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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: Other countries seem to be able to learn the truth of the Theorem of Wellbeing, that Trump and the Republican Party in the U.S. simply will not hear. I will keep close watch over how Geneva's new policies play out.
Geneva, Switzerland
The Swiss city of Geneva is to introduce a minimum wage of 23 Swiss francs ($25) an hour, equal to roughly 3,772 Swiss francs ($4,100) a month for a 41-hour working week.
Nearly two-thirds of the canton of Geneva on Sunday voted in favor of introducing the minimum wage, which is reported to be the highest in the world.
It is set to be implemented this month, according to the Groupement transfrontalier europeen website, an organization representing cross-border workers in France and Switzerland.
The measure had actually been rejected by voters twice in 2011 and 2014.
However, the coronavirus pandemic has further highlighted Geneva’s poverty problem, with reports of thousands queuing for food.
Michel Charrat, president of the Groupement transfrontalier europeen, told the Guardian that the vote to pass the measure represented a “mark of solidarity” with Geneva’s poorer residents.
Paul Krugman, Nobel Laureate Economist and Columnist - The New York Times
Stephan: Paul Krugman, as is usually the case, sees through the political bloviation to the reality. I think the most dangerous period of American history will occur after Trump loses the election, and before Biden is sworn in, because Trump is an utterly narcissistic self-referential psychopath, and he is going to want to punish Americans for not re-electing him.
Last year Donald Trump called Nancy Pelosi, the House speaker, a “nasty, vindictive, horrible person.” Actually, she isn’t — but he is.
Trump’s vindictiveness has become a major worry as the election approaches. He has already signaled that he won’t accept the result if he loses, which seems increasinglylikely though not certain. Nobody knows what chaos, possibly including violence, he may unleash if the election doesn’t go his way.
Even aside from that concern, however, a defeated Trump would still be president for two and a half months. Would he spend that time acting destructively, in effect taking revenge on America for rejecting him?
Well, we got a preview of what a lame-duck Trump presidency might look like Tuesday. Trump hasn’t even lost yet, but he abruptly cut off talks on an economic relief package millions of Americans desperately need (although as of Thursday he seemed to be backtracking). And his motivation seems to have been sheer spite.
Why do we need economic relief? Despite several months […]
JASON BORDOFF , Former Senior Director U.S. National Security Council, Special Assistant to President Barack Obama, Director of the Center on Global Energy Policy at Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs - Foreign Policy
Stephan: None of this will be new to my regular readers, but you don't often see an article that puts this geopolitical meta-view into one coherent package. The transition out of the carbon era is going to turn the world power structure on its head. Countries whose incomes are tied to carbon energy, particularly Russia, 30% of whose GDP is dependent on oil and gas, which makes up 60% of Russian exports will, I think, go into economic collapse. It won't happen at once, it's a process, but over the next 30 years, unless Russia stops being a kleptocratic oligarchy centered on carbon energy, it's future is quite bleak. And, as the article describes, the effects on the Middle East are going to be both dramatic and potentially traumatic.
Russian President Vladimir Putin and King Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud of Saudi Arabia meet at the Al-Yamamah Royal Palace in Riyadh on Oct. 14, 2019. Mikhail Metzel/Tass/Getty
Signs that the energy transition is picking up speed abound. One of the world’s largest oil companies, BP, recently projected oil demand may be close to peaking. The governor of California just signed an executive order to ban the sale of new gasoline-fueled cars by 2035. China, responsible for more than one-quarter of the world’s carbon emissions, pledged to achieve carbon neutrality by 2060. And public polling shows a rising sense of urgency about the climate threat, galvanized by raging California wildfires and severe U.S. Gulf Coast hurricanes.
Transforming an industry that has defined the modern era will have profound consequences on the global order. China will rise and petrostates will fall—or so says conventional wisdom. In reality, the geopolitical fallout of a clean energy transition will be far more subtle, complex, and counterintuitive. Many of today’s predictions are likely to turn out wrong, or will take decades to unfold in unpredictable ways. If […]
Hao Tan, Elizabeth Thurbon, John Mathews, Sung-Young Kim, Associate professor, University of Newcastle | Professor Emeritus, Macquarie Business School, Macquarie University | Scientia Fellow and Associate Professor in International Relations / International Political Economy, UNSW - EcoWatch
Stephan: While Trump and the Republicans are doing everything they can to keep the United States tied to carbon energy China, like Europe, is moving in the diametrically opposite direction. This is one of the many signs of the world's changing geopolitics.
Beijing’s Forbidden City is seen here covered by smog. Credit: Yinan Chen / Wikimedia Commons / CC0
China’s President Xi Jinping surprised the global community recently by committing his country to net-zero emissions by 2060. Prior to this announcement, the prospect of becoming “carbon neutral” barely rated a mention in China’s national policies.
China currently accounts for about 28% of global carbon emissions – double the U.S. contribution and three times the European Union’s. Meeting the pledge will demand a deep transition of not just China’s energy system, but its entire economy.
Importantly, China’s use of coal, oil and gas must be slashed, and its industrial production stripped of emissions. This will affect demand for Australia’s exports in coming decades.
It remains to be seen whether China’s climate promise is genuine, or simply a ploy to win international favor. But it puts pressure on many other nations – not least Australia – to follow.
Goodbye, Fossil Fuels
Coal is currently used to generate about 60% of China’s electricity. Coal must be phased out for China to […]
Nicholas Confessore, Karen Yourish, Steve Eder, Ben Protess, Maggie Haberman, Grace Ashford, Michael LaForgia, Kenneth P. Vogel, Michael Rothfeld and Larry Buchanan, Reporters - The New York Times
Stephan: Yet another story, proving that for Trump it is all a grift. The whole point of the presidency from his perspective, as story after story, makes clear is how can he rig things to enrich himself. The United States, along with Trump's mentor Putin and his Russia have become the most corrupt developed nations in the world.
llustration by The New York Times
It was Springtime at President Trump’s Mar-a-Lago club, and the favor-seekers were swarming.
In a gold-adorned ballroom filled with Republican donors, an Indian-born industrialist from Illinois pressed Mr. Trump to tweet about easing immigration rules for highly skilled workers and their children.
“He gave a million dollars,” the president told his guests approvingly, according to a recording of the April 2018 event.
Later that month, in the club’s dining room, the president wandered over to one of its newer members, an Australian cardboard magnate who had brought along a reporter to flaunt his access. Mr. Trump thanked him for taking out a newspaper ad hailing his role in the construction of an Ohio paper mill and box factory, whose grand opening the president would attend.
And in early March, a Tennessee real estate developer who had donated lavishly to the inauguration, and wanted billions in loans from the new administration, met the president at the club and asked him for help.
Mr. Trump waved over his personal lawyer, Michael D. Cohen. “Get it done,” the president said, describing the […]
Stephan: Republicans do not like democracy. As a result of their racism, grifting, christofascism, commitment to carbon energy, and refusal to confront climate change they have become a minority party, and the only path to power for them is to destroy American democracy. Now the dumber members of the party are openly admiting that. Thanks, Utah, what were you thinking when you elected this moron?
Republican Sen. Mike Lee of Utah sparked a backlash this week when made an undercurrent of the modern conservative movement and the driving ideology of the Republican Party explicit.
Twitter’s not exactly known for the capacity to have in-depth discussions on political philosophy, but Lee hadn’t even come close to using up his 280 characters. After significant outrage stirred by his first tweet, Lee expanded on the idea the following day with a slightly longer message.
Again, it was a striking sentiment, and it inflamed critics who have accused the Lee and the GOP of systematically trying to disenfranchise constituencies they believe won’t vote for Republicans. But Lee didn’t back down. He went to the conservative outlet the Washington Examiner, which essentially transcribed his own defense of his claims […]
Stephan: Week after week, month after month, I have been publishing these awful stories describing how the Trump administration is destroying our public lands, and the heritage that each generation passes on protected and supported to the one that comes after. It is just disgusting what is happening, and it will take years if not decades to repair what has been done. And that is assuming that a Democrat is elected president and cleans out the sewer orcs that fill so many senior positions in the Trump era.
In 2019, the USDA’s Wildlife Services program intentionally killed roughly 62,000 coyotes. Credit: Tom Koerner/USFWS
Days after federal data revealed taxpayers funded the killing of 1.2 million native animal species in 2019, the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Wildlife Services program was sued Thursday over what conservation advocates decry as a cruel and misguided annual extermination spree.
“Wildlife Services is infamous for the scope and cruelty of its killing campaigns across the nation,” Chris Smith, southern Rockies wildlife advocate for WildEarth Guardians, said in a statement.
“To carry out such a horrific onslaught on native wildlife in the midst of a mass extinction event and a climate crisis, without any real knowledge of the impact,” added Smith, “is utterly outrageous.”
The lawsuit (pdf) was filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of New Mexico by WildEarth Guardians and accuses Wildlife Services (WS) of running afoul of various federal regulations stipulated by the National Environmental Policy Act, Council on Environmental Quality regulations, and Administrative Procedure Act.
According to teh court filing, the program has failed to provide an Environmental Impact Statement on the […]
Stephan: I have been telling my readers for more than a decade that the crisis this article describes was coming. It is amazing to me that unless you go deeply into the data weeds you hear almost nothing about what I see as the historic and civilization altering food and water trend. There are so many of these trends going on under the media surface that we ought to be addressing, but they are all lost in the swirling sewage of the Trump administration.
Billions worldwide worry that they will be seriously harmed by consuming unsafe food and water, and nearly as many expect it to happen to them in the next two years, according to the new Lloyd’s Register Foundation World Risk Poll.
More than half of adults surveyed in 142 countries and territories in 2019 said they were at least somewhat worried that the food they eat (60%) or the water they drink (51%) would seriously harm them in the next two years. More than half also expected they would be seriously harmed in that time frame by eating or drinking unsafe food (57%) or water (52%).
Over one in six adults (17%) — or roughly 1 billion people — said they or someone they know had experienced serious harm from eating food in the past two years. Nearly as many, 14%, said they had experienced harm from drinking water in that time frame.
The World Risk Poll, the first global study of worry and risk, provides insight into one of the biggest safety challenges facing society today and likely over the […]
