Stephan: I read this and had two questions: 1) Where do the Republicans find these cretins? 2) Have the people of the 4th District been out in the sun too long? How could you vote for someone like this?
Arizona 4th Congressional District Republican Representative Paul Gosar
At a Capitol Hill press conference Wednesday opposing the Green New Deal, Rep. Paul Gosar (R-Ariz.) was asked by a young person what he is doing to address climate change. He responded:
“Unfortunately you haven’t been taught about photosynthesis. Photosynthesis is where plants take carbon dioxide to produce oxygen. That’s a problem in today’s world. We haven’t taught kids exactly what’s going on in America and in science.”
Reality check: Per Axios science editor Andrew Freedman: The issue isn’t photosynthesis. We’re putting more carbon dioxide into the air each year than plants, trees and oceans can suck out. That is what’s causing rising global temperatures. CO2 levels are the highest they’ve been in at least 800,000 years, and the driving reason is human activity.
For the record: In a statement to Axios, Gosar said: “At the press conference I also stated, ‘As the son of a geologist, our climate has always changed, and if you don’t doubt me, dig up some fossils. It will tell you an awful lot […]
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Saturday, March 2nd, 2019
Tim Radford, - truthdig/Climate News Network
Stephan: I have been saying and writing this for a decade. It is so obvious I don't see how governments cannot be preparing for it. American researchers see this clearly. But the United States government is not only not doing anything about climate change, in fact, it is actively trying to propagandize against its very existence. Meanwhile, the United Nations is predicting 760 million people will be on the move as a result of climate changes. The Chinese think it will be more than a billion. One out of every eight people on the planet. Do you think that will happen without massive violence unless the entire world prepares for it? I don't either.
LONDON, UNITED KINGDOM —Stand by for long hot summers marked by riot and racial tension. As climate change stokes mayhem, global warming is likely to see a direct rise in human irritability.
Climate change accompanied by natural disaster such as flood or drought could lead to harvest failure and food and water shortages for which people must compete.
And the same natural disasters could lead to a generation of babies, children and adolescents more likely, because of disadvantage and deprivation, to become more prone to violence in adulthood.
Researchers in the US have been thinking carefully about the links between climate change and conflict. This, they write in Current Climate Change Reports, has a long history, and a huge range of studies have addressed the hazard.
And they see more civic strife and conflict on the way. Some of it is likely to involve climate refugees, or ecological migrants: persons driven from their homes by climate change. The steady rise in global temperatures could also help incubate the conditions for global terrorism.
“This is a global issue with very serious consequences. We need to […]
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Saturday, March 2nd, 2019
George Dvorsky, - Gizmodo
Stephan: Here is yet another story of the United States engaging in what it seems to me is a violation of the Geneva Convention on biological and chemical warfare. We have bombed countries for these kinds of programs. Indeed, it was the basis for the Iraq War, remember weapons of mass destruction? Something has gone deeply wrong in the almost entirely unregulated American war machine, and it has the potential to produce an apocalypse.
Crops in Kansas as seen from space.
Image: NASA/GSFC/METI/ERSDAC/JAROS, and U.S./Japan ASTER Science Team
A new technology in which insects are used to genetically modify crops could be converted into a dangerous, and possibly illegal, bioweapon, alleges a Science Policy Forum report released today. Naturally, the organization leading the research says it’s doing nothing of the sort.
The report is a response to a ongoing research program funded by the U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA). Dubbed “Insect Allies,” the idea is to create more resilient crops to help farmers deal with climate change, drought, frost, floods, salinity, and disease. But instead of modifying seeds in a lab, farmers would send fleets of insects into their crops, where the genetically modified bugs would do their work, “infecting” the plants with a special virus that passes along the new resilience genes.
If you think this sounds scary, you’re not alone. The lead author of the new Science Policy Forum report, Richard Guy Reeves from the Department of […]
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Saturday, March 2nd, 2019
Jon Clifton, - The Gallup Organization
Stephan: This is the most important geopolitical trend in the world. You hear hardly a word about it outside of the research community but it is going to change all our lives. Every living American has grown up in a world where America called the shots. Shining city on a hill and all that. It is blowing away like a fog in the morning, squandered over the past two years by Trump McConnell, Ryan, and all the corrupt grifter elves, around them. Nothing is going to change this but we ourselves. America is either going to reinvent itself as a society based on wellbeing, or we will have more and more of what you see on the news each day.
After tumbling to a new record low of 30% during the first year of Donald Trump’s presidency, the image of the U.S. is still as poor in his second. The median global approval rating that adults across 133 countries and areas give the job performance of U.S. leadership remained stable at 31% in 2018.
Although the approval rating for U.S. leadership did not change, the global balance of soft power continued to shift abroad. Despite a number of domestic and regional challenges, Germany securely remained the top-rated global power for the second consecutive year. However, the country’s 39% approval rating in 2018 was its first score below 40% in a decade.
China and Russia, on the other hand, gained considerable ground. After tying with the U.S. in 2017, China edged farther ahead of the U.S. in 2018 with its leadership earning a median approval rating of 34%. This is China’s highest score since 2009, but it is still well short of its previous highs. Russia’s approval rating rose to 30% in 2018, tying its previous high in 2008 and notably […]
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Saturday, March 2nd, 2019
MATTHEW CHAPMAN, - Salon/Alternet
Stephan: Paul LaPage, the former Republican governor of Maine, speaks the White nationalist truth. It isn't pretty but, I think, it is an accurate statement of the White racist christofascist community he represents.
Former Maine Republican Governor Paul Le Page
With Colorado on the verge of enacting the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact to nullify the Electoral College, the next state to sign on could be Maine, where a resolution is scheduled to be introduced in committee in the state House this week.
But former Republican Gov. Paul LePage, who retired to Florida at the start of this year after two terms in office, is fiercely opposed to eliminating the Electoral College for an unlikely reason: he believes it would silence white people!
“What would happen – if they do what they say they’re going to do – is white people will not have anything to say,” said LePage in an interview with WVOM. “It’s only going to be the minorities that would elect. It would be California, Texas, Florida . . . We’re gonna be forgotten people.”
LePage’s horror scenario doesn’t make any sense. First, replacing the Electoral College with a national popular vote wouldn’t “silence” anyone — it would make everyone’s vote […]
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