Also on today’s menu:
Green Energy’s Reliance On Fossil Fuels
Not Everyone Sees Democracy As The Answer
AutoBlog has reported that the cybersecurity firm NCC Group demonstrated how Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE), that allows owners to unlock and operate their vehicles via their phones, can allow hackers to unlock millions of locks worldwide. A Tesla was the company’s prime example.
Tesla vehicles, like the Model 3 and Model Y, require no user interaction; the NCC Group says it only requires “cheap off-the-shelf hardware” to hack a car or device using BLE technology. The hacker does not need to be standing in your driveway to gain access. Reuters reported that, in a video shared with them, “NCC Group researcher Sultan Qasim Khan was able to open and then drive a Tesla using a small relay device attached to a laptop which bridged a large gap between the Tesla and the Tesla owner’s phone.”
Such vulnerabilities are not new to Gerry Kennedy of Alton, the chief executive officer of Observatory Holdings, a company that does underwriting and conducts risk analyses for insurers. He has been warning about the vulnerabilities inherent in today’s automobiles which rely so much on computer electronics. He even testified in Washington, D.C., about the ability of hackers to commandeer the vehicles of top government officials. His predictions have been coming true.
Green Energy’s Reliance On Fossil Fuels
Fossil fuels remain indispensable for producing the four materials most needed for modern civilization: cement, steel, plastics, and ammonia, according to an article in Time. The world annually produces about 4.5 billion tons of cement, 1.8 billion tons of steel, nearly 400 million tons of plastics, and 180 million tons of ammonia. Their mass-scale production depends heavily on the combustion of fossil fuels, making them major sources of greenhouse gas emissions.
“Organic fertilizers cannot replace synthetic ammonia: Their low nitrogen content and their worldwide mass are not enough even if all manures and crop residues were recycled. No other materials offer such advantages for many lightweight yet durable uses as plastics. No other metal is as affordably strong as steel. No other mass-produced material is as suitable for building strong infrastructure as concrete (often reinforced with steel),” the article states.
Even the transition to renewable energy relies on huge amounts of steel, concrete, and plastics. Large wind turbines have foundations of reinforced concrete; towers, nacelles, and rotors are steel; and the massive blades are plastic resins that are energy-intensive and difficult to recycle. All of those parts must be brought to the installation sites by outsized trucks (or ships) and erected by large steel cranes. Turbine gearboxes must be repeatedly lubricated with oil.
Not Everyone Sees Democracy As The Answer
The Economist Intelligence Unit has found that two-thirds of the world’s population live in countries that either support Russia or are neutral about the war in Ukraine. Part of the reason is that two-thirds of the world does not see the war through our eyes. The internet in Russia, Turkey, and India restrict and police content. Chinese internet is censored and is pro-Russia. “Residents in many countries get much of their information about the war from Russian state media,” reports Time. “They are not seeing Zelensky’s nightly invocations to democracy. They are seeing images of noble Russian soldiers.”
While 141 countries in the United Nations voted to condemn Russia’s aggression in Ukraine, no country from Africa, Asia, or South America was on the Russian Federation’s list of “unfriendly” nations. Even Kenya’s ambassador to the U.N. rebuked Russia without mentioning democracy or autocracy, seeing the invasion as an attempt to repossess a now-independent country.
“Kenya, and almost every African country, was birthed by the ending of empire,” the ambassador said. “Our borders were not of our own drawing. They were drawn in the distant colonial metropoles of London, Paris, and Lisbon.”
“A better way of mobilizing these countries against Russia is to depict the war as a fundamental, illegal violation of Ukrainian sovereignty, as an imperialist Russia trying to violently expand its own borders,” writes Richard Stengel. “That’s something they can relate to. These non-aligned nations don’t hearken to America’s frequent invocation of the ‘free world.’ What they want is some acknowledgement from America and the West that they will at least get rhetorical support if their borders are violated.”
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