Stephan: I have told you for years (see SR archive) that on the basis of objectively verifiable research data that whatever politicians tell you the truth is America does not care about children. Of course, everyone cares about their kids, but I mean as a culture. Here is more data confirming this reality.
In ways big and small — in schools, in homes, in every facet of life — the United States fails to protect and support its children.
School shootings, like the massacre in Uvalde, Texas, that has left 19 students and at least two adults dead this week, are one of the most visceral examples of that failure. A second generation is now growing up in a world where school shootings are part of life. Columbine didn’t lead to meaningful policy change; neither did Sandy Hook; neither did Parkland; and the terrible truth is that Uvalde may not either.
The number of children killed by guns every day in the United States, in incidents that never make national news, is much higher than the death toll of victims in school shootings. The firearm homicide rate for US children ages 0-14 is astronomical compared to other wealthy nations, according to data from the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation, with hundreds of budding American lives lost every year. Suicides by gun and accidental firearm deaths among kids […]
Stephan: I think this report should be taken very seriously. It is, and should be, seen as very alarming. Think about it for a moment. The Canadians are planning how they would respond if the United States became a full-on anocracy. That tells you how even the country that borders us and with whom we have a vast network of centuries-old economic, political, and military interactions is now beginning to think about what they would do if the United States changed fundamentally.
For the Canadian report: https://socialsciences.uottawa.ca/public-international-affairs/ns2022en
Rioters clash with police as they push barricades to storm the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. Credit: Roberto Schmidt/AFP / Getty
While the United States appears to hold true to the ideals of democracy, Freedom House, an international group that promotes global democracy, has warned that the country is backsliding.
“Its democratic institutions have suffered erosion, as reflected in partisan pressure on the electoral process, bias and dysfunction in the criminal justice system, harmful policies on immigration and asylum seekers, and growing disparities in wealth, economic opportunity, and political influence,” the site said.
According to the Canadian Broadcast Corporation (CBC), the government to the north is fearful of what that might mean for them. Former national security advisers and directors at the Center for Strategic and International Studies warned Canada that the U.S. could become a “source of threat and instability” in the coming years.
Stephan: The United States, as a result of the actions of Trump and the Republican Party, is no longer one of the world's leading democracies. Here are some facts.
Overview
The United States is a federal republic whose people benefit from a vibrant political system, a strong rule-of-law tradition, robust freedoms of expression and religious belief, and a wide array of other civil liberties. However, in recent years its democratic institutions have suffered erosion, as reflected in rising political polarization and extremism, partisan pressure on the electoral process, bias and dysfunction in the criminal justice system, harmful policies on immigration and asylum seekers, and growing disparities in wealth, economic opportunity, and political influence.
Key Developments in 2021
The transfer of power from the administration of President Donald Trump to that of President Joseph Biden in January was seriously threatened by a series of antidemocratic actions intended to thwart it. Although Trump’s claims of fraud in the November 2020 presidential election had been consistently rejected by electoral officials from both parties and by the courts, he and some of his political allies in the administration, in Congress, and at the state and local levels sought to misuse various authorities and procedural tools to overturn the election results. […]
Stephan: Yet another warning about what climate change and global warming are going to mean. And yet humanity and its governments can't seem to fully awaken to what this is going to mean.
A super-generalist bumble bee (Bombus terrestris) visiting salvia flowers (Salvia farinacea) in an urban area. Credit: Cristina Ganuza
The importance of bees as pollinators of the world’s food crops is well-known, but wasps, flies, beetles and other insects are also vital pollen conveyors. Pollination by insects is necessary for the growth of about 75 percent of the world’s food and more than 80 percent of wild plants. Crop pollination across the globe is estimated to be worth as much as $577 billion per year.
Insect declines due to habitat lost to agriculture and urbanization have been well-studied, but another factor that has affected pollinator communities is global warming. A new study from the Julius-Maximilian University of Würzburg (JMU) looks at how, as climates become warmer and drier, the combination of shifting land uses with the warming climate can have a detrimental effect on insect diversity, and what can be done about it.
The researchers examined more than 3,200 identified species of pollinators from 179 locations across Bavaria. They found that warmer climates — whether they were in grassland, forests, arable or urban […]
Stephan: Here is some lovely good news. Exxon is going to have to stand trial for lying to the public about climate change.
Climate activists protested outside ExxonMobil’s annual shareholder meeting in Irving, Texas on May 29, 2019. Credit: 350.org/Flickr/cc)
The Massachusetts high court on Tuesday rejected ExxonMobil’s attempt to dismiss a lawsuit brought by the state, meaning the biggest oil giant in the U.S. must stand trial for allegations that it lied to the public about the climate emergency and the fossil fuel industry’s role in driving it.
“Exxon’s repeated attempts to stonewall our lawsuit have been baseless.”
The lawsuit filed in 2019 by Massachusetts Attorney General Maura Healey accuses Exxon of violating the state’s consumer protection laws through a decades long effort to conceal what it knew about the negative environmental impacts of burning fossil fuels.
In particular, the complaint says, Exxon deceived investors about the risks that global warming poses to its business and misled consumers by downplaying the dangerous effects of its products and overstating what the company is doing to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
As The Guardianreported, “Exxon claimed the lawsuit was in breach of legislation against what are known as strategic lawsuits against public participation, or SLAPPS, used by wealthy […]
