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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: In my view, this impeachment trial is not just about Trump. I think the entire Republican Party is on trial and looking increasingly cowardly and lacking in ethics, as this report makes obvious. How can one possibly vote in a trial if one does not attend the presentations both sides make? If you don't attend you should not be allowed to vote.
Republican senator Lindsey Graham
Fifteen of the 50 Republican Senators refused to show up for at least “the first few hours” of Thursday’s arguments by the Democratic managers in the Senate impeachment trial of former President Donald Trump, CNN’s Manu Raju and Forbes report.
That’s 30 percent of the Republican caucus in the Senate, or nearly one-third of the GOP members.
“Sens. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) and Rand Paul (R-Ky.) were both away from their desks, for instance, while Sen. Jim Risch (R-Idaho) was in the basement on his phone, CNN’s Manu Raju reported,” Forbes adds.
“Many within the chamber were preoccupied with other activities: Sens. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) and Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) were reading papers, while, according to CNN’s Jeremy Herb, Sen. Rick Scott (R-Fla.) ‘had a blank map of Asia on his desk and was writing on it like he was filling in the names of the countries.’”
Worse, at least one Republican Senator has already violated his oath to deliver “impartial justice.”
Senators are required to swear or affirm that he or she will “do impartial […]
Melissa S. Kearney and Phillip B. Levine, Senior Fellow Brookings Institution | Professor of Economics - Wellesley College - The Brookings Institution
Stephan: Here is an aspect of the pandemic which few have even considered, a steep decline in the birthrate, but which will, in the future, have an increasing importance.
On June of 2020, three months after the COVID pandemic began in earnest in the United States, we wrote a report suggesting that the public health crisis and associated recession would result in 300,000 to 500,000 fewer births in 2021. Six months later, we have been asked several times if we have an updated estimate. We have revisited the issue and stand by our initial prediction of a large reduction in births. Based on our previous methodology and a labor market that improved somewhat more quickly than we anticipated, we place more emphasis on the lower range of our original estimate, likely closer to 300,000 fewer births. However, additional factors that we did not incorporate into our model – in particular, ongoing school and day care closures – might very well mean a larger reduction in births than that.
CORROBORATING EVIDENCE
It will still be several months before birth data will become available that will enable us to count the “missing” births. Additional survey evidence has come out, though, since we released our initial report that supports a coming baby […]
Richard Silber and Liam Torpy, Founder and Executive Director of the Himalayan Clime and Science Institute | Senior Program Director of the Himalayan Clime and Science Institute - The New York Times
Stephan: The Himalayas may seem far away and another world, but what is happening there should warn and alarm the rest of us because this is where climate change is going to take us, and we are woefully unprepared.
The Tapovan dam in India on Tuesday, two days after a portion of the Nanda Devi glacier snapped off, releasing water trapped behind the dam, in the state of Uttarakhand. Credit: Associated Press
On Sunday, a glacier in the Indian Himalayas burst apart, releasing a torrential flood that destroyed one hydroelectric dam project and damaged another, killed at least 32 people and left nearly 200 people missing and likely dead. Half a world away, this event might seem easy to disregard as yet another distant catastrophe — tragic yet unrelated to our daily lives.
In the Western world, we should not be so sanguine. The disaster was a direct result of extreme climate change in the world’s highest mountains. The rapid warming there offers a warning of the potential consequences for the United States and the rest of the world as greenhouse gases continue to heat the planet.
Since taking office, President Biden has sought to reaffirm what scientists have been saying for decades: An effective climate response must be guided by strong research. As his administration works to […]
Stephan: Tucker Carlson, by the admission of Fox in court is a propagandist not a journalist. But he is the most-watched personality on Fox, and so millions of people who cannot make the distinction between propaganda and actual journalism are influenced by what he says. This is how crazy Fox has become. I think that if a corporation presents itsself as a news organization it ought to be criminally liable if it consistently presents disinformation.
Fox propagandist Tucker Carlson and criminal Donald Trump Credit: Salon/Getty
On Wednesday evening, Fox News host Tucker Carlson treated his viewers to a bizarre rant tying together former President Donald Trump’s impeachment trial with denial that George Floyd was killed by the Minneapolis Police.
“So what does all of this mean, exactly?” said Carlson. “We’re not sure what it means, and we’re not going to speculate. What we do know for certain is that the known facts of what happened on Jan. 6 deviate in very important ways from the story they are now telling us, including the story they told us today in the impeachment hearing. And in many places, the known facts bear no resemblance to the story they’re telling — they’re just flat-out lying. There’s no question about that. The question is, why would they lie about this?”‘
“For an answer, think back to last spring, beginning of Memorial Day,” said Carlson. “BLM and their sponsors in Corporate America completely changed this country, they changed this country more in five months than it changed in the previous fifty […]
Stephan: As this article lays out it is possible to convert to 100% renewable energy, and as the climate change data makes clear the need to do this is undeniable and urgent.
Renewable energy scientists are advocating a “redesign of the global energy system.” Credit: yangna / E+ / Getty
Setting out to rebut defeatist and cynical claims that transitioning the entire global energy system to 100% renewables by 2035 is infeasible, a group of dozens of leading scientists from around the world unveiled a joint declaration Tuesday arguing that such a transformation of the fossil fuel-dependent status quo is not only necessary to avert climate disaster but eminently achievable.
What’s required, argue the 46 signatories of the new 10-point declaration, is sufficient political will, international coordination, and concrete action on a massive scale to institute a total “re-design of the global energy system.”
“We have lost too much time in our efforts to address global warming and the seven million air pollution deaths that occur each year, by not focusing enough on useful solutions,” said Mark Jacobson, director of the atmosphere/energy program and professor of civil and environmental engineering at Stanford University.
“Fortunately, low-cost 100% clean, renewable energy solutions do exist to solve these problems, as […]
Stephan: All of us have seen endless media reports about how the Covid-19 pandemic began in a Chinese lab in Wuhan. Well, the World Health Organization has been trying to ascertain if this is correct, and have concluded that it is not. Here is the story.
Wuhan Lab Credit: NBC
It is “extremely unlikely” that the coronavirus leaked from a lab in the Chinese city of Wuhan, where Covid-19 first emerged, according to the head of a team of experts that on Tuesday released the first details of its fact-finding mission into the virus’s origins.
Dr. Peter Ben Embarek from the World Health Organization said it was more likely that the virus, which has now claimed more than 2.3 million lives worldwide, had jumped to humans from an animal.
“Our initial findings suggest that the introduction through an intermediary host species is the most likely pathway and one that will require more studies and more specific targeted research,” he said at a press conference.
The theory that the virus was introduced into the human population as a result of a lab accident did not warrant future study, he added.
There was speculation early on in the pandemic — partially fueled by then-President Donald Trump — that the virus was either manufactured at or accidentally leaked from a lab at the Wuhan […]
Stephan: If you have been reading SR regularly you know that I have been saying for the past year that Covid-19 may be the result of a virus mutation arising in response to climate change, and that it is likely as climate change goes on we are going to see additional such pandemics as other viruses and bacteria mutate to accommodate their changed circumstances. Well, the University of Cambridge seems to agree with me.
Global greenhouse gas emissions over the last century have made southern China a hotspot for bat-borne coronaviruses, by driving growth of forest habitat favoured by bats.
A new study published today in the journal Science of the Total Environment provides the first evidence of a mechanism by which climate change could have played a direct role in the emergence of SARS-CoV-2, the virus that caused the COVID-19 pandemic.
The study has revealed large-scale changes in the type of vegetation in the southern Chinese Yunnan province, and adjacent regions in Myanmar and Laos, over the last century. Climatic changes including increases in temperature, sunlight, and atmospheric carbon dioxide—which affect the growth of plants and trees—have changed natural habitats from tropical shrubland to tropical savannah and deciduous woodland. This created a suitable environment for many bat species that predominantly live in forests.
The number of coronaviruses in an area is closely linked to the number of different bat species present. The study found that an additional 40 bat species have moved into the southern Chinese Yunnan province in the past century, harbouring around 100 more types of bat-borne […]
Fred Pearce, Contributing Writer - Yale Environment
Stephan: Recently I ran a story about the collapse of a dam in India as a result of the run-off of massive glacial melt in the Himalayas. This has brought into focus the vulnerability of thousands of aging dams worldwide being stressed by climate change. In the U.S. we have many such dams, and we are doing very little to prepare for the inevitable.
Water is released from the Sanmenxia Dam in Henan Province, China in 2019 to prevent the dam from overflowing. Credit: Sun Meng/VCG/Getty
Tens of thousands of large dams across the globe are reaching the end of their expected lifespans, leading to a dramatic rise in failures and collapses, a new UN study finds. These deteriorating structures pose a serious threat to hundreds of millions of people living downstream.
ho would want to live downstream of the 125-year-old Mullaperiyar Dam, nestled in a seismic zone of the Western Ghats mountains in India? The 176-foot-high relic of British imperial engineering cracked during minor earthquakes in 1979 and 2011. According to a 2009 study by seismic engineers at the Indian Institute of Technology, it might not withstand a strong earthquake larger than 6.5 on the Richter scale.
Three million people live downriver of the dam. But their demands for it to be emptied are held up by a long-running legal case in the nation’s Supreme Court between Kerala, the state under threat, and Tamil Nadu, the state upstream that operates the dam to obtain irrigation water […]
