Wednesday, January 2nd, 2019
Alleen Brown, - The Intercept
Stephan: Fifty-two percent of Americans live in what is called a "coastal county" that is a county with one border on a body of water. That's over a hundred and fifty million people. Then there are the people in the Southwest who face inadequate water supplies, and unlivable summer temperatures. And finally all those who live in the central states where they are subject to devastating climate events like tornadoes.
The reality the country faces is that we are going to have millions of climate refugees in the U.S. and trillions of dollars of damage. If we can't effectively handle a hurricane in Houston, or the Carolinas, or Puerto Rico, and barely have money for what we have done, how in the world are we going to face the future? Consider this article as a glimpse of that future.
The Johansen family looks at what is left.
Credit: Jamie
Tens of Thousands of U.S. residents were displaced by climate change-fueled disasters in 2018. California saw a string of massive wildfires — from the Mendocino Complex in July, which became the state’s largest wildfire on record, to the Camp fire in November, which was the deadliest. Meanwhile, Hurricane Florence, the second rainiest storm in 70 years of U.S. record-keeping, was quickly forgotten as Hurricane Michael slammed into the Gulf Coast, the third strongest ever to make landfall in the U.S.
The survivors of the disasters have resorted to camping in tents in retail parking lots, sleeping on friends’ couches, parking trailers on the lawns of their destroyed homes, or renting overpriced apartments in communities where housing has become increasingly scarce. Safety nets like flood and fire insurance or the Federal Emergency Management Agency routinely fall far short of providing the support needed to keep survivors housed, fed, and on their feet. A climate refugee’s pathway to recovery is determined by their savings, family […]
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Tuesday, January 1st, 2019
Stephan A. Schwartz, Editor - Schwartzreport
Stephan: As 2018 becomes history I send each of you my best wishes for a wonderful New Years celebration, and a happy, healthy and productive 2019.
As we enter this new year I ask you to join me in making the commitment that every day in 2019, as you make choices, that you will always choose of the options available to you the one that is the most compassionate, life-affirming, and fostering of wellbeing.
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Tuesday, January 1st, 2019
David Smith, - The Guardian
Stephan: As 2018 is closing out I think it is appropriate to take stock of where the last two years of Trump have left us. Here is the view of the Guardian, one of Britain's premiere news organizations.
‘American carnage’: Donald Trump began his presidency with apocalyptic rhetoric. How has the reality been? Photograph: Pool/Getty Images
It’s nearly half-time and we’re still here. On 20 January it will be two years since the businessman and reality TV celebrity Donald Trump took the oath as president, spoke of “American carnage” and boasted about his crowd size, leaving millions to wonder if the US, and the world, could survive him.
It will also be two years until the next inauguration in Washington. Has the 45th president kept his campaign promises and made America great again? Or has he proven an existential threat to the republic, stoking internal divisions, destroying its reputation abroad and assailing norms and values, the rule of law and reality itself?
For sure, Trump is testing his infamous January 2016 claim – “I could stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot somebody, and I wouldn’t lose any voters” – to destruction.
True, there has been no new […]
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Tuesday, January 1st, 2019
Stephan: If it seems to you, as it does to me, that two years of Trump has made us a much less inclusive country, you would be correct. Here is this data.
Source: Haas Institute for a Fair and Inclusive Society
Graphic: Paul Martucci and Harmeet Kaur, CNN
(CNN)If it feels like the US has become increasingly divided along race, gender, and other identity lines — it’s because it has.
A report released by the Haas Institute at the University of California-Berkeley last week found that the US has become less inclusive — in other words, less welcoming to women, minority groups and people with disabilities — compared to the rest of the world since 2016.
What’s more, inclusiveness differs significantly from state to state.
To develop its inclusiveness index, the Haas Institute looked at how people who are not white, male, Christian, straight or able-bodied fare in society compared to the majority. The team gathered data on how each of those groups do across indicators like hate crimes, political representation, anti-discrimination laws, income inequality, incarceration rates and immigration and asylum policies.
They then compiled each group’s performance on those indicators into a final score. Here’s what they found:
The US lags far behind […]
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Tuesday, January 1st, 2019
Stephan: The people who voted for Trump are just beginning to understand that their vote has bought them the degradation of their lives. Here is the latest example.
New York (CNN)A major 11-country agreement goes into effect Sunday, reshaping trade rules among economic powerhouses like Japan, Canada, Mexico and Australia — but the United States won’t be a part of it.
That means that Welch’s grape juice, Tyson’s pork and California almonds will remain subject to tariffs in Japan, for example, while competitors’ products from countries participating in the new Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership will eventually be duty-free.
Japan will offer similar tariff relief to the European Union, in a separate trade deal set to go into effect on February 1.
“Our competitors in Australia and Canada will now benefit from those provisions, as US farmers watch helplessly,” said US Wheat Associates President Vince Peterson at a hearing on the potential negotiations with Japan.
It’s the opposite of what the Obama administration planned when it began negotiating the Trans-Pacific Partnership, known as TPP. The proposed deal, which never passed Congress, formed the backbone of the US strategy to counter Chinese economic influence, but it was one of the first things President Donald Trump moved to undo when he took office,
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