Stephan: Have you wondered how Germany allowed itself to become so dependent on Russian gas and oil? So have I, and for the past several weeks I have been looking for a fact-based analysis of that situation. This is the best exegetic essay on this subject I have been able to find. It makes sense and I think it is accurate.
Last October, I sat in the office of Klaus Emmerich, the chief union representative at the Garzweiler brown-coal mine in western Germany, as he shared his misgivings about the country’s celebrated plan to stop burning coal. Germany’s build-up of renewable energy was lagging and, given that coal accounts for more than a quarter of its total electricity supply, that meant it would have to rely on another energy source for the time being: natural gas, which came mostly from Russia. “We’re giving ourselves over to the Russians,” Emmerich told me. “I have a bad feeling about it.”
A protest against Russia’s invasion of Ukraine at Berlin’s Brandenburg Gate Credit: Hannibal Hanschke/Getty
Five months later, Emmerich’s premonitions have borne out, powerfully. President Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine has unleashed civilian and military carnage, ravaged cities and sent some two million people fleeing the country. As its effects have rippled across Europe and the world, one consequence has gone underexamined: The invasion has upended the political and economic policies of Germany, where the government has reconsidered its long-planned energy transition; undone a […]
Interview by Kate Silver with Tim Schellpeper, Staff Writer and CEO JBS - Politico
Stephan: I have been checking farming and agriculture journals and magazines regularly because I see an emerging trend, which I think is good news, suggesting that the commercial agriculture community is beginning to recognize they have to shift away from the industrial chemical monoculture of agriculture that has dominated American farming for the past half-century. Here is an interview that gives a sense of what is going on.
How one company is bringing a more sustainable tomorrow to the table
Climate change threatens the way we produce and access food. Severe weather, fires, drought and other turbulence associated with the warming planet have the power to disrupt the supply of consumable goods everywhere. Recognizing this, government leaders and business executives across the globe are committing to making lasting changes.
ANSWER – by Tim Schellpeper
“Climate change — and the ability to affordably meet the nutritional needs of the U.S. and a growing world population — is the greatest challenge of our time,” says Tim Schellpeper, CEO at JBS USA, one of the nation’s largest food producers. “Failure to act means that, one day, there may not be enough food for everyone.”
This warning from agriculture companies like JBS in America’s heartland is echoed by Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack.
“The climate crisis threatens to disrupt food systems around the globe, exacerbate food insecurity and negatively impact farmers’ livelihoods,” said Vilsack at a recent UN Food System’s Summit. Investment in science-based solutions, he added, is needed to adapt.
Stephan: To anyone who has seen the canals in California this is such an obvious solution to several problems -- loss of water, increasing solar power -- that it is surprising such a project was not undertaken some years ago. But now it has begun and that is very good news.
Conceptual rendering of solar panels spanning the 110 foot-wide TID Main Canal. Turlock Irrigation District
A public-private-academic partnership plans to install solar panels over water canals in California in a bid to produce clean energy and help preserve the state’s dwindling water resources.
Construction of Project Nexus, the “first-ever solar panel over canal development in the United States,” will start next fall and is scheduled to be completed by the end of 2023. The 5-megawatt project will consist of three sites along canals in central California with widths ranging from 20 feet to 100 feet.
If the pilot project proves solar canopies are a cost-effective way to produce clean energy and save water, scores of similar installations could be built atop California’s canal network—one of the world’s largest water distribution systems.
“This is a really exciting project,” California Natural Resources Secretary Wade Crowfoot said last month. “It connects our efforts in California to improve water conservation and build drought resilience with the clean energy transition we’re driving across California.”
Stephan: Change is coming, albeit slowly, and there is a growing recognition about the impact of climate change on financial markets. Here is a bit of good news in that area.
Securities and Exchange Commission chair Gary Gensler testifies during a U.S. Senate hearing. Credit: Evelyn Hockstein/AFP
There’s growing awareness that climate change threatens the stability of financial markets and presents systemic risks to the U.S. economy. Right now, however, the hundreds of publicly-traded companies in the country are not required to disclose the various ways in which the consequences of a warming planet could threaten their bottom lines. Companies that address climate risks in their annual reports and other public filings choose to do so voluntarily. As a result, many policymakers argue that climate-related disclosures are unreliable, inconsistent, and incomparable across companies, which leaves investors in the dark about the true risks on a company’s books.
Those policymakers are beginning to make progress. On Monday, the Securities and Exchange Commission, or SEC, took the first step toward requiring companies to publicly disclose various climate risks. The long-awaited rule requires companies to explain how climate risks may affect their revenues and profitability in public filings they’re required by law to submit to the SEC. […]
WILLIAM K. RASHBAUM, BEN PROTESS and JONAH E. BROMWICH , Reporters - The Seattle Times / The New York Times
Stephan: To the astonishment of many, including me, it appears that Donald Trump once again is going to get a free pass for his endless criminality. How can this be? Only Manhattan district attorney Alvin Bragg knows the answer to that question and he won' provide an answer as this report describes. It is my view that the New York governor should replace him with another prosecutor. And where is Merritt Garland? Notably missing in making any defense to protect the integrity of the American government. What is clear to anyone who bothers to examine the facts is that not only Trump, but the Republican Party is criminally corrupt.
Former President Donald Trump speaks at the annual Conservative Political Action Conference in Orlando, Florida, on Feb. 26. Credit: Scott McIntyre / The New York Times
One of the senior Manhattan prosecutors who investigated Donald Trump believed that the former president was “guilty of numerous felony violations” and that it was “a grave failure of justice” not to hold him accountable, according to a copy of his resignation letter.
The prosecutor, Mark Pomerantz, submitted his resignation last month after the Manhattan district attorney, Alvin Bragg, abruptly stopped pursuing an indictment of Trump.
Pomerantz, 70, a prominent former federal prosecutor and white-collar defense lawyer who came out of retirement to work on the Trump investigation, resigned on the same day as Carey Dunne, another senior prosecutor leading the inquiry.
Pomerantz’s Feb. 23 letter, obtained by The New York Times, offers a personal account of his decision to resign and for the first time states explicitly his belief that the office could have convicted the former president. Bragg’s decision was “contrary to the public interest,” he wrote.
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