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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 another part of what is happening. I see more and more trends like this, and none of them predict a happy unified country of people educated to think rationally on the basis of facts. We need to start talking about this reality that is emerging before it overwhelms us.
Courtney Gore, vice president of the Granbury Independent School District Board of Trustees. Credit: Shelby Tauber / ProPublica and Texas Tribune
When Courtney Gore ran for a seat on her local school board in 2021, she warned about a movement to indoctrinate children with “leftist” ideology. After 2 1/2 years on the board, Gore said she believes a much different scheme is unfolding: an effort by wealthy conservative donors to undermine public education in Texas and install a voucher system in which public money flows to private and religious schools.
Gore points to West Texas billionaires Tim Dunn and brothers Farris and Dan Wilks, who have contributed to various political action committees that have poured millions into legislative candidates who have promoted vouchers. The men also fund or serve on the boards of a host of public policy and advocacy organizations that have led the fight for vouchers in Texas.
In recent years, the largesse from Dunn and the Wilks brothers has reached […]
Damien Gayle, Reporter - Mother Jones / The Guardian
Stephan:
I think all of the people of the earth may have to prepare themselves for a civilization-wide catastrophe that will change every society because of the untrammeled greed of a tiny fraction of humanity. Eight years ago in 2016 196 countries signed an agreement to limit carbon emissions and keep the planet’s temperature from rising more than 2°C (above 35.6°F) or, better yet, just 1.5°C (above 34.7°F). It was as close as our species has come to a universal agreement. And what happened? Read this fact-based article and look at what greed produced. Banks gave the carbon industries nearly seven trillion dollars so they could continue along their path to the climate change disaster, and the banks and the fossil fuel corporations go blithely on making profits as the earth’s temperature rises past the limits the Paris Agreement established.
Credit: Gina M Randazzo/Zuma
The world’s big banks have handed nearly $7 trillion in funding to the fossil fuel industry since the Paris agreement on carbon emissions, according to research.
In 2016, after talks in Paris, 196 countries signed an agreement to limit global heating as a result of carbon emissions to at most 2°C above preindustrial levels, with an ideal limit of 1.5°C to prevent the worst impacts of a drastically changed climate.
Many countries have since promised to reduce carbon emissions, but the latest research shows private interests continued to funnel money to oil, gas, and coal companies, which have used it to expand their operations.
Eight in 10 of the world’s most eminent climate scientists now foresee at least 2.5°C of global heating, according to the results of a Guardian survey published last week—an outcome expected to lead to devastating consequences for civilization.
Researchers for the banking on climate chaos report, now in its 15th edition, analyzed the world’s top 60 banks’ underwriting and lending to more than 4,200 fossil fuel firms […]
The human population of earth is getting older. Fewer children are being born. Cared for the aged and aging is going to become a growing issue, and the medical research is clear, as this research article describes. By 2050, because of the greed I described in the preceding report, as many as an additional 246 million adults age 69 and older could experience temperature extremes that exceed 37.5° Celsius, (99°F). Read what that will mean, and recognize we are a species destroying their own wellbeing.
An older man shields himself from the heat in Beijing in July of 2023. By mid-century, more adults age 69 and older will face extreme heat, especially those residing in Asia and Africa. Credit: Wang Zho / AP
Nearly a quarter of the global population of older adults at mid-century could face extreme heat, putting their health in danger.
By 2050, as many as an additional 246 million adults age 69 and older could experience temperature extremes that exceed 37.5° Celsius, (99°F) researchers report May 14 in Nature Communications. The new projection suggests that more than 23 percent of the global population of these older adults — largely concentrated in Africa and Asia — will encounter this intense heat, compared with 14 percent today.
“Protecting our older population will be increasingly critical in the years to come,” says cardiologist-epidemiologist Andrew Chang of Stanford University and the University of California, San Fransisco, who was not involved with the research. “Older adults can be exquisitely vulnerable to the […]
The majority of voters in Florida elected a governor and state legislature that is openly and actively destroying their future. Large parts of Florida are going to disappear under the sea; it has already started. The rest of the state that stays above the sea will still face all kinds of temperature and water problems as well as other crises. Already there are parts of the coastal regions where homeowners cannot get property insurance.
Republican christofascist Governor of Florida Ron DeSantis speaks at the Governor’s Day luncheon, Feb. 8, 2024, in Tampa, Fla. Climate change will be a lesser priority in Florida and largely disappear from state statutes under legislation signed Wednesday, May 15 by Gov. DeSantis, which also bans power-generating wind turbines offshore or near the state’s lengthy coastlines. Credit: Chris O’Meara / AP
TALLAHASSEE, FLORIDA — Climate change will be a lesser priority in Florida and largely disappear from state statutes under legislation signed Wednesday by Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis that also bans power-generating wind turbines offshore or near the state’s lengthy coastline.
Critics said the measure made law by the former Republican presidential hopeful ignores the reality of climate change threats in Florida, including projections of rising seas, extreme heat and flooding and increasingly severe storms.
It takes effect July 1 and would also boost expansion of natural gas, reduce regulation on gas pipelines in the state and increase protections against bans on gas appliances such as stoves, according to a news release from the governor’s office.
As the climate changes and an increasing number of researchers look at the effects it is likely to produce the news that comes out of their work is ever more alarming. Here is the latest I have read about.
Credit: CC0 Public Domain
Climate change, and its effects on weather patterns and adverse weather events, is likely to negatively affect the health of people with brain conditions, argues a UCL-led team of researchers.
In a Personal View article, published in The Lancet Neurology, the team emphasizes the urgent need to understand the impact of climate change on people with neurological conditions—in order to preserve their health and prevent worsening inequalities.
Following a review of 332 papers published across the world between 1968 and 2023, the researchers, led by Professor Sanjay Sisodiya (UCL Queen Square Institute of Neurology), said they expect the scale of the potential effects of climate change on neurological diseases to be substantial.
They considered 19 different nervous system conditions, chosen on the basis of the Global Burden of Disease 2016 study, including stroke, migraine, Alzheimer’s, meningitis, epilepsy and multiple sclerosis.
The team also analyzed the impact of climate change on several serious but common psychiatric disorders, including anxiety, depression and schizophrenia.
Professor Sisodiya, who is also Director of Genomics at the Epilepsy Society and a […]
Here is some way too late, but nonetheless still good news. Finally, the country is beginning to seriously restructure the electrical grid to prepare for the conversions to Renewables.
Electric power lines are attached to the transmission tower along the power grid in the Everglades, Florida on Sept. 28, 2023. Credit: Joe Raedle / Getty
The United States Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) on Monday approved the first overhaul of the country’s electric transmission policy in more than a decade.
The changes will make new interregional lines faster and bring more renewable energy to meet increasing demand.
“Our country is facing an unprecedented surge in demand for affordable electricity while confronting extreme weather threats to the reliability of our grid and trying to stay one step ahead of the massive technological changes we are seeing in our society,” said FERC Chairman Willie Phillips in a press release from FERC. “Our nation needs a new foundation to get badly needed new transmission planned, paid for and built. With this new rule, that starts today.”
The rule is the first time FERC has directly addressed the country’s need for long-term energy transmission planning and will help achieve President Joe Biden’s target of decarbonizing the U.S. economy […]
This is very sad news for those of us who worked so hard to end school segregation and bad news for the United States. We are going in the wrong direction in so many ways.
Racial segregation in schools across the country has increased dramatically over the last three decades, according to two new reports and an Axios review of federal data.
Decades after Brown and the 1964 Civil Rights Act, the U.S. has moved toward policies that increased the isolation of Black and Latino students by race and poverty.
This month, Axios will commemorate the May 17, 1954, Supreme Court decision — that “in the field of public education the doctrine of ‘separate but equal’ has no place” — by examining the state of public schools and how these new inequalities have emerged.
The big picture: The resegregation of America’s public schools coincides with the rise ofcharter schools and school choice options, and as civil rights groups have turned away from desegregation battles.
The perverse obsession MAGAts have about gender issues is one of their hallmarks. Part of it has to do with keeping women subordinate to men. But part of it, I think, is fear. MAGAt men, particularly White MAGAt men, are unclear about their own masculinity. When I look at media directed to women, especially White women, I see more and more comments from them about toxic masculinity. I think that is what is driving the kind of weird TCP Republican behavior reported on in this article.
Attorney General of Kansas Kris Kobach speaks to members of the press following arguments at the Supreme Court on Tuesday, March 26, 2024.
Four more Republican-led states sued the Biden administration Tuesday over new Title IX rules that bolster protections for LGBTQ students.
The Education Department in April unveiled a final set of sweeping changes to Title IX, the federal civil rights law preventing sex discrimination in schools and education programs that receive government funding. The new regulations, which are slated to take effect Aug. 1, cover discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity for the first time, angering some Republicans.
In a lawsuit filed Tuesday in federal district court in Topeka, Kan., attorneys general in Kansas, Utah, Wyoming and Alaska accused the Education Department and the Department of Justice of attempting to “politicize our country’s education system” by extending the law’s protections to transgender students.
The new Title IX rules could prevent schools from barring transgender students from using restrooms, locker rooms and pronouns that match their gender identity, a senior administration official said last […]
