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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.
Dharna Noor, Fossil Fuels and Climate Reporter - The Guardian (U.K.)
Stephan:
The corporations that are destroying Earth’s ecosystems are trying to corrupt university science departments the same way they have corrupted U.S. politics. I find it weird actually. Many of these corporate scum seem to think they are not going to be affected by the damage they are doing to our world. Making their short-term profit seems to be the only thing they care about.
BP funneled more than $2m to Princeton’s Carbon Mitigation Initiative between 2012 and 2017, new research has found. Composite: Bloomberg / Getty / the Guardian
Fossil fuel companies’ funding of universities’ climate-focused efforts is delaying the green transition, according to the most extensive peer-reviewed study to date of the industry’s influence on academia.
For the study, published in the journal WIREs Climate Changeon Thursday, six researchers pored over thousands of academic articles on industries’ funding of research from the past two decades. Just a handful of them focused on oil and gas companies, showing a “worrying lack of attention” to the issue, the analysis says.
But even that small body of research shows a pattern of industry influence: “The academic integrity of higher education is at risk,” they write.
During the past two decades, non-profits, campus organizers and a small group of scholars have sounded the alarm about oil companies’ influence in academia, drawing parallels to tobacco, pharmaceuticals and food producers who have also funded scholarship.
In the new study, researchers found that out of roughly 14,000 peer-reviewed articles about conflicts of interest, bias and research funding […]
Harris, a Democrat who is currently serving as vice president under Joe Biden, is part of a government that has passed the most ambitious climate legislation in US history.
US fossil-fuel production has surged during the Biden administration. However, the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) has set the nation on a course to slash its domestic emissions by offering billions of dollars in subsidies and tax credits for clean energy and electric vehicles.
Trump, the Republican candidate, is a climate sceptic who rolled back many environmental regulations during his 2017-2021 presidential term. He has dismissed climate policies as a “scam”, pulled the US out of the Paris Agreement and called for yet more oil production by repeating the mantra […]
Here is some good news about transitioning out of the carbon era. It is from Democrats, of course, the MAGAt Republicans don’t even mention climate change in their Project 2025 book. Traitor Trump never mentions doing anything to promote the transition. so it you want to prepare for climate change the only choice is voting for Democrats.
Webb Farm Solar Systems Inc. in Humboldt, Tennessee received assistance from the USDA to purchase and install a solar array, seen on April 4, 2024. Credit: U.S. Department of Agriculture
On a visit to Wisconsin Thursday, President Joe Biden announced $7.3 billion in financing for 16 rural clean energy projects to be directed by rural electric cooperatives through the Empowering Rural America (New ERA) program.
The combination of New ERA and other Inflation Reduction Act-funded rural green energy projects comprise the biggest rural electrification investment since the 1936 Rural Electrification Act, signed by President Franklin D. Roosevelt as part of the New Deal, a press release from the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) said.
“The Inflation Reduction Act makes the largest investment in rural electrification since FDR and the New Deal in the 1930s,” said John Podesta, President Joe Biden’s senior advisor for international climate policy, in the press release. “Today’s awards will bring clean, affordable, reliable power to rural Americans all across our nation.”
This is some good news about home energy. It is the latest development in wind power and it looks very interesting. The cost to set it up is about $5,500. We can’t do solar here, because it is too cloudy in the winter, but this might work and I am going to look into it. You might too.
Credits: newatlas.com
Self-consumption has traditionally been linked to solar panels, with power output skyrocketing across the country. However, a team of engineers has just turned this trend on its head and shown that there are even more viable options. Not enough hours of sunshine in your city? Not enough space in your backyard? Don’t worry, this is the first silent wind turbine that will revolutionize the way you produce clean, free electricity with skyrocketing efficiency.
Have you thought about installing solar panels? Now, you have a better option at home
Liam F1 wind turbine, that was recently unveiled into the market by the Dutch Archimedes company, is a new generation wind energy innovation developed by a startup company. And this type of turbine is intended to be nearly noiseless, highly efficient and compatible with the cityscapes.
Taking its cue from the nautilus shell with its fronds resembling the golden ratio in shape, the Liam F1 represents a fresh design concept for wind turbines that addresses the challenges of the traditional systems. The type of […]
Jason Stanley, Jacob Urowsky Professor of Philosophy at Yale University - The Guardian (U.K.)
Stephan:
Here is some good international news about citizens pushing back against fascist governments. But I picked this story because it also makes a second point explaining why fascists, in the U.S. the MAGAt Republican Party, don’t like citizens to be educated. This is why the MAGAts in Congress have blocked the Biden – Harris attempt to forgive student college debt. If you know someone in college or about to go to college I urge you to look at this week’s SR podcast Some Good News About Student Debt because there have been some very good news developments that I cover.
‘Hungary’s autocratic prime minister, Viktor Orbán, started a political campaign with an attack on Central European University in Budapest.’ Credit: Ludovic Marin/AFP/Getty
In Bangladesh, something remarkable has happened. Initially in response to a quota system that reserved the majority of government jobs for specific groups, university students initiated large-scale non-violent protests. Bangladesh’s increasingly autocratic prime minister, Sheikh Hasina, responded essentially with “let them eat cake.” Instead of calming the protests down, Hasina’s response made the protests grow nationwide.
In mid-July, the government responded with extreme violence, with police gunning down hundreds of students and shutting down the internet across the country. Scenes of extreme police brutality flooded social media. By the end of July, the protests had grown into a nationwide pro-democracy movement. Eventually, the military joined the students, and Hasina fled the country. A nationwide student-led democracy movement successfully challenged a violent autocratic leader, and, at least for now, appears to have won.
Bangladesh’s non-violent student movement has not gone unnoticed in neighboring countries. In Pakistan, the popular former prime minister and leader of the opposition party, Imran Khan, was jailed […]
I find it disgusting and amazing that the Biden administration continues to ship billions of dollars of weapons to Israel to carry out what is clearly a genocide. Over 17,000 children have been murdered while this has been going on. I think Kamala Harris should be challenged repeatedly by citizens and the media on what she intends to do about this war crime.
Palestinian children after an Israeli attack. Credit: AA
The majority of the victims of Israel’s war on Gaza have been women and children, according to data released by the strip’s Government Media Office on 5 September.
The data reveals that “69 percent of the victims are children and women.” The number of dead children alone stands at 16,715, while the number of women killed stands at 11,308.
Marking “335 days of the genocide,” the media office highlighted that 3,556 massacres have been committed by the Israeli army against Palestinians in Gaza since the start of the war.
The overall death toll now stands at 40,878, while another 10,000 are missing, either still under the rubble or in Israeli detention.
The media office statement adds that nearly 1,000 medical workers and civil defense workers have been killed by Israeli forces. The number of journalists killed is now 172.
Additionally, seven mass graves have been found inside hospitals in the Gaza Strip.
Putin and his intelligence services are actively trying to dismantle American democracy and support criminal Trump. That isn’t actually very surprising, of course they are because weaponizing misinformation is so easy because there are not ethical or factual standards on social media. WHat stands out for me is not what the Russians are doing by the American MAGAt political whores who are down on their knees servicing the Russians. I am also astonished and appalled by the number of Americans who are driven by willful ignorance and their darkest emotions. The MAGAt cult really tells us something very important about the state of the culture of the United States, and the reality is quite grim. Those of us who support wellbeing must get everyone we know and can influence to vote and vote for only democrats. This is not about traditional partisan politics; this is about saving America as a democracy.
Dave Rubin is seen on the set of Candace in a Nashville studio in 2021. Credit: Jason Kempin / Getty
A cadre of right-wing online personalities including Dave Rubin, Tim Pool, Benny Johnson, and Lauren Southern have all allegedly become unwitting agents of Russian information warfare and its activities in the United States, according to an alarming 32-page federal indictment unsealed by the US District Court of the Southern District of New York on Wednesday.
The group of far-right and right-leaning influencers, most of whom are known for podcasts and YouTube shows, are all members or former members of Tenet Media, a Nashville-based content creation company co-owned by yet another well-known conservative media pundit, Lauren Chen.
The Department of Justice is alleging that since its founding in 2022, Tenet has served as a front for Russian agents to spread Russian state-directed content using each of these pundits’ platforms.
“The Justice Department will not tolerate attempts by an authoritarian regime to exploit our country’s free exchange of ideas in order to covertly further its […]
If one looks at how Americans assess Congress, the Supreme Court, or even the safety of their food in grocery stores you see it is all declining. The only thing that is going to rebuild this country are the Americans who demand that the country, its laws, tax system, educational system, and healthcare system are all restructured to foster wellbeing. Are you willing to be one of those people? Is that how you think? It is to support and inform people who think that way that I spend all the unpaid hours I do, and that Beth Alexander does, who runs the SR versions and my other websites. The United States is in the equivalent of an internal world war, and it is not clear yet how it is going to come out.
WASHINGTON, D.C. — Americans’ confidence in the federal government’s ability to ensure the safety of the U.S. food supply has reached a record low in Gallup’s trend dating back to 1999. The 57% of U.S. adults who now say they have a “great deal” or “fair amount” of confidence in the government to keep the food supply safe is down 11 percentage points from Gallup’s prior reading in 2019.
Roughly eight in 10 Americans expressed faith in the government to ensure food safety in Gallup measures from 1999 to 2006. After a massive salmonella outbreak in 2007, about seven in 10 remained confident. Americans’ confidence stayed near that level in 2008 and 2019 before dropping this year.
These data were collected as part of Gallup’s annual Consumption Habits poll, conducted July 1-21.
While 57% express at least a fair amount of confidence in the government to keep food safe, 28% of Americans do not have much confidence and 14% have “none at all.”
Among partisans, Republicans’ confidence has dropped the most since 2019, which could largely reflect the party of the incumbent president […]
