Data from the US Bureau of Labor Statistics shows that the average price of unleaded gasoline was 50% more in July 2024 than in January 2021.

During the second year of the Biden-Harris administration, gas prices broke record highs more than once.

The highest average price for unleaded gas, recorded on 14 June 2022, was $5.016, with diesel reaching an all-time high five days later, at $5.816.

Last Thursday, the average price of gas was $3.361, almost a full dollar more than the price when Trump left office in 2021. At its peak under Biden-Harris, gas was $2.62 more than when Trump left office.

The Democrats have blamed Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, COVID supply-chain issues, and oil and gas companies.

In an interview, Nancy Pelosi said the “fossil-fuel industry” was to blame and the public knows it, adding that the public will “blame all of us if we don’t do something” about price rigging by oil and gas companies.

Breitbart notes that America’s auto-related woes don’t end there either.

“Car insurance premiums are up 54 percent since President Joe Biden and Harris took over in January 2021. New car prices jumped 19 percent since Biden and Harris took office, used cars and trucks rose 20 percent, and the average price of motor vehicle maintenance and repair has gone up 30 percent since January 2021.”

In recent days, including in her sit-down interview with Dana Bash on Thursday, Kamala Harris has indicated her renewed commitment to transitioning away from reliance on fossil fuels and the so-called Green New Deal.

“You mentioned the Green New Deal,” Harris told Bash.

“I have always believed—and I have worked on it—that the climate crisis is real, that it is an urgent matter to which we should apply metrics that include holding ourselves to deadlines around time.”

After the interview, the Harris campaign put out a statement saying that Harris does not support the Green New Deal.

Just under 75% of the US population receives a fluoridated water supply at a targeted concentration of 0.7 milligrams per liter.

The new research, published in JAMA Network Open, found that this targeted concentration is enough to increase the risk of neurobehavioral issues in children at age three, and that a 0.68 milligram per liter increase in fluoride exposure could double the risk of a child displaying such issues.

Animal studies have consistently shown that high levels of fluoride exposure cause serious changes to neurobiochemical changes, and that fluoride can cross the placental barrier between a mother and her child.

But recent human studies from Mexico and Canada have suggested that even low levels of exposure during pregnancy could be linked to lower IQ, reduced cognitive function and increased symptoms of ADHD.

The new study took 229 mother-child pairs from the Maternal and Developmental Risks from Environmental and Social Stressors (MADRES) cohort, which consists of mainly Hispanic women living in urban Los Angeles, California. The participants were recruited during prenatal care visits between 2015 and 2020.

The researchers took single spot urine samples from the mothers during their third trimester of pregnancy (weeks 29 to 40). The samples were analyzed for urinary fluoride levels, as an index of total fluoride intake. The median urinary fluoride concentration among the mothers was 0.76 milligrams per liter.

When the children reached the age of three years, their mothers completed the Preschool Child Behavior Checklist (CBCL), a commonly used measure of children’s cognitive development and behaviour. The CBCL includes 99 items that assess a range of behavioral and emotional problems, from depression and withdrawal to attention problems and aggression, and diagnosable conditions like ADHD and autism-spectrum disorders.

A key finding of the study was that a 0.68 milligram per liter increase in maternal urinary fluoride levels during pregnancy was associated with nearly double the odds of the child scoring in the borderline clinical or clinical range for total neurobehavioral problems.

As well as being associated with an overall increase in the risk of neurobehavioral problems, higher fluoride exposure was also associated with specific issues. A 0.68 milligram per liter increase was associated with a 13.54% increase in scores for emotionally reactive behaviors, for example, and a 19.60% increase in somatic complaints.

There was also an 11.29% increase in anxiety problems and an 18.53% increase in autism-spectrum problems.

“Women with higher fluoride exposure levels in their bodies during pregnancy tended to rate their 3-year-old children higher on overall neurobehavioral problems and internalizing symptoms, including emotional reactivity, anxiety and somatic complaints,” said Tracy Bastain, an associate professor at the University of Southern California and senior author of the study.

“I think this is important evidence, given that it’s the first U.S.-based study and findings are quite consistent with the other studies published in North America with comparable fluoride exposure levels,” added the study’s lead investigator Ashley Malin.

“Conducting a nationwide U.S. study on this topic would be important, but I think the findings of the current study and recent studies from Canada and Mexico suggest that there is a real concern here.”

Gates was speaking to Hannah Ritchie, a data scientist and researcher at the University of Oxford, when he made the bold prediction about AI’s potential role in fighting climate change.

In doing so, he expressed his astonishment at the speed of AI advancement.

“I was very stunned how the AIs went from basically not being able to read or write at all, to doing that in a very facile way.”

Ritchie sounded a less optimistic note about the future of food technology, pointing to the difficulties currently being faced by advocates of plant-based diets as they try to convince others to change their food-consumption habits.

A few years ago, a study from Australia showed that 73% of men would rather lose ten years of their lives than give up meat. Manufacturers of plant-based “meats” like Beyond and Impossible continue to suffer drastic setbacks in their aim to replace traditional meat products, as sales continue to fall.

The hype behind so-called “lab-grown meat” has also largely evaporated. A recent New York Times opinion piece called it “the revolution that died on its way to dinner.” A series of unfavourable revelations about the companies producing lab-grown meat, such as Josh Tetrick’s GOOD Meat, revised assessments of its environmental benefits—little to none, with the possibility that it may even be more harmful for the environment than real meat—and the threat of product bans in states including Florida, have left lab-grown meat producers and advocates in an unenviable position.

Bill Gates is well known for his pronouncements on the future of food. He has used his podcast to talk about his vision for an environmentally friendly.

In an episode last year, for example, he noted the difficulties of informing people about the true cost of traditional agriculture, especially livestock grazing.

“Of all the climate areas, the one that people are probably least aware of is all the fertiliser and cows, and that’s a challenge.”

Despite these difficulties, Gates expressed his hope for real change, and his role in driving it.

“Something told me plant-based is going to be the future… and I want to be the person that plants the seed.”