Wednesday, March 28th, 2012
, - IRIN - UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs
Stephan: History is going to show that climate deniers contributed to what may be the worse genocide that has ever happened. Nobody wants to say this, but it is true. Denying something that is based on facts, when doing so means great suffering and death will occur is morally wrong.
We are at extreme threat. One of the reasons I am running this report is that it also offers a way for you to get involved in helping science to better understand what is happening, and what can be done.
JOHANNESBURG, SOUTH AFRICA — The apocalyptic vision presented on cinema screens of a world devoid of food (Hunger Games) or with too much water (Waterworld) as a result of climate change, is not as far-fetched as some may think.
The results of a new study by the world’s biggest climate modelling system show that not only could global temperatures cross the two degrees Celsius barrier, but may warm by three degrees Celsius by 2050 if we emit atmosphere-warming gases at the current rate.
The study, led by Oxford University’s Dan Rowlands posits a substantial increase in global temperatures within little more than a generation. Most recent warnings, including those by the UN Environment Programme (UNEP), are more ambiguous, saying a two-degree hike is almost certain ‘by the turn of the century
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Wednesday, March 28th, 2012
GILES PARKINSON, - REneweconomy
Stephan: As time has gone on it has become ever more clear to me that non-petroleum energy sources are not only cleaner, they are truly going to be much cheaper. On that basis if national wellness were our country's first priority then we would be spending billions to make the transition. But the path out of old energy has been troubled and problematic. Why? The answer of course is that those corporations whose profits are based on old energy are doing everything they can to stop the decentralization which is implicit in the alternatives. Mostly the attack point is the regulations that allow people, towns or communities to sell to the grid. He is what is going on in Europe and Australia, where solar is a much bigger factor than it is in the U.S. Click through to look at the very useful charts; they are worth some close attention.
Here is a pair of graphs that demonstrate most vividly the merit order effect and the impact that solar is having on electricity prices in Germany; and why utilities there and elsewhere are desperate to try to reign in the growth of solar PV in Europe. It may also explain why Australian generators are fighting so hard against the extension of feed-in tariffs in this country.
The first graph illustrates what a typical day on the electricity market in Germany looked like in March four years ago; the second illustrates what is happening now, with 25GW of solar PV installed across the country. Essentially, it means that solar PV is not just licking the cream off the profits of the fossil fuel generators – as happens in Australia with a more modest rollout of PV – it is in fact eating their entire cake.
Both graphs were published last week on the website Renewables International, and were sourced from EPEX, the European power price exchange. The first graph, from 2008, shows peaking power prices rising to around €60/MWh and staying there for most of the day, with some visible peaks around noon and the early evening – the size of which would […]
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Wednesday, March 28th, 2012
Stephan: I was going to write something tonight about healthcare. I do not support the mandate, and never have. It is wrong Constitutionally, I believe, and I think it will result in greater governmental coercion. A mandate at the Federal level will only support the state level coercion going on in the Vagina Battles. They seem in opposition now but time will tell that they give great power to the few. When a government is largely controlled by special interests, their ability under governmental power to mandate your life should not be increased.
So where would that leave us? This essay by Robert Reich gives a pretty good answer.
Robert Reich, a professor of public policy at the University of California at Berkeley, was secretary of labor during the Clinton administration. He is also a blogger and the author of 'Aftershock: The Next Economy and America's Future.'More Robert Reich
Not surprisingly, Monday’s debut of Supreme Court argument over so-called ‘individual mandate
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Tuesday, March 27th, 2012
MURIEL KANE, - The Raw Story
Stephan: I just love actual data, it always has such a clarifying effect. You have probably heard any number of Republican politicians tell you that if taxes were raised on the one per cent they would pull up stakes and move. Like most things said to protect the rich it is a lie.
The threat that wealthy people will simply pull up stakes and move if their taxes are raised has often been deployed in an effort to prevent states from doing just that. However, a new paper (pdf) suggests that the threat has been greatly exaggerated.
The study, by University of Massachusetts economist Jeffrey Thompson, reviews several previous studies of state tax increases and concludes that the wealthy are not only as strongly influenced as anyone else by the pull of community ties and the costs of moving but often find it easier to stay put in the face of tax increases than lower-paid workers do. Wealthier citizens also frequently feel that it is worth paying higher taxes to obtain increased public services.
Thompson has recently emerged as a strong advocate for higher taxes on the wealthy as an alternative to slashing state budgets. An article he co-wrote with fellow economist Robert Pollin, which appeared in The Nation in March 2011, pointed out that state tax revenues fell by 13% between 2007 and 2009, far more than during other recent recessions, and that the resulting spending cutbacks had created a vicious cycle that further deepened the recession.
‘In general, raising taxes during a recession is […]
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Tuesday, March 27th, 2012
STEPHANIE MENCIMER, - Mother Jones
Stephan: This is a critical decision, for exactly the reasons the court outlines.
For the past several months, the US Conference of Catholic Bishops has been waging war on the Obama administration over reproductive health care, declaring it no less than a battle over religious freedom. But on Friday, a federal judge ruled against the bishops in a fight over whether the group could impose its views on contraception and abortion through its control of taxpayer dollars.
For the past six months, the bishops have complained very publicly that the administration is anti-Catholic and biased against religious groups because it refused to renew a contract with the group to provide services to victims of human trafficking. The bishops had been administering virtually all the federal money allocated for such services, about $3 million a year, doling it out to subcontractors who served victims all over the country. The USCCB had prohibited the contractors from using the federal funds to pay for staff time to counsel victims on contraception or abortion, or to refer them for such services. (Federal money can’t be used to pay for abortions except in the most extreme instances, but it can pay for contraception.)
In 2009, the ACLU sued HHS, arguing that such rules violated constitutional prohibitions on mixing church and […]
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