Tuesday, October 25th, 2011
Stephan: This is what is so dangerous. Two thirds of voters see America in decline. We have put ourselves at enormous risk, and it is entirely self-inflicted. The defeat of the jobs bill, because Republican voted as a bloc, is an example of that mutilation. Sadly, I have increasingly come to feel all of this is both inevitable and necessary.
We need a new paradigm. We need to adjust our system so that it places the wellbeing of all beings and Gaia herself first and profit second. Paradigms are not surrendered easily though. It is going to be a messy painful business, just as it was in the 1870s when many nation states, including Germany and Italy, emerged. But as people surrender their expectation that the system they are living under is improving their lot, their ties to it will weaken.
More than two-thirds of voters say the United States is declining, and a clear majority think the next generation will be worse off than this one, according to the results of a new poll commissioned by The Hill.
A resounding 69 percent of respondents said the country is ‘in decline,
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Tuesday, October 25th, 2011
PHIL GALEWITZ, - Kaiser Health News/USA Today
Stephan: It was just a matter of time until the illness profit system brought us to care rationing. Here it is. Under Medicaid the poor, the elderly and the young can only be hospitalized for 10 days a year. What, your case will require six weeks. Sorry, go home and die. What I find so astonishing is that the very proposal of this limitation shows how far we have fallen from the original vision of the Founders; An America that rewarded hard work, innovation and invidualism but always seeing it as occurring in a context of mutual support for the collective wellbeing.
A growing number of states are sharply limiting hospital stays under Medicaid to as few as 10 days a year to control rising costs of the health insurance program for the poor and disabled.
Advocates for the needy and hospital executives say the moves will restrict access to care, force hospitals to absorb more costs and lead to higher charges for privately insured patients.
States defend the actions as a way to balance budgets hammered by the economic downturn and the end of billions of dollars in federal stimulus funds this summer that had helped prop up Medicaid, financed jointly by states and the federal government.
Arizona, which last year stopped covering certain transplants for several months, plans to limit adult Medicaid recipients to 25 days of hospital coverage a year, starting as soon as the end of October.
Hawaii plans to cut Medicaid coverage to 10 days a year in April, the fewest of any state.
Both efforts require federal approval, which state officials consider likely because several other states already restrict hospital coverage.
Private health insurers generally don’t limit hospital coverage, according to America’s Health Insurance Plans, a trade group.
Rosemary Blackmon, executive vice president of the Alabama Hospital Association, said ‘for the most part […]
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Tuesday, October 25th, 2011
PETE SPOTTS, Staff Writer - The Christian Science Monitor
Stephan: Like the Birther Movement I think there comes a point where continuing to deny climate change moves to Flat Earth status. I think we have reached it, and that is what this report is telling us.
A new climate study shows that since the mid-1950s, global average temperatures over land have risen by 0.9 degrees Celsius (1.6 degrees Fahrenheit), confirming previous studies that have found a climate that has been warming – in fits and starts – since around 1900.
Most climate scientists attribute warming since the mid-1950, at least to some degree, to carbon dioxide emissions from human activities – burning coal, oil, and to a lesser extent gas, and from land-use changes.
The latest results mirror those from earlier, independent studies by scientists at NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies in New York, the Hadley Center for Climate Prediction and Research in Britain, and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).
These previous efforts, however, came under fire from some climate-change skeptics who said they had detected serious flaws in the analytical methods and temperature records the three groups used.
The new research, which has yet to be formally published but which appears in four papers posted on BerkeleyEarth.org, uses new analytical techniques and a much larger set of records than the previous studies did.
Indeed, the new approach to analyzing temperatures records allowed the team to make use of partial and older records previous studies had rejected as […]
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Tuesday, October 25th, 2011
, - The Gallup Organization
Stephan: This is appalling. Gallup finds: 'Nearly half of adults worldwide (48%) say climate change results from human activities or volunteer that both natural and human activities cause climate change. In Europe and the United States, belief in human contribution to global warming has declined since 2007 and 2008.' This is why nothing truly meaningful is going to be done about climate change in the short term. The one hope for those of us who care about Gaia in the short term is the pressure that virtual corporate states exert as it becomes clear to them, that the collapse of our habitable environment is not in their interest. Ironic, isn't it?
Click through to see the very interesting tables that accompany this article.
WASHINGTON, D.C. — World residents are more likely to blame human activities than nature for the rise in temperatures associated with climate change. Thirty-five percent of adults in 111 countries in 2010 say global warming results from human activities, while less than half as many (14%) blame nature. Thirteen percent fault both.
People nearly everywhere, including majorities in developed Asia and Latin America, are more likely to attribute global warming to human activities rather than natural causes. The U.S. is the exception, with nearly half (47%) — and the largest percentage in the world — attributing global warming to natural causes.
Americans are also among the least likely to link global warming to human causes, setting them apart from the rest of the developed world. Americans’ attitudes in 2010 mark a sharp departure from 2007 and 2008, when they were more likely to blame human causes.
The world has not reached consensus as to whether it acknowledges at least some human contribution to climate change. Nearly half of adults worldwide (48%) say climate change results from human activities or volunteer that both natural and human activities cause climate change. In Europe and the United States, belief in human contribution to global warming has […]
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Monday, October 24th, 2011
SARAH STAMPER, - University of Liverpool (U.K.)
Stephan: The past is prologue. The impact of climate change on nations in Africa is going to be awful to watch, and deadly to experience. Milllions may die.
SOURCES: The research discussed is published in The Journal of Human Evolution and The Journal of Archaeological Science.
Research at the University of Liverpool has found that periods of rapid fluctuation in temperature coincided with the emergence of the first distant relatives of human beings and the appearance and spread of stone tools.
Dr Matt Grove from the School of Archaeology, Classics and Egyptology reconstructed likely responses of human ancestors to the climate of the past five million years using genetic modelling techniques. When results were mapped against the timeline of human evolution, Dr Grove found that key events coincided with periods of high variability in recorded temperatures.
Dr Grove said: ‘The study confirmed that a major human adaptive radiation – a pattern whereby the number of coexisting species increases rapidly before crashing again to near previous levels – coincided with an extended period of climatic fluctuation. Following the onset of high climatic variability around 2.7 million years ago a number of new species appear in the fossil record, with most disappearing by 1.5 million years ago. The first stone tools appear at around 2.6 million years ago, and doubtless assisted some of these species in responding to the rapidly changing climatic conditions.
‘By 1.5 million years ago we are left with a single human ancestor – Homo erectus. The key […]
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