Earth likely just had its hottest day in thousands of years

Stephan: 

In the MAGAt textbook Project 2025 there isn’t a word about preventive programs to reduce what climate change is doing. Quite the contrary. The Trump/Vance position is the Department of the Interior and the Environmental Protection Agency should be curbed significantly or eliminated altogether. I simply do not understand how anyone with an IQ greater than their waist measurement could vote for any part of the MAGAt ticket from city council to President.

On Sunday, Earth saw its warmest day on record globally since at least 1940, according to the Copernicus Climate Change Service in Europe.

Threat level: “We are now in truly uncharted territory and as the climate keeps warming, we are bound to see new records being broken in future months and years,” Copernicus director Carlo Buontempo said.

The big picture: The record, which exceeded the old milestone set last July, came in the middle of the planet’s hottest year yet since at least the pre-industrial era, and likely for at least 100,000 years before that.

  • The past 13 months have been the warmest such period on record, and the oceans have been at record warm levels for 15-straight months.
  • This is especially noteworthy because the planet’s oceans absorb about 90% of the trapped heat from the human-caused buildup of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere.

Zoom in: The new data is preliminary but reliable, according to Copernicus and outside researchers.

Scathing N.Y. Times column warns J.D. Vance and Aileen Cannon are working hand-in-hand

Stephan: 

I try to avoid using The New York Times, or the Washington Post because they are behind a paywall. But this article from Raw Story catches the essence of the NYT piece. I think Aileen Cannon should be removed from the bench. She is one of the worst most biased judges in American history.

Aileen Cannon, one of the worst most biased judges in American history. Credit: Creative Commons

Former President Donald Trump’s allies are working to reshape American law into a weapon to be used against their political enemies, wrote Jesse Wegman in a scathing editorial for The New York Times.

Trump’s pick of Sen. J.D. Vance (R-OH) underscores this, he wrote, because Vance embodies the far-right’s commitment to a key goal of the controversial Project 2025 plan to transform the government into an authoritarian loyalty cult to the GOP.

Vance, wrote Wegman, “predicted … that the former president, who had been recently disgraced by his insurrectionary attempt to overturn the 2020 election, would nevertheless run again in 2024. Should Mr. Trump win, Mr. Vance said, he had some advice: ‘Fire every single midlevel bureaucrat, every civil servant in the administrative state, replace them with our people.’ And if the courts ruled against him? No problem, Mr. Vance said: […]

Read the Full Article

1 Comment

Babies don’t come with instructions. But in Oregon, they now come with a nurse

Stephan: 

Here is some lovely good news. I am so happy to publish this. This is what I mean when I say that good governments create social policies that foster wellbeing.

Barb Ibrahim, left, drove half an hour to visit Amber and Matt Luman and their new daughter, Esserley. Ibrahim, a nurse of more than 30 years, is part of new program in Oregon that offers free home visits from a registered nurse for any family with a newborn. Credit: Cory Turner / NPR

Barb Ibrahim, a nurse of more than 30 years, unpacks in Matt and Amber Luman’s kitchen, in rural Jefferson County, Ore.

Ibrahim pulls a baby scale from a bottomless, black bag she totes everywhere, like Mary Poppins, and weighs the Lumans’ new daughter, Esserley. Sun lights Esserley, naked but for her diaper, as she wriggles on the smooth, white scale.

A tall window in the kitchen reveals a vertiginous view of the Lumans’ backyard: a rocky cliff’s edge dropping into a steep canyon dotted below by wisps of juniper and a smattering of miniature houses and cars.

Ibrahim drove half an hour to check in on Esserley and her parents. She’s part of a new program, slowly rolling out across Oregon, called Family Connects.

The […]

Read the Full Article

1 Comment

Going ‘boy sober’ is about more than celibacy

Stephan: 

I have done several stories on the Incel movement of males. It turns out there is a female counterpart, boy sober. Less angry and resentful than Incel, it is still a generational change getting little attention. As I read this what I took away from it was that the internet and social media have affected American culture in ways that alter how men and women interact and relate to one another. I considered this also in terms of couples marrying later in life, and having fewer children. What I don’t see is much understanding of what is happening.

“Men are feeling like they’re not getting what they deserve and women are literally losing their rights — and everyone’s sort of blaming each other,” Woodard said. Credit:  Joseph Ross / The Washington Post

Let’s talk about not having sex.

Some of our hottest celebs are not doing it. Julia Fox, Lenny Kravitz and Khloé Kardashian have all come out as celibate in the past three months.

Enough women appeared to stop having sex (or at least, stopped seeking it) that in May, the dating app Bumble launched an anti-celibacy ad campaign aimed at them. One billboard read, “Thou shalt not give up on dating and become a nun.” (Due to intense backlash, the campaign was short-lived. Bumble later acknowledged it had made “a mistake.”)

Not even warmer temperatures could shake the chill. In June, New York Magazine proclaimed it “a summer without sex.” The diagnosis: “Women are sick of dating,” Cosmopolitan UK declared.

It’s a season of celibacy — but not everyone is calling it that. Instead, young people are embracing going “boy […]

Read the Full Article

2 Comments

What Would a Harris Presidency Mean for the Climate?

Stephan: 

Criminal Trump and his corrupt partner Vance would gut the U.S. federal government effort to prepare for the climate change that is occuring. What would Kamala Harris do? This seems to me a very important question, indeed a question whose answer should determine for whom you vote. Here is the answer.

After weeks of intense media speculation and sustained pressure from Democratic lawmakers, major donors and senior advisors, President Joe Biden has announced that he is bowing out of the presidential race. He is the first sitting president to step aside so close to Election Day. “I believe it is in the best interest of my party and the country for me to stand down and focus entirely on fulfilling my duties as president for the remainder of my term,” Biden said in a letter on Sunday. 

He endorsed his vice president, Kamala Harris, to take his place. “Today I want to offer my full support and endorsement for Kamala to be the nominee of our party this year,” he said in another statement. Not long after, Harris announced via the Biden campaign that she intends to run for president. “I am honored to have the president’s endorsement and my intention is to earn and win this nomination,” she […]

Read the Full Article

1 Comment

GOP Platform Doesn’t Mention the Word “Climate” Once — Even After the Hottest Year on Record

Stephan: 

In contrast to the previous article on what Harris and the Democrats have in mind about the climate, this is what the Trump-Vance Party has in mind, which is to say nothing helpful. This is a big deal which is not getting enough attention in the media. It is something that should shape the thinking of any American who means the country well.

Visitors walk past a sign reading “Stop Extreme Heat Danger” at Badwater Basin in Death Valley National Park, near Furnace Creek, during a heatwave impacting southern California on July 7, 2024. Credit: Etienne Laurent / AFP / Getty

2023 WAS THE hottest global year on record; data so far suggests that 2024 will match the trend. This week, more than 130 million Americans are under heat alerts, with numerous cases of death and illness being attributed to the sweltering heat. And amid it all, the 2024 Republican platform does not mention the word “climate” once. 

The basic inanity underscores the malign interest driving one of two major American political parties: $300 million of donations to lawmakers from energy and natural resource interest groups (namely, fossil fuel companies) since 1990 — more than double the amount directed to Democrats during that same period.

On Monday, the Republican National Convention announced its platform, which affirmed that the party is wholly Donald Trump’s. “MAKE […]

Read the Full Article

1 Comment