Stephan: Here is another very important trend that is not getting anywhere near the coverage in mainstream media it should be receiving. As I have told you endlessly, water is destiny, and the combination of our archaic infrastructure's growing dysfunction, combined with the changes wrought by climate change is creating a national crisis.
More than 300 homes in Porterville, located in California’s Central Valley, were without running water after their wells dried up due to the severe drought in 2015. County officials and charitable organizations provided drinking water and non-potable water to use to wash dishes and bathe. Credit: Justin Sullivan / Getty
Deepak Palakshappa became a pediatrician to give poor kids access to good medical care. Still, back in his residency days, the now-associate professor at Wake Forest University School of Medicine in Winston-Salem was shock. ed to discoverthat a patient caring for two young grandchildren was food insecure. “Our clinic had set up one of those food drive boxes, and near the end of a visit, she asked if she could have any of the cans because she didn’t have food for the holidays,” he recalls.
Thirteen years later, Palakshappa’s clinic team now asks two simple questions of every patient to ascertain whether they’ll run out of food in a given month. But there are some critical questions they don’t ask: Do you drink your tap […]
Stephan: More and more counties controlled by Republicans are encouraging people to go around armed by making their counties "second amendment sanctuaries". As a result, we are sure to see an increasing number of mass murders. If you live in one of these counties I would be very alert to anyone you see who is armed, and pay close attention to the expression on their face. Schools, shopping centers, sports locations, bars, wherever people gather are increasingly dangerous
Police form a line to protect pro-gun activists protesting the March for our Lives movement in March 2018 in Los Angeles. Credit: Sheila Fitzgerald / Shutterstock
The majority of all U.S. counties have been designated as Second Amendment sanctuaries, according to an analysis by SanctuaryCounties.com.
As of June 20, there are 1,930 counties “protected by Second Amendment Sanctuary legislation at either the state or county level,” representing 61% of 3,141 counties and county equivalents in all 50 states and the District of Columbia.
Texas was the 21st state to pass a constitutional carry bill, which Gov. Greg Abbott signed into law, and becomes effective Sept. 1. And while some state legislatures are not taking the same action, county officials have chosen to enact their own legislation. Roughly 1,137 counties “have taken it upon themselves to pass Second Amendment Sanctuary legislation and likely hundreds of cities, townships, boroughs, etc. have done so at their level as well,” the site states.
The Second Amendment sanctuary movement was born out of a grassroots effort, brought on by county or […]
Stephan: I think this is good news because I think marriage between people who love each other enough that they want to make their relationship a formal legal alliance fosters happiness and wellbeing. And three-quarters of Americans seem to agree. The other quarter though are hysterical, resentful, and filled with hate, MAGAt world and its leaders.
The number of same-sex couple households in the U.S. has surpassed 1 million for the first time, according to recently released government data.
About 710,000 (59.2%) of the same-sex couple households were married, and about 500,000 (41.7%) were unmarried.
The number of married same-sex households started to outnumber unmarried same-sex households in 2016, following the Supreme Court’s landmark 2015 Obergefell vs. Hodges ruling, which effectively legalized gay marriage across the U.S.
The release of this new data coincides with the advancement of landmark legislation that codifies federal protection for marriages of same-sex couples. The Respect for Marriage Act was approved 61-36 in the Senate and now returns to the House for a final vote before it can go to President Joe Biden, who has said he looks forward to enacting it.
Hawaii has the highest percentage of same-sex couple households of any […]
Stephan: Seven states depend on the Colorado River, Lake Powell, and Lake Mead, for their water. As I have been reporting for more than a year the entire system is breaking down, and the implications go far beyond just those seven states because so much of the produce, nuts, and fruit that feeds Americans comes from those states, particularly California, and as this article describes, the whole water system is breaking down.
A stranded boat launch is seen in drought-stricken Lake Powell, Utah on May 2, 2022. Credit: Marli Miller / UCG / Universal Images Group / Getty
The catastrophic chain of events that water and power authorities are working to prepare for amid the desertification of the Colorado River basin would amount to a “complete doomsday scenario,” harming water and electricity supplies for millions, according to new reporting from The Washington Post.
While the Biden administration earlier this year ordered water use cuts in Arizona, Nevada, and parts of Mexico that use water from the rapidly shrinking Colorado River, officials in the region are examining how they can keep Lake Powell and Lake Mead—the largest human-made reservoirs in the U.S.—from reaching dangerous “dead pool” status, in which water levels would drop so low that water no longer flows downstream.
“You’re not going to have a river… It would be a catastrophe for the entire system.”
According to the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation, with Lake Powell’s surface already having fallen 170 feet, the reservoir is even closer to reaching “minimum power pool” status.
Stephan: Here is an important and charming story illustrating how all life is interconnected and interdependent in earth's matrix of life. We, humans, need to wake up to this reality if we are going to get through climate change as a functioning society.
It’s easy to look at a forest and think it’s inevitable: that the trees came into being through a stately procession of seasons and seeds and soil, and will replenish themselves so long as environmental conditions allow.
Hidden from sight are the creatures whose labor makes the forest possible — the multitudes of microorganisms and invertebrates involved in maintaining that soil, and the animals responsible for delivering seeds too heavy to be wind-borne to the places where they will sprout.
If one is interested in the future of a forest — which tree species will thrive and which will diminish, or whether those threatened by a fast-changing climate will successfully migrate to newly hospitable lands — one should look to these seed-dispersing animals.
“All the oaks that are trying to move up north are trying to track the habitable range,” said Ivy Yen, a biologist at the University of Maine who could be found late one recent afternoon at the Penobscot Experimental Forest in nearby Milford, arranging acorns on a tray for mice and voles to […]
