Jason Samenow and Kasha Patel, - msn/ The Washington Post
Stephan: Humanity is just not doing what needs to be done to remediate the effects of climate change and, as a result, I predict tens of millions of people are going to die in the coming several decades, and hundreds of millions are going to be uprooted from their homes to become migrant refugees. Depending on where you live you may become one of them. It is tragic but true.
The coldest location on the planet has experienced an episode of warm weather this week unlike any ever observed, with temperatures over the eastern Antarctic ice sheet soaring 50 to 90 degrees above normal. The warmth has smashed records and shocked scientists.
“This event is completely unprecedented and upended our expectations about the Antarctic climate system,” said Jonathan Wille, a researcher studying polar meteorology at Université Grenoble Alpes in France, in an email.
“Antarctic climatology has been rewritten,” tweeted Stefano Di Battista, a researcher who has published studies on Antarctic temperatures. He added that such temperature anomalies would have been considered “impossible” and “unthinkable” before they actually occurred.
Stephan: I don't understand why people in Congress and even on other mainstream media do not talk about the Fox propaganda operation honestly and correctly. Fox is a demonstration about how one oligarch can create, and control, a christofascist propaganda business masquerading as a news organization and get others to pay for it through advertising making a notable profit spreading White supremacy christofascist weaponized disinformation. In my opinion, it is impossible to be an ethical company and advertise on Fox, and I don't see why this is not more widely recognized. I also think it is time that we really recognize what the electronic information world has done to our culture, and how its dark side can be controlled.
Vladimir Putin demonstrates the inferiority of fascism compared with democracy.
One of the currently preferred rationalizations pro-Russia propagandists are using to justify the invasion of Ukraine appears to have emerged from an American social media network known for hosting QAnon, neo-Nazis and other assorted deplorables. As Justin Ling at Foreign Policy explained it earlier this month, the new theory is that “Moscow is launching airstrikes on Ukraine to destroy bioweapon-manufacturing labs in order to prevent the American infectious disease expert Anthony Fauci from creating a sequel to the COVID-19 virus.”
The notion that Ukraine has “bioweapons” and that Russia is invading to stop some dastardly Ukrainian plot didn’t even emerge until after the invasion had begun. Prior to that, the laughably thin rationale was based on Vladimir Putin’s asinine claims that Ukraine, whose president is of Jewish ancestry, is being run by Nazis. When that didn’t really fly, a new justification emerged, from what look to be American sources.
As Ben Collins and Kevin Collier of NBC News have traced — and as the Fauci-centric […]
Stephan: Here is a new technology that could make a major difference in getting us out of the carbon power era. The question, of course, is what if any effect will this have on the wellbeing of the earth? All new technologies need to be evaluated in that way.
An earth profile showing what this well represents. Credit:Quaise Energy
A company that plans to drill deeper into Earth than ever before, creating holes that would extend a record-shattering 12 miles under our planet’s surface, has raised a total of $63 million since its launch in 2020.
Most recently, Quaise Energy, a startup that aims to revolutionize the geothermal energy market, secured $40 million in series A funding in February, reports Axios. The goal of these super-deep holes is to access a limitless amount of renewable energy from the heat deep inside Earth.
“This funding round brings us closer to providing clean, renewable baseload energy,” said Carlos Araque, CEO and co-founder of Quaise Energy, according to BusinessWire. “Our technology allows us to access energy anywhere in the world, at a scale far greater than wind and solar, enabling future generations to thrive in a world powered with abundant clean energy.”
Geothermal energy has a low profile compared to other renewable energy sources such as solar, wind, and hydro, but Quaise believes […]
Stephan: Over the past 30 years, Russia has slowly integrated into world markets and countries in Europe have found Russian gas and oil convenient. Now all that is ending. It is hard to remember, but Putin has made it clear once again, that for most of history Russia has been ruled by despots. Its whole history is a story of the privileged brutally dominating the peasantry. Even other aristocrats in Europe found Russian violence and callousness offputting. This has been the Russian constant except for a brief period beginning in the 1980s, for 10 or 20 years depending on how it is assessed. Putin is now bringing the Russian standard of brutality back in a way that goes back to an earlier era in time. It reminds me of the Nazis' invasion of Eastern Europe, which makes Putin's constant references to Nazis very bizarre.
The question I have had is this: Will this insane war on Ukraine by Putin stimulate the EU to move more quickly into a new post-carbon era, and that is what this thoughtful report focuses on.
Russian President Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine is sparking a wide-ranging revamping of energy policy in Europe with a bold new objective: to wean the continent off Russian gas — as rapidly and comprehensively as possible — and accelerate Europe’s green energy transition.
In late-night sessions, Europe’s leaders have been drafting a spectrum of crisis strategies not only to pivot to other natural gas suppliers — as the United States, which imports much less gas and oil from Russia than Europe, has vowed to do — but also to switch from gas to electricity where possible, and to scale back gas consumption across key sectors. The European Union says it plans to triple its renewable energy capacity by 2030. Some critics even advocate that Germany suspend its plan to shut down its three remaining nuclear reactors by the end of this year — an unthinkable prospect before the invasion of Ukraine.
Last week, the European Union announced a new energy plan that will, according to a leaked draft, “scale up renewable energy in Europe by mobilizing additional […]
Stephan: While Putin's moral bankruptcy and aggressive war against Ukraine dominates the news 24/7, except on the Fox propaganda channel which supports the Russians, it does not mean that the christofascists are letting up on their attempt to undermine American democracy so that White supremacist American authoritarians. funded by American oligarchs, can gain permanent control of the United States. What I want to know is why are Trump and Flynn still walking around unindicted? Where is Merritt Garland? Why is the American media doing such a bad job governing what the christofascists are doing?
Former General Michael Flynn, President Donald Trump’s recently pardoned national security adviser, speaks during a protest of the outcome of the 2020 presidential election outside the Supreme Court on December 12, 2020 in Washington, DC. Credit: Tasos Katopodis/Getty
Donald Trump, Steve Bannon, Tucker Carlson, Michael Flynn and the other leaders of the American neofascist movement are very generous, in their own sinister fashion. They make their escalating threats of right-wing violence, insurrection and other forms of mayhem in public. There is little skulduggery or subterfuge involved.
Why are they so bold? Because they have suffered no serious long-term negative consequences for their behavior. And for the most part, the Republican fascists and the larger white right are winning in their war against American democracy. Momentum is on their side. Why should they conceal their intentions?
When disaster follows — be it some version of Jan. 6 (which is almost inevitable) or other acts of right-wing terror — the American people and their leaders will not be able to claim ignorance. They have repeatedly been warned and have […]
