When I want to understand how a virus originated, I always turn to "low confidence" assessments from some random bureaucrats in an agency that has no expertise in virology, genetics, or epidemiology.
Thank you, random Department of Energy people, for leaking your baseless speculation to the Wall Street Journal.
@maxkennerly SecEnergy Jennifer Granholm needs to don some shit kicking boots and tell her people to stick to their knitting -- energy.
Like we don't have enough going on right now in battery technology and nuclear threats to keep those random DOE leakers busy.
@maxkennerly
The JGI guys are on this platform somewhere. They work for DoE and they know virology.
I think they're probably not allowed to be raising their voices right now...
I'm also sure none of them were involved in this statement.
But hey, I wish the Fox News people well with their attempts to retrieve damages. I think we could benefit from redomiciling many overly outsourced industries.
I did a search for 'virology' on the JGI portal, and came up with bupkis. Your mastodon instance screams that you know something I don't, though.
The question still remains, what's the DOE doing, pontificating on covid?
@skydog
Yeah, spycraft and foreign policy arent really a bailiwyck of that department, so I'm just as shocked as anyone. Mostly I'm surprised that Granholm would allow a statement like that that turns her department into more of a lightning rod than it already was. Almost every election cycle there a major conservative voice threatening to remove the whole dept.
1/2
@skydog
Regarding your search, virologists don't tend to use the word "virology" to describe their pet organism. It's much like how software engineers can talk about JavaScript for 8 hours and never say the word "computer science."
We say the name or class of it, e.g. dsDNA, or phage
A casual example that should tell you how deep JGI is in this world:
https://jgi.doe.gov/publication/expanding-standards-in-viromics-in-silico-evaluation-of-dsdna-viral-genome-identification-classification-and-auxiliary-metabolic-gene-curation/
2/2
@maxkennerly
Viruses influence global patterns of microbial diversity and nutrient cycles. Though viral metagenomics (viromics), specifically targeting dsDNA viruses, has been critical for revealing viral roles across diverse ecosystems, its analyses differ in many ways from those used for microbes. To date, viromics benchmarking has covered read pre-processing, assembly, relative abundance, read mapping thresholds and diversity...
@dnavinci @skydog @maxkennerly
Much of the anti-vaxxer disinformation & covid malign influence campaigns were funded by the oil industry.
It's an industry that's openly hostile to democracy. They believe that prolonging the pandemic will destabilize democracies & increase profit.
They've funded trucker blockades in Canada that cost their economy billions. They're funding the yellow vest movement in France. They're funding the Tufton Street think tanks kneecapping the UK.
They own the GOP.
@dnavinci @skydog @maxkennerly
The oil industry is pushing covid disinformation with Russian help.
https://thecyberwire.com/newsletters/disinformation-briefing/2/45
@dnavinci @skydog @maxkennerly
People may have used less oil during the pandemic but profits increased.
Price gouging is politically useful.
Republicans & Tories spent the pandemic blaming liberals for high gas prices then promptly dropped this talking point after the elections.
https://www.statista.com/statistics/294614/revenue-of-the-gas-and-oil-industry-in-the-us/
https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/daily-quotidien/220927/dq220927d-eng.htm
@dnavinci @skydog @maxkennerly
There's some evidence of oil price manipulation over Putin's war on Ukraine.
https://mobile.twitter.com/70sbachchan/status/1498158636849405955
Mysterious surcharges suddenly appeared on the LNG market.
https://www.gov.ca.gov/2023/02/22/top-5-takeaways-from-todays-hearing-on-big-oils-price-gouging/
High fuel prices triggered blackouts in Asia & kneecapped their economies
https://www.politico.com/news/2023/02/25/why-russias-war-is-causing-blackouts-in-asia-00084435
Oil price volatility deliberately maximized profits & political pain for democracies accelerating their transition to renewables.
https://www.gov.ca.gov/2022/12/06/top-10-reasons-for-a-price-gouging-penalty-on-big-oil/
“1/ A hot war, a financial war, & nuclear M.A.D... A question to zoom out: Did high energy prices embolden Putin? Are the commodities markets responsible for Russia’s invasion of Ukraine? @rupert_russell’s timely new book 'Price Wars' says: YES. https://t.co/jefimrliXc”
@dnavinci @skydog @maxkennerly
High oil prices are both a boon and a bane.
High prices incentivize more oil drilling and governments are pressured to give in to industry demands for yet more subsidies.
The oil industry uses windfall profits to interfere in elections & mess with government functions like pollution regulations, voting rights, civil rights rollbacks, gun safety, & attacks on Social Security & Medicare.
High gas prices at the pump incentivize the transition to renewables.
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