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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.
Stephan: As I have said many times before here, I think New Zealand is one of the most interesting nations in the world because all its social policies recognize Schwartz' Theorem of Wellbeing, and the objectively verifiable social outcome positive data proves this. The United States, in contrast, may be the richest nation in the world at the moment, but our social outcome data ranges from pathetic failures to outrageously in violation of the theorem, and that is going to have powerful negative long-term implications.
Reusable bags being packed at New Lynn New World supermarket in Auckland, New Zealand on July 1, 2019. Credit: Fiona Goodall / Getty
In its latest environmental commitment, New Zealand has announced a ban on the majority of single-use plastics by 2025.
The new measure builds on the country’s 2019 decision to phase-out plastic bags and includes everything from disposable cutlery to ear buds and fruit labels, The Guardian reported.
“These types of plastics often end up as waste in landfills and cause pollution in our soils, waterways and the ocean. Reducing plastic waste will improve our environment and ensure we live up to our clean, green reputation,” Environment Minister David Parker said in a statement reported by TVNZ on Sunday.
New Zealand has made a name for itself as an environmentally-conscious country in recent years. It has banned new oil and gas exploration off its coast and passed a bill pledging to reach net-zero emissions by 2050. However, when it comes to waste, the country still has work to do. It is within the top ten worldwide for the amount […]
Stephan: I see very little comprehension of this in the U.S. Congress or the State Department, and I think the Chinese are winning the conflict on their terms, which is to create a middle-class stable nation preparing for climate change, while we have 139 Republican Congress members who don’t even believe inhuman mediated climate change and an even larger number don’t support democracy.
My analysis is that the Chinese see the relationship between the two countries as an economic competition between two models of governance. The Chinese have a long history of civil violence and war, while the U.S. has no living memory of mass civil violence. The Chinese value stability, where the American christofascists seem to seek conflict, as the earth 2 media makes very clear.
From 650 CE until 1905 the Chinese were governed by a class of bureaucrats, the Mandarin, and it worked well. They have basically recreated the Mandarin system using the communist party. But China has very little to do with communism as Marx and Lenin conceived it.
I see very little comprehension of this in the U.S. Congress or the State Department, and I think the Chinese are winning the conflict on their terms, which is to create a middle-class stable nation preparing for climate change, while we have 139 Republican Congress members who don’t even believe in human-mediated climate change and an even larger number don’t support democracy.
If you listen to the news in the United States, you will hear some people complain about government incentives for electric cars. “Why should my taxes go to letting some liberal egghead buy an electric car? It doesn’t do anything for me,” they say. Hold onto that thought.
Chinese family EV
You may have read recently about the Wuling Hong Guang MINI EV, an electric mini-car that is selling like crazy in China. Produced by a consortium owned by SAIC, GM, and Wuling, it is proving very popular in smaller Chinese cities. The car starts at just $4,200 (upmarket versions cost more than $5,000!), making it affordable to a whole new category of buyers who never could afford a private vehicle before.
In the southern Chinese city of Liuzhou, 30% of new car sales last were electrics — 5 times the national average — with the MNI EV leading the way. As a result, the city is a quiet zone. “Missing is the incessant noise of throbbing engines and clashing gears that provides the backdrop to daily life in most metropolises around the […]
Stephan: More well-conducted research showing that about a third of the United States population would prefer a White supremacist christofascist authoritarian not a democratic form of government. The election of 2022 is going to show us whether democracy will endure in substance or only in form. It is going to get down to how many voters favoring democracy in substance and in form vote. It is up to you, me, and our friends and family.
The research, which used longtime authoritarian researcher Bob Altemeyer’s right-wing authoritarianism test and scale and builds on recent work he conducted with the Monmouth University Polling Institute, found that U.S. conservatives have stronger right-wing authoritarian tendencies than their right-of-center counterparts in Australia, Canada and the United Kingdom.
A scale measuring propensity toward right-wing authoritarian tendencies found right-leaning Americans scored higher than their counterparts in Australia, Canada and the United Kingdom.
26% of the U.S. population qualified as highly right-wing authoritarian, Morning Consult research found, twice the share of the No. 2 countries, Canada and Australia.
The beliefs that voter fraud decided the 2020 election, that Capitol rioters were doing more to protect than undermine the government and that masks and vaccines are not pivotal to stopping COVID-19 were similarly prevalent among right-leaning Americans and those that scored high for right-wing authoritarianism.
This article is part of a deep dive on the Jan. 6 riot in Washington and creeping authoritarianism in America. See all of our work here.
The Jan. 6 insurrection at the Capitol gave the country a striking […]
Carla K. Johnson and Mike Stobbe, - ABC News - San Francisco
Stephan: The people on earth 2 who were too stupid to get vaccinated are now facing the consequences of their choice. According to the CDC data, 99.2% of those now dying from Covid are the ones who did not get vaccinated.
Wheeling out the Covid dead
Nearly all COVID-19 deaths in the U.S. now are in people who weren’t vaccinated, a staggering demonstration of how effective the shots have been and an indication that deaths per day – now down to under 300 – could be practically zero if everyone eligible got the vaccine.
An Associated Press analysis of available government data from May shows that “breakthrough” infections in fully vaccinated people accounted for fewer than 1,200 of more than 853,000 COVID-19 hospitalizations. That’s about 0.1%.
And only about 150 of the more than 18,000 COVID-19 deaths in May were in fully vaccinated people. That translates to about 0.8%, or five deaths per day on average.
The AP analyzed figures provided by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The CDC itself has not estimated what percentage of hospitalizations and deaths are in fully vaccinated people, citing limitations in the data.
Among them: Only about 45 states report breakthrough infections, and some are more aggressive than others in looking for such cases. So the data probably understates such infections, CDC officials said.
Stephan: As with most Republican assertions, the belief that social support from the government keeps people from going back to work is factually wrong. Here's the data. This was completely predictable. Easy to predict, in fact. If a policy doesn't foster wellbeing it is the wrong option to pick. But when you are wedded to an ideology that is not fact-based apparently you can't see that, or you can and have other priorities than wellbeing. But the culture is shifting as this article explains.
A representative speaks with a jobseeker while holding an information packet during a U.S. Census Bureau 2020 job opportunities workshop at a senior center on Roosevelt Island in New York, U.S., on Thursday, July 11, 2019. President Donald Trump will retreat from his effort to include a citizenship question in the decennial census after a defeat at the Supreme Court, and will seek the information through other means. Credit: David ‘Dee’ Delgado/Bloomberg/Getty
Republicans promoted the conspiracy theory that Americans weren’t going back to work amid the COVID-19 pandemic because they were too busy living the comfortable life on the U.S. dime. Data now shows that they were wrong.
The New York Times reported Sunday that in Missouri when federal pay for the unemployed was scrapped, workers still were being choosy. Gov. Mike Parson (R) proudly proclaimed that his state would be among the first to kill unemployment benefits. It still hasn’t worked, however.
“Work-force development officials said they had seen virtually no uptick in applicants since the governor’s announcement, which ended a $300 weekly supplement to other benefits,” said […]
Stephan: We are witnessing a kind of slow-motion coup being attempted by the Republican Party. They are a shrinking minority and democracy no longer favors them. They want to keep the form but strip away the substance through maneuvers like the one described in this article.
On May 14, Montana Gov. Greg Gianforte (R) signed three new bills into law. Two of the bills established new restrictions on voting, including a provision that could make it a crime to collect and submit ballots on behalf of another voter. The third bill made it illegal to protest near oil and gas pipelines, with a potential punishment of up to 18 months in prison and thousands of dollars in fines.
The new laws appear to have a clear target: the members of Montana’s various Native American tribes, who rely heavily on mass ballot collection drives in order to vote, and who in recent years have led protests against major oil and gas pipeline projects that posed a threat to their lands.
The GOP has sought for years to limit the right to protest and curb access to the vote. But both efforts have intensified across the country in 2021. So far this year, eight states, including Montana, have passed laws that create new criminal penalties related to protesting, according to the International Center for Not-for-Profit Law,
Stephan: When this story first broke I told you the bishops had made a mistake, and would quickly realize that from the pushback they received. They have, and this is where things now stand. But its not over, as a group they have wounded themselves. Look at the picture of them. Overwhelmingly White, late middle-aged celibate men. Swaddled by the affectation of their robes and rituals, they are about as disconnected from the average American life. And that is becoming an issue in a way it never has before.
U.S. Bishops
Why it matters: A wave of controversy and debate occurred after the conference overwhelmingly voted to draft a “teaching document,” which many hoped would rebuke Biden and other Catholic politicians for receiving Communion despite their support for abortion rights, per AP.
Four days after the vote, the USCCB released a Q&A without its previous references to Biden, a national policy or abortion.
What they’re saying: “The document’s central goal is to educate Catholics on the Eucharist,” USCCB spokeswoman Chieko Noguchi told Axios. Bishops have grown increasingly concerned about the declining belief and understanding of the Eucharist among the Catholic faithful, she said.
“The document being drafted is not meant to be disciplinary in nature, nor is it targeted at any one individual or class of persons,” the Q&A states, adding that the Vatican is not involved. “The question of whether or not to deny any individual or groups Holy Communion was not on the ballot.”
The document will instead focus on calling all Catholics to “support human life and dignity and other fundamental principles of Catholic […]
Stephan: Report after report has come out, each a demonstration of Schwartz' Law of Climate Change: Whatever is predicted, the reality will be worse. Whatever the time predicted, reality will be quicker. We are running out of time, and we aren't taking this existential crisis seriously enough.
Greece• MSW minus recycled and composted per capita per day: 2.5 pounds • Total annual MSW: 12.08 billion pounds • Total annual recycled and/or composted MSW: 2.29 billion pounds recycled • Population: 10,892,413 (78 out of 217) • GDP per capita in 2018: $25,141 (56 out of 217) pidjoe / Getty
The report, which is scheduled for official release next year, is the most comprehensive rundown to date of the impacts of climate change on our planet and our species.
“The worst is yet to come, affecting our children’s and grandchildren’s lives much more than our own,” the report warns.
Millions of people worldwide are in for a disastrous future of hunger, drought and disease, according to a draft report from the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which was leaked to the media this week.
“Climate change will fundamentally reshape life on Earth in the coming decades, even if humans can tame planet-warming greenhouse gas emissions,” according to Agence France-Presse , which obtained the report draft.
The report warns of a series of thresholds beyond which recovery from climate breakdown may become impossible, The […]
