Right Wing Granny

News behind the news. This picture is me (white spot) standing on the bridge connecting European and North American tectonic plates. It is located in the Reykjanes area of Iceland. By-the-way, this is a color picture.

Right Wing Granny

Tag Archives: Carbon footprint

Rules For Thee But Not For Me

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The people who are in a panic about climate change often encourage us to use public transportation, live in smaller houses, buy more efficient cars, travel less, etc. They are seriously concerned about our carbon footprint. Yet, somehow, they seem to be much less concerned about their own carbon footprint.

On Saturday, The Washington Examiner reported:

Gov. Kathy Hochul (D-NY) has spent around $415,000 on private jet flights since 2021.

The money was doled out by her campaign committee, with the most spent in 2022 during her reelection campaign against former Rep. Lee Zeldin.

A pilot experienced in private aviation told the New York Post that Hochul’s use of a private jet is “very wasteful.”

“It’s very wasteful, especially for an elected official,” he said. “There is no reason why any elected official in New York should be taking a private jet. Nearly everywhere in New York or upstate has a [commercial] airport that will take you anywhere in the country.”

Private jets are known to be especially wasteful, considering the small amount of passengers they carry. A 2021 report from the European Federation for Transport and Environment found that private jets are five to 14 times more polluting per passenger than commercial flights and 50 times more polluting than trains.

Hochul utilized two private-airline companies, Zephyr Jets and Apollo Jets, and spent no less than $5,000 on each flight while her most expensive journey was $38,594.00.

I have less patience with a politician using campaign money for private jets than I do with someone who is financially successful using one. At least a business person flying a private jet has earned the money for the trip. Hochul was using campaign funds that could have easily been more efficiently spent.

The article concludes:

Hochul is facing immense internal pressure from New York Democrats who want to oust her for the 2026 gubernatorial race. She faced previous criticism for down-ballot House losses in 2022 but recovered some ground during the 2024 elections, winning several seats back.

Rep. Ritchie Torres (D-NY) is one of her main detractors. He has his eyes on the governor’s office in just a few short years.

“When it comes to combating climate change, the governor is conspicuously failing to practice what she preaches. New Yorkers viscerally resent hypocrisy, and the governor’s hypocrisy here is as staggering as her carbon footprint,” Torres told the New York Post.

Kathy Hochul is simply one more example of a politician who refuses to practice what she preaches.

What Global Warming Is Really About

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On Friday, Issues & Insights posted an article about global warming. The article includes a number of statements by people who claim to be alarmed at global warming that might cause you to question their motives.

The article reports those statements:

  • Christiana Figueres, one-time executive secretary of United Nations’ Framework Convention on Climate Change, admitted that the climate activists’ agenda is not to protect the environment but to break capitalism. The task ahead, she said in 2015, is “to change the economic development model that has been reigning for at least 150 years, since the Industrial Revolution.”
  • The late Rajenda Pachauri was the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Chairman until 2015. He openly conceded “the protection of planet Earth, the survival of all species and sustainability of our ecosystems” was “more than a mission” to him. It was his “religion” and “dharma.”
  • Activist and influential author Naomi Klein once wondered if the fearmongering was “the best chance we’re ever going to get to build a better world?” The world must “change, or be changed,” she says, because an “economic system” — our free and open markets — has caused environmental “wreckage.”
  • Democratic Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez said almost five years ago that Miami will not exist “in a few years” due to the effects of global warming. She of course had a plan, not to deal with the changes, but to pass Democratic Party policies. “The interesting thing about the Green New Deal is it wasn’t originally a climate thing at all,” former Ocasio-Cortez chief of staff Saikat Chakrabarti said, according to the Washington Post Magazine. “Do you guys think of it as a climate thing?” Chakrabarti asked an aide to Washington Gov. Jay Inslee while the pair met at a Washington, D.C. coffee shop in May. “Because we really think of it as a how-do-you-change-the-entire-economy thing.”

The free market will always provide a cleaner environment than government regulation. It should also be noted that many of those complaining about the carbon footprint of our cars are flying around the world in private jets. If they truly believed climate change was an existential crisis, would they be doing that?

 

 

Will Anyone Actually Believe This?

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On Tuesday, Breitbart posted an article blaming the flight from some of America’s large, democrat-controlled cities on climate control. No mention of rising crime, rising cost of living or any of those trivial things.

The article reports:

“Climate migration is already taking place within American communities, new data finds, as people flee flood-prone areas, and create ‘climate abandonment’ zones,” writes an unquestioning Axios.

“The study constitutes the latest warning sign of the effects of climate change,” Axios continues without skepticism. “Population shifts, and a larger reckoning for real estate, are only expected to worsen as global average surface temperatures rise.”

But then the premise of the study undercuts itself in a big way with the admission that “Americans are leaving the Rust Belt in droves and heading to areas of greater climate risk in the South and Southwest[.]”

What’s more, “cities with high flood risks, like Miami and Houston, are still pulling in more people than they are losing,” the study admits. “But these areas are growing more slowly than they would be if flooding weren’t such a threat, the study shows.”

A good faith reading of the study tells me that the conclusions come from projections and math equations. Nowhere does it say that the actual people who moved were surveyed or questioned about why they moved. The study also uses a math problem to explain away “local political, social, and economic conditions” — but you have to talk to people to understand their motive for moving.

Additionally, as stated above, the study admits that most of the country’s migration is to areas that are “of greater climate risk.” The study fails to mention that real estate on the coasts, the areas that would be most at risk if climate change were real, is increasing in value, not decreasing. If you recall, Mr. Climate Change himself, Barack Obama, spent millions on a mansion just a few feet from the same ocean that’s supposed to wipe out the coast. The Climate Change Channel, CNN, moved its headquarters from the safe, inland city of Atlanta to the edge of the water in Manhattan — the same Manhattan the “experts” told us would be flooded by now.

It should also be noted that the Bidens own property in Rehoboth Beach, Delaware–a beachfront community. It the elites who preach to us about climate change and carbon footprints followed their own rules, we might be willing to pay attention.

Irony

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On Saturday, Just the News posted the following headline:

UN climate confab may have largest carbon footprint in event’s history, more than 400 jets

Aren’t those the people who want us to drive mini electric cars and eat bugs?

The article reports:

The upcoming United Nations (UN) climate conference in the United Arab Emirates (UAE), known as COP28, appears likely to have a larger carbon footprint than any previous UN climate change summit.

More than 70,000 people are expected to show up to COP28, about 25,000 more people than last year’s summit, COP27. The conference, which runs from Nov. 30 through Dec. 12, will focus on global strategies to reduce emissions and accelerate the shift away from fossil fuels in favor of green energy.

About 40,000 people attended COP26 in 2021 in Glasgow, Scotland,  while nearly 45,000 people attended the 2015 summit in Paris, France, where the Paris Climate Accords were signed.

Conference attendees have drawn scrutiny in previous years for traveling to and from the event in private jets while lecturing on the importance of reducing emissions. Notably, a luxury concierge service has been offering to arrange private jet charters ahead of this year’s conference.

In addition to flying in and out of the UAE, many attendees will also stay in high-end hotels and have access to “environmentally sustainable, socially responsible, delicious and nutritious food and beverage,” according to COP28’s website.

On October 16, 2021, Zero Hedge posted the following headline:

UN Climate Change Conference Reportedly Using Diesel Generators To Charge Teslas Being Used As Shuttles

Some highlights of that article are posted here.

The article also notes:

One of the key issues to be discussed at COP28 is the shape of a so-called “loss and damages” fund, a de facto international climate reparations program. Special presidential envoy for climate John Kerry recently suggested that the U.S. will pay “millions” into the fund, a number that many activists and representatives of poorer countries find to be inadequate. China is unlikely to have any significant obligations to the fund because it is classified as a developing country, despite its status as the world’s top emitter and second-largest economy.

If you have not yet figured out that the purpose of climate change is to take money away from the countries that have it and give it to China and other ‘developing’ countries, you have not been paying attention.

A Major Green Energy ‘Whoops’

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On July 3, a website called environmental progress posted the following:

Last August, in an amalgamation of ‘The Green New Deal’ meets ‘Build Back Better’, President Joe Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act gifted the renewables industry with billions of dollars worth of taxpayer-funded subsidies. What few backing the bill realized was that the largest beneficiary would likely be China due to its expansive grip on the global solar photovoltaic (PV) industry.

Worse than that, it might end up misdirecting the world’s clean energy efforts into dirtier than appreciated energy technologies because of the country’s ongoing dependence on coal-fired energy.

Information unearthed by Environmental Progress points to a gaping oversight in how the figures influencing government net zero policy and investments in solar worldwide are compiled and collated due to the difficulty of collecting accurate information out of China, especially for the purification processes used to create silicon wafers.

Key to this blind spot is that the source material for most of the assessments is provided by a small number of data compilers, many if not all of them working in collaboration with the International Energy Agency (IEA). The data is voluntarily submitted by the industry in response to academic surveys. The nature and profile of the respondents is never publicy revealed, so that there is the potential for conflicts of interest to develop.

A further puzzle is how that data feeds into an organization called Ecoinvent, a Swiss-based non-profit founded in 1998 that dubs itself “the world’s most consistent and transparent life cycle inventory database”. This data is relied on by institutions worldwide, including the IPCC and IEA itself, to calculate their carbon footprint projections, including the sixth assessment report published as recently as March 2023.

Based on such data, the IPCC claims solar PV is 48 gCO2/kWh. But, as we’ll see below, a new investigation started by Italian researcher, Enrico Mariutti, suggests that the number is closer to between 170 and 250 gCO2/kWh, depending on the energy mix used to power PV production. If this estimate is accurate, solar would not compare favorably with natural gas, which is around 50 gCO2/kWh with carbon capture, and 400 to 500 without.

On July 24, in a similar article, Hot Air noted:

I think we all know how the Chinese came to be at the forefront of solar panel manufacturing – the same way they’ve done everything else. They don’t have an innovative bone in their collective billion bodies, but what they do have is conniving. Plus cheap labor, no environmental strictures, and enterprise once they steal what they need to make something. And that’s exactly what happened with the solar industry. There were once German leaders in solar technology who are long out of business because of the Chinese filching their designs.

I think it’s time to rethink this ‘green energy’ thing.

 

You Go First

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On Monday, Breitbart reported the following:

“This food crisis is real, and we must find solutions,” World Trade Organization Director-General Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala said on a WEF trade panel last Wednesday.

The WEF has published a starter list to help consumers change their diet with “new and innovative options that have started making their way to the global market only recently.” These include:

      • Algae: combining their carbon-negative profile with sustainable sourcing, algae have the potential to change the food system for the better while being good for your health, thanks to their essential fatty acids and high vitamin and antioxidants content. Although may not appeal to the most squeamish consumers, algae actually possess a meat-like, umami flavour that makes them an ideal replacement for meat. They can also be dried and minced to obtain healthy salt-like condiments and dressings.
      • Cacti: many varieties of cacti are edible and contain high amounts of vitamins C and E, carotenoids, fibre and amino acids. Cacti stems have long been part of the Mexican culinary tradition and are now starting to enter the international market through new, delicious concepts.
      • Uncommon grains: if you don’t feel like revolutionizing your diet with unusual ingredients, you can opt for a more gradual change by diversifying your sources of carbohydrates. Despite the existence of 21 different families of grains, at the moment rice, wheat and maize make up more than 50 percent of global cereal consumption. Opting for diverse grain varieties (like amaranth, fonio or buckwheat) will not only provide you with more nutritional value, but also help improve soil health and preserve biodiversity.

The WEF has previously said switching en masse to a plant-based diet is essential to protect wildlife habitats and prevent the loss of numerous species currently facing extinction.

Hollywood has also been known to recommend the same message of changing eating habits to save the planet from “certain destruction.”

These are the same people who flew their private jets to Davos to lecture us on our carbon footprints. Do you honestly believe they will be eating algae and cacti?

A Very Good Question

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Zero Hedge posted an article today about President Biden’s recent trip to the climate summit.

The article notes:

Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee Ranking Member John Barrasso has called for detailed information on the carbon footprint of Joe Biden’s trip to the COP climate Summit in Scotland, labelling it “bloated” and “counterproductive”.

Considering that the climate summit was a mass meeting of private jets, I think that is a valid question. There is also the matter of diesel generators being brought in to power the Teslas (article here). I really think that if those who attended the summit were actually as concerned about global warming and everyone’s carbon footprint, they might make other travel arrangements than they actually did (I know there is such a thing as car-pooling, is there plane-pooling?). The article notes that it would have made sense to hold the summit virtually.

It seems that the attendees to the climate summit decry the carbon footprint of ‘the common man’ while jetting around in private planes and charging Teslas with diesel generators. Seems a little off balance.

It’s Nearly Impossible To Kill A Government Program–Even When It Doesn’t Work

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Hot Air posted an article today about ethanol in America. The article notes that when the ethanol program (Renewable Fuel Standard) was put in place, it was based on two basic assumptions. The first assumption was that we would be producing huge amounts of biodiesel from sources like palm oil and recycled cooking oil. The other was that we would be pumping out massive volumes of cellulosic ethanol, derived from plants like switchgrass, which grows naturally all across the country. Well, both of those assumptions proved to be false. Because America is now the number one energy producer in the world, it no longer makes sense to use ethanol. Ethanol is not as environmentally friendly as carbon-based fuels when you consider the carbon footprint of its manufacturing process. There are also serious questions about the impact of ethanol on car engines.

The article concludes:

Corn is the least environmentally friendly way to create ethanol. It’s also a very inefficient fuel compared to gasoline so you wind up having to burn more of it to produce the same amount of energy. In short, we’re defeating some of the primary motivations that led us to start down this path to begin with. And yet the program endures for nothing other than political reasons. Midwestern states like Iowa want the government to keep demanding more and more corn ethanol to bolster agricultural markets. Meanwhile, refineries are stuck trading on a corrupt, fake market for RIN credits, driving some of the smaller ones toward insolvency.

The dream of corn ethanol has failed everyone across the board. But like most government mandates, once it’s been summoned into existence, it proves nearly impossible to kill. It would take a tremendous amount of political will to get rid of the RFS now, and that strength clearly doesn’t exist in the Trump administration. You won’t find it among the Democrats, either. And so we keep paddling upstream against the same forces for the foreseeable future.

The closest thing to immortality is a government program.

 

I Guess There Just Isn’t Any Truth In Advertising These Days

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Yesterday Hot Air posted an article about a recent lawsuit against ice cream makers Ben & Jerry. Ben & Jerry’s owners are liberals who very openly support liberal causes. Their advertising claims that in harmony with their ideas about the humane treatment of animals ans the environment, their ice cream is made from milk from happy cows. I never really considered the emotional well being of the cows that supplied the milk for my ice cream, but I suppose it is a somewhat valid concern. Well, evidently all of the milk does not come from happy cows.

The article reports:

Since most of this week in Washington is already shaping up to be a festival of the ridiculous, we may as well toss a few more logs on the bonfire. Up in Vermont, Ben & Jerry’s, the famously liberal ice cream company, is being taken to court over fraudulent advertising, along with its parent company, Unilever. But this suit has nothing to do with the quality or safety of their product. An environmentalist is suing them because of their advertisements claiming that their creamy products are made from milk from “happy cows.” Not so, says the plaintiff! Apparently, many of the cows are simply miserable.

Ben & Jerry’s and parent company Unilever are being sued for false advertising by an environmental advocate who claims the milk and cream used to make flavors like Phish Food are deceptively marketed as coming from “happy cows.”

In a complaint filed Oct. 31 in federal court in Burlington, Vermont, where Ben & Jerry’s was founded, environmental advocate James Ehlers accuses the company and Unilever of deceiving consumers who buy the ice cream because of its pastoral and progessive image.

“During the past several years, Unilever has breached consumer trust by representing the Ben & Jerry’s Products as being made with milk and cream sourced exclusively from “happy cows” on Vermont dairies that participate in a special, humane “Caring Dairy” program,” the lawsuit claims.

The complaint alleges that less than half of the milk used is from the “Caring Dairy” program.

The article explains the program (and the problem):

USA Today looked into the question and found that the Caring Dairy program is indeed real. In order to qualify, farms have to follow certain regulations for how the cows are raised and what sort of environmental “carbon footprint” the operation has. But it’s not all that large, with only 65 farms in the Netherlands and the United States qualifying.

Even if Ben & Jerry’s had cornered the market on all of them, they probably wouldn’t produce enough milk to meet their needs. The company claims they “hope” to work with more farms like these going forward, but it certainly sounds as if they’re not using 100% “happy cow” milk. So maybe the plaintiff is correct.

I am strongly in favor of treating animals humanely. However, I also believe that animals are not people. What we need here is a sense of balance.

If They Really Believed What They Are Saying, Would Their Behavior Change?

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The Gateway Pundit reported the following today:

A slew of A-list celebrities have flocked to Sicily, Italy on private jets and massive yachts to discuss the woes of global warming caused, they say, by things like private jets and massive yachts.

The founders of Google invited a a throng of the rich and famous,  including former President Barack Obama, Prince Harry, actor Leonardo DiCaprio and singer Katy Perry for a huge party they’ve dubbed Google Camp.

“The three-day event will focus on fighting climate change — though it’s unknown how much time the attendees will spend discussing their own effect on the environment, such as the scores of private jets they arrived in and the mega yachts many have been staying on,” reports the New York Post.

“Everything is about global warming, that is the major topic this year,” a source told The Post.

The cost of the extravaganza — $20 million.

According to the Italian press, at least 114 private jets will land at the Palermo airport.

So let me get this straight. The Green New Deal wants to cripple the American economy in the name of saving the earth–no more fossil fuel, no more cows, etc., yet the richest of the rich attend a meeting on fighting climate change in machines with some of the biggest carbon footprints on earth.

I guess if we are all going to die in twelve years because of global warming, they are going to go out in style.

There Are Some People Who Just Don’t Want A Level Playing Field

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We live in a culture where money talks. People give to politicians to support them (and sometimes to gain access), corporations and unions give to politicians, corporations and organizations buy ads on television and radio to support their cause. Consumers have the option of believing or dismissing these ads. Public relations has become a major part of most businesses, politicians, and charities. Well, not everyone is happy with the idea of equal access to the playing field.

The County Compass posted an article today about two groups attempting to limit the free speech of a company they disagree with. NC WARN and Friends of the Earth have begun legal action to ban what the groups allege is pervasive influence spending by Duke Energy.

The article reports:

The petition calls for the NC Utilities Commission to prohibit the use of customers’ money for influence spending by Duke’s two Carolinas-based utilities and the parent corporation. It details how virtually all the spending for political and civic influence originates from customer bills, and how Duke Energy uses an “accounting fiction” to claim that its stockholders or employees pay for image-polishing propaganda, targeted philanthropy, political giveaways and other efforts to buy favor.

The article includes the reply by Duke Energy:

Reached Wednesday afternoon at Duke Energy headquarters, Meredith Archie with the Corporate Communications department released the following statement:

The claims by this organization about our company are patently false and misleading. Duke Energy is proud to make charitable contributions in the communities where we live, work and serve, as well as to participate in public discourse on important policy matters that affect our customers and our company. The dollars used to fund these efforts are funded by shareholders in accordance with the law.

The article concludes:

Chan (Michelle Chan), the V.P. of Programs at Friends of the Earth, echoed Bradford’s (Peter Bradford, a former chairman of the New York Utilities Commission) statements.

“Adequately responding to the climate crisis means not just tackling the technical question of transitioning to renewable energy,” said Chan. “It also means stopping corporate monopolies like Duke from corroding our democracy and standing in the way of the change we need to protect people and the planet.”

First of all, there is no evidence that man’s behavior is responsible for climate change. Secondly, Solar energy may seem like a wonderful thing, but what is the carbon footprint of manufacturing the panels and how can they be safely disposed of since they have a limited life span?

I am not really surprised that two liberal organizations are attempting to shut down the free speech rights of an organization they have decided to demonize. I just wonder what they would do if Duke Energy went out of business–do they use electricity?

This Sort Of Thing Might Be Part Of The Problem With America’s Image Around The World

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Steven Hayward at Power Line posted an article today about recent remarks by Secretary of State John Kerry on the subject of climate change. Secretary Kerry was speaking to an audience in Indonesia.

The article reminds us of a few basic facts:

Let’s see if I’ve got this straight: Secretary of State John Kerry, owner of five multi-million dollar mansions along with a luxury yacht, has seen fit to lecture Indonesians (average income in 2012: $3,420) about why global warming climate change is “perhaps the world’s most fearsome weapon of mass destruction.”

…Incidentally, according to World Bank figures, Indonesian per capita greenhouse gas emissions are 1.8 metric tons. The United States: 17.6. Like Al Gore, John Kerry’s per capita emissions are surely a multiple of this, which suggests an obvious first step.  What Indonesia is most vulnerable to is following the policy prescriptions of mountebanks like Kerry.  The good news it that they know that.  India, China, Indonesia, and other developing nations have consistently told our diplomats a version of the following: “We don’t understand you Americans; you expect us to remain poor forever?”  Or: “You Americans got rich on fossil fuels.  When we’re as rich as you, then maybe we’ll talk about emissions reductions.”

Secretary Kerry’s comments are simply offensive. Aside from the poverty Indonesia is dealing with, the country also has a problem with Muslim terrorists. I really don’t think shrinking their carbon footprint is a very high priority in Indonesia. It is a shame that the Secretary of State was not more aware of or more sensitive to the needs of the country he was addressing.

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Sometimes You Just Wonder…

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On Saturday the New Zealand Herald reported that Leonardo DiCaprio is taking a break from acting for a while.

The article reports:

In an interview with Germany’s mass circulation daily Bild, the 38-year-old American actor said: “I am a bit drained. I’m now going to take a long, long break. I’ve done three films in two years and I’m just worn out.”

“I would like to improve the world a bit. I will fly around the world doing good for the environment,” added DiCaprio, in comments published in German.

The article goes on to explain that the actor’s house has solar panels and that he drives an electric car. That’s nice. Has it occurred to him that flying around the world to help the environment is somewhat counter-productive? Is he flying commercial or in a private plane? Has he considered the carbon footprint of his trip around the world to help the environment?Enhanced by Zemanta

One Of The Reasons Our Students Are Not Doing Well

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Yesterday’s Daily Caller posted an article called, “What my seventh-grade daughter learned during her school’s “sustainability day.” The students watched a video called “The Story of Stuff.” The basic premise of the video is that we are destroying the planet because of our consumerism. The article lists a few of the points made in the video and then explains how the basic facts (thus the conclusions) are wrong. Please follow the link to the article to see the details. The video is by Annie Leonard and is also on YouTube. This is all a part of the brainwashing needed to get America ready for UN Agenda 21. I have done articles on Agenda 21 in the past (rightwinggranny.com). We need to make sure our children hear the truth at home–they are not hearing it in the classroom.

It has always been interesting to me that those who are criticizing us average people for consumerism seem to have more stuff than the rest of us. There was a dust-up this week about a very exclusive Halloween party at the White House as the American economy was rapidly heading south. Al Gore talks about carbon footprints, but maintains a lifestyle that creates a larger carbon footprint in a day than most of us do in a year. Mucky-mucks travel to conferences on carbon emissions in private jets. I might be inclined to take some of this talk much more seriously if the people talking followed their own advice.

 

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