Stephan: This is the best article I have read that gives a sense of proportion to the climate change issues. You know the Roadrunner cartoon where coyote is just about to go over the cliff? That's us.
Rolling waves driven by cyclone Christian appear in the Elbe estuary near the North Sea close to Brunsbuettel, northern Germany. Credit: EPA/Christian Charisius
If you dig deep enough into the Earth’s climate change archives, you hear about the Palaeocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum, or PETM. And then you get scared.
This is a time period, about 56 million years ago, when something mysterious happened — there are many ideas as to what — that suddenly caused concentrations of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere to spike, far higher than they are right now. The planet proceeded to warm rapidly, at least in geologic terms, and major die-offs of some marine organisms followed due to strong acidification of the oceans.
The cause of the PETM has been widely debated. Some think it was an explosion of carbon from thawing Arctic permafrost. Some think there was a huge release of subsea methane that somehow made its way to the atmosphere — […]
Stephan: Once again new data tells us that searise is speeding up, and the timeline for the submergence in whole or part of 400 American cites, as well several thousands of others throughout the world is collapsing. The clock is ticking. The 2016 election will decide how we will respond, or not. It will also determine how the law is interpreted in terms of climate change.
Sea-level rise, erosion and coastal flooding are some of the greatest challenges facing humanity from climate change.
These islands lost to the sea range in size from one to five hectares. They supported dense tropical vegetation that was at least 300 years old. Nuatambu Island, home to 25 families, has lost more than half of its habitable area, with 11 houses washed into the sea since 2011.
This is the first scientific evidence, published in Environmental Research Letters, that confirms the numerous anecdotal accounts from across the Pacific of the dramatic impacts of climate change on coastlines and people.
All that remains of one of the completely eroded islands. Simon Albert, Author provided
Valerie Tarico, psychologist, writer, and founder www.WisdomCommons.org. - The Raw Story
Stephan: This is a very interesting and insightful essay on one of the major psychological forces shaping the Theocratic Right.
I’m slow sometimes, but after years of writing about abortion rights it finally occurred to me that “life begins at conception” is one more version of a multi-millennial infatuation with the penis as symbol and proof that manliness is next to godliness.
On the surface, conservative Evangelical and Catholic insistence that life begins at conception appears to be aimed at elevating the status of fetus over woman. But just beneath the surface, what it elevates is the status of the penis—and anyone who has one.
What creates the wonder of a new person? Forget about the maturation of germ cells, and the nine-month labor of a woman’s body, and painstaking parental nurture. It’s a sperm, a penile projectile shot forth by the ultimate organ of demi-divinity. Sperm penetrates egg and voila! A person! A new soul! All the extraordinary and unique value we accord to human life is created instantaneously.
Three Millennia of Penis Worship
Once noticed, the pattern is inescapable. Our ancestors thought that the penis was literally divine.
Dharmic cultures worshiped it by whacking stalactites and stalagmites out of caves and air-roots off of trees and carving phallic shapes out of granite by the thousands. Abrahamic cultures took the opposite approach and insisted […]
Stephan: Here is some good news on GMOs. The international market is accomplishing what the corrupt American regulatory agencies would not. Other countries not as in the bag to Big Ag as we are here in the U.S. don't want GMO crops and won't allow them into their countries. American farmers have either grow non-GMO or plan to sell only in the U.S..
A bushel of soybeans are shown on display in the Monsanto research facility in Creve Coeur, Missouri, July 28, 2014. Credit: Reuters/Tom Gannam
Across the U.S. Farm Belt, top grain handlers have banned genetically modified crops that are not approved in all major overseas markets, shaking up a decades-old system that used the world’s biggest exporting country as a launchpad for new seeds from companies like Monsanto Co.
Bold yellow signs from global trader Bunge Ltd are posted at U.S. grain elevators barring 19 varieties of GMO corn and soybeans that lack approval in important markets.
CHS Inc, the country’s largest farm cooperative, wants companies to keep seeds with new biotech traits off the market until they have full approval from major foreign buyers, Gary Anderson, a senior vice president for CHS, told Reuters.
“I think that would be the safest thing for the supply chain,” he said. CHS implemented a policy last year under […]
Stephan: Here is some very happy news, that will save lives. And it clearly illustrates my point that wellness oriented policies are cheaper, more efficient, more effective, more pleasant to be involved with, and more enduring. You may remember a few months ago I ran a story about the Nordic countries giving out baby boxes, with everything a baby needs for its first year, and the improved outcome data they had seen. This is modeled on those programs.
The United States has a notably bad infant mortality rate compared with other developed nations with a national average of 6.1 per 1000. And Temple University Hospital has been sort of the worst of the worst at 10.5 per 1000. So if this Baby Box program lowers the mortality rate of infants born in that hospital, as it has done elsewhere, hopefully it will draw some real attention and be more widely adopted, if belatedly. We're only 80 years after the Fins who first did this in 1937, but at least we are moving in the right direction.
Displayed is a baby box at Temple University Hospital in Philadelphia on May 6, 2016. In an effort to reduce infant mortality the boxes which are functioning bassinets complete with essential baby supplies will be given to all mothers. Credit: Matt Rourke/AP
Temple University Hospital in Philadelphia has started an initiative to help reduce infant mortality rates. The hospital is providing each new mother who delivers at the hospital with a baby box, which is a functioning bassinet complete with a sheet and mattress.
“We weren’t sure how people were going to react to putting their babies in a box, but it’s been an overwhelmingly positive response,” Dr. Megan Heere, assistant professor of pediatrics at the Lewis Katz School of Medicine at Temple University, told ABC News today.
Sea-level rise, erosion and coastal flooding are some of the greatest challenges facing humanity from climate change.
