Yet further evidence that eliminating the pollution produced by carbon energy produces dramatic positive health effects. So why aren’t we doing much more of this. Greed of course, because America has become a culture with only one social priority increasing the profits of the oligarchs who control the economy.
“Our analysis adds to the growing body of scientific evidence that policies implemented to regulate and reduce fossil fuel-related air pollution have real public health benefit,” said a study co-author.
Emergency room visits by people suffering heart attacks and strokes significantly decreased almost immediately after one of the largest coal-processing plants in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania shut down in 2016, a study published this week revealed.
The study—published in the journal Environmental Research: Health—found “immediate and/or longer-term cumulative local cardiovascular health benefits” after the January 2016 closure of the Shenango Coke Works on Pittsburgh’s Neville Island following millions of dollars in government fines for polluting the air and water over its 54 years of operation.
Researchers Wuyue Yu and George Thurston observed a 90% drop in sulfur pollution, “as well as significant reductions in coal-related fine particulate matter constituents (sulfate and arsenic) after the closure,” resulting in “a 42% immediate drop… in cardiovascular emergency department visits from the pre-closure mean.”
The study found an even greater long-term reduction in cardiovascular ER visits, which plummeted by 61% […]
ROB CRILLY, Senior U.S. Political Reporter - Daily Mail (U.K.)
Stephan:
First, this is a British newspaper, and this is how they are presenting America to their readers. To people who really lived through the Hitler history we must look pathetic, ignorant, and tragic. Second, this is the state of consciousness in Iowa. These people believe in, follow, and serve, Donald Trump, a man with so many criminal indictments, felonies, and criminal convictions it’s hard to believe he’s just one scumbag. Trump is like a Batman cartoon villain. But even worse than that Iowa Republicans clearly don’t understand that juries made up of ordinary people just like them indicted Trump. Biden and his administration have no vote in the jury room. Nor do the Iowa MAGAts seem to understand it is juries that will convict him. So what that is saying is that a large percentage of Iowans have no idea what democracy is about, or how it works.
Trump was in court again last week but it doesn’t seem to have affected his standing with Republicans in Iowa, who still want him to be their nominee
A majority of Republican voters in Iowa believe the pursuit of former President Donald Trump by the FBI and the Department of Justice smacks of Nazi rule in 1930s Germany, according to a new poll for DailyMail.com.
Some 57 percent of respondents said they agreed with the statement: ‘The lawlessness of the persecutions of President Trump and his supporters is reminiscent of Nazi Germany in the 1930s.’
It comes after months of attacks on the FBI and the Department of Justice by Trump and his allies, who say he is the victim of an attempt to end his presidential campaign.
He was indicted for the third time last week, on four charges related to his efforts to hold on to power after the 2020 election.
He denied all the allegations and his campaign issued a blistering response, drawing on the darkest days of 20th century history.
‘The lawlessness of these persecutions of President Trump and his supporters is […]
The United States already has the worst maternal mortality in the developed world. It is another way women are made second class in America. And mother baby healthcare is getting worse every year. The Wall Street Journal won’t say it, of course, but much of what they describe is due to Republican governance. Red states, particularly in rural areas, are becoming medical deserts for maternal healthcare, and it is reaching a point where a woman will have to go to a Blue state to deliver her baby.
More hospitals are getting out of the baby business.
Last month, Ohio-based University Hospitals said it would halt maternity services in the city of Ashland. OSF HealthCare said its hospital in Pontiac, Ill., would do so in September. Trinity Health plans to stop delivering babies in Troy, N.Y., and Baker City, Ore.
Megan Nelson, an emergency-room nurse for Trinity Health’s St. Alphonsus Medical Center in Baker City, has never delivered a baby. She will soon be responsible for women who arrive in labor and can’t get to the nearest hospital with maternity services, a 45-minute drive away.
“It’s a scary prospect,” said Nelson, a member of the Oregon Nurses Association.
Hospitals that are closing maternity units said they can’t recruit enough staff to safely operate. Hospitals with fewer births are less attractive to doctors and nurses, executives said. Births at OSF HealthCare St. […]
Brett Murphy and Alex Mierjeski, Staff Writers - ProPublica
Stephan:
Clarence Thomas, one of the christofascist cabal of six justices of the Supreme Court who tell the rest of us how to live and what our rights are, to me has become the living personification of what has happened to American governance. He and his wife are so corrupt they have become cartoons. And yet nothing has been done in any way to hold them accountable, and I don’t think anything will be done unless the Democrats take control of both houses of Congress.
Credit: Alex Bandoni / ProPublica. Source Images: mikroman6 and Bloomberg / Getty
The fullest accounting yet shows how Thomas has secretly reaped the benefits from a network of wealthy and well-connected patrons that is far more extensive than previously understood.
During his three decades on the Supreme Court, Clarence Thomas has enjoyed steady access to a lifestyle most Americans can only imagine. A cadre of industry titans and ultrawealthy executives have treated him to far-flung vacations aboard their yachts, ushered him into the premium suites at sporting events and sent their private jets to fetch him — including, on more than one occasion, an entire 737. It’s a stream of luxury that is both more extensive and from a wider circle than has been previously understood.
Like clockwork, Thomas’ leisure activities have been underwritten by benefactors who share the ideology that drives his jurisprudence. Their gifts include:
Fact-based, independent journalism is needed now more than ever.Donate
At least 38 destination vacations, including a previously unreported voyage on a yacht around the Bahamas; 26 private jet flights, plus […]
Paul Krugman, Nobel Laureate, Distinguished Professor of Economics at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York, Columnist - The New York Times
Stephan:
Paul Krugman has one of the best records for predicting trends of any public voice. I have learned to have enormous respect for his views because he is right so often. And, in this case, he mirrors my own thinking. Climate has become part of the intellectual sickness of the Republican Party and its voters. They see it as a culture war not a factual reality, and they are doing everything they can, as Krugman describes, to sabotage the Democrat’s efforts to prepare American society for what is coming, and to remediate with new wellbeing fostering laws, wherever they can. If the Republicans wins in 2024, misery, suffering, and death will be the voters’ reward.
Credit: Amanda Andrade-Rhoades / Reuters
Understanding climate denial used to seem easy: It was all about greed. Delve into the background of a researcher challenging the scientific consensus, a think tank trying to block climate action or a politician pronouncing climate change a hoax and you would almost always find major financial backing from the fossil fuel industry.
Those were simpler, more innocent times, and I miss them.
True, greed is still a major factor in anti-environmentalism. But climate denial has also become a front in the culture wars, with right-wingers rejecting the science in part because they dislike science in general and opposing action against emissions out of visceral opposition to anything liberals support.
And this cultural dimension of climate arguments has emerged at the worst possible moment — a moment when both the extreme danger from unchecked emissions and the path toward slashing those emissions are clearer than ever.
Some background: Scientists who began warning decades ago that the rising concentration of greenhouse gases in Earth’s atmosphere would have dangerous effects on […]
