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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.
If you have been paying even the slightest attention, you must realize by now that we, in the United States, don’t live in the same country we did four months ago. We live in a country now ruled by a psychopath who is owned and funded by oligarchs, one of whom is dismantling 250 years of democracy and destroying the economy for ordinary people to the benefit of the uber-rich. Under this structure, America is going to do nothing to prepare for the crisis of climate change. What I don’t understand is that the oligarchs don’t seem to understand that the disruption of the balance of the matrix of life on Earth is going to counteract all of what they are planning.
President Donald Trump’s administration is ratcheting up pressure on groups that received $20 billion from a Biden-era climate initiative. Credit Alex Brandon / AP
The Trump administration has directed nonprofits involved in a $20 billion Biden-era climate initiative to turn over records to the FBI and appear in federal court later this month, according to two people who were granted anonymity for fear of reprisal.
The move marks an escalation in the administration’s effort to claw back the climate money following its assertions that the Environmental Protection Agency had sought to evade oversight by depositing the $20 billion in Citibank accounts in the waning days of President Joe Biden’s term.
The fight is part of a larger power struggle kicked off by President Donald Trump’s attempts to unravel his predecessor’s spending decisions — even when that runs afoul of the actions of previous Congresses and funding that agencies have contractually obligated.
At least two groups that had been awarded shares of the funding through EPA’s Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund […]
Greed is so powerful that it trumps rational thought. Anyone with an IQ larger than their belt size should know that climate change is altering all aspects of the matrix of life on Earth. Yet the carbon energy oligarchs don’t seem to care that they are the source of the problem and will live with the consequences as much as the poor. Their multi-million dollar sanctuary bunkers will not protect them from the coming catastrophe, as they seem to think.
Last week, British Petroleum announced that it was slashing more than $5 billion in planned green energy investments. It was a marked departure from the early 2000s, when the oil giant branded itself as “beyond petroleum,” and even 2020, when the company targeted a 20-fold increase in its renewables portfolio.
“Today, we have fundamentally reset BP’s strategy,” said BP’s CEO, Murray Auchincloss, as part of the most recent announcement. “This is a reset BP, with an unwavering focus on growing long-term shareholder value.”
BP isn’t the only oil giant rolling back its climate commitments. Shell and Norway’s state-controlled Equinor have also made similar moves recently. But, while the news has caught headlines, experts say that the moves will have little impact on the larger renewables industry — and that, from a climate perspective, the companies’ proposed increase in fossil fuel production is much more alarming.
I have been telling you for years now something that is very rarely covered by media. Americans have shorter life spans than people in other developed democracies (see SR archive). But the most recent data makes this reality even more grotesque. It shows a linkage between wealth and lifespan, as Senator Bernie Sanders is warning. And beneath that there is a second correlation, that even Sanders does not mention. Working class MAGAt Americans have the shortest lifespan of all.
U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) speaks during a press conference with other Senate Democrats on President [Donald] Trump’s proposal to eliminate the Department of Education, in Washington, D.C. on March 6, 2025. Credit: Nathan Posner/Anadolu / Getty
People living in the top 1% of U.S. counties ranked by median household income live on average seven years longer than their counterparts in the bottom 50% of counties, according to a Friday report from Sen. Bernie Sanders, an Independent representing Vermont and the ranking member of the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions.
“The massive income and wealth inequality that exists in America today is not just an economic issue, it is literally a matter of life and death,” said Sanders in a Friday statement announcing the report.
What’s more, the stress of living paycheck to paycheck “also leads to higher levels of anxiety, depression, cardiovascular disease and poor health,” Sanders argued, in a nod to some of the survey responses included in the analysis.
Michael Riojas, Reporter and Editorial Assistant - Eco Watch
Stephan:
Climate change is going to drastically change agriculture, and that is going to cause enormous migrations both internally and internationally. This will, in turn, massively disrupt nations across Earth. And this crisis is coming very quickly. By 2040 humanity will be in crisis.
With global average temperatures expected to continue to rise in the coming decades, scientists have projected that warming will significantly harm global agriculture as it weakens crop yields and disrupts food production. Now, new research finds that warming will disrupt many of Earth’s major crops and harm global crop diversity.
The study, conducted by researchers at Aalto University in Finland and published in the journal Nature Food, analyzed 30 of the world’s most important crops and modeled how climate change is likely to affect their safe climatic space under different potential global warming scenarios.
The researchers found that crops growing at lower latitudes, or closer to the equator, will be hardest hit as those areas continue to get hotter and more arid.
Speaking about global crop diversity, Matti Kummu, the senior author who oversaw the study, said diversity will only decline as temperatures rise.
“If we go beyond two degrees of warming,” he told EcoWatch on a video call, “there are really, really drastic impacts on both the diversity and the available crops, especially in the tropics and equatorial region, where it’s already very vulnerable.”
Here are some interesting comments from 25 members, both Democrat and Republican about what they think of serving in Congress. I found it rather sad and disappointing.
Illustration by Jade Cuevas/Politico (source images via AP, Getty Images and iStock)
This article was compiled from interviews conducted by Ben Jacobs, Jasper Goodman, Jordain Carney, Jennifer Scholtes, Hailey Fuchs, Emma Dumain, Lisa Kashinsky,Connor O’Brien, Holly Otterbein, Adam Wren, Daniella Diaz and Nicholas Wu. Juan Benn Jr. contributed to this report.
It’s hard to find an institution the public loathes more than Congress. But guess what? Many of the people in Congress aren’t so happy with it either.
To get an inside look at what it’s like to serve on Capitol Hill — after years of gridlock, government shutdowns and now another Donald Trump stampede through Washington — we sat down with 25 lawmakers who were ready to dish.
We talked about what they hate and love about Congress, why it’s broken and how to fix it (one suggestion: bring back the powdered wigs). They also told us what would really shock the public if they knew the truth about life as […]
If you live in Michigan, Minnesota, and New York expect your electric bill to go up significantly, because much of your electricity comes from Canada, and Ontario is now responding to the Trump tariffs. But as bad as that is, I think what criminal Trump is doing is far worse than anyone in media is really talking about. I have gotten three emails today from Canadian SR readers telling me that they will not be coming into the United States for any reason, and will not buy anything made in America; and they and their friends and family think Trump is a “madman and a traitor to the partnership that has existed between the U.S. and Canada for centuries.” I agree with them.
Ontario threatens 25% surcharge on energy exported to Michigan, Minnesota, New York Credit: CBS News
Ontario Premier Doug Ford said three states would face tariffs on electricity after a week of President Trump’s swipes at Canada with fluctuating trade policies.
“I love Americans. It’s been 20 years of my life. But in saying that, no, we’re going to put a 25 percent tariff on electricity coming from Ontario to Michigan, New York and Minnesota,” Ford said during a Thursday appearance on Fox Business Network’s “The Claman Countdown.”
The leader said new tariffs are scheduled to be implemented Monday in an effort to push back on Trump’s international economic measures.
“And isn’t this a shame? It’s an absolute mess. He’s created chaos. He ran on a mandate. The lower cost, lower inflation, create more jobs. It’s the total opposite,” Ford said.
“You know, people are going to be losing their jobs in the U.S. and in Canada, and inflation is happening already,” he added.
As the world watches, “king” Trump is not only destroying our democracy and our economy, he also destroying the reputation of the United States as a trustworthy ally by aligning us with dictators and against NATO. By his actions against Ukraine, this monster is effectively killing hundreds, perhaps thousands, of Ukrainians. I think it is very clear that Putin has something he is holding over Trump’s head that Trump is terrified he will reveal. I suspect it is a really embarrassing sex video, but whatever it is, this one man, aided by the MAGAt flying monkeys that serve him in Congress, is changing the fundamental nature of the country. I hope all you Republican voters are happy with what you created.
Credit: Brian Snyder / Reuters
A book festival in Vilnius, meetings with friends in Warsaw, a dinner in Berlin: I happened to be at gatherings in three European cities over the past several days, and everywhere I went, everyone wanted to talk about the Oval Office performance last Friday. Europeans needed some time to process this event, not just because of what it told them about the war in Ukraine, but because of what it told them about America, a country they thought they knew well.
In just a few minutes, the behavior of Donald Trump and J. D. Vance created a brand-new stereotype for America: not the quiet American, not the ugly American, but the brutal American. Whatever illusions Europeans ever had about Americans—whatever images lingered from old American movies, the ones where the good guys win, the bad guys lose, and honor defeats treachery—those are shattered. Whatever fond memories remain of the smiling GIs who marched into European cities in 1945, of the speeches that John F. Kennedy and Ronald Reagan made at the Berlin Wall, or of […]
Americans still don’t get it. They still don’t properly understand what “king” Trump, his Frankenstein Musk, and his flying monkeys in Congress are doing to their lives. The U.S. economy is headed for a recession, prices are going up not down, the nation’s reputation in the world is in the garbage; and if you need medical attention, you may not be able to get it, you may not recover, in fact, you may not survive.
President Donald Trump‘s approval rating currently stands at 48 percent, according to an average calculated by Newsweek, while his disapproval rating also sits at 48 percent.
Why It Matters
Trump’s approval rating is one key indicator of his political strength as he navigates his second term and prepares for future policy battles. A shift in his numbers could influence support from Republican lawmakers, impact his ability to push through his agenda and shape the political landscape heading into the midterm election cycle.
What To Know
According to Newsweek‘s average of the 10 of the most recent numbers from top polls, Trump has a 48 percent approval rating and a 48 percent disapproval rating.
The numbers suggest voters are divided over whether they approve of the job Trump is currently doing, with only marginal differences between his approval and disapproval ratings.
Trump’s highest approval rating over the past 10 days came in two polls conducted by Rasmussen Reports from February 26 to March 4 and CBS News from February 26 to February 28, with 51 percent of respondents approving of the president. In that Rasmussen poll, which […]
