Hard Numbers
Hard Numbers: Danes tax cow farts, SCOTUS sides with Biden (on social), Deadly mpox strain hits DRC, China’s lunar probe returns
A herd of cows standing on top of a lush green field.
Photo by Stijn te Strake on Unsplash
June 26, 2024
43: Cow farts can be taxing. Denmark plans to tax farmers for the greenhouse gases emitted by their cows, sheep, and pigs from 2030. The taxes – a world first – aim to reduce Danish greenhouse gas emissions by 70% by targeting a major source of methane emissions. The tax will start at $17 per ton of carbon dioxide equivalent in 2030 and increase to $43 per ton by 2035.
6-3: In a 6-3 decision, the Supreme Court on Wednesday sided with the Biden administration in a dispute with Republican-led states over how far the government can go to combat misinformation on social media when it comes to topics like COVID-19 and election security. The case stemmed from administration efforts to have platforms remove posts that touched on issues like COVID vaccines and election fraud.
8,000: There have been nearly 8,000 cases of a new strain of mpox, aka monkeypox, this year in the Democratic Republic of Congo, including 384 deaths – almost half of which were children under 15. The virus, which can cause lesions across the whole body, has been spreading at a worrying rate, risking cross-border and international spread of the virus.
4.5 billion: China’s lunar probe has returned to Earth with the first-ever samples from the unexplored far side of the moon. The Chang’e-6 landed in the Inner Mongolia desert on Tuesday after a nearly two-month mission that was fraught with risk. Scientists hope the samples will help test theories about how the moon was formed 4.5 billion years ago and whether it resulted from a collision with a very early version of Earth.More For You
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