Stephan: Sweden, is a country that by every social outcome parameter I can discover fosters wellbeing and leads the United States. This is but another example. The legacy of the Trump era was the diminishment of America's stature in the world, validated by the objective facts. Partisanship is not relevant here, or shouldn't be. Sweden is making the right choices, the choices that foster wellbeing, and the U.S. is not.
In Pitea, Sweden, the Markbygden wind farm is set to become Europe’s largest. Credit: Jonas Gratzer
Old twigs crunch beneath his boots as Claes Nordmark, mayor of Boden, steps out into a vast clear-cut area. He comes to a stop at a slope and motions toward an electrical substation nearby.
“Listen to that,” he says. “The atmosphere in Boden is crackling, just like that switchgear.”
If all goes to plan, in July start-up H2 Green Steel (H2GS) will start building the world’s first “fossil-free” steelworks in this Swedish town of 17,000, just below the Arctic Circle. It’s a multibillion-dollar project that would make a multimillion-ton impact on the climate, cutting over 90 percent of a regular steel factory’s carbon dioxide emissions.
The electricity may not be audible all over northern Sweden, but the buzz is tangible. A boom of renewable-powered industries has given rise to what has been dubbed a “green revolution.” A massive revamp is underway to decarbonize the state-run mines. Besides steel mills, the region hosts Europe’s first battery mega factory, called Northvolt Ett, along with fossil-free fertilizer […]
Stephan: Having lived in Arizona, I wrote my first book, The Secret Vaults of Time, there I have a sense of what is happening in Phoenix. For over a decade I have been predicting three migrations, one out of the Southwest because of temperature rise and lack of water. Here is how that is working out.
Tents line a street in one of Phoenix’s biggest encampments for unsheltered people, known as “the zone,” where the pavement can reach 160 degrees Fahrenheit. Credit: Caitlin O’Hara / Yahoo News
PHOENIX — On the downtown streets in America’s hottest city the temperature has hit 109 degrees Fahrenheit. It’s 1 o’clock in the afternoon in late June and the sidewalks are mostly empty, but an elderly woman carrying an umbrella passes by walking her terrier, the dog’s tiny feet fitted with leather moccasins to protect them from the scorching concrete.
Inside an air-conditioned conference room on the 11th floor of the building that houses city hall, Mayor Kate Gallego is recounting the story of her parents abandoning Chicago for the Southwest following the blizzard of 1979. “Cars buried in snow. Trying to navigate the city was a real challenge,” she told Yahoo News.
A Democrat who was appointed to her first mayoral term in 2019 at the age of 37 after her predecessor was elected to Congress, Gallego was raised in Albuquerque. Like many in her generation, she suffers […]
Stephan: Here is some positive Italian news. As I have said I think charging roads is the way this trend is going to go. In my opinion, this not charging stations should become part of the Democratic build-back better plan.
Credit:Stellantis
As prices drop and availability increases, some of the last road blocks to mass adoption of electric vehicles is range anxiety and charging times. But a prototype test track in Italy solves both of those issues by borrowing the same technology that makes it easy to charge your smartphone without wires.
Although the earliest EVs were often recommended for shorter daily commutes or city driving because of their limited range, there are now many options promising well over 300 to 400 miles of travel before the vehicle’s batteries need a charge. But what still complicates a long road trip in an EV is that even the fastest charging stations require at least half an hour to replenish rechargeable batteries, and usually much longer than that depending on the range of the vehicle. Compare that to filling up a tank with gasoline, which takes just a couple of minutes, and it makes sense why some drivers are still hesitant to go electric.
Ranges and charging times will inevitably improve over time, but other companies are […]
Stephan: The Republicans at both the state and federal level, undeniably are struggling to turn America into a White supremacy, male-dominant, militant heterosexual, christofascist anocracy. Because they are a minority movement the other two-thirds of the population to them just constitutes people to be controlled by the authoritarian anocracy they are creating. What this is doing to national pride is reflected in this Gallup Organization survey. Americans increasingly question, distrust, and hold the country in low esteem. All of this is part of our sinking into authoritarian anocracy. It also is exacerbating the Great Schism Trend.
STORY HIGHLIGHTS
38% are “extremely” and 27% “very” proud to be Americans
Extreme pride at new lows for Republicans (58%), independents (34%)
Democrats’ 26% extreme pride near record low
WASHINGTON, D.C. — The 38% of U.S. adults who say they are “extremely proud” to be American is the lowest in Gallup’s trend, which began in 2001. Still, together with the 27% who are “very proud,” 65% of U.S. adults express pride in the nation. Another 22% say they are “moderately proud,” while 9% are “only a little” and 4% “not at all” proud.
This record-low level of extreme national pride comes at a challenging time in the U.S. as a pandemic-weary public is struggling with the highest U.S. inflation rate in more than four decades. These data are from a June 1-20 poll that was conducted after mass shootings in Buffalo, New York, and Uvalde, Texas, claimed 31 lives, including 19 children. Bipartisan gun legislation in response to the shootings was passed shortly after the poll ended. The polling also preceded the U.S. Supreme Court’s highly anticipated and controversial […]
Stephan: The MAGAts are now attempting to reinterpret something that was of enormous importance to the Founders; this is how blatant and dishonest these people are.
The Founders were adamant that church and state be separated because they, or members of their families had experienced the oppression that arises when religions are mixed with the state. When Henry VIIIth split from the Roman Church, creating the Anglican Church, a period of rigid religious orthodoxy descended on Britain and its colonies. Several of the American colonies, most notably Pennsylvania and Rhode Island, were specifically begun to avoid Anglican oppression.
That MAGATs like DeSantis seek to hide this truth in christofascist indoctrination should be an alarm telling every American what these people are trying to do. That the people of Florida are too stupid to understand what is happening, or too aligned with this crap to care, is one of the great sadnesses of this period of American history.
Florida goivernor, and christofascist, Ron DeSantis
New civics education training for Florida public school teachers reportedly aims to perpetuate inaccurate interpretations about “the separation of church and state,” The Washington Post reports.
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) along with the state’s education department, announced a series of training sessions that will include “10 regional 3-day civics professional learning training sessions,” per Business Insider. While the sessions are not state-mandated, it is projected that an estimated 2,500 teachers will sign up just to receive the $700 stipend for attending.
But even with the stipend, many have expressed concern about the topics of discussion for the sessions. Some teachers are also speaking out with critical reactions as they highlight the issues with the sessions.
The Washington Post highlighted that the training “is the statement that it is a ‘misconception’ that ‘the Founders desired strict separation of church and state.’”
“Other materials included fragments of statements that were ‘cherry-picked’ to present a more conservative view of American history, some attendees said. In a possible effort to inoculate some Founding Fathers […]
