WcP.Common.Sense's blog

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Washington Post: As China cleans up its act, India’s cities named the world’s most polluted
India’s capital, New Delhi, choked by rising automobile emissions and construction dust, was named Wednesday the world’s most polluted megacity by the World Health Organization, which analyzed the levels of the pollutant PM10 in the air in cities with populations above 14 million between 2010 and 2016.
Greater Cairo was the second most polluted large city. India’s other megacity of Mumbai ranked fourth on the list and Beijing fifth.

Nine out of 10 people around the globe are breathing polluted air, the study said, and air pollution is responsible for the deaths of 7 million people worldwide each year, most of them living in Asia and Africa. Of those deaths, 3.8 million were from indoor air pollution from unhealthy cook stoves, a huge problem in India.
Former perennial offender China, in response to citizen outrage, has taken steps to clean up its air, shuttering or reforming factories and reducing its coal consumption in favor of renewable energy. The moves helped improve air quality in Beijing and elsewhere but at a cost — many poor people were denied coal heat during winter or lost jobs.
The World Health Organization’s head of public health, Maria Neira, told the Reuters news agency that India should follow China’s lead.  read more »

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1 Out of Every 9 Bridges in the US Is Structurally Deficient
There are about 630,000 bridges in the United States, ranging from impressive new structural creations like Margaret Hunt Hill bridge in Dallas to deteriorating slabs of concrete in desperate need repair. It's that last growing group of bridges, ports, and highways that represent the slowing decaying infrastructure that was once the best in the world.

In a new 60 Minutes report, host Steve Kroft lays down some knowledge that, for all of us bridge-traveling, highway-driving citizens, would be pretty alarming: 1 out of every 9 bridges are in various degrees of disrepair. That's around 70,000 bridges total if you're keeping track. This isn't exactly startlingly new information, an AP report last year reported similar numbers. That doesn't mean all of these structures are on the verge of collapse with every passing car, train, or pedestrian, but it does mean they are in desperate need of TLC in the form of billions and billions of dollars—money that just doesn't exist.  read more »

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Panda couple Tuan Tuan and Yuan Yuan get ELECTRIC SHOCK after zoo in Taiwan put up a wire fence inside their enclosure
Two giant pandas, Tuan Tuan and Yuan Yuan, received electric shock from a wire fence in their enclosure in Taiwan earlier this week.

PANDA stuck up a tree! Bao Bao the cub made for higher ground after getting a shock on electric fence
It's usually cats being coaxed down from trees.
But famed panda cub Bao Bao is currently sky-high in the branches at the National Zoo in Washington D.C. after being spooked by an electric safety fence in her enclosure.
Apparently the one-year-old touched the charged barrier on Tuesday afternoon and the shock caused her to shoot above ground to safety.

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Photo courtesy chinatourmap.com and Washington Post

Instead Of building another costly Berlin Wall
(which has been pulled down anyway),
"Let’s Build a Border Of Solar Panels"!
(What a brilliant idea, so constructive in every measure!!)
It would attract investment, create jobs and neighborly neighbors
(How wise, and no waste – imagine a gigantic smile on Earth!).

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Dec 19, 2016
Instead of another Berlin Wall, Instead Of Trump’s Wall, Let’s Build A Border Of Solar Panels President-elect Donald Trump has repeatedly called for Mexico to build a wall between our countries. There is indeed a way that Mexico could create a barrier between the U.S. and Mexico, one constructed exclusively on the Mexican side, with substantial benefits for both countries and the planet: a solar border.

Sunlight in the northern deserts of Mexico is more intense than in the U.S. Southwest because of the lower latitude and more favorable cloud patterns. And construction and maintenance costs for solar plants in Mexico are substantially lower. Thus, building a long series of such plants all along the Mexican side of the border could power cities on both sides faster and more cheaply than similar arrays built north of the border.  read more »

"Transport chiefs banned drivers with odd-numbered licence plates from entering the centre on Tuesday, with cars bearing even numbers barred yesterday (Photo: AFP)"

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Paris makes all public transport FREE to cut polluting traffic after worst smog in 10 years
The Metro underground system and overground rail in the French capital were tonight said to be buckling under the strain with thousands taking advantage of zero cost fares.
Authorities have clamped down on cars as a perfect storm of high vehicle emissions, soaring numbers of domestic wood fires and windless conditions have blanketed Paris in choking smog.

Transport chiefs banned drivers with odd-numbered licence plates from entering the centre on Tuesday, with cars bearing even numbers barred yesterday, reports the Independent.

Sweden's tax breaks on repairs to clothes, bicycles, fridges, and washing machines: No more waste
To combat its "throwaway consumer culture," Sweden has announced tax breaks on repairs to clothes, bicycles, fridges, and washing machines. On bikes and clothes, VAT has been reduced from 25% to 12% and on large household products (also known in Sweden as "white goods") consumers can claim back income tax due on the person doing the work.
The incentives are intended to reduce the environmental impact of the things Swedes buy. The country has ambitious targets to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, but has found that the impact of consumer choices is actually increasing.

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March 20, 2016 - When Pierro asked the TV star why he endorsed The Donald, Baio replied @ScottBaio replied: "It's very simple… the things that he[Trump]'s saying are just common sense stuff." Actor Scott Baio, who last month endorsed Donald Trump for president, wants the billionaire in charge of the country because it does not take a "political decoder ring" to decode what the businessman is saying.
"He's a straight shooter when he talks to me," the 55-year-old "Happy Days" and "Charles in Charge" star said Sunday morning on Fox News. "When he talks, I understand him." "It's a very sort of direct language," Baio said. "I don't need a political decoder ring to understand what the guy is saying."  read more »

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The German village of Sumte, population 102, to accommodate for an influx of 750 migrants, nearly 10 times as many migrants as it had residents
SUMTE, Germany — This bucolic, one-street settlement of handsome redbrick farmhouses may for the moment have many more cows than people. In early October, the district government informed Sumte’s mayor, Christian Fabel, by email that his village of 102 people just over the border in what was once Communist East Germany would take in 1,000 asylum seekers.

His wife, the mayor said, assured him it must be a hoax. “It certainly can’t be true” that such a small, isolated place would be asked to accommodate nearly 10 times as many migrants as it had residents, she told him. “She thought it was a joke,” he said.

But it was not. Sumte has become a showcase of the extreme pressures bearing down on Germany as it scrambles to find shelter for what, by the end of the year, could be well over a million people seeking refuge from poverty or wars in Africa, Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere.

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Photo courtesy Gordon Welters / NY Times