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When I began Schwartzreport my purpose was to produce an entirely fact-based daily publication in favor of the earth, the inter-connectedness and interdependence of all life, democracy, equality for all, liberty, and things that are life-affirming. Also, to warn my readers about actions, events, and trends that threaten those values. Our country now stands at a crossroads, indeed, the world stands at a crossroads where those values are very much at risk and it is up to each of us who care about wellbeing to do what we can to defend those principles. I want to thank all of you who have contributed to SR, particularly those of you who have scheduled an ongoing monthly contribution. It makes a big difference and is much appreciated. It is one thing to put in the hours each day and to do the work for free, but another to have to cover the rising out-of-pocket costs. For those of you who haven’t done so, but read SR regularly, I ask that you consider supporting it.
Adam Clark Estes, Senior Technology Correspondent - Vox
Stephan:
Climate havens is another misinformation fallacy, as this articles describes, and Ashville, North Carolina has just demonstrated. Please take the time to do research on what your situation really is. I have just heard from readers in both North Carolina and Florida who have lost their houses and everything in them, and both have discovered that getting insurance is not a trivial undertaking.
The cleanup effort for Hurricane Helene had just begun in North Carolina when Hurricane Milton crashed into Florida as a Category 4 storm on October 9. Credit: Mario Tama/Getty
The term “climate haven” never made much sense. After Hurricane Helene dumped two feet of rain on western North Carolina, manymajormediaoutletsmarveled at how Asheville, which had been celebrated as a climate haven, had been devastated by a climate-related disaster.
Some in the media later reported accurately that climate havens don’t actually exist. But that still raises the question: Where did this climate haven concept even come from?
Well before humans began putting billions of tons of greenhouse gasses into the atmosphere, entire populations would migrate toward better conditions in search of a place with milder weather or more fertile soil or the absence of drought.
Because of its speed and scale, however, human-caused climate change is especially extreme, and everywhere will be impacted by some degree of risk. There is no completely safe haven.
Which is part of how we ended up talking about the idea of climate havens. It’s wishful thinking. […]
I have been warning you for years that if you live in an area that is likely to face a climate change catastrophe you would be well advised to see what your insurance situation is. It is also going to matter how you vote because when Congress comes back after the election you want the Democrats to be in control because they support the best governmental help. Also if you live in Florida I would begin thinking about where you might move. The insurance industry is going to bail on Florida, it has already started, and Helene and Milton are going to accelerate the industry’s withdrawal. Also, large parts of Florida are going to become unlivable.
Hurricane damage as a result of Hurricane Helene. Credit: AP
Hurricane Milton, a monstrous storm set to hit western Florida Wednesday night, is poised to deplete the finances of the government’s chronically indebted flood insurance program. Congress is already bracing for a fight over what to do about it.
Key lawmakers and aides are beginning to game out the likely impact on the National Flood Insurance Program, which is the primary option for millions of American homeowners to protect their finances from catastrophic flooding.
The emerging view from several lawmakers and staffers is that NFIP claims spurred by Milton and last month’s Hurricane Helene will likely exhaust the program’s nearly $5 billion in funds and force it to tap $9.9 billion in Treasury borrowing authority. While the NFIP collects premiums and pays out claims similar to a typical insurer, it’s been upside down financially because of weaknesses in how it assessed flood risks for decades and giant losses brought […]
While the MAGAt Republicans spew endless lies that put millions at risk as Hurricanes Helene and Milton have devasted the lives of Americans, and the carbon industries bribe politicians with tens of millions of dollars to keep us in the carbon energy era, scientists are screaming as loudly as they can that we must end this era. Read this and get clear why you have to vote only for Democrats. They may be far from perfect but they do live in a fact-based reality. To read the BioSccience journal report upon which this article is based see: https://academic.oup.com/bioscience/advance-article/doi/10.1093/biosci/biae087/7808595.
As Hurricane Milton barreled toward Florida’s Gulf Coast, demonstrating the dangers of global warming, international scientists on Tuesday published a terrifying annual analysis that highlights the need to swiftly phase out planet-heating fossil fuels.
“Our aim in the present article is to communicate directly to researchers, policymakers, and the public,” the coalition wrote in BioScience. “As scientists and academics, we feel it is our moral duty and that of our institutions to alert humanity to the growing threats that we face as clearly as possible and to show leadership in addressing them.”
“We are on the brink of an irreversible climate disaster. This is a global emergency beyond any doubt. Much of the very fabric of life on Earth is imperiled. We are stepping into a critical and unpredictable new phase of the climate crisis,” warned the 14 experts from Australia, Brazil, China, Denmark, Germany, Switzerland, the United Kingdom, and the United States.
Their latest edition, “The 2024 State of the Climate Report: Perilous Times on Planet Earth,” shows that 25 of the 35 “planetary vital signs” the team […]
George Barns, PhD, Director of Research - Cultural Research Center - Arizona Christian University
Stephan:
Here is a very careful survey about people who define themselves as Christians, done by researchers who also define themselves as Christians. It describes something unexpected. Christians not voting. This is an aspect of the upcoming election I had not seen previously. Personally, since many of these people are MAGAts, I would be very happy if none of them voted because it would help Democrats Harris and Walz as well as Senators and Representatives to win in November. I am really concerned about this election because it is going to determine how the United States’ federal and state governments deal with the crisis of climate change, gender fairness, a revision of the tax system so the uber-rich pay their fair share, and a restructuring of the Supreme Court to make it once again an honorable institution.
As the final weeks of the 2024 presidential election campaign unfold, it appears that the outcome of the close race between Donald Trump and Kamala Harris will depend on which candidate does a more effective job of getting their supporters to vote. A new national survey by the Cultural Research Center at Arizona Christian University, led by Dr. George Barna, indicates that voting enthusiasm is significantly lower than in 2020, and that a massive number of Christians who regularly attend church services are not likely to vote in November. Christian churchgoing voters have historically supported the more conservative major-party candidate in a presidential race and appear poised to do so again this election cycle—albeit with fewer of them casting a ballot than in the most recent presidential race. The research indicates that as many as 104 million people of faith are unlikely to vote in this upcoming election—and among those, 32 million self-identified Christians who regularly attend church won’t cast their ballots. If that expectation holds true, the impact bodes more poorly for President Trump’s prospects for reelection than for […]
I got an email today from a reader in Estonia, who has only been to the United States once to present at a science conference. He asked me how it is possible in America for politicians and media people to tell lies about the hurricanes that result in people being put at risk of dying? And maybe some did die. How can that be legal? I have thought about this all day because I think that is a very reasonable question. If I told you arsenic was a tasty aperitif and you believed me, prepared to drink it and as you lifted the glass I told you don’t drink it, would I be arrested and prosecuted if you reported that? I am pretty sure I would. So how then is it possible to spread the kind of lies with malicious intent that we are hearing from MAGAt Republicans putting some at great risk, and no one is being held accountable?
Credit: Infowars / The Alex Jones Show / screen grab
Conspiracy theorist Alex Jones accused Vice President Kamala Harris of having the ability to control hurricanes through so-called “weather weapons.”
Jones kicked off his Tuesday broadcast by promising to explain how he knew the government could control the weather.
“I’m going to be covering today, and I’ve sent the crew over 20 clips, and I’ve got over a hundred documents right here,” he explained. “I’m gonna do a big presentation for everybody on what’s really going on with weather weapons.”
Jones claimed to have interviews and government documents that would prove his point.
“Then we have the bold headlines that I put up on X that the Kamala Harris, you know, the Biden-Harris administration is in control of this hurricane,” he said of Hurricane Milton.
“So they have the power certified easily with just five or six big aircraft,” he opined. “And that’s the old technology, not the lasers […]
Live near an old small dam? You better check on its status. As this article describes many of these old dams have not been properly maintained and are likely to break as climate change advances. Large numbers of MAGAt Republicans, both voters and politicians do not believe yet in climate change, and think Helene and Milton were created and aimed at Republican voting areas. The MAGAt Earth II delusions are even stupider than I thought but I want my readers to be as prepared as possible.
A small rural dam in Dunn County, Wisconsin, part of the country’s aging infrastructure Credit: Moment / Getty
SHELDON AUTO Wrecking is a local institution in southwestern Wisconsin’s Vernon County. It’s tucked in a lush valley in Viroqua, Wisconsin, just downstream of a 50-foot earthen dam, locally known as “Maple Dale.”
The salvage yard, which buys used vehicles and farm machinery in this rural area to sell for parts, has been in business for nearly 70 years. For most of those years, the dam — less than a half-mile up the road — has protected its yard of hundreds of old cars and broken-down equipment from frequent and sometimes severe flooding in the area.
The dam “was put in place for a reason,” said owner Greg Sheldon.
But it might soon go away.
Maple Dale is one of thousands of dams constructed by the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Natural Resources Conservation Service, beginning in the mid-20th century, for the purposes of flood control.
Edward Carver, Staff Writer - truthout | Common Dreams
Stephan:
If you or someone you know or some family member is in one of the areas Hurricane Helene impacted, or that Milton is about to impact, pass this along to them. I have not seen much in the media about this and it is, potentially, a very big deal. Toxic water can be very dangerous.
A person bicycles through floodwaters remaining from Hurricane Helene on October 4, 2024, in Swannanoa, North Carolina. Credit: Mario Tama / Getty
Local officials, academic researchers, and volunteer responders have raised concerns about chemical and biological contamination brought by the floodwaters of Hurricane Helene in the southeastern U.S. last week, which potentially threaten the safety not only of drinking water but also the quality of soil — leading experts to call for tighter regulations on stored pollutants.
Helene struck Florida as a Category 4 hurricane on September 26 and swept through a number of states in the days that followed. Most of the damage came from extreme rainfall that triggered flooding. The storm killed at least 232 people.
The biological and chemical threats posed by floodwaters are typically manifold, often containing, for example, e. coli from overflowing sewage systems.
While it’s not yet clear what bacteria or chemicals Helene’s floodwaters may have contained, the storm passed through hundreds of industrial sites with toxic pollutants, including paper […]
Isaac Stanley-Becker, Reporter - Microsoft Start | The Washington Post
Stephan:
While Donald Trump was recommending you inject bleach into your body, and Americans were searching, often unsuccessfully, to find Covid-19 test kits, traitor Trump was sending them secretly to Russia for Putin, as this article describes. Trump is scum, and if you know someone who is going to vote for him, tell them not to come whining to you when he destroys their lives as he will. I just don’t understand how such a man could be put forward as a Presidential candidate, and why he is not in prison.
Traitor Trump and his puppet master Vladimir Putin. Credit: Pablo Martinez Monsivais / AP
As the coronavirus tore through the world in 2020, and the United States and other countries confronted a shortage of tests designed to detect the illness, then-President Donald Trump secretly sent coveted tests to Russian President Vladimir Putin for his personal use.
Putin, petrified of the virus, accepted the supplies but took pains to prevent political fallout — not for him, but for his American counterpart. He cautioned Trump not to reveal that he had dispatched the scarce medical equipment to Moscow, according to a new book by Washington Post associate editor Bob Woodward.
Putin, according to the book, told Trump, “I don’t want you to tell anybody because people will get mad at you, not me.”
Four years later, the personal relationship between the two men appears to have persisted, Woodward reports, as Trump campaigns to return to the White House and Putin orchestrates his bloody assault on Ukraine. In early 2024, the former president ordered an aide […]
