Saturday, November 24th, 2018
Ines Kagubare, - Scientific American
Stephan: More good news. Note that while Wisconsin under Republican governance is much degraded, Minnesota, under Democratic governance is leading the way. Here is the data. Once again the Theorem of Wellbeing is validated.
Minneapolis Skyline
Credit: Getty
Minnesota is on its way to hitting its renewable energy goals—and it won’t cost taxpayers any extra.
A study released Thursday by MN Solar Pathways found that solar could make up 10 percent of the state’s electricity by 2025. In addition, the report predicts that as renewable energy costs decrease, Minnesota will be able to produce 70 percent of its power from solar and wind by 2050 at costs comparable to natural gas generation.
Minnesota this year has already hit its renewable electricity standard goal of 25 percent by 2025 using wind, solar, biomass, and hydropower. It’s also on course to reach its current solar electricity standard of 1.5 percent by the end of 2020.
“I’m very excited and very pleased by [the report],” said state Sen. John Marty (D), ranking member of the Senate Energy and Utilities Finance and Policy Committee. “I think we will easily exceed what the report predicts.”
MN Solar Pathways, an initiative sponsored by the U.S. Department of Energy’s Solar Energy Technologies Office, is a three-year project designed to explore least-risk, […]
No Comments
Saturday, November 24th, 2018
Jonathan Watts, - The Guardian (U.K.)
Stephan: More good news, this time about the bees, upon whose wellbeing, human wellbeing depends.
Bee populations have plummeted worldwide. The UN conference will debate ways of reducing use of harmful pesticides.
Credit: Michael Kooren/Reuters
The collapse in bee populations can be reversed if countries adopt a new farmer-friendly strategy, the architect of a new masterplan for pollinators will tell the UN biodiversity conference this week.
Stefanie Christmann of the International Center for Agricultural Research in Dry Areas will present the results of a new study that shows substantial gains in income and biodiversity from devoting a quarter of cropland to flowering economic crops such as spices, oil seeds, medicinal and forage plants.
The UN conference is already debating new guidelines on pollinators that will recommend reducing and gradually phasing out the use of existing pesticides, but Christmann’s research suggests this can be done without financial pain or a loss of production.
The need for a change is increasingly evident. More than 80% of food crops require pollination but the populations of insects that do most of this work have collapsedRead the Full Article
No Comments
Saturday, November 24th, 2018
Kim Brooks, - The New York Times
Stephan: I have written about America's dreadful infant and maternal mortality rates presenting the facts (see SR archive). Here is the story of that trend from a more human angle.
Once again it demonstrates that the anti-choice movement -- pro-life as they call themselves, a truly Orwellian example of "doublespeak " -- are liars and hypocrites, who bathe themselves in self-righteousness even as they can be proven to be anti-life, not pro-life.
Illustration by Angelica Alzona/The new York Times
Thea was 35 years old and 40 weeks pregnant when she went to her doctor for her final prenatal appointment. She was in good shape, didn’t smoke and had received regular prenatal care, though she wasn’t thrilled with the obstetrics practice she’d chosen in Chicago. The doctors were “more interested in protocols than people,” she said.
On that day, she was surprised to learn that her amniotic fluid was low, though the baby’s vital signs remained strong. The doctor informed Thea that she’d need to be induced right away. Thea questioned this directive, asking about the success rates for induction and whether she should consider a cesarean section instead. The doctor said she had no choice. She then asked if she could go home to get her overnight bag. She was told, she said, that if she left she could be “arrested for endangering the life of a child.”
Thea asked that I refer to her only by her first name because the details of her story […]
No Comments
Friday, November 23rd, 2018
Mark Hand, Climate and Environment Reporter - Think Progress
Stephan: States and local communities have to actually govern. The results can be terrible, consider Sam Brownback of Kansas, or productive of wellbeing, Jerry Brown in California. At that level of governance, you can't just talk, you actually have to do things. In Blue value states, we have some good news. Addressing climate change and ending carbon energy are beginning to break through the barrier against wellbeing created when profit is the only social priority.
Solar wind installation
The shift in the political balance at the state level following the midterm elections will produce far more benefits for the renewable energy industry — at least in the next few years — than the Democratic takeover of the U.S. House of Representatives, according to clean energy experts.
Voters in several states elected Democratic governors in previously Republican-controlled states, shakeups that could lead to a more rapid advancement of clean energy policies. The Democratic Party also seized control of seven state legislatures, according to data from the National Conference of State Legislatures, a shift that could make it easier to pass laws favorable to renewable energy.
Speaking Friday at a clean energy forum in Washington, D.C., Gregory Wetstone, president and CEO of the American Council on Renewable Energy (ACORE), a nonprofit trade group that advocates for the growth of renewable energy, referred to the results of the November 6 elections as a “seismic shift” in the political landscape.
But it’s primarily at the state level, according to Wetstone, that […]
No Comments
Friday, November 23rd, 2018
ALEXANDRA HUTZLER, - Newsweek
Stephan: Quite apart from his brazen greed, corruption, and dishonesty I do not think Donald Trump is quite sane. His comments to the troops, and then this, are not statements that would come from a healthy mind.
President Donald Trump Credit: AP/Alex Brandon
Donald Trump said he was most thankful for himself on Thanksgiving as he spent the holiday weekend at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida.
The president was on a phone call with members of the media and the military early Thursday morning when one reporter asked him what he was “most thankful for” this year.
“For having a great family and for having made a tremendous difference in this country,” Trump responded. “I made a tremendous difference in the country. This country is so much stronger now than it was when I took office that you won’t believe it.”
The president continued, adding, “And I mean, you see it, but so much stronger that people can’t even believe it. When I see foreign leaders, they say we cannot believe the difference in strength between the United States now and the United States two years ago. Made a lot of progress.”
His response contrasted sharply with that of his Oval Office predecessor, Barack Obama, who said on Wednesday that he […]
1 Comment
