Here is some good news about the transition out of the carbon power era. We’re not there, but we are moving in the right direction.
Wind turbines in Southern California Credit: Erik Wilde via Flickr
The power sector is about to enter a “new era of falling fossil generation” as coal, oil and gas are pushed out of the grid by a record expansion of wind and solar power, according to new analysis by climate think tank Ember.
Wind and solar power reached a record 12% of global electricity generation last year, according to Ember’s global electricity review 2023. This drove up the overall share of low-carbon electricity to almost 40% of total generation.
With even faster growth set to continue this year, Ember says 2022 is likely to mark a “turning point” when global fossil fuel electricity generation peaked and began to fall.
The think tank forecasts that, by the end of 2023, more than 100% of the growth in electricity demand will be covered by low-carbon sources.
Experts broadlyagree that global electricity generation needs to be completely decarbonized by 2040 if the world is to stay on track for its climate targets.
The endless corruption of Associate Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas and his wife Ginni, reveals how corrupt the Supreme Court has become, and the reality that the justices live, or at least feel they do, in a world above the law. Thomas needs to be removed from the court, or to resign from it.
Associate Justice Clarence Thomas, perhaps the most corrupt person ever to serve on the Supreme Court Credit: Aude Guerrucci/Getty
Florida governor Ron DeSantis’s new book, The Courage to Be Free, strikes a populist tone. He rails against the “the elites.”
But he’s eager not to be misunderstood. Not everyone “of tremendous aptitude, great wealth, or major achievement” is part of the elites. The real elites are defined by their adherence to the “ideology and outlook of the ruling class” and their shared interest in “virtue signaling.”
Governor DeSantis even provides an example of someone whose exalted position might make us think he’s part of these elites even though he totally isn’t.
That example is… Supreme Court justice Clarence Thomas.
DeSantis’s book came out less than two months ago. Yesterday, ProPublica published a story revealing that Justice Thomas has routinely traveled around the world on the superyacht owned by billionaire real estate magnate and Republican megadonor Harlan Crow. Thomas also often flies on Crow’s private jet, even for very short trips, and stays in Crow’s palatial invitation-only resort. The […]
ROBERT REICH, Chancellor's Professor of Public Policy at the University of California, Berkeley, and a Senior Fellow at the Blum Center for Developing Economies - Robert Reich Substack
Stephan:
Robert Reich has it right. We need to clean up our government, and it should start with Donald Trump and Clarence Thomas. It is important that Americans see that no one is above the law, and that we have the ability to hold anyone accountable when they are corrupt and criminal no matter how highly placed they are. Americans are losing confidence in the integrity of our government, and something dramatic needs to be done to restore the people’s confidence.
Clarence and Ginni Thomas Credit: GBH News
After ProPublica reported that for more than two decades, Clarence Thomas has been taking lavish vacations, super-yacht trips, and rides on a private jet, all courtesy of GOP megadonor Harlan Crow, Thomas issued a statement last Friday — explaining that the reason he hadn’t disclosed any of this was that Crow and his wife are among Clarence and Ginni Thomases’ “dearest friends” and that “as friends do, we have joined them on a number of family trips during the more than quarter century we have known them.”
Thomas further explained that he thought he didn’t need to report these gifts on annual disclosure forms because when he first joined the court he was told that “personal hospitality from close personal friends” need not be reported.
This is dangerous rubbish. Thomas has been a member of the Supreme Court since October 1991, which means he met his “close personal friend” Harlan Crow after Thomas was already a justice. And Thomas has been accepting Crow’s sumptuous hospitality almost from that start. Which is exactly the problem.
This is a data-based assessment of what is happening with voters, showing how the Red Blue schism is playing out. What it doesn’t seem to get is that while it accurately reports the Republican Party is becoming a party of lower income, lower education, largely rural White voters it does not report that these voters are manipulated by the oligarchs who now own the Republican Party, and are turning the United States into an anocracy.
Data: Rep. Marcy Kaptur (D-Ohio) office and Ballotpedia; Note: Districts where there was no opponent in the 2022 midterm election are not included; Chart: Alice Feng/Axios
Nine of the top 10 wealthiest congressional districts are represented by Democrats, while Republicans now represent most of the poorer half of the country, according to median income data provided by Rep. Marcy Kaptur’s (D-Ohio) office.
Why it matters: The last several decades have ushered in a dramatic political realignment, as the GOP has broadened its appeal to a more diverse working class and Democrats have become the party of wealthier, more-educated voters.
“Republicans were the party of the country club, and they’re increasingly the party of country,” lobbyist and political analyst Bruce Mehlman told Axios.
“We have seen an inversion of Democrat and Republican shares of the highest- and lowest-income districts — and the highest and lowest college degree-holding districts,” Cook Political Report’s Dave Wasserman told Axios.
By the numbers: 64% of congressional districts with median incomes below the national median are now represented by Republicans — a shift in historical party demographics, […]
Here is news showing the difference between Republicans and Democrats. I think that is the big takeaway from the last week's news. From Clarence Thomas to the state legislatures of of Tennessee and Missouri both the Republicans and the Democrats through their actions, which is much more important than their words, have shown us what they value, and how interested they are in fostering wellbeing. It couldn't be any clearer.
Secretary of Health and Human Services Xavier Becerra Credit: Mariam Zuhaib / AP
Secretary of Health and Human Services Xavier Becerra said the administration is willing to do whatever it takes to protect access to the abortion drug mifepristone, after a federal judge in Texas suspended the FDA’s approval of the medication on Friday.As my colleague Madison Pauly reported, the ruling could have “potentially explosive implications for the availability of abortion nationwide, regardless of state laws and policies.” In a conflicting ruling the same day, a federal judge in Washington state ruled that the FDA should not make any changes to access to mifepristone, though it remains unclear what the result of the dueling orders will be.
The Department of Justice filed an appeal immediately after the Texas ruling, and is seeking a stay of the judge’s decision that would allow mifepristone to stay on the market. In interviews Sunday morning with MSNBC and CNN, Becerra emphasized an aggressive legal strategy as essential to maintain access to the pill, which has been proven to be a safe […]
