Sunday, December 23rd, 2018
Alexandra Jacobo, - Nation of Change
Stephan: Here is some good news about the devastating deforestation that has been going on with most people unaware of what is happening, or not caring if they do.
Once again it is one of the Scandinavian societies where fostering wellbeing is usually the priority in policymaking.
Palm oil fruit
Norway is set to become the first country in the world to ban its biofuel industry from buying palm oil, a substance that is heavily linked to deforestation.
The ban will come into full effect in 2020 and was voted on by Norwegian parliament this past week. Environmentalists are hailing it as an important victory that will set an example for other countries.
The process of getting to this point has been gradual, with Norwegian politicians banning the government from purchasing palm oil biofuel last year. That vote however only implemented voluntary rules. The vote this past week, which had majority government support, was more comprehensive and covered the entire fuel market.
The new law calls for government “to formulate a comprehensive proposal for policies and taxes in the biofuels policy in order to exclude biofuels with high deforestation risk.”
Norway’s consumption of palm oil in fuels reached an all-time high last year, prompting more drastic measures.
“The Norwegian parliament’s decision sets an important example to other countries and demonstrates the need for a serious reform […]
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Sunday, December 23rd, 2018
Stephan: I think this shut-down is despicable, both in that it is happening at all, a manifestation of the state of the American federal government, and the timing. We are watching our country come unglued from the inside out because we are the enemy.
Here are some details as to what is happening.
The Republican leadership
The federal government is in the midst of a partial shutdown, leading to some agencies furloughing workers and others keeping essential staff on the job.
The shutdown took effect Saturday after lawmakers failed to pass spending legislation for agencies whose funding expired at midnight.
Congress previously passed five of the 12 annual appropriations bills, meaning those areas of the government won’t be affected by lawmakers failing to reach a deal on the remaining seven bills.
The standoff this week is over whether Congress will meet President Trump’s demand for at least $5 billion in funding for his proposed wall along the U.S.-Mexico border.
Below is a guide to which agencies and workers are set to be impacted by the shutdown, and which ones would emerge unscathed.
What parts of the government are affected?
These are the seven appropriations bills, and the related agencies, awaiting funding:
- Agriculture
- Commerce, Justice and Science
- Financial Services and General Government
- Homeland Security
- Interior and Environment
- State and Foreign Operations
- Transportation and Housing and Urban Development
The Food and Drug Administration, NASA and Smithsonian museums are among those set to […]
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Sunday, December 23rd, 2018
STEVEN OVERLY, ASHLEY GOLD and JOHN HENDEL , - Politico
Stephan: This story hasn't been really examined, and I think it is more important than it might first appear. Here's a explanation of why I say this. I see it as an early data point on an emerging trend.
“Seemingly every other week Facebook faces a new privacy scandal for abusing our personal information,” Sen. Ron Wyden said in a statement.
Credit: AP/Cliff Owen
Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg is in hot water with Congress following new revelations about his company’s data-sharing practices, with some senators saying he may have misled Congress when he testified this year about protecting the privacy of users.
“Mr. Zuckerberg told us that this kind of nonsense would end and it didn’t,” Sen. John Neely Kennedy (R-La.) said Wednesday. “Now the first time, you can argue it’s a mistake, but the second time, it’s a choice.”
“Squaring his comments with the facts is very hard,” said Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.).
In his congressional testimony in April, Zuckerberg assured lawmakers that “we don’t sell data to anyone.” But The New York Times reported Tuesday night that Facebook has long had financially beneficial agreements with companies such as Amazon, Microsoft, Netflix and Spotify that allowed them to gain access to people’s timelines, friend lists, private messages and other data […]
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Saturday, December 22nd, 2018
Stephan A. Schwartz, Editor - Schwartzreport
Stephan: As you already know beginning Thursday at 10:30 a.m. and continuing to 3 p.m. Friday the entire island was without electricity except for those who had a generator. It was cold, wet, and dark. Very 18th-century carrying candles from room to room. It was not a pleasant experience.
As we went through it, since I had no access to my computer, the internet, or the phone, I had a lot of time to think about what was happening and that, in turn, made me think about climate change. I thought about lost towns like Paradise, Calfornia or Picher, Oklahoma. The first destroyed by fire, the second by tornado.
As I thought about this, I was very happy that Ronlyn and I had made preparations for events like this, and I began to consider all the data I had read and imagined what America will be like when it is not just an island in the Pacific Northwest but the entire country that is struggling with the disasters climate change will bring. It was not a happy story, and it left me more convinced than ever that each of us must begin to make preparations so our lives are not thrown into chaos.
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Saturday, December 22nd, 2018
Laura Geggel, Senior Writer - Live Science
Stephan: I'm not the only one thinking about what life in the turmoil of climate change is going to be like. Here is the science establishment's view published in Science. Along with Nature, Science is the world's premiere science journal, and this article would not have been published if it did not represent the majority view in science.
Credit: www.hullfinancialplanning.com
It’s now beyond official: Greenhouse gases, such as carbon dioxide, pose a danger to public health and welfare, according to an exhaustive review that looked at 275 scientific studies published over the past nine years.
Researchers did the report to investigate whether the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) 2009 Endangerment Finding, which found that greenhouse gases pose a risk to human health, still held up. The new study showed that there is now even more evidence that greenhouse gases are harming human health and welfare. The investigation also found an additional four areas, not listed in the original report, in which greenhouse gases threaten people.
“There’s absolutely no scientific basis for questioning the Endangerment Finding,” review lead researcher Philip Duffy, president and executive director of the Woods Hole Research Center in Falmouth, Massachusetts, told Live Science. “The case for endangerment is stronger than ever.” [6 Unexpected Effects of Climate Change]
