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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: As I have already said, I think that because Trump is entirely self-referential and narcissistic, he seems to have no sense of obligation to serve the interests of the country. Quite the contrary, his anti-science posture, and indifference to social wellbeing is made very clear by acts like the one described in this report.
A girl places an American flag on the rubble of her grandparents’ home after it was destroyed by a tornado in Louisville, Mississippi. Credit: Joe Raedle / Getty
The National Climate Assessment, which is released every four years, combines the expertise of 13 federal agencies along with independent scientists, The New York Times explained. The last assessment, released in 2018, said unequivocally that the impacts of climate change were already being felt in the U.S. and would get worse if nothing was done to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. The Trump administration tried to bury the report by releasing it Thanksgiving weekend, and President Donald Trumpclaimed that he did not believe it. Now, there is concern the administration is trying to influence the findings of the next assessment.
“Even in their final days, they are continuing to attempt to bury the overwhelming scientific consensus on climate change,” Union of Concerned Scientists senior climate scientist Rachel Licker told The New York Times.
The administration on Friday reassigned Michael Kuperberg, a climate scientist who runs the U.S. Global Change Research Program […]
Stephan: It is very clear that America's King Lear cares nothing for the wellbeing of the country, for our democratic system, or really anything or anyone other than himself. Trump is headed for humiliation and a historical reputation as the worse president in the history of the country. One should also note the response of the Republicans in Congress which proves, once again, that you cannot be an ethical person who cares about the country's wellbeing and a Republican. Every act and statement from Republicans demonstrates this. If I were a Republican I would be ashamed to tell anyone I was.
President Trump plans to brandish obituaries of people who supposedly voted but are dead — plus hold campaign-style rallies — in an effort to prolong his fight against apparent insurmountable election results, four Trump advisers told me during a conference call this afternoon.
What we’re hearing: Obits for those who cast ballots are part of the “specific pieces of evidence” aimed at bolstering the Trump team’s so-far unsupported claims of widespread voter fraud and corruption that they say led to Joe Biden’s victory.
Fueling the effort is the expected completion of vote counting this week, allowing Republicans to file for more recounts.
What’s next: Team Trump is ready to announce specific recount teams in key states, and it plans to hold a series of Trump rallies focused on the litigation.
In Georgia: Doug Collins, the outgoing congressman who lost to Sen. Kelly Loeffler in a special election to fill former Sen. Johnny Isakson’s seat, will be leading the campaign’s recount efforts. The team has also redeployed 92 staffers from Florida to Georgia, doubling its group on the ground.
Stephan: There is no precedent in American history for the kind of performance of the Trump administration in this transition period. Trump reminds of a child lying on the floor drumming his heels because he did not get what he wanted. But it isn't just Trump, who increasingly looks like a madman, and I think that is the way he will be portrayed in history, the American Nero. Equally significant is the response of the Congressional Republicans, the cabinet, and the vice president. Men who openly display that they have no ethics, no morals, no commitment to foster the wellbeing of the nation they took an oath to serve.
As President Donald Trump refuses to concede that he lost the presidential election, his administration issued new orders on Monday, the first weekday since all of the networks called the race for Joe Biden and Kamala Harris on Saturday.
“The Trump White House on Monday instructed senior government leaders to block cooperation with President-elect Joe Biden’s transition team, escalating a standoff that threatens to impede the transfer of power and prompting the Biden team to consider legal action,” The Washington Post reported Monday. “Officials at agencies across the government who had prepared briefing books and carved out office space for the incoming Biden team to use as soon as this week were told instead that the transition would not be recognized until the Democrat’s election was confirmed by the General Services Administration, the low-profile agency that officially starts the transition.”
COURTNEY BUBLÉ, Staff Correspondent - Government Executive
Stephan: A minor Trump appointee is trying as hard as she can to screw up the presidential transition by refusing to do what was previously pro forma. What it tells me is that one of the first things the Biden administration should do is establish a committee to go through every agency and department in the government and fire everyone appointed over the last four years by Trump. We need to get back to clean nonpolitical government infrastructure.
GSA Administrator Emily Murphy is in charge of giving the green light for Biden to receive full transition resources. SUSAN WALSH/AP
Two days after the news networks declared Joe Biden the winner of the presidential election, lawmakers, a leading transition resource center and others are calling on the General Services Administration to give the green light for Biden’s team to access certain crucial transition funds and resources such as briefing books prepared by career federal employees.
The Electoral College is set to meet on December 14 and Inauguration Day is January 20, but the Trump campaign is continuing to contest the results of the election through lawsuits and requests for recounts as well as soliciting donations to fund its legal efforts. Jason Miller, senior adviser to Trump’s election campaign, told Fox Business on Monday that the word concede “is not even in our vocabulary right now.” A few Republicans (including former President George W. Bush) acknowledged Biden’s win and many foreign leaders have called to congratulate him.
The Biden team hit the ground running by outlining its
Ben Santer, Member of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences - Scientific American
Stephan: In order to deal with climate change we must develop policies on two principles: 1) That fostering wellbeing must be the first priority, and 2) it must be fact-based. The antipode to where we are today.
National Academy of Sciences Credit: Britannica
Dear Mr. President-elect,
In the last four years, federally funded science agencies were unmade and remade. They were given new marching orders. The mandate of providing the nation with unbiased scientific advice was replaced by a new mandate—that science is subordinate to the political goals and ego of President Trump.
The consequences of this new mandate are serious and far-reaching. The Environmental Protection Agency became the Environmental Pollution Agency, rolling back protections on clean air and clean water, and providing regulatory relief to President Trump’s campaign contributors from the fossil fuel industry. Scientists at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration were censured for challenging President Trump’s incorrect forecast of the path of a major hurricane. Their sin? Failing to adhere to the prime directive that the president is never wrong. At multiple federal agencies, climate science became “the subject that must not be named”—and the subject that should not be studied. And most recently, federally funded scientists unwilling to support the president’s incorrect narrative of a country “rounding the […]
David W. Blight, Professor of History - Yale - The New York Times
Stephan: We face a long list of crises and attacks on our democracy, and a large percentage of our population live in a fact free world dominated by fear, hate, and resentment. But I am optimistic. The key to the future is a change in consciousness, and that can only be achieved when each of us holds the intent that everything we do must foster wellbeing. If we can do that there is no force, no power, no politics that can resist the intention to be an agent of change to create a society that is compassionate, life-affirming, and fostering of wellbeing.
How to do this? The Quotidian Choice. Every day make every choice you make the option that is the most compassionate, life-affirming, and fostering of wellbeing.
That is not a political statement or a speculation, it is a statement of historical fact.
“I speak the password primeval . . . . I give the sign of democracy,” wrote Walt Whitman in “Song of Myself.” “By God! I will accept nothing which all cannot have their counterpart of on the same terms.”
One of our greatest poets sought the deepest forms of democracy, where people are completely unleashed to share their fullest humanity. Whitman endlessly sang of rebirth and renewal, in nature and in human society. Near the end of the same poem, he breathed his epitaph: “I bequeath myself to the dirt to grow from the grass I love,/ If you want me again look for me under your boot-soles.”
As a mythic, defining characteristic, the idea of rebirth has a profoundly fertile history in this land. Americans — their nation, their polity, their multiethnic culture — have never stopped being reborn, despite the conflicted meanings invoked by that concept. We admire second and third acts; we endured at least two reconstructions of our Constitution and our race relations. We revived with lasting significance from a colossal Civil War. […]
Stephan: This is a first assessment of what Biden's administration will be able to accomplish about climate change. we will see how this plays out.
Democratic presidential candidate former Vice President Joe Biden speaks Wednesday, Nov. 4, 2020, in Wilmington, Del. Credit: AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster
Though the counts aren’t finished and the legal challenges could drag on for weeks, Joe Biden’s victory in the US presidential election is looking increasingly likely. If he does triumph, it will also be a win for action on climate change. But his ability to push through any sweeping legislation will be seriously constrained if, as appears likely, Republicans retain control of the Senate.
This outcome is far from the landslide repudiation of President Donald Trump’s assaults on environmental policy, science, and pluralism that climate activists had fervently hoped for. Climate change did appear to be a motivating issue in certain regions and races, and a concern for a solid majority of voters. But polling found that the economy, health care, and the coronavirus outbreak were far more important issues to voters than climate change, where they remain sharply divided along partisan lines.
“The potential for Biden to do something big on climate feels, to me, pretty small,” says David Keith, […]
Stephan: Although the Republican Party has done everything it can to keep carbon energy corporations alive and profitable -- so the party, in turn, can continue to get the millions of dollars of funding it presently enjoys -- the trend is against them. Here, for instance, is the latest on geothermal energy production, which is going through major changes.
Sunlight glows through the steam of a geothermal power plant in Niland, California. Mickey Strider/Loop Images/Universal Images Group/Getty
Geothermal power is the perpetual also-ran of renewable energy, chugging along in the background for decades, never quite breaking out of its little niche, forever causing energy experts to say, “Oh, yeah, geothermal … what’s up with that?”
Well, after approximately 15 years of reporting on energy, I finally took the time to do a deep dive into geothermal and I am here to report: This is a great time to start paying attention!
After many years of failure to launch, new companies and technologies have brought geothermal out of its doldrums, to the point that it may finally be ready to scale up and become a major player in clean energy. In fact, if its more enthusiastic backers are correct, geothermal may hold the key to making 100 percent clean electricity available to everyone in the world. And as a bonus, it’s an opportunity for the struggling oil and gas industry to put its capital and skills to work on something […]
