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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: The alarms about the climate keep ringing and most of humanity sits staring at their televisions or cell phones sucking their thumbs. Our children, and even more our grandchildren will, in my opinion, condemn their memory of us. Stupid, feckless, greedy people who destroyed the world.
New data released Monday showed atmospheric carbon dioxide reached a monthly average level of 419 parts per million in May, which is not only the maximum reading ever recorded since accurate measurements began 63 years ago but also the highest level the planet has experienced in over four million years.
“The solution is right before our eyes. Solar energy and wind are already cheaper than fossil fuels and they work at the scales that are required. If we take real action soon, we might still be able to avoid catastrophic climate change.” —Pieter Tans, NOAA
Scientists from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and Scripps Institute of Oceanography at the University of California, San Diego working at NOAA’s Mauna Loa Atmospheric Baseline Observatory in Hawaii said the May measurements—an increase from 417 parts per million (ppm) in May 2020—mean that “the atmospheric burden of CO2 is now comparable to where it was during the Pliocene Climatic Optimum, between 4.1 and 4.5 million years ago, when CO2 was close to, or above 400 ppm.”
“During that time, sea level was about 78 feet higher than today, the […]
Jesse Eisinger, Jeff Ernsthausen and Paul Kiel, Staff Writers - ProPublica
Stephan: I have been telling my readers for over 20 years, since I began SR, that the American income tax system is completely rigged to see that very rich, read usually very White men and women are benefited to an absurd degree. Here is the proof.
ProPublica has obtained a vast cache of IRS information showing how billionaires like Jeff Bezos, Elon Musk and Warren Buffett pay little in income tax compared to their massive wealth — sometimes, even nothing.This is their report.
In 2007, Jeff Bezos, then a multibillionaire and now the world’s richest man, did not pay a penny in federal income taxes. He achieved the feat again in 2011. In 2018, Tesla founder Elon Musk, the second-richest person in the world, also paid no federal income taxes.
Michael Bloomberg managed to do the same in recent years. Billionaire investor Carl Icahn did it twice. George Soros paid no federal income tax three years in a row.
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ProPublica has obtained a vast trove of Internal Revenue Service data on the tax returns of thousands of the nation’s wealthiest people, covering more than 15 years. The data provides an unprecedented look inside the financial lives of America’s titans, including Warren Buffett, Bill Gates, Rupert Murdoch and Mark Zuckerberg. It shows not just their income and […]
Stephan: Here is a very good comparison of Germany and the United States about transitioning to non-carbon energy. It contains some very good news from Germany on how to successfully handle the transition out of the carbon and nuclear era. Bravo Germany. In contrast, 139 members of the 117th U.S. Congress will not affirm the role of humans in creating climate change.
An aerial view of wind turbines near Bernau, Germany from May 2021. Credit: Sean Gallup/Getty
Earlier this month, U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres joined virtual visitors to Berlin at the 12th Annual Petersberg Climate Dialogue, where the German government hoped to further negotiate technical details of the Paris Agreement. During the event, German Chancellor Angela Merkel urged governments to continue investing into our shared climate despite budgetary shortfalls related to the COVID-19 crisis.
Germany has walked that walk. Over the past two decades, it has embarked on a remarkable, expensive transition from coal and nuclear energy, to renewable energy sources. The set of policies to encourage this rise of green energy is known as energiewende—or “energy transition.” Energiewende has its roots in the foundation of Germany’s Green Party in the late 1970s and early 1980s and enjoys broad public support. It is one of the most ambitious green energy proposals in the global North, and represents a fundamental paradigm shift from the fossil fuel-obsessed status quo.
Meanwhile in the United States, a Center for American Progress analysis found that 139 members of the 117th Congress won’t even admit that human-caused climate change is […]
Stephan: I cannot remember, nor could I easily find, the last time a person who had been governor for the maximum allowed eight years, came back after a break and ran and won again. But I think that is what is going to happen in Virginia. And that tells us that Virginia has gone Blue, and that the power of Trumpism is smaller than many thought. So good news.
Winner of the Virginia Democratic gubernatorial primary, Terry McAuliffe gestures as he addresses the crowd during an election party in McLean on June 8. | AP Photo/Steve Helber
McLEAN, VIRGINIA — Terry McAuliffe’s comeback bid aced its first test Tuesday, as the former Virginia governor cruised to victory in the state’s Democratic gubernatorial primary.
He easily defeated his two main rivals, former state Del. Jennifer Carroll Foy and state Sen. Jennifer McClellan, capturing about 60 percent of the vote in a five-candidate race in which he was the wire-to-wire favorite since entering last December.
His victory sets up a matchup with Glenn Youngkin, the former Carlyle Group chief executive who won the Republican nomination in a party convention about a month ago.
The Novemberface-off will be the first major election during President Joe Biden’s tenure in the White House — and a measure of how damaging now-former President Donald Trump was to the state Republican Party here, which had been ransacked during Trump’s four years in office.
During his victory speech, McAuliffe leaned into his and outgoing Gov. Ralph Northam’s overlapping […]
Stephan: Well, the data is beginning to come in and the stupidity of anti-vaxxers, and non-mask wearers is becoming obvious. It is a measure of how fantasy beliefs can be held so strongly that such people are willing to risk their lives in a kind of Russian Roulette over their willful ignorance. As it is, as this report lays out, "... some have estimated that tens of thousands of COVID deaths in the U.S. could have been prevented with universal mask-wearing."
A boy wearing a protective mask and gloves rides his bike with his family close behind on a relatively empty sidewalk amid the coronavirus pandemic on April 16, 2020 in New York City. Credit: Alexi Rosenfeld/Getty
From March of last year through May 2021, those who didn’t ever wear masks to stop the spread of coronavirus were two times more likely to get infected with the virus than those who wore their masks whenever they ventured outside their home, data from a new study suggests.
The Axios/Ipsos Coronavirus Index polled people about their mask-wearing and other habits associated with the COVID-19 pandemic over the past year along with questions about how they tested for the infection. Of those respondents who said they always wore their masks in public, only 11 percent said they ended up testing positive for the virus, compared to nearly a quarter (23 percent) of respondents who said they never wore masks and eventually contracted coronavirus.
The gap may be even wider than that because according to Axios, those who didn’t wear masks were also less likely to get tested […]
Stephan: Something worth close attention is going on with Idaho, a sort of next step for the White Supremacist christofascists. They are trying to turn Idaho into a White Supremacy MAGA world state. And it is attracting the attention of counties in both Eastern Oregon and Washington. Three Washington and seven Oregon counties all want to have their state's borders altered so that they can become part of Idaho. To be clear states have changed their borders, although it is rare, and almost always race-based. Eight non-slave owning Counties of slave-owning Virginia hived off and became West Virginia in 1861. We don't tell ourselves the truth about racism in the United States. Did you have a course in racism when you went to high school, or college? All of this is part of what I have been calling The Great Schism Trend.
And not the anti-masker aspect of this report.
Just as I am not sure democracy will survive in the U.S., each year I see ever greater open White supremacy. This trend is going to be a real problem for the next 30 years. In my opinion, however, it will be gone by 2050. Climate change will compel equality. You can already see it happening in the 18-34 demographic.
Janice McGeachin, the lieutenant governor who had ordered cities and counties to revoke mask orders. Photograph: John Roark/AP
BOISE, IDAHO – Last month, the Republican governor revoked his lieutenant governor’s ban on mask mandates – and observers say the fight is symptomatic of a larger problem
Idaho’s rightward political lurch has immersed the state’s Republicans in a political civil war that now extends all the way from the grassroots to the executive mansion.
In late May, the state’s Republican governor, Brad Little, angrily revoked an executive order banning mask mandates in the state, which had been put in place by his own militia-supporting lieutenant governor during a period when she was deputizing for him.
Janice McGeachin had ordered that Idaho cities and counties revoke mask orders, playing into a widespread fear among the far right that basic health measures to stop the spread of the coronavirus pandemic are a sign of an over-reaching government. Little then called McGeachin’s action “tyranny” and a “stunt” and scuppered it after it had been in place for just a day.
But observers say the bizarre fight is symptomatic of […]
Stephan: The American illness profit system has failed miserably in handling this pandemic. The social outcome data makes that obvious. The system is not designed to produce wellbeing as its first priority, as is the case in other democratic nations and thus, stressed by Covid-19 it has produced miserable outcome data. So I have been watching for what Biden would do once that realization became irrefutable. Here's what he is doing. The scientists realize that with climate change we are going to see a series of ongoing pandemics brought on by the mutation of viruses and bacteria in response to climate change. 2020 is going to happen again, and this is an attempt to stay ahead of what is coming.
Francis Collins, director of the U.S. National Institutes of Health (NIH), speaks during a Senate Appropriations Subcommittee hearing in Washington, D.C., U.S., on Wednesday, May 26, 2021. The hearing is titled “NIH’s FY22 Budget and the State of Medical Research.” Credit: Stefani Reynolds/Bloomberg/Getty
Those closely following President Joe Biden’s plan to create a huge agency to fund cutting-edge, transformative health projects welcomed the release this week of new details about the ambitious proposal. But for some research advocates, worries remain that the new agency won’t be significantly different from the rest of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), where it would be housed.
The proposed Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health (ARPA-H) “will need to be audacious, nimble, and have unique authorities,” says Ellen Sigal, chair and founder of Friends of Cancer Research. “It’s an incredible opportunity, but at the moment there are many unknowns that will need to be discussed and debated in the near future.”
First proposed by Biden early this year, ARPA-H would be modeled after the similarly named Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), which […]
Stephan: It is my belief that this trend will grow and that by 2060 cities and towns will look very different than they do today. To deal with climate change we are going to have to plant trees and rethink our agriculture. This story is an early report on this trend, and very good news it is.
Children in Leicester, UK, plant a tiny forest in their school. Leicester City Council
In 2014 eco-entrepreneur Shubhendu Sharma gave a TED Talk about the value of the mini-woodland ecosystems he was planting across India. He described how they grow 10 times faster, are 30 times denser, and 100 times more biodiverse than a conventional forest.
His tiny forests were inspired by Japanese ecologist Akira Miyawaki’s technique of creating small, condensed urban forests on degraded soils.
He had created them near houses, schools and even factories. Some covered the space of only six parked cars and were so dense you couldn’t walk into them. “If you see a barren piece of land, remember that it can be a potential forest,” urged Sharma.
His company Afforestt has planted 138 forests in 10 countries around the world.
Tiny Forests Thriving in Europe?
Tiny forests have been springing up across Europe. Advocates say they are key to boosting declining flora and fauna like birds and insects in cities, and to help reach climate goals by storing carbon.
