KRISTIN HOUSER, - Futurism
Stephan: When I ran a piece about the plastics crisis the other day, five readers wrote to ask me to pay particular attention to this issue. I am happy to do that but not happy about what I have to report. Once again, Trump and his administration, made it clear they care nothing for the wellbeing of humans, or the planet itself. All that matters is profit for the few.
Increasingly my non-American readers are writing me to tell me how dramatically respect and affection for the United States are vanishing since Trump was elected, being replaced by contempt and loathing.
Credit: Victor Tangermann
Plastic Pact
Since 1992, a treaty known as the Basel Convention has regulated how nations transport hazardous materials across borders.
On Friday, the United Nations announced that the governments of more than 180 nations had agreed to add the plastic waste destroying our wildlife, our environment, and our health to the materials listed in the treaty — and while the United States was not one of those countries, it won’t be exempt from the new rules.
Exporting Waste
China used to import millions of tons of plastic and other recyclables every year, most of it from the United States. That changed in January 2018, when the nation began enforcing a ban on plastic waste imports.
That left the U.S. scrambling to find new places to send its plastic — and according to some environmental activists, it decided the best option was making deals with private companies in developing nations, such as Indonesia and Thailand, to import the […]
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RANDALL BALMER, Mandel Family Professor in the Arts and Sciences - Dartmouth College - Politico
Stephan: Several readers have written to ask if I could find or write something about how christofascism -- a term I coined but which I am now hearing and reading others using -- began in the U.S.. In response here is an answer to that question.
Bob Jones University a leading christofascist institution
One of the most durable myths in recent history is that the religious right, the coalition of conservative evangelicals and fundamentalists, emerged as a political movement in response to the U.S. Supreme Court’s 1973 Roe v. Wade ruling legalizing abortion. The tale goes something like this: Evangelicals, who had been politically quiescent for decades, were so morally outraged by Roe that they resolved to organize in order to overturn it.
This myth of origins is oft repeated by the movement’s leaders. In his 2005 book, Jerry Falwell, the firebrand fundamentalist preacher, recounts his distress upon reading about the ruling in the Jan. 23, 1973, edition of the Lynchburg News: “I sat there staring at the Roe v. Wade story,” Falwell writes, “growing more and more fearful of the consequences of the Supreme Court’s act and wondering why so few voices had been raised against it.” Evangelicals, he decided, needed to organize.
Some of these anti- Roe crusaders even went so far as to call themselves “new abolitionists,” invoking their antebellum predecessors who had […]
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McKinley Corbley, - goodnewsnetwork
Stephan: Here is some good news. The Trump administration and the Republican Senate are doing everything they can to subsidize and protect the carbon energy industry, and block the development and spread of EV transportation.
Meanwhile, in more enlightened nations, this is going on.
Germany Debuts First Overhead Power Lines for Keeping Electric Trucks Charged on the Highway
Credit: Good News Network
Germany has just launched its first public test system for using overhead lines to power electric trucks.
The 10-kilometer (6.2-mile) stretch of overhead lines, which runs through a crucial portion of the Hessen autobahn from Frankfurt airport, will be tested by a fleet of electrical trucks until late 2022.
The overhead line hybrid trucks (OH trucks) that are being tested on the road are equipped with electric motors, batteries, and diesel engines. When the trucks drive underneath of the power line at speeds of up to 90 kilometers per hour, the charging system automatically connects to the overhead lines for charging.
While the truck is connected to the overhead line, it drives with the help of its electric motor while simultaneously charging its battery. With the energy stored in the battery, the OH truck can continue past the overhead lines and move emission-free along the motorway.
In the event that the battery is empty, the OH […]
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Timothy Egan, Contributing Opinion Writer - The New York Times
Stephan: Alabama, Georgia, Arkanasas, Missouri, and Ohio on one side, and Washington, Oregon, and California on the other. The Great Schism Trend about which I have been writing for a decade is reaching a crisis point. It is getting harder and harder to see the United States as one country.
The unveiling of President Barack Obama Boulevard in Los Angeles on Saturday.
Credit: Damian Dovarganes/Associated Press
LOS ANGELES — A big crowd showed up for the festive unveiling of President Barack Obama Boulevard here last weekend, at the intersection of “hope and resistance,” as one news outlet put it. Sure, it’s just a three-and-a-half-mile stretch of road, a living ex-president’s name added to streets honoring Jefferson and Washington.
But the ceremony also marked the latest, and one of the most joyous, of the not-so-subtle ways in which the West Coast continues to live free and prosper under a president doing everything he can to hurt the 51 million Americans in the three lower-48 states that hug the Pacific shore.
President Trump hates the West Coast. He has called California “out of control” and boasted about “my sick idea” to dump migrants into the progressive cities in this time zone. Worst of all, his administration is actively working to take away health care from
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Eli Saslow, - Washington Post
Stephan: If you live in rural America this story is likely to be very familiar. Healthcare in large rural areas of this country are regressing to developing world standards and can become very life-threatening, very quickly.
Fairfas Community Hospital Credit: Michael S. Williamson/Washington Post
FAIRFAX, OKLAHOMA — The hospital had already transferred out most of its patients and lost half its staff when the CEO called a meeting to take inventory of what was left. Employees crammed into Tina Steele’s office at Fairfax Community Hospital, where the air conditioning was no longer working and the computer software had just been shut off for nonpayment.
“I want to start with good news,” Steele said, and she told them a food bank would make deliveries to the hospital and Dollar General would donate office supplies.“So how desperate are we?” one employee asked. “How much money do we have in the bank?”
“Somewhere around $12,000,” Steele said.
“And how long will that last us?”
“Under normal circumstances?” Steele asked. She looked down at a chart on her desk and ran calculations in her head. “Probably a few hours,” she said. “Maybe a day at most.”
The staff had been fending off closure hour by hour for the past several months, ever since debt for […]
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