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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.
America as a national society does not value or care about its children. Oh sure, individual families love their kids, but as a society we are a humiliating disaster. Am I exaggerating? What are the facts? Try this. The main cause of death for children is a bullet in their bodies, and the Republican cult and right-wing Democrats consistently block decent child care and child family support, as this article describes. We desperately need to completely restructure our policies and culture to make wellbeing the culture’s top priority. Right now it is not.
A sign in St. Paul, Minnesota advertising for bus drivers and bring your child to work with you. Credit: Michael Siluk / UCG / Universal Images Group / Getty
“If we can afford to spend over $1 trillion on tax breaks for the top 1% and large corporations making record-breaking profits, we can afford to provide working class families with the childcare they desperately need.”
A survey of early childhood educators and caregivers released Sunday shows the post-pandemic collapse of federal funding is fueling a national crisis for young children and their families as centers suffer and out-of-pocket costs soar.
The findings of the survey—titled “We Are NOT OK” and put out by the National Association for the Education of Young Children (NAEYC)—resulted from questions posed to over 10,000 professionals in the early childhood education sector.
Of those polled, more than 50% reported staffing shortages in the various kinds of centers they own or operate, including faith-based programs, family child care homes, Head Start facilities, and childcare centers. Those shortages, according to respondents, stem in […]
Paul Krugman, Nobel Laureate, Distinguished Professor at the City University of New York Graduate Center, and Columnist - The New York Times
Stephan:
As usual, Paul Krugman has done an essay on a trend that is getting almost no attention from corporate media, electronic or print. If you watch or listen to interviews with White rural men and women, particularly middle-aged or older, but young as well, you hear the points Krugman is making. Rural America is coming unglued and is resentful, angry, and feeling victimized. Krugman says he has no suggestions as to how to solve the rural crisis. I do. Create public governance at every level that makes fostering wellbeing its first priority. Other countries have done it, why can’t we? Because we are a culture of greed.
Credit: Gregory Halpern. / Magnum Photos
Will technological progress lead to mass unemployment? People have been asking that question for two centuries, and the actual answer has always ended up being no. Technology eliminates some jobs, but it has always generated enough new jobs to offset these losses, and there’s every reason to believe that it will continue to do so for the foreseeable future.
But progress isn’t painless. Business types and some economists may talk glowingly about the virtues of creative destruction, but the process can be devastating economically and socially for those who find themselves on the destruction side of the equation. This is especially true when technological change undermines not just individual workers but whole communities.
This isn’t a hypothetical proposition. It’s a big part of what has happened to rural America.
Here is some good news about Europe. While the Republican cult in the American Congress blocks laws and regulations that might reduce the profits of the carbon industries that rent them. Europe is leaving the carbon era behind, while Republicans are protecting its continuance and trying to dismantle our democracy.
Herrenhausen Power Plant, a gas-fired power station in Hanover, Germany. Credit: Christian A. Schroder
In the two years since Russia launched its invasion of Ukraine, European demand for natural gas has dropped by 20 percent.
European gas demand is now at its lowest point in a decade, according to the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis, as Germany, Italy, and other countries ramp up renewable power and cut energy use to cope with a shrinking supply of Russian gas. Last year, pipeline imports from Russia dropped in half, as Europe, for the first time, drew more power from wind than from natural gas.
To help disentangle itself from Russia, Europe has also begun building new terminals to import liquefied natural gas from overseas, though falling demand may render much of this new infrastructure unnecessary, analysts say. Eight import terminals have come online since Russia invaded Ukraine, and another 13 are expected to enter into service by 2030, but demand for liquefied natural gas is set to peak next year.
“In the last two years, Europe has transformed its energy system,” said […]
Here is some good news about the U.S. In spite of what the Republican cult is doing to protect the carbon industries, private citizens see the business opportunities are pushing a conversion. We are making progress despite our politics.
Solar panel installation at the Gemini solar project in Las Vegas, Nevada on Jan. 23, 2023. Brian van der Brug / Los Angeles Times via Getty Images
According to a recent analysis by the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA), solar and battery storage is expected to dominate new electricity generation capacity for this year.
In 2024, there are currently plans to add 62.8 gigawatts of utility-scale electric generating capacity, about 55% higher than the 40.4 gigawatts of capacity added last year.
New solar electric generating capacity is predicted to make up most of the share of new capacity added in 2024 at around 58%, and battery storage is expected to make up about 23%, according to EIA’s Preliminary Monthly Electric Generator Inventory.
Solar growth could nearly double last year’s numbers, reaching an added 36.4 gigawatts of new utility-scale electric generating capacity in 2024 compared to the 18.4 gigawatts of solar electric generating capacity added in 2023. Initially, there were 29.1 gigawatts of planned solar development for 2023. Solar had been on the rise from 2010 to 2021, but […]
You remember, I assume, the horrible fires in 2020 that did such damage to the redwood forest in California, trees as much as 1,500 years old were thought to be lost. If you have ever been in the Big Basin Redwoods State Park you know what I have experienced several times; you are in a sacred place of nature unlike anywhere else on earth. Well, here is some wonderful good news. The redwoods are coming back.
It was feared the redwoods would never recover, but many of the trees began sprouting tiny leaf needles from blackened trunks. Credit: Edgar/Alamy
In August 2020, wildfire burned almost the entire Big Basin Redwoods state park in California, scorching ancient redwood trees, some dating back more than 1,500 years and among the tallest living things on Earth.
Redwoods are naturally fire resistant thanks to their thick bark, but the wildfire was so intense and flames so high the trees’ foliage was destroyed, even in tree canopies more than 300ft high.
It was feared the redwoods would never recover, but a few months later something incredible happened – many of the trees began sprouting tiny leaf needles from blackened trunks and branches, and two years later the forest had turned green.
Much of this fresh growth sprouted from buds under the bark and also deep inside the trees, some buds having lain dormant for more than 1,000 years.
Here is some good news about blocking the ability of utility companies to use your money to lobby state and federal legislators to protect their corporate profits. The states are Arizona, California, Illinois, Maryland, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Utah, and Virginia. What I consider particularly good news in this report is that both Red and Bue states are on this list.
Credit: Patrick Semansky / AP
When households in the United States pay their gas and electric bills, they’re paying for energy, the wires and pipelines it takes to get that energy into their home, and the costs of maintaining that infrastructure. But those monthly payments could also be funding efforts by utilities to lobby against climate policies.
While federal law prohibits utilities from recovering lobbying expenses from customers, consumer advocates say that those rules lack teeth and aren’t sufficiently enforced. Now, states are taking the lead to ban the practice. According to the utility watchdog group Energy and Policy Institute, lawmakers in eight states, including California and Maryland, have introduced bills this year that would block utilities from charging customers for the costs of lobbying, advertising, trade association dues, and other political activities. The measures build on a growing trend in state policy: Last year, Colorado, Connecticut, and Maine became the first states in the nation to pass comprehensive laws preventing utilities from passing on the costs of […]
Derek Thompson , Contributing Writer - The Atlantic Magazine
Stephan:
The Americans who need chaos is the title of this article, and I chose it because finally I am beginning to see open discussion in the media about what is happening to our culture, as about a third of the Whites, particularly men, but women as well, have given themselves over to hate, resentment, anger, and fear fueled by misinformation. This is all correlated with the rise of social media and the MAGAt propaganda media. When I was a journalist you had to be able to demonstrate to your editor that your story was factually accurate, and the same was true of television media. In 1989 when I produced Psychic Detectives as a prime-time special for ABC, the vice president of the network for standards and practices demanded that we also produce over 2,000 pages of documentation on every statement we made in the special, and would only accept sworn testimony, on-camera interviews with relevant police and prosecutors, and court documents. That world has disappeared as the CPAC show I watched today made clear to me.
Illustration by The Atlantic
Several years ago, the political scientist Michael Bang Petersen, who is based in Denmark, wanted to understand why people share conspiracy theories on the Internet. He and other researchers designed a study that involved showing American participants blatantly false stories about Democratic and Republican politicians, such as Bernie Sanders, Ted Cruz, Hillary Clinton, and Donald Trump. The subjects were asked: Would you share these stories online?
The results seemed to defy the logic of modern politics or polarization. “There were many people who seemed willing to share any conspiracy theory, regardless of the party it hurt,” Petersen told me. These participants didn’t seem like stable partisans of the left or right. They weren’t even negative partisans, who hated one side without feeling allegiance to the other. Above all, they seemed drawn to stories that undermined trust in every system of power.
Petersen felt as though he’d tapped a new vein of nihilism in modern politics—a desire to rip down the Elites, whatever that might mean. He wanted to know more about what these people […]
I spent part of the afternoon watching the CPAC meeting. I don’t think I have ever heard a public political meeting like this that was essentially nothing but lies designed to provoke the audience into resentment, anger, and fear. Rapist criminal Trump has changed American culture into something I barely recognize, and you may feel the same. This is a good article, which is why I picked it, because it addresses both the problem and the solution.
Encouraging speaking up is important in many contexts, but more vocal people online means more opportunity for conflict. Credit: Shutterstock
“Outrage culture” is pervasive in the digital age. It refers to our collective tendency to react, often with intense negativity, to developments around us.
Usually, this ire is directed at perceived transgressions. The internet wasted no time in raging at Taylor Swift when she received Album of The Year at the Grammys, seemingly frustrated by her lack of acknowledgment of Celine Dion, who presented the award.
Whether or not Swift’s behavior could be considered rude isn’t the point. The point is the backlash arguably wasn’t proportionate to the crime. This so-called “snub” incident is, therefore, a good example of how quickly and easily people will jump on the online hate train.
Modern outrage culture, which is also known as call-out culture and is linked to cancel culture, often devolves into a toxic spiral. People wanting clout compete to produce the meanest and most over-the-top commentary, stifling open dialogue and demonizing those who make mistakes.
