‘The war began in the early morning hours with a massive bombardment — China’s version of “shock and awe.” Chinese planes and rockets swiftly destroyed most of Taiwan’s navy and air force as the People’s Liberation army and navy mounted a massive amphibious assault across the 100-mile Taiwan Strait. Having taken seriously President Joe Biden’s pledge to defend the island, Beijing also struck pre-emptively at U.S. and allied air bases and ships in the Indo-Pacific. The U.S. managed to even the odds for a time by deploying more sophisticated submarines as well as B-21 and B-2 stealth bombers to get inside China’s air defense zones, but Washington ran out of key munitions in a matter of days and saw its network access severed. The United States and its main ally, Japan, lost thousands of servicemembers, dozens of ships, and hundreds of aircraft. Taiwan’s economy was devastated. And as a protracted siege ensued, the U.S. was much slower to rebuild, taking years to replace ships as it reckoned with how shriveled its industrial base had become compared to China’s….’ (POLITICO)

Wildfire smoke reminded people about climate change. How soon will they forget?

‘Extreme weather and climate-linked disasters don’t always lead to changes in public opinion…’ (Vox)

The future of Canada’s wildfires, explained by a Canadian fire scientist

‘The smoke is clearing from New York and other East Coast cities, but Canada’s wildfires are set to get worse…’ (Vox)

If you can’t breathe well, neither can your pet

‘…While pet parents and animals in the US are a safe distance from the flames themselves, the threat of air pollution cannot be underestimated. In humans, air pollution can cause dizziness, coughing, headaches, and in more severe cases and vulnerable groups, heart and lung problems. Air pollution is also a silent killer: It’s responsible for nearly 250,000 premature deaths in the US and 6.7 million premature deaths globally each year….’ (Vox)

Dirty air can be deadly. Here’s how to protect yourself.

’The Air Quality Index can warn you about wildfire smoke and pollution in your area. Here’s a step-by-step guide…’ (Vox)

‘DID THE WEST ANTARCTIC ICE Sheet completely collapse during the latest interglacial period, about 125,000 years ago? It’s an important question for climate scientists, but geology was giving them no answers. So they turned to genetics instead.

Enter Turquet’s octopus (Pareledone turqueti), a cephalopod with a four-million-year pedigree that makes its home in the icy waters around Antarctica. Recent DNA analysis shows that two distinct populations of this species, one in the Weddell Sea and the other in the Ross Sea, mated about 125,000 years ago.

This could only have happened if the massive ice sheet that now separates those populations wasn’t there at the time. So yes, it did collapse. And that’s bad news, because it increases the likelihood that it will happen again….’ (Atlas Obscura)

‘Loath as I am to give the vile Tucker Carlson even scintilla of extra attention, it’s pretty important that the Right’s darling pundit opened up his new show on Twitter with rank anti-Semitism.

In a lengthy defense of his hero Vladimir Putin, he called the Jewish president of Ukraine “sweaty and rat-like, … a persecutor of Christians, a friend of Blackrock.”…’ (Boing Boing)