Stephan: Schwartz' first law of climate change: Whatever is cited it will occur more quickly than predicted, and the results will be much worse than anticipated. We are way past metaphors such as alarm bell, flashing lights, etc. We are headed to a catastrophe for which in most of the country we are utterly unprepared.
A past summer thaw in Verkhoyansk, a Siberian town in Russia. The town normally has an average high of 68 degrees in June but recorded a temp of 100.4 degrees on Saturday. Credit: Dean Conger/Corbis/Getty
A small town in Siberia reached a temperature of 100.4 degrees Fahrenheit on Saturday, which, if verified, would mark the hottest temperature ever recorded north of the Arctic Circle.
The town of Verkhoyansk is one of the coldest towns on Earth — temperatures dropped to nearly 60 degrees below zero there this past November — and the average June high temperature is 68 degrees.
The Washington Post reports that while there are questions about the accuracy of the record temperature, a Saturday weather balloon launch that found unusually high temperatures in the lower […]
Stephan: Virginia Beach city County, VA, the largest city in the commonwealth, is politically split. In the last election it voted 44.8% Democrat and 48.4% Republican, with the remaining 6.8% voting Independent. I am publishing this story because Virginia Beach demonstrates how weird America's response to climate change has become. The projections about the effect of climate change, and the role of carbon emissions on the area are quite clear. About 30% of the county/city's landmass is likely to be submerged. So, faced with that, this article illustrates the hoops that those wanting to prepare for climate change have to go through when about half of the people don't even want to use the words, climate change. This country is going to have a very hard time, with a lot of unnecessary suffering, and death, because a large percentage of us don't live in a fact-based world.
Jon Baranowski and his family play in the flooded parking lot of the Virginia Beach Fishing Center in Virginia Beach, Va., as Hurricane Dorian passes through Hampton Roads on Friday, Sept. 6, 2019. Credit: Stephen M. Katz/The Virginian-Pilot /AP
VIRGINIA BEACH, VIRGINIA — In Virginia Beach, sea level rise is a real and existential threat. And city officials aren’t afraid to say so.
For years, they have worked to develop complex — and expensive — initiatives they hope will safeguard the city from some of the most worrying flood projections.
In all of their recent preparations, however, city staff have steered clear of what most experts say is causing the tides to creep higher and higher. By design, they rarely, if ever, utter the words “climate change” — and they specifically avoid attributing any such change directly to humans.
“We don’t want to be stuck in the middle of arguments,” explained C.J. Bodnar, a city engineer who is helping lead Virginia Beach’s outreach efforts. “I can show you the gauge information to show you that, yes, sea level rise is happening. But I’m not […]
Stephan: I wrote this, so will let it speak for itself.
I can’t speak for you, but as I watch day-by-day, the thing that stands out for me is that we are asking a relatively small group of men and women to both save us and put their lives on the line. And yet we are failing them in almost every way. What kind of mental space do you have to be in not to see this? I will never forget the images of ER personnel cutting holes in 50-gallon trashbags and putting them on because they didn’t have enough proper PPE gear. The only thing comparable is going into combat knowing you might be killed or crippled in some way that would dominate the rest of your life and doing it anyway. That is real heroism. I think there should be some kind of national recognition, something special.
But because of those images, and that reality, what I want to talk about is the failure of the system that put these people in that position. If you stress a system to its limits, its strengths, but also its faults and weaknesses quickly become very apparent. Every engineer and physician knows that. Can anyone doubt that the healthcare system in the United […]
Jessica Silver-Greenberg and Amy Julia Harris, Reporters - The New York Times
Stephan: This is what the illness profit system looks like for the elderly poor. This is yet another reason we must convert this obscene system to universal single payer healthcare. If you vote Republican this situation is what you are voting to continue.
Lakeview Terrace, a nursing home in Los Angeles, evicted RC Kendrick, an 88-year-old man with dementia. Credit: Andrew Cullen/The New York Times
On a chilly afternoon in April, Los Angeles police found an old, disoriented man crumpled on a Koreatown sidewalk.
Several days earlier, RC Kendrick, an 88-year-old with dementia, was living at Lakeview Terrace, a nursing home with a history of regulatory problems. His family had placed him there to make sure he got round-the-clock care after his condition deteriorated and he began disappearing for days at a time.
But on April 6, the nursing home deposited Mr. Kendrick at an unregulated boardinghouse — without bothering to inform his family. Less than 24 hours later, Mr. Kendrick was wandering the city alone.
According to three Lakeview employees, Mr. Kendrick’s ouster came as the nursing home was telling staff members to try to clear out less-profitable residents to make room for a new class of customers who would generate more revenue: patients with Covid-19.
More than any other institution in America, nursing homes have come to symbolize the deadly destruction of the coronavirus […]
Stephan: Republicans simply cannot govern, if by govern one means to create and implement public social policies that foster wellbeing. I don't know how many examples of their incompetence are required before people wake up to how their lives are degraded as a result of Republican governance.
Republican Governor Ron DeSantis identified the immigrant workforce as the ‘No 1’ source of outbreaks in Florida. He is a typical corrupt Republican incompetent. Credit: JLN Photography/Rex/Shutterstock
As new coronavirus cases surge across several southern states, Republican governors are looking to apportion blame – and resting upon some familiar targets.
In Florida, migrant Hispanic farm and construction workers are driving the huge uptick in Covid-19 infections, according to Governor Ron DeSantis, who has repeatedly identified the immigrant workforce as the “No 1” source of outbreaks in the Sunshine state.
Day laborers contracting the disease are “overwhelmingly Hispanic”, DeSantis said, and migrant in nature, adding that he had given a “heads-up” to health authorities in Georgia and Alabama about “what might be coming down the pike”.
DeSantis’s racially charged comments have been blasted as “shameful” by agricultural workers’ union leaders, who say the state has been lethargic in providing tests and resources to slow the spread. On Saturday, daily new cases in Florida surpassed 4,000 for the first […]
