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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.
Here is yet another alarming story about microplastics; this one about their growing presence in the human brain. Why is this happening, why is nothing being done to curtail the plastics corporations? I think the answer to that question is that this is a measure of the corruption in our society making profit more important than fostering wellbeing.
Pieces of microplastic found on the banks of the Warnow River in Rostock, Germany. Bernd Wüstneck Credit: picture alliance / Getty
It’s well-known that microplastics are pervasive, with scientists finding microplastics in testicular tissue, lungs and even blood. But now, researchers have discovered microplastic pieces in samples of the human brain at higher levels than expected.
In a new pre-printed study published early by the National Library of Medicine, scientists analyzed plastic content in the livers, kidneys and brains of autopsied human bodies. While the team found microplastics in all of the organs, the scientists were concerned that the average amount of microplastics in the 91 brain samples was between 7 and 30 times higher than the amount of microplastics in the liver and kidney samples.
“It’s pretty alarming,” Matthew Campen, lead author of the study and professor of pharmaceutical sciences at the University of New Mexico, told The Guardian. “There’s much more plastic in our brains than I ever would have imagined or been comfortable with.”
In the study, the authors revealed that 24 of the brain samples that had been collected earlier […]
I have been telling you for more than two decades that this trend was coming, and it is only going to get worse in the coming years. Climate change is going to cause enormous migrations both inside countries and between countries, and water violence is going to become a critical aspect of this crisis.
Children line up at a well to get water near a makeshift camp for internally displaced Yemenis in Abs in the northern Hajjah province. Credit: AFP / Getty
The number of violent incidents linked to water resources around the world has increased dramatically in recent years, according to a new study.
The Pacific Institute’s annual Water Conflict Chronology report shows there were 347 instances of water-related armed conflict in 2023, compared to 231 in 2022.
These include attacks on water systems, disputes over access to water, and the use of water as a weapon of war.
Senior fellow and the co-founder of the think tank Peter Gleick said the increase in such incidents around the world last year was “disturbing.”
“It was a very substantial increase, and it’s an indication of the importance of water and the failure of institutions to manage water properly,” he said in an interview.
According to the study, there were conflicts last year involving access to water in every major region around the world.
The institute’s senior researcher Morgan Shimabuku said there have […]
Felon Trump’s corruption of the U.S. judiciary system is made manifest in this account. You may be sure that the White Nationalist militias will take advantage of this evil decision by a Trump judge. That strongly suggests there is going to be more civil violence, more mass murders by gun fire. We are becoming an ever more dangerous nation.
A Ukrainian fighter practices using the kind of weapon that Trump Judge John Broomes wants to legalize in the United States. Credit: Ukrinform / NurPhoto / Getty
On Wednesday, a Trump judge in Kansas ruled that the Second Amendment invalidates criminal charges against a defendant charged with illegally possessing a machine gun. The case is United States v. Morgan.
Judge John Broomes’s decision in Morgan is obviously wrong, even under the Supreme Court’s most aggressively pro-gun opinion, which Broomes relied on heavily.
Annie Waldman, Maya Miller, Duaa Eldeib and Max Blau, - ProPublica
Stephan:
Millions of Americans are experiencing a mental health crisis for a variety of reasons, from loneliness, to PTSD, depression, paranoia, and schizophrenia. And they are not getting the help they desperately need. Why? The usual reason, greed and profit. The United States as a society, as a government, as a culture, just doesn’t seem to be capable of making fostering wellbeing our first priority. Other countries can and do achieve adequate mental health care for their citizens but we don’t seem able to do it.
Woman therapist. Credit: Tony Luong,
They studied, honed their skills and opened practices, joining health insurance networks that put them within reach of people who couldn’t afford to pay for sessions out of pocket.
So did more than 500 other psychologists, psychiatrists and therapists who shared their experiences with ProPublica.
But one after another, they confronted a system set up to squeeze them out.
Although federal law requires insurers to provide the same access to mental and physical health care, these companies have been caught, time and again, shortchanging customers with mental illness — restricting coverage and delaying or denying treatment.
These patients — whose disorders can be chronic and costly — are bad for business, industry insiders told ProPublica.
“The way to look at mental health care from an insurance perspective is: I don’t want to attract those people. I am never going to make money on them,” said Ron Howrigon, a consultant who used to manage contracts with providers for major insurers. “One way to get rid of those people or not get them is to not have a great network.”
There are nowhere near enough available therapists in insurance networks to serve all of the people
European countries are beginning to recognize that children face more danger online with social media than they do travelling alone on the railroad, particularly young girls. My question is: why is the United States doing virtually nothing about the danger faced by American children as a result of social media interactions.
One psychologist said Kirstie Allsopp had given her son the ‘gift’ of a fun, exciting and at times risky childhood. Credit: Maskot/Alamy
Safeguarding experts and child psychologists have said the risks to teenagers are increasingly “far greater” online at home than when travelling independently following the row about the television presenter Kirstie Allsopp allowing her teenage son to go Interrailing.
A debate on the protection of teenagers was prompted by Allsopp, who revealed that social services had interviewed her after she posted online about her son, then 15, taking a rail trip around Europe after his GCSEs.
A child safeguarding consultant, Simon Bailey, told the Guardian: “The risk is far greater with a child up in their bedroom with access to a smart device than it is travelling to Berlin, Munich and seeing some of the wonderful sights that Europe provides.”
Bailey, a former chief constable who was the National Police Chiefs’ Council (NPCC) lead for child protection before becoming a consultant on the issue, said teenagers were at greater risk at home on their smartphones than many parents realise.
, - National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration
Stephan:
The warnings keep coming, as this report from NOAA illustrates, but do you hear this earth transforming crisis, which is going to have a major effect on your life and the lives of everyone of your family and friends, indeed humanity as a whole, being discussed by politicians in the upcoming election? I doubt it. So ask yourself, why isn’t this a major story? Could it be because of the corruption of our politicians who are paid hundreds of millions of dollars by the industries responsible for producing all this CO2 not to talk about this crisis?
Carbon dioxide is accumulating in the atmosphere faster than ever — accelerating on a steep rise to levels far above any experienced during human existence, scientists from NOAA and the Scripps Institution of Oceanographyoffsite link at the University of California San Diego announced today.
Levels of carbon dioxide (CO2) measured at NOAA’s Mauna Loa Atmospheric Baseline Observatory by NOAA’s Global Monitoring Laboratory surged to a seasonal peak of just under 427 parts per million (426.90 ppm) in May, when CO2 reaches its highest level in the Northern Hemisphere. That’s an increase of 2.9 ppm over May 2023 and the 5th-largest annual growth in NOAA’s 50-year record. When combined with 2023’s increase of 3.0 ppm, the period from 2022 to 2024 has seen the largest two-year jump in the May peak in the NOAA record.
CO2 measurements sending ominous signs
Scientists at Scripps, the organization that initiated CO2 monitoring at Mauna Loa in 1958 and maintains an independent record, calculated a May monthly average of 426.7 ppm for 2024, an increase of 2.92 ppm over May 2023’s measurement of 423.78 ppm. For Scripps, the […]
KATE WAGNER, Architecture Critic Staff Writer - The Nation
Stephan:
I have been telling you that to deal effectively with climate change it is going to require a radical change in everything from energy technologies to architecture. I very rarely see any coverage of this in media, so was quite interested in seeing this piece on the need to develop new approaches in architecture.
These buildings were made to devour energy. Credit: Yuki Iwamura / Getty
As an architecture critic, I’ve always maintained that the climate crisis cannot be tackled with flashy rhetoric, buildings with showy greenery, or glossy renderings of ecomodernist utopias that will never be built. The field’s most meaningful efforts to combat climate change are actually quite mundane. We need to retrofit the existing building stock with better insulation and ventilation, eliminate fossil fuels in the built environment, and reduce the immense pollution that buildings already emit (energy use in residential buildings accounts for 37 percent of all emissions in New York City).
New York has, in the last few years, made tremendous progress in its battle against building pollution. But thanks to the ever-circling vultures of the real estate industry, that progress is under threat. When New York City Local Law 97 (LL97) was passed in 2019, it was hailed as a kind of “Green New Deal” for the city […]
This is a very interesting development of a new trend in my view, because it indicates that wealth inequality has become not just a U.S. issue but an international issue, and change is coming. I see this as good news because wealth inequality is the cancer of democracy.
Super-prime property in London: Keir Starmer promised a tougher stance on non-doms, and an attack on the super-wealthy was a central theme in Joe Biden’s campaign. Credit: Graham Turner / The Guardian
Calls for higher taxes on the super-rich are gaining traction and even conservative governments are joining in.
In Rome, ministers in Giorgia Meloni’s rightwing administration have doubled a “flat tax” on foreign income from €100,000 to €200,000 (about £85,500-£171,000) that a previous government brought in to attract wealthy investors.
Italy’s low tax on foreigners and their income gained abroad did its job after 1,186 rich individuals adopted the country as their tax residency, but protests this year showed it was out of line with the prevailing mood.
The country’s economy minister, Giancarlo Giorgetti, said Italy was now against the idea of countries competing with each other to offer “fiscal favours” to the wealthy.
The decision came only weeks after 19 former heads of state – including the former prime minister of Australia Julia Gillard, and Dominique de Villepin, who had the same role during Jacques Chirac’s presidency – signed a […]
