Sunday, September 8th, 2013
JEFF SPROSS, - Think Progress
Stephan: This is a combination of three trends, climate change, water scarcity, and the coming food crisis. The data just keeps piling up, but no one listens. We are too busy squandering our wealth on wars we are losing or have lost.
Click through to see the video.
It looks as though an increase in temperatures for the Great Plains region of just one degree Celsius could cut down wheat production in Kansas by over 20 percent. Even under optimistic scenarios, the region is probably headed for three times that amount of warming by the end of the century, making Kansas a microcosm for the damage carbon emissions will do to human society.
The researchers from Kansas State University actually carried out a three-pronged inquiry: to determine the effect of not just climate change, but also of disease and genetic improvements on the state’s wheat production. They looked at Kansas performance tests of wheat yields, as well as location-specific data for disease, weather, temperature, solar radiation, and even vapor pressure from 1985 to 2011. They then built computer models based off that data to tease out the effects.
On climate change specifically, the researchers found that a one degree Celsius increase in temperatures for the area would cut wheat yields by 10.64 bushels per acre. Since the mean yield for 1985 to 2011 was 50.59 bushels per acre, that comes out to a 21 percent decrease. And three degrees of warming would cut yields by 32.36 bushels per acre, or […]
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Sunday, September 8th, 2013
ISAAC WILLIAM MARTIN, - Salon
Stephan: If you read SR you know my view that the uber rich play the Theocratic Right like a tuba. Here is an excellent essay on the process.
This is an excerpt from ‘Rich People’s Movements’ by Issac William Martin, published by Oxford University Press, 2013.
On Election Day, November 2, 2010, more than eight million Americans voted for congressional candidates who claimed to represent the Tea Party and its grassroots insurgency against the federal government. Most of the Tea Party candidates won. Their victory marked a sea change in American government. Even before the winners were sworn in, reporters began to refer to the 112th Congress as ‘the Tea Party Congress.
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Sunday, September 8th, 2013
Stephan: It spite of all the road blocks electric vehicles are inexorably becoming the cheapest choice. Here is some excellent news about that trend.
We know that as costs for batteries have come down, the costs of plug-in cars have followed suit. Ultimately, Price Moves Metal.
When was the last time the MSRP on a strictly fossil fuel vehicle came down by $5,000 like the Chevrolet Volt did this month? Or the $4,000 off the Focus Electric? Or the $6,400* off Nissan LEAF? (*-with a little de-contenting)
The result of these significant price drops?
The Chevrolet Volt is going to set an all-time record this month for EV sales (at more than 3,000 units), and the new 2013 Nissan LEAF has sold 10,400 units in its first 5 months on the market (2,080/month) – that’s 600 more than it sold in all of 2012.
But at what cost do plug-in vehicles reach parity with the traditional internal combustion engine? To make the ‘top 20
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Sunday, September 8th, 2013
YANA KUNICHOFF, - Truthout
Stephan: What are we first in? Well, there is this: The United States has the highest incidence of physical child abuse of any First World nation. We also have the highest incarceration rate in the world. We lead the world in the number of children who have a parent in prison. And we have more children experiencing hunger than any developed nation. Oh, and our children are extraordinarily unhealthy, because so many of them come from families that are impoverished, and health care is not available to them, as this story points out. To say that we should be ashamed of ourselves as a country doesn't begin to express it adequately. To quote the BBC, 'Every five hours a child dies from abuse or neglect in the US.
'The latest government figures show an estimated 1,770 children were killed as a result of maltreatment in 2009. A recent congressional report concludes the real number could be nearer 2,500.
'In fact, America has the worst child abuse record in the industrialised world.'
The past few months have been a stressful time for Lisa Angonese. Her living situation had been increasingly tenuous. She was dealing with a crumbling apartment that had only intermittent hot water and an aggressive landlady to boot. Her young son, who struggled with mental health issues, was having trouble at school. But all of these issues paled next to the biggest issue facing Angonese – how to keep her two children healthy on her limited income. She has been unemployed since 2009, when she lost her job as a cashier, and has been striving to find work since.
‘It’s really hard,’ said Angonese, who has had several health scares herself. ‘The stress will get to you. We are limited to the kind of health care that we can get under our medical card, and I have to be constantly budgeting the amount of money that I use every month. And that can get out of hand, because I’m not a calculator, and suddenly you can find yourself without money for something we are in desperate need of.’
Angonese is the head of one of millions of low-income households in the United States struggling to make ends meet for food, housing and […]
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Sunday, September 8th, 2013
MARLOW STERN, Assistant Culture Editor - The Daily Beast
Stephan: There simply is no end to the sleaziness of the aristocracy of the Theocratic Right. I think it is their sense of self-righteous entitlement that accounts for this.
The documentary ‘Mission Congo,’ which premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival, alleges that televangelist Pat Robertson’s charity in Zaire to help refugees that fled from post-genocide Rwanda, Operation Blessing, really served as an elaborate front for his diamond mining operation. Marlow Stern reports.
Pat Robertson has said some awful things in the past. He claimed ‘the pagans, and the abortionists, and the feminists, and the gays,
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