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OPINION: FAKE NEWS ABOUT THE CORONA VIRUS AND SCIENCE IN GENERAL

By Marc Schiltz

The news about the Corona Virus epidemic is making many people hold their breath on a daily basis. A theory has been spreading on social media that the virus did not – as assumed – start on a market in the Chinese city of Wuhan, but that it was created in a lab where scientists experimented with viruses. The ‘theory’ is that something went wrong with their experiment and this led to the virus. Despite no foundation for this claim, it is spreading like fire, like the virus itself.

The internet and social networks pose a new and difficult challenge for dealing with information. Scientific studies have shown that false information spreads on social media up to ten times faster than truthful information, and that false information tends to reach a wider number of users.

Then there is the phenomenon of “social robots”: robots deployed on social media to spread information in a way where it appears they are real users. A recent study indicated that one quarter of the tweets about climate change were posted by such robots, with the majority devoid of any scientific foundation. This proportion was higher in certain topics—robots were responsible for 38% of tweets about “fake science” and 28% of all tweets about the petroleum giant Exxon.

Science struggles with Fake News. Most of the time, Fake News are short and very objective. On the other hand, Scientific and medical articles are long and complex. Still, science must try to fight back– for example what the WHO is trying to do with information about the Corona Virus epidemic.

One avenue is to get more visibility, for example by bringing science together with ‘influencers’, supporting science journalists, or increasing the communication coming directly from the scientists. Science actors can also create their

own platforms with large visibility – as Luxembourg has done with science.lu.

It is clear – it will be a great challenge to limit the spread of Fake News and pseudo-science, just like the Corona Virus.

Glossary: spread: espalhar; foundation: fundamento; deployed: implantados; devoid: desprovido(a); struggles: luta

The author, in the last paragraph, makes a connection between fake news/pseudo-science and the Corona virus.

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The formula for calculating people’s environmental footprint is simple, but widely misunderstood: Impact = Population x Affluence x Technology (I = PAT). The global rate of consumption growth, before the pandemic, was 3% a year. Population growth is 1%. Some people assume this means that the rise in population bears one-third of the responsibility for increased consumption. But population growth is overwhelmingly concentrated among the world’s poorest people, who have scarcely any A or T to multiply their P.

Yet it is widely used as a blanket explanation of environment breakdown. Panic about population growth enables the people most responsible for the impacts of rising consumption (the affluent) to blame those who are least responsible.

The clean layout and short dialogues are just some of the reasons why the number of Armandinho’s fans continue to increase.

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Brazil is brilliant at vaccinations. So what went wrong this time?

When it comes to Covid-19 vaccination programs, there are some countries that have exceeded expectations and others that have fallen surprisingly short. And then there is Brazil. Vaccinating over 210 million people may sound daunting, but for Brazil it really shouldn’t be. With one of the largest universal, free-of-charge public health systems in the world, the country has a distinguished track record of vaccinations and disease control. The National Immunization Program, founded in 1973, helped to eradicate polio and rubella in the country and currently offers more than 20 vaccines free in every municipality.

Along with the infrastructure to distribute vaccines, there’s also the expertise to do so: in 1980, the country vaccinated 17.5 million children against polio in a single day. In 2010, over 89 million doses of the swine flu vaccine were administered in under four months. And last year, more than 70 million Brazilians received their annual shot against influenza.

But despite these advantages, Brazil’s vaccine rollout has been painfully slow, inconsistent and marred by shortages. The nationwide program began on Jan. 18, later than over 50 countries, and its current rate will take more than four years to complete. Several major cities, such as Rio de Janeiro and Salvador, have already had to stop their campaigns because of problems in supply. In a country where the pandemic has wrought terrible damage, the failure amounts to a disaster. So what went wrong? Perhaps we should look to "Zé Gotinha", Joe Droplet: He seems to know exactly who to blame.

From the beginning, Mr. Bolsonaro’s government downplayed the seriousness of the pandemic. The president fought against masks and social distancing measures, comparing the coronavirus to rain that would fall on most people while drowning just some of them. ("It’s no use staying home crying," he recently said, after the country registered 1,452 deaths on a single day.) In the middle of the outbreak, he managed to get rid of two health ministers - both doctors - who threatened to contradict him, replacing them with an army general.

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The bundle of sticks

A father had a family of sons who were always fighting among themselves. When he failed to end their disputes by his warnings, he determined to give them a practical illustration of the evils of disunion; and for this purpose he one day told them to bring him a bundle of sticks.

When they had done so, he placed the bundle into the hands of each of them in succession, and ordered them to break it in pieces. They tried with all their strength, and were not able to do it.

He next opened the bundle, took the sticks separately, one by one, and again put them into his sons’ hands, upon which they broke them easily.

He then addressed them in these words: “My sons, if you are of one mind, and unite to assist each other, you will be as this bundle, unhurt by all the attempts of your enemies; but if you are divided among yourselves, you will be broken as easily as these sticks.”

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It’s probable you’ve already replied to a couple of emails today, sent some chat messages and maybe performed a quick internet search. As the day wears on you will doubtless spend even more time browsing online, uploading images, playing music and streaming video.

Each of these activities you perform online comes with a small cost — a few grams of carbon dioxide are emitted due to the energy needed to run your devices and power the wireless networks you access. Less obvious, but perhaps even more energy intensive, are the data centres and vast servers needed to support the internet and store the content we access over it.

Although the energy needed for a single internet search or email is small, approximately 4.1 billion people, or 53.6% of the global population, now use the internet. Those scraps of energy, and the associated greenhouse gases emitted with each online activity, can add up.

If we were to rather crudely divide the 1.7 billion tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions estimated to be produced in the manufacture and running of digital technologies between all internet users around the world, it means each of us is responsible for 400 g of carbon dioxide a year.

But things are not that simple — this figure can vary depending where in the world you are. Internet users in some parts of the globe will have a disproportionately large footprint. One study estimated that 10 years ago, the average Australian internet user was responsible for the equivalent of 81 kg of carbon dioxide being emitted into the atmosphere. Improvements in energy efficiency, economies of scale and use of renewable energy will doubtless have reduced this, but it is clear that people in developed nations still account for the majority of the internet’s carbon footprint.

A situação abaixo ocorreu em uma entrevista com a atriz Scarlett Johansson e o ator Robert Downey Junior, que atuaram juntos em um filme.

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