Stephan: Here is some very interesting good news. Bravo Jack Dorsey. I will follow this closely and report on what happens.
Chief executive officer of Twitter Inc. and Square Inc. Jack Dorsey arrives to attend the “Tech for Good” Summit at Hotel de Marigny on May 15, 2019 in Paris, France. Credit: Chesnot/Getty
Twitter boss Jack Dorsey is donating $3 million to a coalition of mayors advocating for the introduction of universal basic income in dozens of cities.
The billionaire co-founder of the social networking giant announced on Thursday that he was investing the funds into the Mayors for a Guaranteed Income—a project launched last month by Michael Tubbs, the 29-year-old mayor of Stockton, California.
“This is one tool to close the wealth and income gap, level systemic race and gender inequalities, and create economic security for families,” Dorsey tweeted.
The coalition is promoting the benefits of a guaranteed income for citizens in at least 15 cities so far, which would potentially affect more than 7 million Americans.
The system, if rolled out, would give a monthly cash payment directly to individuals with “no strings attached and no work requirement,” it explains online. Several U.S. cities are now backing the project, including Los Angeles, […]
Stephan: Here, as clear as could be, is proof of Schwartz' Law of Wellbeing; which says that policies that foster wellbeing are always, easier to implement, more productive, more efficient, nicer to live under, longer enduring, and much, much, cheaper. I have never been able to find a counter example to this law.
Second growth redwood trees are seen in a grove at Joaquin Miller Park in Oakland, California, on April 29, 2020. Save the Redwoods League is now focusing on preserving and restoring forests that have been clearcut in the past 100 or so years, after studies showed these forests sequester more carbon, faster than any other forest in the world. Credit : Carlos Avila Gonzalez/The San Francisco Chronicle/Getty
“This report unequivocally tells us that the time to finance nature—for people and for planet—is now.”
“The benefits to humanity are incalculable, and the cost of inaction is unthinkable.” —Jamison Ervin, UNDP
That’s how Jamison Ervin, manager of the Global Program on Nature for Development at the United Nations Development Program (UNDP), summed up a new study commissioned by Campaign for Nature (CFN), a coalition of over 100 conservation groups and scientists who support protecting at least 30% of the planet’s land and ocean by 2030.
Stephan: Collapse of the earth's ecosystem, extinction of thousands of species, sea rise, death of the coral reefs, temperature rise -- it was 119*F in Phoenix yesterday -- and now this. And yet we have a political party, the Republicans, whose members either don't believe in climate change, or who don't see it as a major priority. My prediction is that somewhere between 2040-2045 we will reach a catastrophic crisis that will forever change the earth and human civilization. All because of stupidity and greed.
Authors of a new study warned Thursday that increasing carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is nearing a level not seen in 15 million years. Dawn Ellner / Flickr
As a United Nations agency released new climate projections showing that the world is on track in the next five years to hit or surpass a key limit of the Paris agreement, authors of a new study warned Thursday that increasing carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is nearing a level not seen in 15 million years.
For the study, published in the journal Scientific Reports, researchers at the University of Southampton in the United Kingdom examined CO2 levels during the Late Pliocene about three million years ago “to search for modern and near future-like climate states,” co-author Thomas Chalk explained in a series of tweets.
“A striking result we’ve found is that the warmest part of the Pliocene had between 380 and 420 parts per million CO2 in the atmosphere,” Chalk told the Guardian. “This is similar to today’s value of around 415 parts per million, […]
Stephan: The previous report was about the rise of CO2 to unprecedented levels, he is a viable remediation. There are a lot of things we could do, but aren't because the Republican Party led by Traitor Trump is doing everything it can to keep carbon energy alive. It is very important to always keep in mind that it isn't just Trump, it is the entire Republican party, and all the Republicans in public office. This party is killing America, and I say that not in a partisan way, but on the basis of objectively verifiable social outcome data.
Researchers are clear that cutting the fossil fuel burning that releases carbon dioxide is the most important action needed to tackle the climate emergency. But climate scientists also agree that, in addition, massive amounts of CO2 need to be removed from the air to meet the Paris Agreement goals of keeping global temperature rise below 2C.
According to new research, one way we could suck billions of tons of CO2 from the air every year is by spreading rock dust on farmland. Apparently, the chemical reactions that degrade the rock particles lock the greenhouse gas into carbonates within months, and some scientists say this approach may be the best near-term way of removing CO2 from the atmosphere.
The rock dust approach, called enhanced rock weathering (ERW), has several advantages, the researchers say. First, many farmers already add limestone dust to soils to reduce acidification, and adding other rock dust improves fertility and crop yields, meaning application could be routine and desirable. The first detailed global analysis of the technique, published in the journal Nature, estimates that treating about […]
Paul Krugman, Nobel Laureate Economist and Columnist - The New York Times
Stephan: I will just let Paul Krugman speak for me. I agree with everything he says in this essay.
Interstate 10 in Red Rock, Ariz. Credit:Cheney Orr/Reuters
I don’t know about you, but I’m feeling more and more as if we’re all trapped on the Titanic — except that this time around the captain is a madman who insists on steering straight for the iceberg. And his crew is too cowardly to contradict him, let alone mutiny to save the passengers.
A month ago it was still possible to hope that the push by Donald Trump and the Trumpist governors of Sunbelt states to relax social distancing and reopen businesses like restaurants and bars — even though we met none of the criteria for doing so safely — wouldn’t have completely catastrophic results.
At this point, however, it’s clear that everything the experts warned was likely to happen, is happening. Daily new cases of Covid-19 are running two and a half times as high as in early June, and rising fast. Hospitals in early-reopening states are under terrible pressure. National death totals are still declining thanks to falling fatalities in the Northeast, but they’re
