IF YOU ENJOY SR AND FIND IT USEFUL WOULD YOU PLEASE DONATE
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.
Paul Krugman, Nobel Laureate Economist and Columnist - The New York Times
Stephan: I will just let Paul Krugman speak for me. I agree with everything he says in this essay.
Interstate 10 in Red Rock, Ariz. Credit:Cheney Orr/Reuters
I don’t know about you, but I’m feeling more and more as if we’re all trapped on the Titanic — except that this time around the captain is a madman who insists on steering straight for the iceberg. And his crew is too cowardly to contradict him, let alone mutiny to save the passengers.
A month ago it was still possible to hope that the push by Donald Trump and the Trumpist governors of Sunbelt states to relax social distancing and reopen businesses like restaurants and bars — even though we met none of the criteria for doing so safely — wouldn’t have completely catastrophic results.
At this point, however, it’s clear that everything the experts warned was likely to happen, is happening. Daily new cases of Covid-19 are running two and a half times as high as in early June, and rising fast. Hospitals in early-reopening states are under terrible pressure. National death totals are still declining thanks to falling fatalities in the Northeast, but they’re rising in the […]
Stephan: I cannot find the words, at least words I am willing to publish, to express how angry this story makes me. Between human-mediated climate change, and human-caused destruction of the beings with whom we share the earth we are creating a catastrophe for which all future generations will suffer. And it is occurring for two reasons: greed and stupidity. You could make a strong case that humans are a cancer eating away at the earth's matrix of life.
All 17 species of Red Colobus, including Temminck’s Red Colobus (Piliocolobus basius temminckii) are threatened, making this Africa’s most threatened genus of monkeys. Hunting for bushmeat—much of it illegal—and habitat loss continue to pose the most urgent threats to primates across the continent. Credit: Mic Mayhew/IUCN
The U.S.-based Center for Biological Diversity warned Thursday of the “urgent action needed to save life on Earth” in response to a new global assessment revealing that nearly 27% of over 120,000 analyzed plant and animal species are now threatened with extinction.
“At this point it’s a matter of political will to rapidly move away from fossil fuels, stamp out the wildlife trade, and overhaul the toxic ways we produce food.” —Tierra Curry, CBD
“This assessment shows that one in four mammals are facing extinction, and although we don’t prefer to think of ourselves as animals, we humans are mammals,” Tierra Curry, a senior scientist at CBD, said in a statement. “We have to take bold and rapid action to reduce the huge damage we’re doing to the planet if we’re going to save whales, frogs, […]
Stephan: The failure of billion-dollar corporations coupled with the Republican Party, augmented by the weakness of the Democratic Party, to deal with climate change with wellness fostering integrity, indeed their obfuscation of the truth will, I believe, be seen by future generations as perhaps the most catastrophically bad decision in human history.
A climate scientist says Facebook is restricting her ability to share research and fact-check posts containing climate misinformation.
Those constraints are occuring as groups that reject climate science increasingly use the platform to promote misleading theories about global warming.
The groups are using Facebook to mischaracterize mainstream research by claiming that reduced consumption of fossil fuels won’t help address climate change. Some say the planet and people are benefitting from the rising volume of carbon dioxide that’s being released into the atmosphere.
Facebook is an effective way to expand their reach to larger audiences, say members of the groups, which have traditionally been tied to conservative media outlets. In recent weeks, tens of thousands of people have been exposed to misleading and false claims about rising temperatures, according to an E&E News analysis.
Now, Facebook appears to be weakening a firewall it has built to fact-check such climate denialism. The company recently overruled a fact-check from a group of climate scientists, in a move that concerns researchers about a potentially new precedent by the platform that permits inaccurate claims to be promoted if […]
Stephan: Will it surprise you to learn that Americans have the worst diet in the developed world? We're number one for sure; it's just that all our number one's are for being the worst, not the best. Don't you think it's time we changed?
Credit: Salon/Ilana Lidagoster
What happens to cuisines when cultures change, or when culture becomes globalized? Naturally, so do our diets—and our health. Food research by the U.S. military, particularly during and after World War II, led to the creation of consumer products that could also be used as wartime rations, which meant heavy processing. And one consequence of the Allied victory is that the world has largely adopted America’s processed-food diet, which is a key factor for the obesity crisis the world now faces, with around 13 percent of the world’s adult population considered to be obese in 2016. According to the 2020 Global Nutrition Report, while malnutrition is the leading cause of death worldwide, this crisis is worsened by obesity, which remains three times more common than hunger.
The worst diet in the world
The American diet, according to the World Resources Institute (WRI), a global nonprofit research organization, is the worst in the world in terms of overconsumption and waste. This conclusion was drawn from an ongoing study conducted by the Institute, which found that the average […]
Stephan: I see this story as good news because it means that Democrats, whose major weakness is their obsession with tertiary nuance, which makes it very hard to come to a common intention, will not shoot themselves in the head as they have so often done in the past, but will seek a shared goal, and make climate change a major priority.
Bernie Sanders and Joe Biden Credit: Frederic J. Brown/AFP/Getty
Once upon a time, many moons ago — i.e., back in April — Democratic presidential primary candidate Bernie Sanders agreed to exit the race and join forces with his mortal frenemy Joe Biden to help the former vice president take the White House. The two announced they were putting together a series of joint “unity” task forces with experts from each of their camps to shape the Democratic platform, including a task force on climate change.
After a few months of weekly Zoom meetings and conference calls, the task forces sent their final recommendations to the Democratic National Committee for its consideration on Wednesday.
On climate change, the two candidates and their supporters had some serious divides to bridge. Over the course of nine months of primary debates, Biden touted his plan to build 500,000 electric vehicle chargers and put his faith in American exceptionalism while Sanders bashed fossil fuel executives and promoted the Green New Deal. To try to find a middle ground, Sanders appointed Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Sunrise Movement co-founder Varshini Prakash, and […]
Stephan: Donald Trump, a psychopath who more and more reminds me of a nasty over-indulged child throwing a tantrum, formally announced the other day that the United States, in the middle of a pandemic now involving at a minimum over three million Americans, was withdrawing from the World Health Organization (WHO). It is an act of mind =-boggling stupidity, and further confirms, in my opinion, that Trump, Pence, and their orcs are guilty of mass murder, a crime against humanity.
Happily, Joe Biden immediately stepped forward and said. Oh no we are not, not if I am elected President. That statement alone should win him the election.
From this report, since few Americans seem to be clear about what WHO is:
Founded in 1948 and based in Geneva, Switzerland, it is the UN agency responsible for global public health
Has 194 member states, and aims to "promote health, keep the world safe and serve the vulnerable"
Involved in vaccination campaigns, health emergencies and supporting countries in primary care
Funded by a combination of members' fees based on wealth and population and voluntary contributions
Joe Biden refuting Trump’s decision to withdraw from WHO
US Democratic challenger Joe Biden has said he will reverse President Donald Trump’s move to withdraw from the World Health Organization (WHO) “on day one” if he wins November’s election.
Mr Trump formally began the pull out on Tuesday after signalling the move in May. He said the WHO was under China’s control during the coronavirus crisis.
The process could take at least a year.
Mr Trump currently trails Mr Biden in the race for president by a margin of more than 10 percentage points.
Analysts have urged caution in interpreting the polls, but Mr Biden’s lead is far greater than that of Mr Trump’s 2016 opponent Hillary Clinton at the same point in the campaign.
Many voters are concerned by the administration’s handling the pandemic and its economic fallout.
There have been almost three million confirmed cases of the virus in the US and more than 130,000 deaths, far more than in any other country. Meanwhile, tens of millions have lost their jobs.
Stephan: If you ever wanted to know what treason looks like, it looks like this. Then place this report in the context of Putin paying $100,000 bounties for the murder of American service personnel in Afghanistan, and Trump's utter indifference and non-response to that. Does that make it a little clearer? How any American could vote for Traitor Trump is beyond my comprehension. Ask your Trumper friends, if you have any, how they will justify voting for him.
Trump and Putin Credit: Mandel Ngan/AFP via Getty
Why would the Russian government think it could get away with paying bounties to the Taliban to kill American soldiers? One answer to that question may be the extraordinary response that Moscow received when the Trump administration learned of a precursor to the bounty operation. From mid-2017 and into 2018, Pentagon officials became increasingly confident in intelligence reports that the Kremlin was arming the Taliban, which posed a significant threat to American and coalition forces on the ground in Afghanistan.
President Trump’s actions in the face of the Russia-Taliban arms program likely signaled weak US resolve in the eyes of Putin and Russian military intelligence.
Three dimensions of Trump’s response are described in detail in this article, based on interviews with several former Trump administration officials who spoke to Just Security on the record.
First, President Trump decided not to confront Putin about supplying arms to the terrorist group. Second, during the very times in which U.S. military officials publicly raised concerns about the program’s threat to U.S. forces, Trump undercut them. He embraced Putin, overtly […]
Stephan: Just because we are in the middle of a Pandemic that now involves at least one percent of the American population doesn't mean that climate change is taking some time off. As I have been warning my readers since the early 90s, water is destiny, and we are going to have three big internal migrations: 1) Away from coasts because of too much water; 2) out of the Southwest because of temperature increase and insufficient water; and, 3) out of the central states because of violence weather events like tornadoes.
Well, here's a little update.
Colorado drought Credit: Colorado Springs Gazette
LOVELAND PASS, COLORADO — Here at 12,000 feet on the Continental Divide, only vestiges of the winter snowpack remain, scattered white patches that have yet to melt and feed the upper Colorado River, 50 miles away.
That’s normal for mid-June in the Rockies. What’s unusual this year is the speed at which the snow went. And with it went hopes for a drought-free year in the Southwest.
“We had a really warm spring,” said Graham Sexstone, a hydrologist with the United States Geological Survey. “Everything this year has melted really fast.”
The Southwest has been mired in drought for most of the past two decades. The heat and dryness, made worse by climate change, have been so persistent that some researchers say the region is now caught up in a megadrought, like those that scientists who study past climate say occurred here occasionally over the past 1,200 years and lasted 40 years or longer.
Even a single season of drought is bad news for the Southwest, where agriculture, industry […]
