Stephan: In spite of everything the Trump administration is doing to keep carbon energy alive here is the fact-based evidence that it is dying. Excellent news.
California Solar and wind installation
According to a review by the SUN DAY Campaign of data just released – June 8th — by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC), wind, solar, and hydropower provided 100% of the 1,328 MW in new US electrical generating capacity added in April 2020.
FERC’s latest monthly “Energy Infrastructure Update” report (with data through April 30, 2020) also reveals that renewable energy sources (i.e., biomass, geothermal, hydropower, solar, wind) have accounted for 5,113 MW – or 56.3% – of the 9,082 MW added during the first four months of this year. Thirty-two new “units” of wind (totaling 3,104 MW) were added to the US’s total energy generating capacity accompanied by 110 units of solar (1,973 MW), six units of hydropower (25 MW), and two units of biomass (11 MW).
FERC also reported 3,964 MW (or 21 units) of new natural gas capacity, which accounted for most of the balance. There have been no new capacity additions by coal, oil, nuclear power, or geothermal energy since the beginning of the year.
Renewable energy sources now account for 22.87% of the […]
Stephan: Humanity just doesn't seem to be capable of acting with one intent, even when their survival as a species depends upon it.
A diver swims with sharpfin barracuda, one of the many ocean species under threat from global warming, in Australia, Queensland, Great Barrier Reef. Credit: Pete Atkinson / The Image Bank / Getty
The oceans could look much emptier by 2100, according to a new study that found that most fish species would not be able to survive in their current habitat if average global temperatures rise 4.5 degrees Celsius by the end of the century, as The Guardian reported.
The researchers of the new paper said that 60 percent of fish species face a grave threat from global heating if temperatures approach that worst-case scenario level. The species under threat include many common fish found in grocery stores, including staples like Atlantic cod, Alaska pollock and sockeye salmon, and sport fishing favorites like swordfish, barracuda and brown trout, as CNN reported.
The new study, published in the journal Science, looked at how nearly 700 fresh and saltwater fish species respond to warming ocean temperatures. The problem for most fish is that as ocean temperatures rise, the oxygen […]
Stephan: If we have ever had a nastier viler administration in this country I certainly can't think of it. It is, in fact, the sheer nastiness of Trump and the people he appoints to high office that is their hallmark.
Ben Carson
The Trump Dept. of Housing and Urban Development late on Wednesday moved to roll back an Obama-era regulation that bans discrimination by taxpayer-funded shelter providers against transgender people. HUD Secretary Ben Carson wants to allow anti-transgender discrimination under the guise of religious freedom.
A statement on the HUD website filled with coded language says the proposed new rule “Returns Decision Making to Local Shelter Providers,” to allow them to “establish an admissions policy that best serves their unique communities,” and “better accommodate [the] religious beliefs of shelter providers.”
The move comes during an out of control pandemic, amid an unstable economy, and worse-than Great Depression-era unemployment.
“This important update will empower shelter providers to set policies that align with their missions, like safeguarding victims of domestic violence or human trafficking,” Secretary Carson said in the statement.
In reality, the new rule would remove protections for one of the most vulnerable populations in America, the transgender community. At some point in their […]
Stephan: Remember when the U.S. media used to describe how America would monitor the civil rights or voting practices of authoritarian governments in other countries? What goes around comes around. Now the rest of the world looks upon us as a collapsing democracy increasingly drifting into christofascist authoritarianism.
President Donald Trump speaks during a news conference on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly in September. Credit: Drew Angerer/Getty
The Trump administration was in panic mode.
The United Nations Human Rights Council was debating launching a special investigation of racism in America after the killing of George Floyd, a Black man who died in police custody. And the United States was determined to derail any such probe.
That the Trump administration cared so much was surprising: It had quit the council two years ago, calling it an anti-Israel “cesspool of political bias” and denouncing its membership for including human rights abusing countries.
Publicly, U.S. officials kept their cool as the mid-June discussions played out. Behind the scenes, however, the State Department was scrambling to avert a public relations disaster, dispatching its diplomats to pull strings and call in favors.
Lana Marks, the U.S. ambassador in South Africa, reached out to top officials there, telling them a probe aimed squarely at the U.S. “would be an extreme measure that should be reserved for countries that are not […]
Stephan: Get ready. You may be certain that if and when a treatment or vaccine for the Covid-19 coronavirus is developed that the big pharma sector of the American illness profit system, like a coven of vampires at midnight, will fall on Americans by structuring drug prices for maximum profit.
Bottles of a trial Covid-19 vaccine on a table in a lab in Brussels on June 18, 2020. Credit: Vincent Kalut/Photonews/Getty
Government contracts obtained by consumer advocacy group Knowledge Ecology International show that the Trump administration is giving pharmaceutical companies a green light to charge exorbitant prices for potential coronavirus treatments developed with taxpayer money by refusing to exercise federal authority to constrain costs.
“The government has limited its ability to intervene if the pharmaceutical companies… charge unreasonable prices for the resulting Covid-19 vaccines or treatments.” —Knowledge Ecology International
Through the Freedom of Information Act, Knowledge Ecology International (KEI) last week got hold of a number of heavily redacted agreements between the Trump administration and major pharmaceutical companies like Johnson & Johnson, Regeneron, and Genentech.
Five of the seven documents reviewed by KEI are classified as “other transaction agreements,” which allow federal agencies to loosen regulations designed to protect the public in order to help companies streamline the product development process.
In the case of four contracts for potential Covid-19 treatments or vaccines with Johnson & Johnson, Genentech, Regeneron, and Roche issued by the […]
