Sunday, November 20th, 2016
Natasha Geiling, Reporter - Think Progress
Stephan: Although the media is principally focusing on the racism and genderism of President-elect Trump's administration appointments, and they are a pretty regressive lot, what has caught my attention is the uniform climate change denierism that is the hallmark of these middle-aged White men. I have been focused on this because I believe, on the basis of the scientific evidence, that it is not an exaggeration to say that civilization itself is at risk in a way that has never been true before.
More than that as vile as racism and sexism are they are not an immediate threat to geopolitical stability, in the way that climate change is. So here is the team Trump is fielding in our name.
Credit: AP / Gerald Herbert
Ten days removed from the presidential election, President-elect Donald Trump has finally begun filling out his team, releasing a slew of offers for various high-level positions, from CIA director and attorney general to national security advisor.
Unlike the Departments of State or the Interior, these posts have less of a direct impact on domestic and international climate and energy policy. But climate change is a problem that permeates all policy realms — especially national security.
The Department of Defense has called climate change a “threat multiplier,” noting that it has the potential to exacerbate conflict and threaten national security. And in September, 25 military and national security experts — including former advisers to Presidents Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush — issued a report warning that climate change poses a “significant risk to U.S. national security and international security.” Middle East experts have suggested that the Syrian civil war is […]
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Sunday, November 20th, 2016
Dirk Kurbjuweit (Translated from the German by Christopher Sultan), - Der Spiegel (Germany)
Stephan: I don't know whether Trump and his appointees don't believe in climate change, or believe in it but have some other agenda, or are simply unsophisticated and out of their depth. One can only assess their actions. And they have made it clear that they are unable to see that climate change is the pivotal geopolitical leverage point of the age.
Europe gets it, Here is a German assessment of the Trump Administration widely shared in Europe. You can see the American wave ebb in their calculations.
And by its actions it is now obvious China does too, as well as seeing the geopolitical and business opportunity climate change represents.
For 100 years, the United States was the leader of the free world. With the election of Donald Trump, America has now abdicated that role. It is time for Europe, and Angela Merkel, to step into the void.
Even history sometimes leans toward pathos. In January 2017, when Donald Trump is sworn in as the 45th president of the United States, the American Age will celebrate its 100th birthday — and its funeral.
The West was constituted in its modern form in January 1917. World War I was raging in Europe at the time and in Washington, D.C., President Woodrow Wilson told his country that it was time for Americans to take responsibility for “peace and justice.” In April he said: “The world must be made safe for democracy.” He declared war on Germany and sent soldiers to Europe to secure victory for the Western democracies — and the United States assumed the leadership of the Western world. It was an early phase of political globalization.
One hundred years later: Trump.
Trump, who wants nothing to do with globalization; Trump, who preaches American nationalism, isolation, partial withdrawal from world trade and zero responsibility for a global […]
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Sunday, November 20th, 2016
Jean Chemnick, - Scientific American/Climatewire
Stephan: I did not agree with President Obama about a number of things; but he was so obviously a dignified and honorable man, that I never had any doubt that he had an historical sense and meant to do as well as he could for the United States. You can see this most clearly in the relationship between the U.S. and China under Obama's leadership.
And in this report you can also see what America's abdication of leadership after President Obama is going to mean. Donald Trump is making what I think will be seen as one of the great political blunders in human history. This kind of myopic failure that has happened as an historical cycle. Trump's climate blindness is a bigger version of the decision of the Etruscan city states, in the face of growing threats, not to become a federation. That led to their being overpowered as a culture in the in the 3rd-2nd centuries.
MARRAKECH, Morocco—The election of Donald Trump as president of the United States has the world holding out for a climate hero, and parties here are determined that it be China.
The world’s largest greenhouse gas emitter and second-largest economy is not backing away from the challenge—or the Paris Agreement, as Trump has vowed to do.
Xie Zhenhua, China’s top special envoy, reiterated yesterday that his country’s stance on the climate deal will “remain the same and unchanged,” no matter what the world’s other economic superpower chooses to do.
“China will fulfill and honor its commitments to the Paris Agreement,” he said.
That’s been the Chinese message throughout the U.N. conference that concludes today in this imperial desert town. Participants here, still reeling from last week’s news that the United States has elected a president who plans to cancel or renegotiate Paris, have warned that China’s steadfastness will place America at a competitive advantage economically and politically if Trump doesn’t recant.
“One of the risks that I think the Trump administration needs to consider is the risk that China will become a global leader in this new technology, which is market-driven, and the Americans will be left behind,” said Leon Charles, a former veteran negotiator from […]
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Sunday, November 20th, 2016
Alexis Okeowo, Staff Writer - The New Yorker
Stephan: The rise in hate that I am seeing in the media and on the internet and that I have been hearing about from readers has really begun to alarm me. The White Nativist Theocratic Right feels emboldened, and is acting out across the country. Only citizen pushback is going to stop it. What particularly concerns me is that in many of these incidents one feature is that people stand around and don't try to stop it, and that the media are already normalizing this with a false equivalency promoted by the Right.
Credit: Twitter / @Pinocchio_Lies
Since Donald Trump won the Presidential election, there has been a dramatic uptick in incidents of racist and xenophobic harassment across the country. The Southern Poverty Law Center has reported that there were four hundred and thirty-seven incidents of intimidation between the election, on November 8th, and November 14th, targeting blacks and other people of color, Muslims, immigrants, the L.G.B.T. community, and women. One woman in Colorado told the S.P.L.C. that her twelve-year-old daughter was approached by a boy who said, “Now that Trump is President, I’m going to shoot you and all the blacks I can find.” At a school in Washington State, students chanted “build a wall” in a cafeteria. In Texas, someone saw graffiti at work: “no more illegals 1-20-17,” a reference to Inauguration Day.
Such harassment occurred throughout Trump’s campaign, but now appears to have taken on a new boldness, empowered by the election of a Ku Klux Klan-endorsed candidate who has denigrated women and racial and religious minorities. […]
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Saturday, November 19th, 2016
Sara Barnes , - Buzzworthy
Stephan: There is so much bad news I thought I would start today's edition with something positive, some good news. Unfortunately it isn't American good news; we're in the stone age compared to Sweden. But it shows what can be done, and it provides yet another proof of the Theorem of Wellbeing.
Swedish trash processing facility
When it comes to recycling, Sweden sets an example for the rest of the world. Thanks to a government prioritization on sustainability, the Nordic country recycles 1.5 billion bottles and cans annually, a staggering amount for a population of about 9.6 million (in 2013). In terms of rubbish, Swedes only produce a measly 461 kilograms (1,106 pounds) of waste average per year—less than 1% of discard ends up in landfills. This is slightly below the half-ton average in the rest of Europe.
Fastidious Recycling Has Unusual Drawbacks
This impressive commitment to an eco-friendly world has a bizarre effect on electricity production. Sweden participates in a waste-to-energy (WTE) program, and they have 32 of these special plants. If you’re unfamiliar with this unique form of energy production, here’s how it works: furnaces are loaded with garbage and burned to generate steam. This newly-produced gas is then used to spin generator turbines and produce electricity, transferred to transmission lines and the power grid. By using this approach, the country is able to reduce toxins […]
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