latitude who in winter get mild osteomalacia [known as rickets in children], caused by lack of vitamin D – which presents itself in lethargy, bone pain, muscle ache, susceptibility to infection, tiredness – and don’t realise,” she says.

 

Journal reference:

Nutrition Reviews DOI: 10.1093/nutrit/nuaf166

[Spinny]

Hmm...

[LnP]

On 13/09/2025 at 02:52, Crofter said:

May I make a suggestion for some light reading that is pertinent to this discussion? 

 

'Not the end of the world" by Hannah Ritchie... she's what you would call a techno-optimist.

 

To summarise... yes, things are bad, and yes, they are going to get worse. But we are perhaps the first generation capable of actually creating a sustainable world. There are some amazing encouraging signs already.

 

We probably won't hit the 1.5⁰ limit. But the closer we can keep to that, the better. It's better to have 2⁰ of warming than 4⁰.

 

Global population is slowing markedly, and many countries including China have already passed peak per capita emissions. As populations level off total global emissions will fall, even without any major changes in energy use. And we are getting much more efficient with energy all the time. (Just think of how little energy a new build home takes compared to one from a few decades ago! Or a modern EV compared a 1990s Escort that did 35mpg!)

 

Finally, there is plenty of low hanging fruit still available in the fight to cut emissions. It might be unpopular but reducing meat and dairy, and food waste, would be an enormous benefit. The world currently produces more than twice the total food calories needed for its population. But we feed much of that to livestock, and too much goes to waste. 

 

What's generally lacking from current discussions is data. Too many people argue from anecdotes. The numbers are all out there, we don't have to guess.

If you don't have time to read her book, you can hear her being interviewed by Michael Liebreich on his podcast, Less Doom, More Data: Debunking the Biggest Climate Myths | Ep223: Dr. Hannah Ritchie

 

To the other discussions on this thread, I also recommend his podcast Audioblog 15: The Pragmatic Climate Reset Part 1 — The Energy Transition Is Not Dead

[ProDave]

Lets have a sensible discussion on this please.

 

Read this article.   https://www.msn.com/en-gb/money/other/north-sea-has-three-times-more-oil-and-gas-than-government-claims/ar-AA1MX3Ag?cvid=d19c8bd9502c4998b87b235f0e1f617f&ei=39

 

The gist is, there is enough oil and gas in our own fields to see us through the transition to net zero.  But instead we are closing our oil fields and importing foreign oil to fill that gap.

 

Now please explain to me how this is a good thing for the environment?

 

Importing oil has an environmental cost of transporting it by tanker which using our own does not.  Using our own maintains employment, boosts the economy and provides energy security.

 

I now await someone to explain how closing our oil fields early and importing oil is a good thing.

 

It is this sort of stupid decision that leaves me and many others with little confidence the people planning these things understand what they are doing.

[saveasteading]

On 18/09/2025 at 22:02, Spinny said:

Hmm

Exactly.

Graphs without context are not to be trusted. 

The annotations are clearly not by independent parties. Scientists fo not write like that. i.e. it's  added by a vitamin seller or antivaxer. Or one of Putin's troublemakers.

 

Cause or effect? Dead people have low vitamin counts, and very ill people can't convert vitamins.

Well people don't need supplements.

 

Could you explain what log-rank test

p = 0.076 means? We need context.

 

Thanks for sharing this though to show us how dangerous these antivax people are, and don't distribute it among the general public or you may cause deaths.

[Crofter]

 

 

4 hours ago, ProDave said:

Lets have a sensible discussion on this please.

 

Read this article.   https://www.msn.com/en-gb/money/other/north-sea-has-three-times-more-oil-and-gas-than-government-claims/ar-AA1MX3Ag?cvid=d19c8bd9502c4998b87b235f0e1f617f&ei=39

 

The gist is, there is enough oil and gas in our own fields to see us through the transition to net zero.  But instead we are closing our oil fields and importing foreign oil to fill that gap.

 

Now please explain to me how this is a good thing for the environment?

 

Importing oil has an environmental cost of transporting it by tanker which using our own does not.  Using our own maintains employment, boosts the economy and provides energy security.

 

I now await someone to explain how closing our oil fields early and importing oil is a good thing.

 

It is this sort of stupid decision that leaves me and many others with little confidence the people planning these things understand what they are doing.

You might find this interesting: 

 

https://edconway.substack.com/p/why-does-britain-export-80-of-its

 

 

Looking at the article you linked (an article on the oil industry written by Leake- very drol) it seems that the estimate of oil reserves is AI derived, which makes me a little suspicious. And I don't know whether it fully accounts for the different grades of crude, the efforts needed to extract them, and the value of them to various industries. 

 

My own take on drill vs import is that if we leave it in the ground for now, it's likely to be worth more in the future. Even after we've stopped using oil for our primary electricity and land transport energy source, we'll still need it for plastics, chemicals, and almost certainly aviation.

[SteamyTea]

5 hours ago, ProDave said:

now await someone to explain how closing our oil fields early and importing oil is a good thing

It is to do with the economic principle of Division of Labour.

Well worth reading up on if you don't know it.

 

Transport costs, both environmentally and economically are tiny compared to production costs.

Oil is a global business (why I lived in strange, undeveloped lands when a kid). There will be a huge difference, environmentally between Northern European producers and Nigerian or Russian.

Then there is the social costs, try Venezuela to see what badly managed oil wealth can do (biggest reserved in the world).

While we transition to RE, many 'oil workers' will transition as well, there is little difference between welding an oil pipe and a wind turbine tower, wiring up an oil refinery and a solar farm to the grid, developing chemical compounds to manufacture turbine blades and create FeS₂ solar modules.

The administrative skills needed to continuously extract, transport, refine, process, redistribute and market petroleum products are all very transferable skills (just like catering and production engineering, though many chefs cannot see that they are really production technicians).

 

None of this transition is going to happen overnight, been happening for about 35 years in the UK, there are already a few thousand, Degree Graduates (courses in it have been running for 50 years or so), even more technicians, and many people that could easy change (digging a hole and filling it with concrete is not exclusive to the oil, road, rail or nuclear industries).

35 crane operators have just finished at Hinckley Point, not because they are useless, it is because that phase of the project is over. They can easily relocate again and lift a large turbine (very few lived in Weston Superdrug 5 years ago).

 

So I don't see any real transition problems, though there will be a lot of nonsense news about imaginary problems that are based on legacy predujices and ill informed social commentary.

 

[ProDave]

1 hour ago, Crofter said:

My own take on drill vs import is that if we leave it in the ground for now, it's likely to be worth more in the future. Even after we've stopped using oil for our primary electricity and land transport energy source, we'll still need it for plastics, chemicals, and almost certainly aviation.

Which would be fine if that was a plan, with the industry kept at a level it COULD be extracted later at a better price.  But I am afraid the way decisions are made it would be like saying "we still have all that coal in the ground, lets mine that again"

[Spinny]

8 hours ago, saveasteading said:

Dead people have low vitamin counts

You believe they did Vit D trials by testing the blood of dead people ?

 

https://www.mdpi.com/2077-0383/11/22/6818

[saveasteading]

5 minutes ago, Spinny said:

You believe they did Vit D trials of dead people

It's there on the graphs. 100% death rate. That's  serious.

It's an ad for supplements with hype added to graphs to impress.

No, i don't believe that the comments are by the doctors quoted, or scientists. 

 

Seriously can i ask why you are hyping this?

We are here to help on building but  anything to ease your troubles.

 

[Crofter]

6 hours ago, SteamyTea said:

Transport costs, both environmentally and economically are tiny compared to production costs.

 

Just picking up on this point specifically, it's a good example of why any meaningful discussion needs to include numbers and not really on intuition. 

 

The transport thing comes in to food as well. We think it's better to eat locally produced food because it's not been transported half way round the world. But this is almost always wrong. A tiny proportion of our food travels by air, which is very bad. But the overwhelming majority travels by sea, which is very economical, and much better in terms of emissions and land use than trying to grow the same stuff out of season or in the wrong climate.

[sgt_woulds]

We could try eating seasonally again.  We've lost that sense of anticipation and enjoyment of the first strawberry of the year!  

 

Do we need to have everything available all the time?

 

 

[LnP]

1 hour ago, sgt_woulds said:

We could try eating seasonally again.  We've lost that sense of anticipation and enjoyment of the first strawberry of the year!  

 

Do we need to have everything available all the time?

 

 

Very true, and the best thing we can do relating to food to reduce our carbon footprint is to eat less meat and more plant based foods.

 

[SteamyTea]

1 hour ago, LnP said:

Very true, and the best thing we can do relating to food to reduce our carbon footprint is to eat less meat and more plant based foods

After we have drastically reduced food waste.

[Crofter]

51 minutes ago, SteamyTea said:

After we have drastically reduced food waste.

We don't have to just tackle one problem at a time. No need to leave things until 'after' we've sorted something else.

 

By the way, food waste is a big problem in the developing world too, not because of picky consumers, but because of poor access to good quality handling, transport, and storage infrastructure.

[-rick-]

I said it earlier but I'm of the view that food is a difficult problem that directly impacts people in a way that many may feel is negative. The emissions from food are also at least somewhat circular (fertilizer being the main fossil based input).

 

We need to stop burning long sequestered carbon so better to focus on moving transport and industry to electricity. In the process of doing that we would eliminate a lot of the transport emissions from food anyway. Focusing on food means people are distracted from applying pressure in areas that would have bigger overall impacts.

 

In terms of things consumers can do that has a direct impact on fossil fuel burning, focusing on producing less rubbish, moving away from fast fashion, disposable technology, repairing rather than replacing and taking less long haul flights I think are more valuable than saving emissions from food.

[SteamyTea]

14 minutes ago, Crofter said:

We don't have to just tackle one problem at a time.

No we don't, but the low hanging fruit is the easy one.

 

I read somewhere that we waste about 30% of the global food calories.

 

[Crofter]

5 minutes ago, SteamyTea said:

No we don't, but the low hanging fruit is the easy one.

 

I read somewhere that we waste about 30% of the global food calories.

 

According to the book I linked earlier, globally we produce enough calories to feed the whole population twice over. 

We waste a large amount of that food, and we feed a lot of it to animals and then rest the animals. The conversion factor makes the efficiency of an open fire look like cutting edge technology.

[-rick-]

3 minutes ago, Crofter said:

According to the book I linked earlier, globally we produce enough calories to feed the whole population twice over. 

We waste a large amount of that food, and we feed a lot of it to animals and then rest the animals. The conversion factor makes the efficiency of an open fire look like cutting edge technology.

 

Unless you want strict rationing, overproduction of food is inevitable. The sector is big, complex, with many interlinks with our economy and environment. Sure, there is the possibility of saving a bit here and there without too much effort, but it's going to be small fry compared to other areas and anything more than minor changes risks some large unexpected/undesirable side effects.

 

If you want a focus for consumers 'reduce waste' rather than 'eat less meat' is a much broader and easier to swallow message.

 

 

[ProDave]

Kind of ironic that as we discuss this we hear of the new Runways for Gatwick and Heathrow approved and a near doubling of flight numbers.

 

So while we are all being encouraged to go green with our vehicles and houses "the message" is it's okay still to fly long distances and we are enabling more and more flights to take place.

 

Again, I have little confidence anyone has a proper plan other than try and tick a few boxes.

[SteamyTea]

54 minutes ago, Crofter said:

efficiency of an open fire look like cutting edge technology.

Especially when roasting a hog