Katrina L. Kezios, PhD; Peiyi Lu, PhD; Sebastian Calonico, PhD; et al, Department of Epidemiology, Mailman School of Public Health, Columbia University, New York, New York | Department of Health Policy and Management, Mailman School of Public Health, Columbia University, New York, New York - JAMA
Stephan:
I am increasingly worried about the growing wealth inequality in the United States. This grotesque distortion of our society is the source of all kinds of problems. Here is an example, no one is talking about but that science is telling us we should be. It is really a life-or-death trend.
Key Points
Question Is a history of sustained low-wage earning during peak midlife earning years associated with elevated mortality risk and excess mortality?
Findings In a longitudinal study of 4002 workers with biennially reported hourly wage, a sustained history of low-wage earning in midlife was associated with significantly earlier and excess mortality, especially for workers whose low-wage earning was experienced in the context of employment instability.
Meaning Social and economic policies that increase hourly wage or improve the financial standing of low-wage workers would likely have beneficial impacts on survival outcomes.
Abstract
Importance Earning a low wage is an increasingly recognized public health concern, yet little research exists on the long-term health consequences of sustained low-wage earning.
Objective To examine the association of sustained low-wage earning and mortality in a sample of workers with hourly wage reported biennially during peak midlife earning years.
Design, Setting, and Participants This longitudinal study included 4002 US participants, aged 50 years or older, from 2 subcohorts of the Health and Retirement Study (1992-2018) who worked for pay and reported earning hourly wages at 3 or more time points during a 12-year period during their midlife (1992-2004 or 1998-2010). […]
ANA CEBALLOS and SOMMER BRUGAL , Reporters - Miami Herald
Stephan:
The voters of Florida have voted Ron DeSantis into office twice, and I read that as saying the majority cohort of Florida is defined by its racism, its resentments, and its fears. The problem with America is Americans. What I see as particularly dangerous about this is that Florida, as well as other Red states, are literally trying to create a false history of America with which to indoctrinate not educate the young, thus assuring continued White supremacy and a false account of what the Civil War was about. The result will be that these false narratives will continue to haunt Florida for at least another generation. What DeSantis and his minions may also be doing by replacing the nationally used SAT exams with a biased bogus version is blocking Florida high school students from qualifying for colleges and universities outside of Florida.
Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, an open White supremacist and fascist Credit: Screen capture
As Gov. Ron DeSantis and Florida Republican leaders explore alternatives to the College Board’s AP classes and tests, top state officials have been meeting with the founder of an education testing company supporters say is focused on the “great classical and Christian tradition.” The Classic Learning Test, founded in 2015, is used primarily by private schools and home-schooling families and is rooted in the classical education model, which focuses on the “centrality of the Western tradition.” The founder of the company, Jeremy Tate, said the test is meant to be an alternative to the College Board-administered SAT exam, which he says has become “increasingly ideological” in part because it has “censored the entire Christian-Catholic intellectual tradition” and other “thinkers in the history of Western thought.”
As DeSantis’ feud with the College Board intensified this week, Tate had several meetings in Tallahassee with Ray Rodrigues, the state university system’s chancellor, and legislators to see if the state can more broadly offer the Classic Learning Test […]
Jake Bittle, Climate Reporter - Business Insider / Yahoo News
Stephan:
I have been astounded by the fact that the Florida legislative Republicans and DeSantis are utterly failing to do what the state needs to have done in preparation for climate change. I have been telling you for more than 30 years that the United States is going to experience three massive internal migrations involving tens of millions of people, and that states like Florida are going to be fundamentally changed. Every analysis of the state's future that I have seen predicts much of the state is going to go beneath the sea and by the end of the century Florida is going to be a radically different state, with a very different much smaller population.
Climate change is making disasters like hurricanes more devastating and frequent, and Floridians are already being forced to flee. Credit: Marianne Ayala / Business Insider / Getty
The state’s climate exodus has already begun
As many residents will be proud to tell you, the thousand-odd islands that make up the Florida Keys are one of a kind: there is no other place in the world that boasts the same combination of geological, ecological, and sociological characteristics. The islands have a special, addictive quality about it, an air of freedom that leads people to turn their backs on mainland life.
The Keys are also the first flock of canaries in the coal mine of climate change. Over the past few years, the residents of these islands have been forced to confront a phenomenon that will affect millions of Americans before the end of the century. Their present calamity offers a glimpse of our national future.
Nature is changing. Today’s hurricanes tend to be stronger, wetter, and less predictable than those of the last century. They hold more moisture, speed […]
Yesterday I ran a report on how Koch industries and other carbon power industries and oligarchs whose wealth depends on carbon energy are using misinformation to influence rural Americans to block the development of solar power. And there are a number of Republican members of Congress who don't even believe human-mediated climate change is real. As a result, although the Biden administration is doing everything it can to move us out of carbon energy, in Republican-controlled states the United States is falling dangerously behind in the conversion out of carbon energy.
In contrast here is what is going on in China. My takeaway from all this is that America, as it has in healthcare, education, and a host of other trends is becoming a second-class power largely because of the work of MAGAt Republicans, and the third of the country who align themselves with MAGAt views.
Photovoltaic panels at a solar farm operated by Yellow River Power in Gonghe County, Qinghai province, China, on Monday, Sept. 27, 2021. China, the world’s biggest greenhouse gas emitter, can’t meet its environmental goals without connecting its abundant sources of renewable energy with its coastal megacities. Credit: Qilai Shen / Bloomberg
Wind turbines and solar panels are now generating almost enough electricity to power every home in China.
Wind and solar output jumped 21% last year to 1,190 terawatt-hours of electricity, the National Energy Administration said at a briefing on Monday. That’s not far off total residential power consumption of 1,340 terawatt-hours, the NEA said, which was a 14% increase on the prior year as more people spent time at home because of the government’s stringent virus restrictions.
The near match underscores two important things about China’s power system. One, of course, is the rapid growth in renewables as the country sinks hundreds of billions of dollars into meeting climate goals and reducing its reliance on expensive fossil fuels.
But tempering that is a second point: the relative […]
As this article lays out, we are on the verge of something as culturally transforming as overturning Roe. The internet and social media have created a new culture. Changing the internet will change culture, and will affect the power of misinformation.
Supreme Court of the United States Credit: Fred Schilling / Collection of the Supreme Court of the United States
The Supreme Court is set to hear oral arguments on Tuesday in a case that could upend protections internet companies have had throughout the roughly two-decade rise of social media.
The case, Gonzalez v. Google, centers on allegations that Google subsidiary YouTube provided a platform for and used its algorithm to recommend terrorist content in a way that incited violence and led to the death of U.S. citizen Nohemi Gonzalez during a 2015 terror attack in France. It targets the controversial Section 230 provision of the 1996 Communications Decency Act, which provides a liability shield for internet providers over content posted by third parties.
The tech industry argues that protection is critical, but the rule has been criticized on both sides of the aisle — albeit for different reasons.
As Congress is largely at a stalemate on how to proceed with rules regulating content moderation, all eyes are on how the justices respond in the first Section 230 case to hit […]
