News – World News

21 Jun

Eternal Treasure: Gold Extraction from Antiquity to Today

Where is all the gold

We can estimate that of all the gold extracted since Antiquity, the essential part is still present in the anthroposphere, that is to say all the objects created and used by man. Alone
a small part, difficult to assess but perhaps of the order of 5 to 10%, has “disappeared”, i.e.

is dissipated by wear and tear in the environment (a gold wedding ring worn for years ends up scratching a little, which means that a few gold atoms are torn off)
either dissipated by non-recycling or non-recovery in its electronic uses or industrial, or marginal losses in recycling processes
is dissipated due to the nature of its use (food gilding, uses organic for certain medical tests, etc.)
is lost (lost treasures, sunken galleons – even if from time to time part of this gold reappears (treasures exhumed, or brought up from underwater wrecks)
either left in the form of dental crowns in the mouths of buried deceased persons
be sent into interplanetary space (gold equips satellites, Mars probes, equipment abandoned on the Moon, etc.)

In 2018, it is estimated the gold stock above ground at around 190,400 tons, i.e. most of what has been historically extracted, distributed 47.4% in the form of jewelry, 16.8% in
form of reserves in central banks, 21.7% in the form of coins and ingots in private stocks, 12.2% in the form of objects or in various equipment, which would total 186,700 tons, the remainder (3,700 tons) being not inventoried .

The sources of information differ slightly (total extracted reported: 188,650 tons according to historical data and recent production, other estimates at 190,400 tons, to be increased by gold
lost. It is important to focus on orders of magnitude, not precise figures, which are impossible to verify.

At the end of June 2018, the official reserves of central banks were 33,763 tons of gold, or around 18% of the gold available above ground. The World Gold Council has official gold reserves by country. It will be noted that these reserves of 33,763 tons stored in bank vaults would cover 101 years of technical consumption of gold (industry, electronics, dentistry) at its 2017 level. This is a unique situation compared to all others metals used by man, for which stocks rarely exceed a few months of consumption. This is one of the reasons why gold is rarely considered as critical in recent metal criticality analyses.

Known gold land reserves and resources

The accumulation of identified and listed land reserves amounts to 51,000 tons of gold in 2017, the equivalent of 15 years of production at the rate of 2017, and the total resources (inferred + indicated + measured) at 169,000 tons of gold, the equivalent of 50 years of production at the rate of 2017. These identified land resources are also comparable, in order of magnitude, to all the gold already historically extracted.

Let us recall that, in the strict sense, reserves are the part of the resources whose economic exploitability has been demonstrated by a feasibility study. Let us also remember that these tonnages of resources and reserves are dynamic quantities which evolve, mining exploration continuing to discover and highlight new resources, and feasibility studies continuing to convert additional shares of reserve resources.

Gold investment options

Gold is currently in an uptrend bullish market. Investing in gold offers a variety of options, each with its own advantages.

Physical gold, such as coins, bars, and jewelry, is a tangible asset that can be stored and held. Gold ETFs (Exchange-Traded Funds) allow investors to buy shares representing gold without the need to store physical gold. You can invest in both physical gold and gold ETFs by placing part of your retirement funds in a gold IRA.

Gold mining stocks in particular provide an opportunity to invest in companies that produce gold, offering potential for high returns but also higher risk. Gold futures and options are more complex financial instruments for more experienced investors, allowing for speculation on gold price movements with the potential for high returns. Each of these options caters to different investment strategies, risk tolerance, and financial goals, making gold a versatile asset in any well-diversified portfolio.

12 Jun

Waste Issues in Oklahoma

The Environmental Impact of Waste Disposal

The environmental impact of waste disposal is a critical issue that affects our planet in various ways. Improper disposal of waste, whether it is solid, liquid, or hazardous, can lead to severe consequences for ecosystems, human health, and the overall well-being of the planet. One of the primary concerns is the pollution of land, water, and air.

Land pollution occurs when waste is improperly dumped in landfills or left in open areas. As waste decomposes, it releases harmful gases and leachate, a toxic liquid that can seep into the soil and contaminate groundwater. This contamination affects the quality of drinking water and can have detrimental effects on both humans and wildlife. Additionally, the accumulation of waste in landfills takes up valuable land space and contributes to the loss of natural habitats and biodiversity.

Water pollution is another significant consequence of improper waste disposal. When waste is dumped into rivers, lakes, or oceans, it introduces harmful chemicals, pathogens, and toxins into aquatic ecosystems. This pollution can result in the death of aquatic organisms, disruption of food chains, and the destruction of coral reefs and other sensitive habitats. Furthermore, when contaminated water is consumed by humans or animals, it can lead to serious health issues, including gastrointestinal problems, infections, and even long-term diseases.

The impact of waste disposal on air quality is primarily associated with the incineration of waste. When waste is burned, it releases harmful gases and particulate matter into the atmosphere. These emissions contribute to air pollution and can exacerbate respiratory problems and cardiovascular diseases in humans. Moreover, the combustion of certain types of waste, such as plastics, releases toxic substances like dioxins and furans, which are persistent organic pollutants that can bioaccumulate in the environment and pose long-term risks to ecosystems and human health.

To mitigate the environmental impact of waste disposal, it is essential to adopt sustainable waste management practices. This includes reducing waste generation through recycling, composting, and minimizing consumption, as well as implementing proper waste treatment technologies. Waste-to-energy facilities that employ advanced emission control systems can help reduce the environmental impact of incineration.

Additionally, promoting awareness and education about responsible waste disposal practices is crucial in encouraging individuals, communities, and industries to take an active role in waste reduction and recycling efforts. By addressing the environmental impact of waste disposal, we can work towards a cleaner, healthier, and more sustainable future for our planet.

Waste management issues in the state of Oklahoma

The state of Oklahoma faces several waste management issues that require attention and effective solutions. One of the prominent challenges is the disposal of municipal solid waste (MSW). With a growing population and urbanization, the volume of MSW generated in Oklahoma has been steadily increasing. However, there is a lack of adequate infrastructure and resources to handle this waste effectively. Many smaller communities and rural areas struggle to establish proper waste management systems, leading to improper disposal practices such as open dumping or limited recycling options.

Another significant waste management issue in Oklahoma is the disposal of hazardous waste. The state is home to various industries, including oil and gas, agriculture, and manufacturing, which generate hazardous materials that require special handling and disposal. Improper management of hazardous waste can lead to serious environmental contamination and health risks. While there are regulations in place to govern hazardous waste disposal, enforcement and monitoring efforts need to be strengthened to ensure compliance and prevent illegal dumping or mishandling of these materials.

Additionally, electronic waste (e-waste) management poses a growing concern in Oklahoma. As technology advances, the disposal of outdated electronic devices, such as computers, smartphones, and televisions, becomes a challenge. Improper disposal of e-waste can result in the release of toxic substances like lead, mercury, and cadmium, which can contaminate soil and water sources. To address this issue, it is crucial to promote e-waste recycling programs and raise awareness among businesses and individuals about the importance of responsible e-waste disposal.

To tackle these waste management issues, Oklahoma needs to invest in infrastructure development and waste management facilities. This includes the establishment of more recycling centers, composting facilities, and hazardous waste treatment plants. Collaborative efforts between the government, private sector, and communities are necessary to implement comprehensive waste management strategies.

Education and outreach programs should also be implemented to raise awareness about waste reduction, recycling, and proper disposal practices. By addressing these challenges, Oklahoma can work towards a more sustainable and environmentally friendly waste management system.

Getting responsible for our own health

Is it too big a challenge?

We are experiencing a transition from our health model. The system as it was designed in the 1950s no longer works. But there are ways to break the deadlock.

We are facing great changes. The first concerns what we could call the enlightened patient or augmented patient, the second focuses on new health technologies, connected health or e-health, and the third on epigenetics, the science that demonstrates how human behavior affects gene expression. These three elements create a new possibility of measurable prevention and making people responsible for their health, which the pharmaceutical industry is beginning to understand.

Enlightened patients

Enlightened patients are people who are increasingly connected to social networks and who can find information about their health on search engines. They discuss together, exchange and are more and more informed and concerned. Many doctors today assure that they appreciate dealing with patients who ask them the right questions, even if they can go as far as contradicting their prescriptions.

Digital plays a decisive role in the evolution of health models. The health applications available on smartphones are increasing exponentially today. The tools are not only portable, but also wearable. Like watches, for example, which measure a certain number of parameters on the skin, making it possible to visualize the results or the alerts on a personalized health dashboard, the screen of your smartphone for example, results that you can download elsewhere or send to your doctor.

Towards new models of health through subscriptions

Our behaviors will change and especially the relationship with our doctor. The latter will increasingly become a life counselor and not just a prescriber of prescription drugs.

To maintain good health, five behaviors must be respected: exercise, nutrition, stress management, pleasure, social and professional harmony. These five behaviors influence the expression of our genes and cause some to slow down, inhibit, or express themselves even more. We can somehow become the conductors of our own body, keep it in good health and slow down aging.

Prevention is not deprivation, it is a pleasure to do good!

The pharmaceutical industry has already become aware of this development. Some Big Pharma companies are already moving towards health maintenance programs. Even today, these companies live on the margins made by pharmacy sales of drugs prescribed by doctors and reimbursed by health insurance. However, we are starting to see that pharmaceutical groups associate with insurance companies and offer pharma-insurances: that is to say subscriptions to programs that ensure good health. This is what I call the health maintenance program or abbreviated PMS.

In this way some believe that the pharmaceutical industry will make more profits by subscriptions than by margins made on drugs sold in pharmacies. Besides, we can check on the Internet that the most successful companies are those that have many customers subscribed to their service and their products. Whether it’s music, subscriptions to renewable energy production systems, transportation, or housing.

It is in these new health models, possibly by subscription, that what is called 4P medicine comes into play, which means: Personalized, Predictive, Preventive, and Participative medicine. It is not only a question of curing when one is sick, but above all of not getting sick.

But these new practices risk creating a form of uberization of health. Companies have created the disintermediation of traditional structures by offering more personalized services and products, more quickly, in the face of systems that are too heavy, too expensive, too complex. Thanks to digital, we can reconcile supply and demand. These disintermediation companies, like GAFA, are disruptors who reverse the classic and traditional model that we know. In health too. This risk exists.

The doctor of tomorrow can be assisted by digital or AI tools.

Predictive medicine thanks to AI

With artificial intelligence (AI), which some now prefer to call auxiliary intelligence, we can increase human intelligence. No doctor can read and assimilate all the scientific reviews, all the studies, suitable for treating a pathology. On the other hand, who can correlate all the information already published to make predictions or improve diagnoses? Watson, IBM’s artificial intelligence program, does it in minutes.

Google is developing an AI usage support program, Kubeflow. The doctor of tomorrow can be assisted by digital or AI tools, to devote more time to his patients. Many are already experimenting with it, since you can download Watson on your smartphone.

The most important question for the future is the role that individuals will play in the prevention of their health, thanks to an improved knowledge of the fundamental principles of nutrition, of the fight against pollutants that we inflict on ourselves like cigarettes, or which are present in the environment due to a lack of efficient waste management systems.

The ministries of health of many countries realize today that the biggest savings on the health insurance system will be made thanks to the participation of people in improving their health capital and the permanent investment in this capital thanks to the basic rules of good living that are nutrition, exercise, or stress management. Hence the importance of education and especially of co-education in families and schools to make young people understand the fundamental bases of balanced nutrition and permanent reinvestment in their health capital.

We can already see that the major magazines, in addition to specialized magazines, and even the daily newspapers devote more and more important spaces to the explanation of these fundamental principles of balanced nutrition and moderate exercise. These trends will only get stronger in the future, given the economic challenges represented by healthcare systems around the world and the transition to more economic and more democratic models.

31 Mar

What Global Harming Has in Store for Our Grandchildren

As this decade 2020 promises to be decisive in terms of climate, we invite you to imagine what the future could be like at the end of the 21st century. A distant future for you. But so present for your children and grandchildren. A present which, in a scenario of generalized awareness takes shape rather rapidly. But which, in a scenario of business as usual”, looks very dark.

Grandpa, I am 15 years old today. My life is just beginning. Yours was completed yesterday. Today, I am offered this incredible chance to write you this postcard. A postcard from the future, of your future, from my present. Of this world that you left me. A chance to maybe be able to change things. Because in 2020, Grandpa, the time when you too were 15, there was still time.

I would first like to tell you that it was the heat that won you over. The one who, without pity for us who provoked it, now breaks in successive waves every summer. The last, it is true, has been particularly extreme. The information has just fallen. A new temperature record has been broken here: 54.9 ° C. Can you just imagine, Grandpa, from the top of your indifferent fortnight?

54.9 °C! This is what your SUV that you will buy in less than ten years have done to the world. Your insatiable hunger for fresh meat too. And, you will soon find out, all these things thrown away barely bought. This latest trendy T-shirt that you’ve only worn three times. Or this smartphone paid for at a hefty price that had to be replaced six months later by its latest development. Evolution? Grandpa, do you really think that this is evolution?

The climate crisis is global. Wait, you haven’t heard everything yet, but yes! you heard it. The scientists had alerted you. The sea level has risen. More than a meter today since your time. And you know what, Grandpa? Millions of people have suffered from it. Children on the other side of the world that you care little about? I imagine it pretty well. But also European children.

Children who look like you. Whose parents may have been sitting next to you on the school benches. Children like me. Florida has become an island. Amsterdam has been wiped off the map. Bordeaux has more than ever its feet in the water. And these children today are desperately knocking on the doors of those who were luckier than them. For how much longer? How much longer will we be able to welcome these climate refugees that nobody wanted to hear about, even in your time, Grandpa? How much longer … will we be luckier than them?

Tomorrow we will move out. We are going to have to leave behind this beautiful house that your father had built. This strong and solid house, all in concrete. This house from another time. The one you loved so much. The last coastal flood was the reason for this attachment. You see, Grandpa, it’s not just polar bears in the arctic circle that are pushed far from home. It’s not just anonymous strangers. Your own family is now suffering the consequences of your disbelief.

And if you only knew … Your daughter, Grandpa, she died two years ago. She was not 40 years old. It is not an age to die like this in a society that is said to be advanced. But she died. Carried away by yet another hurricane, somewhere in the Antilles that she cherished. A hurricane of such power that it devastated the region, leaving behind only sadness and desolation. Your own daughter, Grandpa! You cried all the tears of your body.

Living on this Earth today is hell! Every year, appalling fires are started. In the Arctic, in the Amazon rainforest, or what’s left of it, in Australia. They only worsen an already catastrophic situation. All ecosystems suffer. The animals are massively disappearing. The air becomes unbreathable. Pollution is everywhere and all the dumpster rentals in the world will not be enough to remove all the garbage and waste created by humankind.. The world is coughing. The world is choking. And people are dying earlier than before. You were lucky, Grandpa, to live so old. I will certainly not have as many years as you have.

But it can still be resolved. Drink a glass of water. To eat an apple. It has become a luxury. We have exhausted the resources of our Earth. Of course, solutions have been found. Because the researchers never gave up. But these are just simple bandages placed on open wounds today. What more could they do without the support of the people? Without your membership, Grandpa? They could not prevent water from running out even in the southern regions of our Europe. Droughts of several years have hit the United States.

And the researchers could not prevent the catastrophic rise in food prices that followed either. Your faulty indolence has cost us dearly, Grandpa. It has claimed the lives of those affected by extreme poverty or new diseases. It also, more subtly, cost people’s happiness. Because while you continue to eat hamburgers on this overheated terrace that blows tons of CO2 into the atmosphere, I cry a world that will never return. From the height of my 15 years, I know it. Everyone knows it now: there is no plan B. No planet B.

My only hope today is you, Grandpa! So I beg you, stop doubting science. Stop waiting for others to make decisions. Stop blaming them. You can act, now. Take the things over control. Choose a different future. You just have to believe it. And get started.

21 Aug

America’s Natural Wonders

When traveling to a new country, tourists often are concerned with a multitude of different things. What hotels they should stay at, what areas they should visit, and most importantly, what sites they should see are just a few of the details that every traveler concerns themselves with. Although some tourists focus on what sites they should see in a more urban setting, there are others that are more interesting in seeing the natural sites of the area there visiting.

Fortunately for tourists traveling to the USA, there are all sorts of different natural wonders that are worth visiting within the states. In fact, there are so many that one cannot possibly see them in one trip; because of this, which ones should you visit? Where are they located? Can you visit these places on your own or should you explore them with a tour group?

The Grand Canyon

One of the most breath-takingly beautiful natural sites to visit is undoubtedly the Grand Canyon. This Arizona view is utterly stunning. From either your own car or the park’s free shuttle bus, you are able to observe what the elements have created in one of the most well-known geological sites in the world. Watch the colors change in this mile-deep canyon from dawn until dusk.

For travelers with an adventurous streak, you are able to hike across this natural phenomenon. Guided tours of the Grand Canyon are also available. A few example of many of the great tours offered in the park include the following: a guided bicycle tour, mule trips, and guided hikes.

Old Faithful

Another spot to consider visiting is the awe-inspiring, reliable Old Faithful. Old Faithful is a cone geyser that is known as one of the most reliable natural wonders of the world. This is because the geyser erupts every 91 minutes, without fail. By visiting this spot not only do you have the opportunity to visit Old Faithful yourself, but you can also view anything else that strikes your fancy at Yellowstone National Park (a park which spreads across three states: Wyoming, Idaho, and Montana).

As well as the geyser and the park itself, you will be able to observe wild creatures, such as grizzly bears, in their natural habitat. Tourists are able to experience Old Faithful and the rest of Yellowstone National Park on their own; however, there are tours available as well. For example, there are hiking and backpacking tours, river safaris, Yellowstone safaris, and llama treks available for interested travelers.

Sequoia National Park

Yet another wonderful and stunning natural wonder in the United States is Sequoia National Park in Three Rivers, California. This is an astounding place to visit for one very simple reason: its trees. Although this nature preserve has many trees, it has one that you won’t be forgetting anytime soon. General Sherman is the name of this famous tree and it is the largest tree in world. This tree stands over two hundred feet tall and is definitely something you don’t want to miss while exploring America’s numerous natural wonders.

Aside from these spectacular trees, there are endless amounts of other plant life around the park for you to discover as well as exploring the Sierra Nevada Foothills, Moro Rock, and the Great Western Divide. Aside from the interesting and attractive plant life that is in this park, you also have the chance to see the wild life within this park, such as roaming black bears. This national park is one that you can explore alone or take part in one of its many tours. One example is the Sequoia Sightseeing Tours, the first which takes half a day, the second a full day.

The three previously listed national wonders are just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the beautiful and exciting world of the United States’ natural wonders. There are many other exciting, beautiful, and fun places to explore all throughout the country’s fifty states.

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