Here is some excellent good news. In spite of the corrupting power of the carbon corporations coal is a dying industry. Bravo, say I.
Newly installed solar panels at the construction site of a new solar energy park next to a field of wind turbines, near Prenzlau, Germany on April 6, 2023. Credit: Sean Gallup / Getty
Solar and wind power generation has set a new record, with more power generated from those renewables than coal for the first five months of 2023, according to Energy Information Administration (EIA) data, as CBS News reported.
It’s the first time solar and wind production has surpassed coal for five months straight, industry publication E&E News said.
“From a production-cost perspective, renewables are the cheapest thing to use — wind and solar. So, we’re going to see more and more of these records,” said Ram Rajagopal, a professor of civil and environmental engineering at Stanford University, as reported by CBS News.
EIA data showed solar and wind out-producing coal for the first three months of the year, but the numbers for April and May are only preliminary, according to EIA spokesperson Chris Higginbotham.
“Our official estimates from the Electric Power Monthly show that combined electricity generation from wind and solar exceeded generation […]
Let’s be very clear. In the United States, particularly for the MAGAt Republican Party, carbon energy profits are far more important than the health and wellbeing of American citizens, particularly if you happen to be a person of color. The evidence for this is absolute and irrefutable. American style capitalism which places profit above any other consideration is literally killing tens of thousands of the people in this country every year.
When Joe Biden was running for president, he made environmental justice a cornerstone of his campaign. After he was elected, he honored his pledge by making environmental justice part of everything his administration does. But what is it, exactly? Every discussion begins by defining its terms. For that, let’s turn to Wikipedia:
Environmental justice is a social movement to address Environmental injustice, which is the exposure of poor and marginalized communities to harm from hazardous waste, resource extraction, and other land uses from which they do not receive benefits. The movement has generated hundreds of studies showing that exposure to environmental harm is inequitably distributed. Environmental justice is the fair treatment and meaningful involvement of all people regardless of race, color, national origin, or income, with respect to the development, implementation, and enforcement of environmental laws, regulations, and policies.
Environmental justice is typically defined as distributive justice, which is the equitable distribution of environmental risks and benefits. Some definitions address procedural justice, which is the fair and meaningful participation in decision-making. Other scholars emphasize recognition justice, which is the […]
LAURIE KELLMAN, REBECCA SANTANA and DAVID KOENIG, Reporters - Associated Press
Stephan:
When I came back from India I noticed my passport was about to expire and tried to update it. Thus began a saga still going on. If you plan to travel outside the country check your passport. Things could get very complicated for your plans as this article describes.
Credit: Eileen Putman / AP Photo
WASHINGTON, D.C. — Seeking a valid U.S. passport for that 2023 trip? Buckle up, wishful traveler, for a very different journey before you step anywhere near an airport.
A much-feared backup of U.S passport applications has smashed into a wall of government bureaucracy as worldwide travel rebounds toward record pre-pandemic levels — with too few humans to handle the load. The result, say aspiring travelers in the U.S. and around the world, is a maddening pre-travel purgatory defined, at best, by costly uncertainty.
With family dreams and big money on the line, passport seekers describe a slow-motion agony of waiting, worrying, holding the line, refreshing the screen, complaining to Congress, paying extra fees and following incorrect directions. Some applicants are buying additional plane tickets to snag in-process passports where they sit — in other cities — in time to make the flights they booked in the first place.
So grim is the outlook that U.S. officials aren’t even denying the problem or predicting when it will ease. They’re […]
Republican Christofascist Texas Governor Gregg Abbott and the state’s Republican legislature obsessed with guns, have made it possible for anyone with no training or licensing to walk around Texas carrying a concealed weapon. No question, the Republicans place guns above the wellbeing of the people of Texas. And what has happened as a result? Here is the blood stained answer. Death. Much more death, death caused by haters, as this article describes. And this same trend is going in all the Red states. The result? Since the first of January this year, according to the gun archive, 21,684 people have died from being shot. As of 3 July (the numbers go up every day so I have to give the date) there have been 339 mass shootings. What is even worse these shootings have killed or injured, 476 children from one to eleven years of age. In France there have been riots involving tens of thousands of demonstrators because one teenager was shot by one cop. Why, I wonder, are there no such demonstrations in the United States where 527 people have been shot and killed by police in 2023? As you can see in tourist advisories America’s gun madness is warning tourists to stay away.
Newly released data collected from the Texas Department of Public Safety (DPS) show that hate crimes in Texas increased by 6.4 percent from 2021 to 2022, marking the sixth year in a row the state has seen an increase in hate crimes—and setting a new record. The data show that Texas reached a new peak of at least 549 documented hate crimes across the state, with over 56 percent of hate crimes in 2022 targeting LGTBQ+ and Black people.
Hate crimes tracked by DPS are defined as crimes “motivated by prejudice, hatred, or advocacy of violence including, but not limited to, incidents for which statistics are or were kept under the Federal Hate Crimes Statistics Act.” An analysis of the DPS hate crime data by the Texas Observer shows that anti-LGTBQ+ hate crimes not only are the most numerous but also occur at a shockingly disproportionate rate. Anti-LGTBQ+ hate crimes occurred at the highest rate of any group, 4.7 times the rate of all hate crimes in the state. Anti-Jewish hate crimes occurred at the second-highest rate, occurring at […]
The corrupt whoring of the American Congress, particularly the Republicans, has transformed the institution into exactly what the Founders feared. It does not foster the wellbeing of the people, instead it is obeisant to its owners the oligarchs and the corporations they control. Here is an example of exactly what I mean.
MAGAt Republicans Representatives Jason Smith (R-Mo.) and Andy Barr (R-Ky.) are seen outside a House Republican Conference meeting in the U.S. Capitol on January 10, 2023. Credit: Tom Williams / CQ-Roll Call / Getty
Congressional Republicans are working to extend tax breaks that have allowed dozens of major U.S. corporations—including Amazon, Google, and Verizon—to collectively save $67 billion since they were expanded in 2018, according to an analysis published late last week.
The Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy (ITEP) found that the Trump-GOP tax law’s “bonus depreciation” provisions, which allow companies to write off the full cost of equipment the same year it’s purchased rather than over time, helped 25 major U.S. companies pay “an effective federal corporate tax rate of just 12.2% since 2018—far below the statutory rate of 21%.”
“Some corporations have used accelerated depreciation to drive their effective tax rates down to single digits,” noted ITEP’s Steve Wamhoff, Matthew Gardner, and Spandan Marasini. “These include Verizon, Amazon, Walt Disney, Con Edison, General Motors, Dish Network, and others.”
