I decided to post my predictions for 2024.
Some of them are realistic, some of them are not.
I just want to get this off my chest, as they say.
As you can see by Itzl's concerned look, this group is for us to check in at, to let people know we are alive, doing OK, and not affected by such things as heat, blizzards, floods, wildfires, hurricanes, tornadoes, power outages, or other such things that could keep us off Daily Kos. If you're not here, or anywhere else on Daily Kos, and there are adverse conditions in your area (floods, heatwaves, hurricanes, etc.), we are going to check up on you. If you are going to be away from your computer for a day or a week, let us know here. We care!
IAN is a great group to join, and a good place to learn to write diaries. Drop one of us a PM to be added to the Itzl Alert Network anytime! We all share the publishing duties, and we welcome everyone who reads IAN to write diaries for the group! Every member is an editor, so anyone can take a turn when they have something to say, photos and music to share, a cause to promote or news!
This is our current schedule of regular IAN diary writers:
Monday: Youffraita
Tuesday: bigjacbigjacbigjac
Wednesday: Pam from Calif
Thursday: art ah zen
Friday: FloridaSNMOM
Saturday: FloridaSNDad
Sunday: loggersbrat
The little dog is named Itzl.
Okay, I will start with some bad news.
Seems to me, in 2024, we, meaning humankind, will still have a lot of murder and suicide.
en.wikipedia.org/…
The murder rate for the USA is about 6.4 per 100,000 per year.
Here in Wichita, Kansas, it has been about 7 lately, specifically in 2022.
500,000 people here, 35 murders in 2022.
By the way, the following places have murder rates way higher than the USA:
South Africa, 41.9
Mexico, 26.1
Jamaica, 53.3
Honduras, 35.1
My next-door neighbors, the ones who keep giving me so much free food, they are from Honduras.
Maybe that is one of the reasons they moved from Honduras to Wichita, to live in a place where they feel less likely to get killed.
Many places have murder rates much lower than the USA:
Australia, 0.8
Canada, 2.3
France, 1.1
Germany, 0.8
Italy, 0.5
Japan, 0.2
So, maybe some of you might want to move to Japan.
They do have earthquakes there, but if you are now in California, you don’t mind a few earthquakes.
What about suicides?
en.wikipedia.org/…
The suicide rate in the USA is about 14 per 100,000 per year.
That is about double the murder rate.
The suicides here in Wichita, Kansas are not, as far as I know, reported in the local news media.
So, I do not know if Wichita is about the same as the national average.
Okay, let’s see about the suicide rates in those countries with lower murder rates:
Australia, 11.3
Canada, 10.3
France, 9.7
Germany, 8.3
Italy, 4.3
Japan, 12.2
By the way, in case you missed it, you can call or text 988, if you want the new suicide and crisis lifeline.
Okay, for some good news:
Hey, you know where to find the good news!
At the Good News Roundup diaries!
I found a link in one of those diaries that seemed truly outstanding to me:
futurecrunch.com/…
I will now quote a few selections from that link.
5.6 billion people are now protected by at least one policy to help reduce smoking - and without measures implemented in the last 15 years, there would be an estimated 300 million more smokers in the world today. We also learned this year that humanity has made astonishing progress on reducing drowning, with deaths declining from 531,956 to 295,210, and age-standardised mortality rates falling by 57.4% in the last three decades.
Smoking was the major thing that killed my father, one of my sisters, and my younger brother.
Thanks to the staggering uptake of wind and solar, energy researchers had to tear up all their old forecasts, including the International Energy Agency (IEA), which announced in October that global fossil fuel use may peak this year, two years earlier than predicted just 12 months ago. More than 120 countries, including the world's two largest carbon emitters, China and the United States, also agreed to aim to triple renewable energy and double energy efficiency by 2030 - a target that if met, would keep the world on track for 1.5°C.
Fossil fuel burning rate may peak this year?
This year?
Wow.
The Inflation Reduction Act is the single largest commitment any government has yet made to vie for leadership in the next energy economy, and has resulted in the largest manufacturing drive in the United States since WW2. The legislation has already yielded commitments of more than $300 billion in new battery, solar and hydrogen electrolyzer plants, with Georgia, Michigan, Texas, Tennessee and Kentucky in the lead. This year a record 33 GW of solar was installed across the country, carbon emissions are set to fall by around 3%, Texas is undergoing the fastest pace of clean energy expansion anywhere in the world outside China, California's battery storage capacity has surged tenfold in just three years, and 12 states have now passed laws requiring a shift to 100% clean electricity.
Okay!
Charging ahead!
But you know, speaking of charging, we need better batteries, seems to me:
CATL, the world's biggest battery maker, announced a new battery with double the density of Tesla's batteries which it said would go into mass production imminently, Toyota, the world's largest carmaker, claimed it had developed a solid state battery with over 1,000 km of range (and then got trumped by Chinese EV maker NIO which pulled off an actual demo of 1,000 km battery) and Swedish manufacturer Northvolt announced a breakthrough in sodium batteries, an element that's cheaper, more abundant, and more sustainable than lithium.
Okay!
Better and better batteries!
The world is less bitter, with better batteries!
Ha!
In April, Lazard, widely regarded as the industry standard for the average cost of energy technologies, shocked analysts with the news that geothermal, the dark horse of the clean energy revolution, was competitive with fossil gas. Everyone was even more surprised in November, when a startup announced that its next generation geothermal plant had started sending carbon-free electricity to the grid in Nevada, proving that the earth’s heat could be a commercially viable, huge source of carbon-free power.
My cozy apartment here is heated with a vintage 1947 natural gas burning furnace.
My gas bill is low enough, and I am doing okay.
But that geothermal idea looks good for future generations.
Over the past three decades, global suicide rates have fallen by more than a third, thanks primarily to rising living standards in the two most populous countries in the world. In this century, suicide rates have fallen by a third in India and by more than half in China, where one of the most common means of suicide is pesticides. Banning or limiting access to dangerous pesticides has had some astonishing effects in other countries. In 1995, Sri Lanka had the highest suicide rate in the world. That year, it banned dangerous pesticides, and the national suicide rate has since fallen by 70%. In Bangladesh, a similar ban led to a 65% reduction.
Hey, did I post some numbers on the suicide rates in the world?
Look at this!
Banning or limiting access to pesticides!
Wow.
Plus, remember, 988 is the new suicide and crisis lifeline.
Initial data suggests that murder rates for 2023 are down by almost 13%, one of the largest ever annual declines, and every major category of crime except auto theft has declined too, with violent crime falling to one of the lowest rates in more than 50 years and property crime falling to its lowest level since the 1960s. Also, the country's prison population is now 25% lower than its peak in 2009, and a majority of states have reduced their prison populations by more than that, including New Jersey and New York who have reduced prison populations by more than half in the last decade.
Suicide rates and murder rates are both down?
Great!
And less folks languishing in prison, as well.
66. Endangered species that are recovering
African lion / African elephant / American alligator / American bison / Asiatic lion / Atlantic puffin / Azores bullfinch / Bald eagle / Bali myna / Black rhino / Black-footed ferret / Black-veined moth / Blue whale / Bornean orangutan / Chinese sturgeon / Darwin’s flycatcher / East Pacific green sea turtle / Eastern barred bandicoot / Eurasian brown bear / Eurasian beaver / Eurasian wolf / Fender’s blue butterfly / Galapagos giant tortoise / Golden eagle / Golden lion tamarin / Greater bilby / Hargila stork / Humpback whale / Iberian lynx / Jaguar / Kaempfer’s woodpecker / Kipunji monkey / Large heath butterfly / Mexican wolf / Monarch butterfly / Mountain gorilla / Olive ridley sea turtle / Peregrine falcon / Polynesian tree snail / Red squirrel / Saiga antelope / Saimaa ringed seal / Sea otter / Siamese crocodile / Snow leopard / Sooty albatross / Southern right whale / Stocky galaxias fish / Takahē / Three-banded armadillo / Tibetan antelope / Tibetan red deer / Tibetan white-lipped deer / Tiger / White rhino / Wood stork / Whooper swans / Yunnan golden hair monkey / Zebra shark.
Okay, now for my predictions that are not realistic.
My predictions for the elections in November of this year, are outright fantasy.
But here they are, anyway, to get them off my chest:
Every voter who votes this November will vote blue, no matter who.
Some voters will stay home and pout.
But the former guy has poisoned the Republican party so completely, that nobody will cast any vote for any Republican.
Not one single vote will be cast for anyone who embraces the Republican label.
Because that label is now pure poison.
Poisoned by the former guy and his allies.
So, in January of 2025, every member of the House who is sworn in will be a Democrat.
Every Senator who is sworn in will be a Democrat.
And, of course, the Biden/Harris ticket will be sworn in.
I will ignore all the polls, and embrace this fantasy, until at least the day after Election Day.
To give you a nice look at the very optimistic life that I am living in my cozy apartment, here is a look at some of the meals I have put together in recent weeks:
Hugs!