• Transcript: Greta Thunberg’s Speech At The U.N. Climate Action Summit : NPR
    https://www.npr.org/2019/09/23/763452863/transcript-greta-thunbergs-speech-at-the-u-n-climate-action-summit?t=1569444614

    Climate activist Greta Thunberg, 16, addressed the U.N.’s Climate Action Summit in New York City on Monday. Here’s the full transcript of Thunberg’s speech, beginning with her response to a question about the message she has for world leaders.

    "My message is that we’ll be watching you.

    "This is all wrong. I shouldn’t be up here. I should be back in school on the other side of the ocean. Yet you all come to us young people for hope. How dare you!

    "You have stolen my dreams and my childhood with your empty words. And yet I’m one of the lucky ones. People are suffering. People are dying. Entire ecosystems are collapsing. We are in the beginning of a mass extinction, and all you can talk about is money and fairy tales of eternal economic growth. How dare you!

    "For more than 30 years, the science has been crystal clear. How dare you continue to look away and come here saying that you’re doing enough, when the politics and solutions needed are still nowhere in sight.

    "You say you hear us and that you understand the urgency. But no matter how sad and angry I am, I do not want to believe that. Because if you really understood the situation and still kept on failing to act, then you would be evil. And that I refuse to believe.

    "The popular idea of cutting our emissions in half in 10 years only gives us a 50% chance of staying below 1.5 degrees [Celsius], and the risk of setting off irreversible chain reactions beyond human control.

    "Fifty percent may be acceptable to you. But those numbers do not include tipping points, most feedback loops, additional warming hidden by toxic air pollution or the aspects of equity and climate justice. They also rely on my generation sucking hundreds of billions of tons of your CO2 out of the air with technologies that barely exist.

    "So a 50% risk is simply not acceptable to us — we who have to live with the consequences.

    "To have a 67% chance of staying below a 1.5 degrees global temperature rise – the best odds given by the [Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change] – the world had 420 gigatons of CO2 left to emit back on Jan. 1st, 2018. Today that figure is already down to less than 350 gigatons.

    "How dare you pretend that this can be solved with just ’business as usual’ and some technical solutions? With today’s emissions levels, that remaining CO2 budget will be entirely gone within less than 8 1/2 years.

    "There will not be any solutions or plans presented in line with these figures here today, because these numbers are too uncomfortable. And you are still not mature enough to tell it like it is.

    "You are failing us. But the young people are starting to understand your betrayal. The eyes of all future generations are upon you. And if you choose to fail us, I say: We will never forgive you.

    "We will not let you get away with this. Right here, right now is where we draw the line. The world is waking up. And change is coming, whether you like it or not.

    “Thank you.”

    Greta-speeches - FridaysForFuture
    https://www.fridaysforfuture.org/greta-speeches

  • Sacklers Reject Demand That They Surrender Personal Wealth To Settle Opioid Claims : NPR
    https://www.npr.org/2019/09/09/758927743/sacklers-reject-demand-they-surrender-personal-wealth-to-settle-opioid-claims

    The family that owns Purdue Pharma, maker of Oxycontin, has rejected a demand that they give up $4.5 billion of their personal wealth to settle opioid claims against the company, according to state attorneys general negotiating with the company.

    As a consequence, talks toward a national settlement with members of the Sackler family reached an impasse over the weekend, according to an email obtained by NPR.

    Two attorneys general directly involved in the talks predicted in the email that the company will now file for bankruptcy “imminently.”

    “States have already begun preparations for handling the bankruptcy proceedings,” wrote Josh Stein, North Carolina’s state attorney general, and Herbert Slatery, attorney general for Tennessee.

    “The Sacklers refused to budge,” the email concluded, “and have declined to offer any counterproposal.”

    The email, first reported by The Associated Press, was sent Saturday to other state attorneys general. It details an offer made to the Sacklers that would have forced them to pay billions of dollars to compensate states for their role helping to fuel the prescription opioid epidemic.

    The deal would also have forced Purdue Pharma into bankruptcy proceedings while dissolving the Sacklers’ overseas opioid business.

    But in a statement emailed to NPR Sunday night, the drug company suggested a deal might still be possible.

    “Purdue Pharma believes a settlement that benefits the American public now is a far better path than years of wasteful litigation and appeals,” the statement said. “Those negotiations continue and we remain dedicated to a resolution that genuinely advances the public interest.”

    Overdose deaths linked to prescription opioids have killed more than 218,000 Americans since the addiction crisis began in the late 1990s, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

    State and local governments have filed more than 2,000 lawsuits claiming Purdue Pharma played a central role marketing opioid medications, while downplaying the risks.

    Over two decades, opioid sales generated billions of dollars in profits for the company, making the Sacklers one of the richest families in the U.S.

    A spokesperson for Purdue Pharma declined an interview request by NPR and wouldn’t say whether the company is, in fact, considering an immediate bankruptcy filing. Last March, company officials acknowledged that filing for Chapter 11 protection is one strategy being considered.

    If Purdue Pharma does file for bankruptcy without first reaching some kind of structured deal, it could take years to sort out the remaining value of the company’s assets and then determine who’s first in line for compensation.

    Pressure to reach a settlement is also intensifying because a federal opioid trial involving Purdue Pharma and more than 20 other drugmakers, distributors and pharmacy chains is set to begin next month in Cleveland.

    While that legal process moves forward, state attorneys general have promised to continue pursuing the Sacklers personally to recoup profits the family received from opioid sales, even if Purdue Pharma seeks Chapter 11 protection.

    “I won’t let them get away with their crimes,” Pennsylvania Attorney General Josh Shapiro wrote Saturday on Twitter. “I will sue them personally, so that we can dig into their personal pocketbooks.”

    The Wall Street Journal also reported Friday that the U.S. Justice Department is involved in separate talks with Purdue Pharma.

    According to the newspaper, those negotiations involve possible civil penalties tied to federal probes of Oxycontin sales, but could also include criminal charges using statutes normally used to prosecute drug dealers.

    #Opioides #Sackler #Procès

  • Scientists Unveil Weed Breathalyzer, Launching Debate Over Next Steps : NPR
    https://www.npr.org/2019/09/05/757882048/scientists-unveil-weed-breathalyzer-launching-debate-over-next-steps

    With alcohol, you can figure out impairment by measuring the amount of alcohol in someone’s blood, which you can determine from a Breathalyzer using the “blood to breath,” or “partition,” ratio. Make that translation from breath to blood to brain, and you have a relatively accurate sense of how drunk someone is.

    “So when it comes to these #marijuana breath tests, that’s the million-dollar question right now,” says Chris Halsor, a Denver lawyer who focuses on issues around legal #cannabis.

    Is there a ratio that links the amount of #THC in someone’s breath to the amount in the person’s blood — and then to exactly how stoned that person is?

    No, says Sejdic. The correlation “is basically missing, from a scientific point of view.”