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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: What kind of person harasses someone who has spent the last 9 months working countless hours at the risk of their own life trying to help strangers survive their illness. A Republican, of course. Am I exaggerating? No, sadly I am not.
The leader of the Republican Party chapter in Parker, Colorado has apologized after he declared “war” on public health officials and publicized their home addresses.
Colorado’s 9 News reports that Parker Republican leader Mark Hall earlier this week sent out a message on his Facebook page attacking public health officials for their role in enforcing COVID-19 pandemic restrictions.
Hall then warned public health workers that “if you work for the state, CDPHE, Tri-County or other agencies, you are on the radar, at your homes and elsewhere” and accused them of being “anti-Americans.”
Hall’s decision to dox public health officials was subsequently condemned by the Douglas County Republican Party, and Hall subsequently deleted the […]
Stephan: As 2020 ends I think it is important that we honestly face what we have become. Otherwise we can not repair our country properly.
TrumpersCredit: Melissa Carone
In the waning days of the Trump presidency, there’s a steady drumbeat coming from the corporate news media and its pundits: the suggestion that, come Jan. 21, everything will suddenly and magically return to “normal.”
Never mind the mounting COVID death toll, which on several days this month has spiked above 3,000 a day.
After four years with Donald Trump at the helm, one would have to be a comatose ancestor worshipper not to see how Trump exploited the shaky 18th-century architecture of patriotism for his own family’s enrichment.
A man who failed to win the majority of the popular vote in 2016 had carte blanche to turn […]
Stephan: American police kill more people in a year than all the police in all countries of Europe combined. And the number listed here is actually larger because that was as of 20 December, there have been several more murders by police since then.
People hold up placards during a protest for Casey Goodson Jr. in Columbus, Ohio on December 11, 2020. Casey Goodson Jr., a 23-year-old Black man, was shot and killed by law enforcement on December 4, 2020. Credit: Stephen Zenner/ AFP/Getty
Police have killed more than 1,000 people so far in 2020, according to the Mapping Police Violence project.
The research group’s database reveals that officers have killed 1,039 people in the U.S. as of December 8—including 21 people who were aged 18 or under.
According to Mapping Police Violence, by the end of November, there had only been 17 days in the year when police officers did not kill someone.
And in a year that saw a nationwide reckoning on race following the police killings of George Floyd and other Black people, the database reveals that 28 percent of those killed by police in 2020 were Black—despite Black people only making up 13 percent of the U.S. population.
Floyd, who was unarmed, died after a white Minneapolis police officer kneeled on his neck for more than eight minutes while he gasped for […]
Stephan: Here for once is some good news about the Amazon forests.
Rhea family of birds snack in soy field Credit: Lisa Rausch
Over the last 14 years, a unique public-private initiative has reduced soy farming deforestation in the Amazon, so much so, that almost no soy coming from the Amazon currently contributes to deforestation.
It began in 2006 when Greenpeace launched a campaign exposing the damage of forest clear-cutting for soy the previous year—more than 1,600 square kilometers (nearly 4 million acres)—and demanded action to curtail the devastation.
In response to the public outcry, major soy companies in the region reached a landmark agreement as signatories to the Amazon Soy Moratorium (ASM), pledging not to purchase any crops grown on recently cleared land—and the success has been remarkable
Today, new research shows that 98.6% of all soy grown in the region complies with the moratorium.
Assistant professor Robert Heilmayr at the University of California-Santa Barbara and his colleagues at the University of Wisconsin Madison have now quantified the ASM’s effects and documented how it achieved its goals. The researchers found that while the agreement prevented millions of acres of deforestation in its first decade, the policy did not appear to hamper agricultural growth or push deforestation to other sectors […]
Sara Miller Llana, Staff Writer - Christian Science Monitor
Stephan: Even when pollution is very bad, if citizens, scientific and local, develop and act on a collective intention that things be improved it can be done. Here is proof of that proposition.
Sudbury, Ontario, Canada
GREATER SUDBURY, ONTARIO — When the Superstack was constructed in 1972, it was the tallest structure in Canada – and the tallest smokestack in the world. At 1,250 feet, it’s visible from every vantage point in the area. It can be seen from the bustling streets of downtown to the quiet cul-de-sacs of residential neighborhoods. It looms large in the distance from highways that feed into a city that is home to one of the largest mining complexes in the world.
Built by Canadian company Inco before it was purchased by Vale, the Superstack has long stood as a reminder of the environmental devastation that mining wrought here. But this year the chimney is being fully decommissioned.
Residents of Sudbury harbor mixed feelings about the Superstack. Some see it as a memorial to their rise as a center of nickel and copper mining globally. Others see it simply as a familiar landmark that signals they are home. Gisele Lavigne lives in the Copper Cliff neighborhood at the Superstack’s base. She spends her evenings looking at the towering […]
Stephan: Here is the best piece I have read about hydrogen power in many months. I see this as good news, although I am not at all clear about the role hydrogen power will play in a post-carbon era.
Mike Strizki at his home in Ringoes, N.J. His passion for the planet-saving benefits of hydrogen power requires him to refine the fuel himself in his backyard. Credit: Kat Slootsky/The New York Times
In December, the California Fuel Cell Partnership tallied 8,890 electric cars and 48 electric buses running on hydrogen batteries, which are refillable in minutes at any of 42 stations there. On the East Coast, the number of people who own and drive a hydrogen electric car is somewhat lower. In fact, there’s just one. His name is Mike Strizki. He is so devoted to hydrogen fuel-cell energy that he drives a Toyota Mirai even though it requires him to refine hydrogen fuel in his yard himself.
“Yeah, I love it,” Mr. Strizki said of his 2017 Mirai. “This car is powerful, there’s no shifting, plus I’m not carrying all of that weight of the batteries,” he said in a not-so-subtle swipe at the world’s most notable hydrogen naysayer, Elon Musk.
Mr. Strizki favors fuel-cell cars for the same reasons as most proponents. You can make fuel using […]
Tara Lohan, Deputy Editor of The Revelator - truthout/The Revelator
Stephan: Alabama is governed by Republicans which explains its very poor social outcome data across the board, but even by Alabama's poor standards, this story is a tale of notable failure, incompetence and stupidity.
Alabama could “go from being the king of diversity to the king of extinctions,” says journalist Ben Raines. Credit: W. Drew Senter/Longleaf/Getty
When longtime environmental journalist Ben Raines started writing a book about the biodiversity in Alabama, the state had 354 fish species known to science. When he finished writing 10 years later, that number had jumped to 450 thanks to a bounty of new discoveries. Crawfish species leaped from 84 to 97 during the same time.
It’s indicative of a larger trend: Alabama is one of the most biodiverse states in the country, but few people know it. And even scientists are still discovering the rich diversity of life that exists there, particularly in the Mobile River basin.
Stephan: The Republican Party is destroying America, and that is not a partisan statement, it is a statement of fact, based on the social outcome data. It is not what they say, but what they do.
Companies in the United States will no longer be obligated to pay COVID-related sick leave for American workers due to Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) blocking a bill that would have extended the much-needed policy as the coronavirus continues to ravage states across the country
Under the CARES Act, which was passed in March, Congress incorporated legislation that gave employees the ability to receive up to two weeks worth of paid leave under a number of COVID-related circumstances including: “to care for a quarantining relative, and up to 10 weeks of paid family leave to care for a child whose school or daycare is closed for COVID-related reasons.”
