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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: It is beginning to dawn on governments around the world that the internet holds implications about how power operates that have never been fully considered or understood. This story describes what is beginning to happen.
Over the last year, the worldwide web has started to look less worldwide.Europe is floating regulation that could impose temporary bans on US tech companies that violate its laws. The United States was on the verge of banning TikTok and WeChat, though the new Biden administration is rethinking that move. India, which did ban those two apps as well of dozens of others, is now at loggerheads with Twitter.And this month, Facebook (FB) clashed with the Australian government over a proposed law that would require it to pay publishers. The company briefly decided to prevent users from sharing news links in the country in response to the law, with the potential to drastically change how its platform functions from one country to the next. Then on Tuesday, it reached a deal with the government and agreed to restore news pages. The deal partially relaxed arbitration requirements that Facebook took issue with.In its announcement of the deal, however, Facebook hinted at the possibility of similar clashes in […]
Stephan: I have been watching the research on green tea for almost a decade now, watching it become ever more nuanced and certain, and for much of that time I have been drinking two quarts of green tea iced every day. Here's where it stands now.
Credit: Alisher Sharip
Green tea has been consumed in China for 4,000 years—and one of its compounds may hold the key to staving off cancer, according to compelling new research.
It switches on a gene called p53, which is proven to block the development of tumors.
Known as the “Guardian of the Genome” for its ability to repair DNA damage and destroy cancerous cells, p53 is classified as a tumor suppressor—and if a person inherits only one functional copy of the p53 gene from their parents, they are predisposed to the disease.
A new study published this month in Nature Communications shows that an antioxidant found in the traditional Chinese drink may increase levels of p53 and improve its efficiency, say scientists at the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy, New York.
Studying the direct interaction between p53 and the green tea compound, epigallocatechin gallate (EGCG), offers hope that a new drug might be created to mimic it.
Chris Mooney and Andrew Freedman, Reporter | Editor - The Washington Post
Stephan: The climate change trend is gaining speed and manifesting in ways few ever anticipated, or even now fully understand. Here is an example of what I mean.
Skogafoss waterfall is pictured near Skogar in Iceland. The country’s climate is more temperate than in other regions that far north because of the influence of the warm Gulf Stream current. Credit: Maja Hitij/Bongarts/Getty
A growing body of evidence suggests that a massive change is underway in the sensitive circulation system of the Atlantic Ocean, a group of scientists said Thursday.
The Atlantic meridional overturning circulation (AMOC), a system of currents that includes the Florida Current and the Gulf Stream, is now “in its weakest state in over a millennium,” these experts say. This has implications for everything from the climate of Europe to the rates of sea-level rise along the U.S. East Coast.
Stephan: Climate change for the first time in human history has made a northern trade route through Arctic waters possible year-round. It will change geopolitics, and result in human migration north. It hasn't registered with most people, but our world is changing before our eyes, if only we had the open-mindedness to see what is happening.
The Arctic tanker Christophe de Margerie, operated by Sovcomflot, is seen in the Gulf of Ob in northern Russia on February, 18, 2019. Credit: Alexander Ryumin/TASS/Getty
The Arctic is now open for business year-round after a large commercial ship sailed the Northern Sea Route from Jiangsu, China, to a Russian gas plant on the Arctic coast, for the first time ever during the month of February, when winter temperatures normally make the icy waterway impassable.
The tanker, owned by Russian maritime shipping company Sovcomflot, was able to make the trip through the Arctic sea ice because it is no longer frozen all winter due to human-induced global warming.
Stephan: Today's email included a note from a man who identified himself as a Trump supporter. After objecting to my "biased coverage of the best president in American history," he admonished me about my criticism of nuclear power. Just a few days before I had exchanged several emails with a friend who supported my objections, and so this issue, increasingly being debated as climate change becomes an ever-present reality, has been on my mind. So I want to lay out a factual report on this issue. To do that in a fact-based way, I have chosen a report that is, as it explains "an adapted version of a Nature.com blog by Prof Benjamin K. Sovacool and Prof Andy Stirling, to accompany the publication of their paper “Differences in carbon emissions reduction between countries pursuing renewable electricity versus nuclear power” in Nature Energy." (For the primary paper see: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41560-020-00696-3) But, before that I will share a little noticed at the time and now forgotten story that I personally witnessed, and discussed with the principal.
Civilian nuclear power began because Westinghouse and GE needed to have a pathway to create a nuclear-trained workforce. Enough engineers, welders (nuclear qualified welder is still a work category) etc., and a way to make enough profit to justify the investment required to create the nuclear-powered ships, particularly the original deep ocean Polaris missile submarines that Hyman Rickover designed for the Navy and that were a key part of America's Trident Strategy (the other two being B-52 bombers and ground-based missiles). This was the dominant geopolitical strategy of the Cold War. That's why nuclear power was sold to America in the first place.
Rickover understood nuclear power better than anyone, both its positives and its negatives. He was so important to the strategy that even though the Navy hierarchy did not like him, did not like the idea of a Jew being in charge of the most important part of the Navy, they could not replace him. When the Navy would not promote him to flag rank the Congress did it by fiat and eventually promoted him to four stars.
When Rickover finally decided to retire he went to Rep. Eddie Hebert, 18-term Congressman from Louisiana, then chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, and requested that he convene a special hearing and invite Rickover to testify. I had met Rickover (I was then Special Assistant to the Chief of Naval Operations) and went to the hearing. Rickover testified to Congress that civilian nuclear power was a bad idea. To run it safely, he said, would require a military authority structure, and no one had any idea what to do with the waste, and he doubted anyone ever would.
Windmills and Sailboats on the Ocean Credit: CGP Grey/Flickr
The role of nuclear power in a low-carbon future has been subject to a long and contentious debate. Is a nuclear or a renewables pathway the best way forward, or do we need a “do everything” approach where every deployable technology is rolled out to decarbonise our electricity supply as soon as possible?
Many influential climate scientists and international organisations argue that a global shift towards nuclear power offers the best pathway to tackling the climate emergency and meeting the world’s increasing demands for electricity.
Others argue that renewable sources of energy are the best pathway towards a low-carbon electricity system and assert that they are cleaner, safer and more economically sustainable than nuclear.
In an attempt to negotiate these contending positions, a frequent mantra is that energy strategies should “do everything” in order to address the climate emergency. But – as a number of commentators have noted (for example, here and here) – this would actually be a highly irrational course of action.
Where “doing everything” involves making investments that are slower […]
Stephan: In a society in which profit is the first social priority, greed is seen as a virtue. This truth becomes clearer and clearer as the carbon industries are threatened. This is how they are responding. Wellbeing? A healthy environment? Not of interest.
A coal burning plant near Cheshire, Ohio Credit: Benjamin Lowy/Getty
As a huge winter storm knocked out power for millions of people in Texas, a group representing the coal industry saw an opportunity. “Houston, we have a problem,” the organization Friends of Coal wrote on Facebook. “Coal is the solution.” Another post showed a solar panel covered in snow. “You are warm today because of a coal miner and a pipeline,” it read.
The posts are part of a torrent of conservative statements blaming renewable energy failures for the Texas blackouts. And though such attacks can be easily debunked (the main source of the energy shortfall is natural gas) they serve a larger political purpose: rally a political base that can take back Congress from the Democrats in next year’s midterm elections.
“Everyone must help all across America within the industry,” the coal publication Coal Zoom wrote earlier this year. “The majority of the House must be won back in 2022.”News
The U.S. coal industry is in financial freefall due to competition from natural gas and renewables, as well as the economic shock […]
Dr. Sandro Galea, - Mailman School of Public Health - Columbia University
Stephan: As I listened to the discussion in the Congress on C-Span, MSNBC, and CNN concerning raising the minimum wage to $15.00 an hour, I was struck by how the whole business was couched in the abstract. What does $15 a hour really mean in a living human's life, a family's?
Well for starters $15 an hour is $600 a week, or $31,200 a year. But then, of course, there is federal income tax, Social Security deduction and medicare dues, which would leave you with $25,729.85. There may also be state tax, and then there is rent, food, electricity, water, and if you have children, well... like 40% of American families you couldn't write a $400 check in a crisis because you have no reserves you live paycheck to paycheck. And just to be clear, many of the people at this income level are the one's on the front line of dealing with this pandemic.
As I was doing this research an old friend sent me an email with this paper. It is 10 years old, but the reality it describes has actually gotten worse, much worse, particularly in the last four years, and most notably the last year. But this paper makes the point that I came away with. Given the level of poverty in the U.S., the lack of educational opportunities, our absurd healthcare system, our growing racial animosity, police violence against people of color, for many Americans we are in many ways more like a third-world country than the highly developed exceptional nation we tell ourselves we are. Am I exaggerating? Let's look at some actual facts
Child poverty Credit: Stephen Shames
How researchers classify and quantify causes of death across a population has evolved in recent decades. In addition to long-recognized physiological causes such as heart attack and cancer, the role of behavioral factors—including smoking, dietary patterns and inactivity—began to be quantified in the 1990s.
More recent research has begun to look at the contribution of social factors to U.S. mortality. In the first comprehensive analysis of such studies, researchers at Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health found that poverty, low levels of education, poor social support and other social factors contribute about as many deaths in the U.S. as such familiar causes as heart attacks, strokes and lung cancer.
The research team, led by Sandro Galea, MD, DrPH, chair of Epidemiology, estimated the number of U.S. deaths attributable to social factors using a systematic review of the available literature combined with vital statistics data. They conducted a MEDLINE search for all English-language articles […]
Stephan: I only eat meat about once every five weeks, and my wife quit eating mammals decades ago. Increasingly, I have been researching laboratory-grown meat for my monthly meal because it is clear to me that commercial animal husbandry for the purpose of killing those animals so we can eat their bodies is not sustainable in an age of climate change. if humanity wants to eat meat we must find another way. This may be the answer.
A little over two years after Israel-based start-up Aleph Farms unveiled the world’s first lab-grown steak, the company has now revealed a much more complex, thick-cut rib-eye steak. Cultivated using a novel 3D bioprinting technology, the company suggests it now has the ability to produce lab-grown iterations of any type of steak.
This rib-eye steak was produced using a new 3D bioprinting technology Credit: Aleph Farms
Lab-grown meat, also known as cultured meat or clean meat, has been rapidly evolving over the past few years. Across a decade scientists moved from producing a “soggy form of pork” in a laboratory to cultured chicken nuggets hitting Singapore market shelves in a world-first regulatory approval. One of the bigger challenges scientists face in creating slaughter-free meat products is replicating the numerous cuts of meat consumers are used to eating.
In 2018 Aleph Farms revealed the world’s first lab-grown steak imitating the cellular structures of a thin minute steak. Now, the company has revealed the creation of a more complex, thick rib-eye steak produced using a new 3D bioprinting technology.
“Unlike 3D printing technology, our 3D bioprinting technology […]
