Stephan: The alarms about the climate keep ringing and most of humanity sits staring at their televisions or cell phones sucking their thumbs. Our children, and even more our grandchildren will, in my opinion, condemn their memory of us. Stupid, feckless, greedy people who destroyed the world.
New data released Monday showed atmospheric carbon dioxide reached a monthly average level of 419 parts per million in May, which is not only the maximum reading ever recorded since accurate measurements began 63 years ago but also the highest level the planet has experienced in over four million years.
“The solution is right before our eyes. Solar energy and wind are already cheaper than fossil fuels and they work at the scales that are required. If we take real action soon, we might still be able to avoid catastrophic climate change.” —Pieter Tans, NOAA
Scientists from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and Scripps Institute of Oceanography at the University of California, San Diego working at NOAA’s Mauna Loa Atmospheric Baseline Observatory in Hawaii said the May measurements—an increase from 417 parts per million (ppm) in May 2020—mean that “the atmospheric burden of CO2 is now comparable to where it was during the Pliocene Climatic Optimum, between 4.1 and 4.5 million years ago, when CO2 was close to, or above 400 ppm.”
“During that time, sea level was about 78 feet higher than today, the […]
Jesse Eisinger, Jeff Ernsthausen and Paul Kiel, Staff Writers - ProPublica
Stephan: I have been telling my readers for over 20 years, since I began SR, that the American income tax system is completely rigged to see that very rich, read usually very White men and women are benefited to an absurd degree. Here is the proof.
ProPublica has obtained a vast cache of IRS information showing how billionaires like Jeff Bezos, Elon Musk and Warren Buffett pay little in income tax compared to their massive wealth — sometimes, even nothing.This is their report.
In 2007, Jeff Bezos, then a multibillionaire and now the world’s richest man, did not pay a penny in federal income taxes. He achieved the feat again in 2011. In 2018, Tesla founder Elon Musk, the second-richest person in the world, also paid no federal income taxes.
Michael Bloomberg managed to do the same in recent years. Billionaire investor Carl Icahn did it twice. George Soros paid no federal income tax three years in a row.
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ProPublica has obtained a vast trove of Internal Revenue Service data on the tax returns of thousands of the nation’s wealthiest people, covering more than 15 years. The data provides an unprecedented look inside the financial lives of America’s titans, including Warren Buffett, Bill Gates, Rupert Murdoch and Mark Zuckerberg. It shows not just their income and […]
Stephan: Here is a very good comparison of Germany and the United States about transitioning to non-carbon energy. It contains some very good news from Germany on how to successfully handle the transition out of the carbon and nuclear era. Bravo Germany. In contrast, 139 members of the 117th U.S. Congress will not affirm the role of humans in creating climate change.
An aerial view of wind turbines near Bernau, Germany from May 2021. Credit: Sean Gallup/Getty
Earlier this month, U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres joined virtual visitors to Berlin at the 12th Annual Petersberg Climate Dialogue, where the German government hoped to further negotiate technical details of the Paris Agreement. During the event, German Chancellor Angela Merkel urged governments to continue investing into our shared climate despite budgetary shortfalls related to the COVID-19 crisis.
Germany has walked that walk. Over the past two decades, it has embarked on a remarkable, expensive transition from coal and nuclear energy, to renewable energy sources. The set of policies to encourage this rise of green energy is known as energiewende—or “energy transition.” Energiewende has its roots in the foundation of Germany’s Green Party in the late 1970s and early 1980s and enjoys broad public support. It is one of the most ambitious green energy proposals in the global North, and represents a fundamental paradigm shift from the fossil fuel-obsessed status quo.
Meanwhile in the United States, a Center for American Progress analysis found that 139 members of the 117th Congress won’t even admit that human-caused climate change is […]
Stephan: I cannot remember, nor could I easily find, the last time a person who had been governor for the maximum allowed eight years, came back after a break and ran and won again. But I think that is what is going to happen in Virginia. And that tells us that Virginia has gone Blue, and that the power of Trumpism is smaller than many thought. So good news.
Winner of the Virginia Democratic gubernatorial primary, Terry McAuliffe gestures as he addresses the crowd during an election party in McLean on June 8. | AP Photo/Steve Helber
McLEAN, VIRGINIA — Terry McAuliffe’s comeback bid aced its first test Tuesday, as the former Virginia governor cruised to victory in the state’s Democratic gubernatorial primary.
He easily defeated his two main rivals, former state Del. Jennifer Carroll Foy and state Sen. Jennifer McClellan, capturing about 60 percent of the vote in a five-candidate race in which he was the wire-to-wire favorite since entering last December.
His victory sets up a matchup with Glenn Youngkin, the former Carlyle Group chief executive who won the Republican nomination in a party convention about a month ago.
The Novemberface-off will be the first major election during President Joe Biden’s tenure in the White House — and a measure of how damaging now-former President Donald Trump was to the state Republican Party here, which had been ransacked during Trump’s four years in office.
During his victory speech, McAuliffe leaned into his and outgoing Gov. Ralph Northam’s overlapping […]
Stephan: Well, the data is beginning to come in and the stupidity of anti-vaxxers, and non-mask wearers is becoming obvious. It is a measure of how fantasy beliefs can be held so strongly that such people are willing to risk their lives in a kind of Russian Roulette over their willful ignorance. As it is, as this report lays out, "... some have estimated that tens of thousands of COVID deaths in the U.S. could have been prevented with universal mask-wearing."
A boy wearing a protective mask and gloves rides his bike with his family close behind on a relatively empty sidewalk amid the coronavirus pandemic on April 16, 2020 in New York City. Credit: Alexi Rosenfeld/Getty
From March of last year through May 2021, those who didn’t ever wear masks to stop the spread of coronavirus were two times more likely to get infected with the virus than those who wore their masks whenever they ventured outside their home, data from a new study suggests.
The Axios/Ipsos Coronavirus Index polled people about their mask-wearing and other habits associated with the COVID-19 pandemic over the past year along with questions about how they tested for the infection. Of those respondents who said they always wore their masks in public, only 11 percent said they ended up testing positive for the virus, compared to nearly a quarter (23 percent) of respondents who said they never wore masks and eventually contracted coronavirus.
The gap may be even wider than that because according to Axios, those who didn’t wear masks were also less likely to get tested […]
