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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.
While the U.S. has a large part of its population that wants and is planning on voting to make the country become a government of fascist authoritarianism, Canada is going in a very different direction and will be ending the sales of petroleum powered vehicles in just over a decade.
Traffic in Vancouver. Credit: Mark Woodbury / Flickr
Canada is reportedly planning to phase out the sale of gas-powered cars by 2035.
Under the rules, to be unveiled Tuesday, electric or hydrogen-powered cars will account for 20 percent of new sales by 2026, 60 percent by 2030, and 100 percent by 2035, the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation and Toronto Starhave learned.
A 2022 government analysis estimated the cost to drivers of such a phaseout, finding that Canadian car owners would pay an additional $24.5 billion over 25 years, largely reflecting the higher cost of EVs and the cost of installing in-home chargers. At the same time, the analysis found, car owners would save $33.9 billion on fuel.
The forthcoming rules mirror similar mandates abroad. China, South Korea, and the U.K. are all planning to phase out gas-powered cars by 2035, as are several U.S. states, including California, New York, and Massachusetts.
The new regulations will apply to automakers, not dealers, and are designed in part to ensure that manufacturers provide a robust supply of electric vehicles to Canadian drivers.
Rachel M. Cohen, Senior Reporter on Social Policy - Vox
Stephan:
Here is another report about Canada. The United States has the worst infant mortality and child care amongst the developed nations of the world. In Canada, again they are going in a very different direction, one that fosters wellbeing. Why is it that all the other developed democratic countries in the world seem to understand the importance of social policies that foster wellbeing, while the United States can’t seem to figure it out? The answer, in my opinion, is that America society has only one social priority greed and profit. We are becoming an historical tragedy.
Children in childcare playing together. Credit: Associated Press
A massive social policy experiment is unfolding in Canada to provide families throughout the country with child care for an average of $10 a day. The plan, which was introduced in 2021 amid the turmoil of the pandemic, aims to spend up to $30 billion Canadian by 2026 to bring down child care costs for parents and to create 250,000 new slots.
The federally backed effort brings Canada’s safety net closer to that of other Western democracies that have stepped up on child care, including Finland, Sweden, France, Germany, and Australia, and it could prove an inspiration to other countries whose systems still lag, like the United States.
Almost three years in, Canadian families are already seeing a significant drop in price, paying hundreds of dollars less for care each month than they were prior to 2021. Canada is making “solid progress in offering more affordable child care,” concluded a think tank report issued in October. Five of Canada’s 13 provinces and territories have already reached the $10-a-day child […]
In contrast to Canada the Republican christofascist House majority want to severely cut back the food stamp program upon which hundreds of thousands of American children depend. So deep in the American population is the desire for fascism that Republican voters routinely vote against their own wellbeing. It appears to be the most important social trend in the United States today.
Christofascist Speaker of the House Mike Johnson (R-LA). Credit: Screengrab
House Republicans’ pursuit of a far-right policy goal that would disproportionately affect millions of their own constituents may end up costing them their razor-thin majority in 2024.
As part of their negotiations for the next farm bill, Republicans are insisting on instituting even stricter work requirements for the approximately 41 million recipients of the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), more commonly referred to as food stamps. However, Politico reports that should they be successful in implementing those new requirements, it would result in potentially millions of people no longer receiving food assistance — particularly residents of six GOP-controlled House districts in which more than 20% of households receive SNAP benefits.
“Starving your own constituents of food assistance is not only bad morals. It’s bad politics,” Rep. Ritchie Torres (D-New York), whose district has the highest percentage of SNAP households in the US, told Politico.
According to Politico, five of those six Republican districts are majority-Hispanic. Three of those districts are in Miami-Dade County, which is […]
Katherine Fidler, Science and Technology Editor - METRO
Stephan:
Don’t think for a moment that the oligarchs who increasingly own and control the United States are unaware of where the country is headed and what climate change will mean. They are, as this article and pictures describe, making appropriate preparations. Meanwhile their christofascist Republican Congressional servants are protecting them from the taxation they should be paying, and in the Eisenhower era would be paying.
Do you think you could ride out the climate change disaster or social collapse in this bedroom? Credit: Terravivos
Mark Zuckerberg is building a 5,000 square-foot doomsday bunker in his sprawling Hawaii compound.
Surprising? Not really.
He’s far from the only billionaire living in fear of what they all call ‘The Event’.
Prepping is big business, and the billionaires aren’t being stingy.
Mr Zuckerberg’s combined bunker and compound is expected to cost a cool combined $270 million.
Peter Thiel, the co-founder of PayPal and controversial libertarian, is still trying to get planning permission for his own bunker-style lodge on New Zealand’s South Island.
Elon Musk’s plans for The Event are unknown – although it’s fair to say his first choice would probably be fleeing to Mars. But with Starship continuing to […]
The current time, in my opinion, is the most difficult period in American history since the Civil War. I recognize that even as I send you and yours my best wishes for a wonderful holiday time, however you celebrate it. Culture is created by individual choice, and if we each commit this coming year to make only choices that foster wellbeing we can change what is happening to the United States which will, in turn, change the rest of the world as other nations respond to our positive change, PLease join me in making that commitment.
Let me also ask you, if you read SR regularly, and do not yet make any contribution to support it, to consider doing so. If you already do contribute something I thank you, your support is very much appreciated. SR has gotten much more expensive to do. Yesterday I got notice that one of the several services to which we subscribe to make SR function properly is going up $46 a month, that’s an additional $552 a year and a total of $1,513.44 for this one service. And that is just one of a list of services to which SR subscribes to keep it safe from hackers, and to get it to you safely. I want to keep doing this, as I have been for what will be the 33rd year in 2024. I have never charged for SR and I permit no ads because I don’t have time to check out whether each of the advertisers who seek to put up ads is a company that fosters wellbeing, and I don’t want to change that. So as we close out the year if you can do something to help, whether it is a single contribution or, even better, a monthly one, I would very much appreciate it.
But let me close by saying once again, I send each of you my best wishes for a wonderful holiday time, and a safe and productive new year.
Stephan A. Schwartz, Columnist - Explore - The Journal of Science and Healing
Stephan:
In the midst of all the negative trends that are so shaping American culture at the moment there is what I consider to be not only an emerging positive trend, but one which is going to fundamentally change our society and all human societies. The matrix of consciousness is beginning to become an essential part of our view of the world It is going to take time but this is where we are headed. That’s good news as we end the year.
Koko The gorilla talking with a human friend about the pussy cat she is holding. Credit: BBC
For most of the Judaea-Christian epoch of history the view of most Western societies was that we, humanity, were separate from the rest of creation and had dominion over the earth, as if it were an exploitable bank account left us by a rich uncle. As the Bible frames it, “And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth.”1 And in a sense we have had dominion and done a very poor job of it, as the impending collapse of the ecosystems of earth, air, and water make clear.
French philosopher Rene´ Descartes in 1637, writing, “Cogito ergo sum. (“I think, therefore I am.”)2 set the tone of science when he said that only people can think; […]
Here is a fascinating example of the new trend I wrote about in the first story. It has implications that will change our culture. Research is beginning to convince scientists that all life from fungi in the soil to whales in the sea have a measure of consciousness. We are beginning to understand that all life is interconnected and interdependent in one matrix of consciousness. I think this is an essential step in transforming our culture from one of greed and profit as the only social priority to a culture that recognizes that fostering wellbeing is the best path for all life.
But scientists claim it’s now possible to have a conversation with a whale, following a 20-minute chat with a humpback whale in Southeast Alaska.
A 38-year-old whale named Twain ‘spoke’ with the researchers from the SETI Institute and UC Davis by responding to a pre-recorded ‘contact call’.
This marks the first communication between humans and whales in their own language, according to the team.
Looking ahead, the researchers say the conversation could pave the way for interactions with aliens in the future.
In the study, researchers from SETI studied how whales communicate in the hopes of developing ‘intelligence filters’ as part of the search for alien life.
The scientists broadcast a type of greeting call called a ‘whup/throp’ through underwater speakers.
When the call was played through the water, Twain approached the boat and responded with a greeting call of her own.
Importantly, the scientists found that Twain was changing the frequency of her own calls in response to the researchers’ broadcast.
However, they also point out that the kind of ‘behavioural synchrony’ exhibited by the […]
I don’t think most Americans understand the nasty stupidity of what amounts to book burnings being carried out by MAGAts, mostly MAGAt women. MAGAt Republicans as a group are lower education individuals, and the oligarchs and Republican leaders who support these people are on board with this censorship because every research study shows that the better educated a man or woman becomes the more likely they will vote for Democrats. What the MAGAt Republicans want are badly educated peasants because such people are more likely to have the resentments, hate, racism, and stupidity that make it easy to manipulate them. These are the Trump voters. Here is the list of 10 of the 673 books no longer available in Orange County, Florida. I found the list quite revealing because except for two books written after I was in school — although I have read them — every book on the list was an assigned title which I read and we studied in English class when I was in school as a boy. You probably read most of them yourself. You should be aware of what this book burning is really about. It is designed to dumb down public school students so they can be indoctrinated into MAGAts.
Credit: Shutterstock
A law often touted by Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis that restricts the kinds of books that can be available in public schools has led teachers in the state’s Orange County to remove hundreds of books from their shelves — including some that are widely considered literary classics.
The Orlando Sentinel has compiled a list of all 673 books pulled from the shelves in the county, and it shows that Florida’s law resulted in the removal of books that go well beyond often-targeted titles such as “Gender Queer” by author Maia Kobabe.
Below are ten pieces of classical literature that you will no longer find in school libraries in Orange County.
1.) Paradise Lost by John Milton.
Although published all the way back in 1667, John Milton’s epic poem about Satan, Adam and Eve is apparently still too risqué for Gov. DeSantis and his allies in the Florida state legislature.
2.) Catch-22 by Joseph Heller.
An epic satire of the American military set during the closing months of World War II.
