Skip to main content
Donate

It Really is Viral

By Ophelia Chong
March 9, 2009
Support Provided By
virus

But is it contagious?

I am online about 18 hours a day. I would say 95% of the time it is for work, the rest a bit of play, but once I am done, I fly off the computer and into a dark room with the television and the newspapers. The only way you will know I am not there is by the sudden lack of replies to your emails.


Human to Human

Over the last three weeks I have had the worst cold imaginable. If you have a visceral imagination like I have, then you would be cringing right now. I was coughing, sneezing and running a fever that would cook an egg. I coughed so hard that I bruised a rib, one side of my body sticks out more than the other. I made sounds that would give a foley guy shivers and the urge to record me for the next underwater sea squid monster movie. I caught this virus by mingling with humans, something I rarely do.

Computer to Computer

Viruses online are solved by downloading a patch, and your computer is happy again. However, a virus in the human body wrecks havoc with just about every part of your body, if you are like me, you can still work because I am a virtual contractor. I can be drooling and shaking, but all you'll see are emails and instant messages. I can't make anyone sick because I have the internet to keep my germs on my side of the wall. So in this new world of subcontractors working from home, will the first casualty be the "common cold"?

Image: Ophelia Chong / Smile for Me

Support Provided By
Read More
An oil pump painted white with red accents stands mid-pump on a dirt road under a blue, cloudy sky with a green, grassy slope in the background.

California’s First Carbon Capture Project: Vital Climate Tool or License to Pollute?

California’s first attempt to capture and sequester carbon involves California Resources Corp. collecting emissions at its Elk Hills Oil and Gas Field, and then inject the gases more than a mile deep into a depleted oil reservoir. The goal is to keep carbon underground and out of the atmosphere, where it traps heat and contributes to climate change. But some argue polluting industries need to cease altogether.
By Alejandro Lazo, CalMatters
Gray industrial towers and stacks rise up from behind the pitched roofs of warehouse buildings against a gray-blue sky, with a row of yellow-gold barrels with black lids lined up in the foreground to the right of a portable toilet.

California Isn't on Track To Meet Its Climate Change Mandates. It's Not Even Close.

According to the annual California Green Innovation Index released by Next 10 last week, California is off track from meeting its climate goals for the year 2030, as well as reaching carbon neutrality by 2045.
By Alejandro Lazo, CalMatters
A row of cows stands in individual cages along a line of light-colored enclosures, placed along a dirt path under a blue sky dotted with white puffy clouds.

A Battle Is Underway Over California’s Lucrative Dairy Biogas Market

California is considering changes to a program that has incentivized dairy biogas, to transform methane emissions into a source of natural gas. Neighbors are pushing for an end to the subsidies because of its impact on air quality and possible water pollution.
By Emma Foehringer Merchant, Inside Climate News