Patrick Sheehan, - truthout/alternet (U.S.)
Stephan: This is where privatization and Austerity Economics lead. As you read this report keep in your mind the Utrecht story I ran the other day, about giving everyone a basic income. Or the Denmark story that every mother can ask for and receive a box that gives her everything she needs for the first months of her child's life. And I mean everything. Even the box can be used as a cradle. Or countries making college level education free. or France guaranteeing potable water as a right. And then contrast that with Detroit.
What is the comparison telling you?
Abandoned Detroit library at night
Highland Park is a tiny 3-square-mile municipality located within Detroit. Extremely dangerous, blighted, and 94% black, Highland Park is a concentrated example of the conditions in Detroit’s poorest neighborhoods-what some call the “Detroit of Detroit.”
In late 2011, the impoverished little municipality was so deep in debt to its public electric company, DTE Energy, that the local government was forced to decommission all streetlights on its residential streets. Not only did DTE cut the power to street lights in Highland Park, it sent out workers to physically dig up and remove nearly 1,000 light-poles from the neighborhood. Highland Parkers now live in permanent, debt-induced darkness.
Six miles away, in Detroit’s rapidly gentrifying downtown area, DTE Energy runs a very different public policy. The same company that repossessed 1,000 streetlights from Highland Park, condemning its residents to permanent darkness, has recently launched a pro-bono security program in the increasingly white area.
On its own dime, DTE operates a public “bait car” program. It buys and sets […]
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His Holiness Pope Francis, - The Vatican
Stephan: This is an extraordinary document by an intelligent thoughtful deeply spiritual man. With one exception it is difficult to imagine any other contemporary world figure writing such a document. I think Pope Francis and the Dalai Lama are the two most conscious spiritual leaders of their age. Truly world historical individuals.
I am publishing the encyclical itself, rather than an analysis and extracts, because even though it is long I found that reading his actual words was very moving.
1. “LAUDATO SI’, mi’ Signore” – “Praise be to you, my Lord”. In the words of this beautiful canticle, Saint Francis of Assisi reminds us that our common home is like a sister with whom we share our life and a beautiful mother who opens her arms to embrace us. “Praise be to you, my Lord, through our Sister, Mother Earth, who sustains and governs us, and who produces various fruit with coloured flowers and herbs”.[1]
2. This sister now cries out to us because of the harm we have inflicted on her by our irresponsible use and abuse of the goods with which God has endowed her. We have come to see ourselves as her lords and masters, entitled to plunder her at will. The violence present in our hearts, wounded by sin, is also reflected in the symptoms of sickness evident in the soil, in the water, in the air and in all forms of life. This is why the earth herself, burdened and laid waste, is among the most abandoned and maltreated of our poor; she “groans in travail” (Rom 8:22). We have forgotten that we ourselves are dust of the earth (cf. Gen 2:7); […]
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Chelsea Harvey, - The Washington Post
Stephan: As Greenland and the Arctic melt we all know about the effect this will have on polar bears and other creatures. And we have at least a conceptual sense of what sea rise is going to do to the littorals of the world.
But few people, even scientists have really comprehended the effect this melting will have on the great conveyor currents of the world ocean. Now a report has come out with real data and a coherent assessment of what is going on. It's not a pretty picture. Get used to the term "overturning" you are going to be hearing more and more about this process. We're not going to do anything about it until it is too late.
The surface of the Greenland ice sheet.
We already know that melting sea ice in the Arctic is bad news. Less ice means less habitat for animals like polar bears, and it also means there are fewer reflective surfaces in the North to bounce sunlight back into space, allowing the planet to absorb more heat. And as global warming continues to warm up the Earth, we’re only going to lose more ice.
A study released Monday in Nature Climate Change is drawing attention to yet another ice-related problem — one that could cause some large-scale consequences. According to the study, retreating sea ice could disrupt a major ocean circulation pattern and even affect climate patterns in Europe.
As it turns out, sea ice in the Greenland and Iceland seas is an important player in the workings of a […]
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, - The Telegraph (U.K.)/Agence France-Presse (France)
Stephan: It is a measure of how disconnected corporate media has become from what is really going on that the cautionary tale comparing Iceland and Greece is barely mentioned. With the exception of the Charlie Rose show I don't think I have seen a single serious discussion of the issue on any American outlet cable or network. This is a joint French and English assessment.
We can see a lesser variant of those two countries in the US. It is Wisconsin compared to Minnesota, or Kansas and California only writ mythically large. Everywhere Austerity Economics is practiced the results are inferior. It is an economic philosophy that should be abandoned but never forgotten. What has happened in both countries as a result of the economic crisis should be a text book study.
This very begrudging report — the only one I could find, on this story — is the latest from Iceland. Read it in the light of the Greek referendum today. Iceland has charted its own course. And they are succeeding, as the report barely mentions, where Greece is failing and in revolt. Iceland is now seriously considering stopping commercial banks from creating money. Research has shown it inevitably results in financial crises arising from greed and speculation. The data is there. Rightwing economics are not life-affirming. They do not create wellness.
Icelandic currency. Note the woman on the 5000 krona note. $1 = 132 krona Credit: Iceland.org
Iceland’s government is considering a revolutionary monetary proposal – removing the power of commercial banks to create money and handing it to the central bank.
The proposal, which would be a turnaround in the history of modern finance, was part of a report written by a lawmaker from the ruling centrist Progress Party, Frosti Sigurjonsson, entitled “A better monetary system for Iceland”.
“The findings will be an important contribution to the upcoming discussion, here and elsewhere, on money creation and monetary policy,” Prime Minister Sigmundur David Gunnlaugsson said.
The report, commissioned by the premier, is aimed at putting an end to a monetary system in place through a slew of financial crises, including the latest one in 2008.
According to a study by four central bankers, the country has had “over 20 instances of financial crises of different types” since 1875, with “six serious multiple financial crisis episodes occurring every 15 years on average”.
Mr Sigurjonsson said the problem each time arose from ballooning credit during a strong economic cycle.
Frosti […]
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Stephan: In the road out of the carbon era, I think we are seeing several solar technologies emerging, and this new one — this is just a first report — could have significant implications, for transportation particularly. This is very exciting stuff.
The Hydrogen atom is the simplest atomic structure we know.
Credit: www.aktiongemeinwohl.info
Scientists in Switzerland announced a clean-energy breakthrough on Wednesday; a cheaper, solar technology that splits water molecules to create clean-burning hydrogen fuel.
The solar panel design will make it cheaper to produce hydrogen, but a simple version won’t be available for average citizens for at least 10 years, scientists said.
Splitting water molecules to create hydrogen allows the sun’s energy to be more easily stored to generate electricity or power clean cars.
The discovery has major implications for climate change, as improved solar energy would reduce fossil fuel dependence.
Previous solar hydrogen technologies were too expensive to commercialize, scientists from the Ecole Polytechnique Federale de Lausanne said in their article appearing in the journal “Nature Communications”. “We want to convert solar energy into hydrogen in an economically competitive way,” Kevin Sivula, one of the report’s […]
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