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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.
Global air pollution kills 2,000 kids under five every day — that 730,000 little kids a year. It has become, as this report describes, the second-biggest killer of children under the age of five globally. Meanwhile, the carbon corporations pour tens of millions of dollars a year into further corrupting America’s politicians in order to preserve their profits and see that nothing is done about this. Instead of leading the world in mitigating air pollution, we are one of its biggest sources. And in other countries the rich behave similarly. I think greed is the biggest flaw in the human psyche.
A girl walks on a heavily polluted road in Dhaka, Bangladesh, on December 28, 2023. Credit: Kazi Salahuddin Razu / NurPhoto / Getty
Air pollution is now the second-biggest killer of children under the age of five globally, a new report released Wednesday shows, with the climate emergency and the continued use of dirty energy sources inextricably linked to the growing risk faced by young children exposed to toxic fumes.
Each day, according to the State of Global Air report by the Health Effects Institute (HEI) and the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), nearly 2,000 children under the age of five die from the effects of air pollution, with children in the Global South most at risk.
In most African countries, children under five are 100 times more likely to die from asthma and other other effects of air pollution than their counterparts in high-income countries.
In 2021, according to the report, air pollution was second only to malnutrition as a risk factor for death among young children. For the general […]
Air pollution and the death it causes in children is just one of the trends shaping the earth, and the people living on it. Food is another and this is what is happening. This is going to result in massive death and tens of millions of people displaced and on the move. This is the world that is emerging. Take a moment and on Friday look at my podcast, Five Trends that are Shaping the Earth. Check the research references I post, as I always do, for even more information.
The UN says 40% of the world’s land is already unable to sustain crops. Credit: Getty
Droughts and flooding have become so common in some of the poorest places on Earth that the land can no longer sustain crops, the director of the World Food Programme’s global office has said.
Martin Frick told the BBC that some of the most deprived areas had now reached a tipping point of having “zero” harvests left, as extreme weather was pushing already degraded land beyond use.
He said that as a result, parts of Africa, the Middle East and Latin America were now dependent on humanitarian aid.
Mr Frick warned that without efforts to reverse land degradation globally, richer countries would also begin to suffer crop failures.
The Global Environment Facility estimates that 95% of the world’s land could become degraded by 2050. The UN says that 40% is already degraded.
When soil degrades, the organic matter that binds it together dies off. This means that it is less able to support plant life […]
Xochitl Gonzalez, Contributing Writer - Microsoft Start / The Atlantic
Stephan:
America is one of the least literate nations in the developed world. Fifty-four percent of American adults can’t read past sixth-grade level, and 43% can read past fifth-grade level. That means there are literally millions of Americans who can not read and properly comprehend The Washington Post or the magazine in which this article was originally published. I have covered this before (see SR archive and look at the SR podcast). Finally, and sadly late, some positive changes are occurring that may improve this illiteracy. I certainly hope they are effective because you cannot have an illiterate democracy.
Recently, an old friend of mine from elementary school ran a hand over my bookshelf, stopped, and said, “You stole this.”
“I did not!”
“Yes, you did. You totally stole it from school.”
She pulled out my copy of The Once and Future King, and showed me the inside of the front cover. It was stamped: Board of Education, City of New York.
Okay, so I stole it. But I had a good reason. I loved that book so much; I couldn’t bear to return it to the school library.
My grade-school memories are full of books: bulletin boards that tracked the class read-a-thons, hand-written book reports, summer-reading lists. But a student growing up, as I did, in New York City’s District 20, will have a very different experience today. The city has adopted a new literacy regimen under which many public elementary schools are, in effect, giving up the teaching of books—storybooks, narrative nonfiction books, children’s chapter books—altogether. The curriculum is part of an initiative from the Eric Adams administration called, ironically, NYC Reads.
Plummeting reading comprehension is a national problem, but it’s particularly acute in New York City. Half of its third to eighth graders—and 60 […]
Controlled by christofascist White supremacy Republicans, Louisiana, based on its social outcome data, is essentially the equivalent of a developing country. Your baby or its mother are more likely to die at its birth in Louisiana than in 45 other states. Most people don’t even live as long in Louisiana as they do in other American states. But the government is run by pseudo-Christians, who talk about the 10 Commandments, and are now demanding they be posted in every public school class room but don’t live them. Of course, there are now lawsuits being filed to stop this.
BATON ROUGE, LOUISIANA — Louisiana has become the first state to require that the Ten Commandments be displayed in every public school classroom, the latest move from a GOP-dominated Legislature pushing a conservative agenda under a new governor.
The legislation that Republican Gov. Jeff Landry signed into law on Wednesday requires a poster-sized display of the Ten Commandments in “large, easily readable font” in all public classrooms, from kindergarten to state-funded universities.
Opponents questioned the law’s constitutionality and vowed to challenge it in court. Proponents said the the measure is not solely religious, but that it has historical significance. In the language of the law, the Ten Commandments are “foundational documents of our state and national government.”
The posters, which will be paired with a four-paragraph “context statement” describing how the Ten Commandments “were a prominent part of American public education for almost three centuries,” must be in place in classrooms by the start of 2025.
Even criminal Trump sought for a ban on bump stocks. I think he was afraid he might be assassinated by someone with an AR-15 with a bump stock. They have no use even as a. military weapons because they make the weapons so inaccurate; the only purpose of these devices is civilian mass shootings. But the Republican cult is terrified of offending the NRA so they blocked a new ban of bump stocks. Here are the facts. What I don’t quite see is how the Republicans voted to block something their maximum leader implemented.
Bump stock attached to AR-15. Credit: USCCA
Senate Republicans on Tuesday blocked an effort by Democrats to pass a ban on bump stocks in the wake of the Supreme Court’s decision overturning a Trump-era federal prohibition on the devices.
Sen. Martin Heinrich (D-N.M.), the author of the BUMP Act, brought his proposal up for unanimous consent, but Sen. Pete Ricketts (R-Neb.) blocked it.
The move came days after the court overturned a policy enacted by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) in 2018 after a mass shooting in Las Vegas killed 60 people and wounded hundreds. The shooter used guns equipped with bump stocks, which allow semiautomatic weapons to fire off hundreds of rounds per minute.
“Welcome to another day in the Democrat summer of show votes,” Ricketts said Tuesday, likening the move by Democrats to Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer’s (D-N.Y.) decision to hold votes on reproductive rights in recent weeks.
Ricketts also said the Supreme Court ruled correctly last week.
“This bill may be called the BUMP Act, but it’s not really about bump stocks,” Ricketts said. “This bill is about banning as many firearm accessories as possible and giving […]
One would think that the fact that the Red states, particularly those in the old Confederacy, have the worst economic outcomes would be a subject of national discussion. Some are little more than third-world countries. Here is a fact-based answer to why this is happening. Part of it is “a key component of this model is ensuring the absolute minimal levels of regulation on businesses, including a lack of enforcement of labor laws or safety standards for workers.” This reflects what the MAGAt 2025 Project in yesterday’s SR seeks. Is this the United States you want? If not you better vote only for Democrats. In spite of their many flaws the Democrats are the only party committed to preserving democracy and fostering social wellbeing.
Summary: States that have embraced the Southern economic development model are underperforming when compared to regions that did not implement this model.
Key findings
The South is the region with the lowest per capita GDP relative to other regions in the United States when D.C. is excluded; Southern states are overrepresented among those with the lowest per capita GDP.
Over the past 40 years, job growth across the South has lagged working-age population growth.
The lower levels of unemployment across the South are misleading; the region’s low labor force participation and prime-age employment-to-population ratio (EPOP) indicate that many Southerners have become discouraged because they are unable to find a job or face serious employment obstacles.
Large and intersecting racial and gender disparities in employment for Southerners reflect inequities and policy failures across the region.
Why this matters
Far from delivering on their promises of shared abundance and economic prosperity, “business-friendly” policies have impoverished the South. The Southern economic development model is a key feature shaping the region’s economic underperformance.
How to fix it
Instead of funneling resources to wealthy Southerners and corporations, policymakers should strengthen the social safety net, adequately fund schools, provide affordable access to childcare and transportation, and enforce labor laws or safety standards for workers.
Full Report
In speeches and promotional materials—often seeking to lure businesses to relocate to the […]
It tells you a sad and sorry tale about the United States that millions of Americans are still willing to vote for a multiple convicted felon, rapist, and grifter. I wouldn’t sit down at a table for dinner with him. I met Trump once at a party in Manhattan when we were both in our twenties. I thought he was a loathsome nouveau-riche braggart.
Donald Trump’s criminal conviction didn’t instantly upend the 2024 presidential race. But the results of a new poll should be worrying for Trump.
In the weeks since the verdict, both parties have sought to shape the public’s initial reaction, with Republicans largely denouncing it and Democrats citing the result as further evidence that Trump is unfit for office. To figure out how this unprecedented moment is being processed by the electorate, POLITICO Magazine partnered with Ipsos in a new survey.
Among the most notable findings in our poll: 21 percent of independents said the conviction made them less likely to support Trump and that it would be an important factor in their vote. In a close election, small shifts among independent and swing voters could determine the outcome.
And yet there is also good reason to believe that Trump and his allies’ efforts to discredit the prosecution and conviction have cast doubt on the validity of the verdict among many people and limited the potential fallout for the former president-turned-felon.
A sizable number of Americans, including independents, question […]
Mario Alejandro Ariza, Staff Writer - Microsoft Start
Stephan:
This is climate change as a reality. Much of Florida is going to be destroyed, and the moron Floridians elected as their governor, Ron DeSantis won’t even allow the words “climate change” to be used by his administration. This is the eleventh-hour alarm. Pay close attention to how your state’s governor and his administration respond to what anyone can see is happening.
Miami Is Entering a State of Unreality. Credit: Daniel Kozin / AP
Hank Perez, 72, was trying to get home to North Miami Beach on Wednesday afternoon last week, but the rain had other plans. Floodwaters as high as the hood of Perez’s gray Toyota Yaris stalled the car; he pulled onto the median and called for roadside assistance, but it never came. Thousands of other commuters found themselves in similar straits: About a foot and a half of water had fallen across South Florida—not the product of a hurricane or a tropical storm but of a rainstorm, dubbed Invest 90L, a deluge that meteorologists are calling a once-in-200-years event. It was the fourth such massive rainfall to smite southeastern Florida in as many years.
“Rain bombs” such as Invest 90L are products of our hotter world; warmer air has more room between its molecules for moisture. That water is coming for greater Miami and the 6 million people who live here. This glittering city was built on a drained swamp and sits […]
Recently, an old friend of mine from elementary school ran a hand over my bookshelf, stopped, and said, “You stole this.”
