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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.
Hiroko Tabuchi, Michael Corkery and Carlos Mureithi, Reporters - The New York Times
Stephan: I have told my readers over and over that petroleum corporations are not going to wither away without a fight, which means doing even more damage to the earth than they have already done. And here is yet another proof of that prediction.
A dump in Nakuru, Kenya. A trade group is pushing United States trade negotiators to demand a reversal of the country’s strict limits on plastics. Credit: Khadija M. Farah/The New York Times
Confronting a climate crisis that threatens the fossil fuel industry, oil companies are racing to make more plastic. But they face two problems: Many markets are already awash with plastic, and few countries are willing to be dumping grounds for the world’s plastic waste.
The industry thinks it has found a solution to both problems in Africa.
According to documents reviewed by The New York Times, an industry group representing the world’s largest chemical makers and fossil fuel companies is lobbying to influence United States trade negotiations with Kenya, one of Africa’s biggest economies, to reverse its strict limits on plastics — including a tough plastic-bag ban. It is also pressing for Kenya to continue importing foreign plastic garbage, a practice it has pledged to limit.
Plastics makers are looking well beyond Kenya’s borders. “We anticipate that Kenya could serve in the future as a hub for […]
Stephan: Here is some wonderfully good news. Young people are becoming active in protecting American democracy by volunteering to serve at voting places. If you know a young person who is over 18, suggest that they, too, volunteer to work at polling places for the election.
A poll worker sanitizes a voting booth at a polling location in Louisville, Kentucky, on 23 June 2020. Credit: Bloomberg/Getty
Ahead of the 2016 election, Maya Patel, then a student at the University of Texas at Austin, registered 250 students to vote. But after seeing first-hand the hours-long lines voters were forced to navigate before casting their ballots, she knew there was more work to do. Two years later, she worked to install an additional polling location on the campus just in time for the midterm elections.
Now Patel is getting ready to be a poll worker in November. Why? Well, because it’s fun, and more importantly, she said, there’s a dire poll worker shortage around the country that could threaten the presidential election.
Elderly and retired people normally comprise a large portion of poll workers, but this year many of them have dropped out over fears of contracting Covid-19. In the 2016 presidential election, about 917,694 poll workers were responsible for managing more than 100,000 polling sites. This year, even as half of the American electorate is expected to […]
Stephan: If you live in another country than the U.S., as I have learned from travelling widely, the American healthcare system, actually an illness profit system, is incomprehensible. How is it possible I have been asked over and over, that the people of America don't see that it is in everyone's best interest -- except corporations -- to have universal birthright healthcare? Is it stupidity, or ignorance people will say. How can you tolerate bankrupting your family if someone gets sick? Good questions all and ones to which I do not have good answers. Do you?
Half in U.S. now, vs. 45% in 2019, concerned about health-related bankruptcy
15%, including 20% of non-White adults, carry long-term medical debt
Lowering drug prices a key voting issue for 35% of adults
WASHINGTON, D.C. — Half of all U.S. adults are concerned that a major health event in their household could lead to bankruptcy, an increase from 45% measured in early 2019 (PDF download). These results, based on a new study by West Health and Gallup, also show that the percentage of non-White adults who harbor this concern has risen from 52% to 64%.Fear of Health Event Leading to BankruptcyHow concerned are you that a major health event in your household could lead to bankruptcy? Extremely concerned, concerned, not very concerned or not at all concerned?
January-February 2019July 2020Change% Extremely concerned/ Concerned% Extremely concerned/ Concernedpct. pts.U.S. total4550+5*GenderWomen4751+4Men4249+7*RaceWhite adults4143+2Non-White adults5264+12*Age18-294355+12*30-494655+9*50-645248-465+3840+2* Statistically significant change (p<.05), design effect includedGALLUP-WEST HEALTH U.S. HEALTHCARE STUDY, JULY 2020
This study is based on 1,007 interviews with U.S. adults conducted from July 1-24, 2020. Over the past year, concerns about medical bankruptcy have increased […]
Stephan: The madness Donald Trump has created and stimulated in the United States is not going unnoticed in the rest of the world. How anyone can support or vote for this man I simply do not understand. He talks about what is going on as if he has nothing to do with it, and only he can stop it. It is the very essence of the Hitlerian Big Lie.
This is what we look like to the people of Asia. Aren't you proud? Neither am I, and it is going to take decades to repair what Trump, Pence, and their orcs have done.
PORTLAND, OR – AUGUST 29: Portland police hold back Chandler Pappas who was with the victim of a fatal shooting as he reacts in minutes after the incident on August 29, 2020 in Portland, Oregon. Far left counter-protesters and pro-Trump supporters clashed Saturday afternoon as a parade of cars carrying right wing supporters made their way from nearby Clackamas to Portland. Credit: Nathan Howard/Getty /AFP
Shootings that left three dead at protests against police brutality have stoked fears of rising violence as a deeply divided US heads into elections amid economic collapse, a deadly pandemic and the worst social upheaval since the 1960s.
President Donald Trump, hoping to secure a second term in November despite the crisis, heads Tuesday to Kenosha, the Wisconsin town that descended into violence last week after police shot a young black father seven times in the back.
The governor of the state, Democrat Tony Evers, called on Trump in vain to reconsider his visit, warning it would “hinder our healing” and arguing that the citizens of the town are already […]
Stephan: I confess I simply do not understand how anyone could support Donald Trump or the Trumplican Party (the Republican Party as any number of Republicans will tell you has ceased to exist). The endless criminality, the vulgarity, the heartlessness, the racism, the sexism. Collectively it is the dark Id of America come to life. And yet I know millions do believe anything Trump tells them. I actually have Trumpers who read SR daily, and they write me the most amazingly ignorant and hateful things. Talk about how Joe Biden, about as centrist a politician as is alive today is a Marxist, how people who seek racial and gender equality are destroying the country. It is obvious from what they say they haven't a clue what a Marxist actually believes or supports, for them it is just a damning label, and that what motivates them is fear, resentment, and hatred. At one level I pity them. But at another, I realize they constitute an evil force in the United States.
Des Moines, Iowa / USA – January 14, 2020: Donald Trump supporter at Drake University in Des Moines outside the Democratic Debate
I chronicled the attempts made by an old friend to convince me of an outlandish conspiracy theory being promoted by the group of rabid online Donald Trump supporters known as “QAnon.” According to my friend, initiates of the Illuminati had teamed up with subterranean demons to torture, rape and eat kidnapped children in underground military bases ruled by Trump’s mortal enemies. Not surprisingly, none of the so-called “evidence” provided by my friend proved any such thing. Onward from there we go …
Fun with Adrenochrome!
The second link my friend sent me, entitled “ADRENOCHROME — Those Who Know Cannot Sleep,” was posted by a QAnon advocate who calls himself Vinctum. On Twitter, Vinctum describes himself as a “Red Pilled Armenian bloke from the Netherlands that’s into Personal Growth, Spirituality, Psychology, and Conspiracy facts.” Though he joined Twitter as recently as January of 2020, he already has more than 3,000 followers. His YouTube channel […]
Francesco Bassetti, CMCC Foundation Editorial Staff - Resources
Stephan: My estimate is that there is going to have to be massive suffering and death before humanity really awakens to what climate change is about, particularly in countries like the United States where the majority of politicians in both parties are so massively willfully ignorant. Here is another alarm bell confirming what is happening, this one a report from Siberia.
Siberia in winter Credit: Andrei Stepanov/Shutterstock
It’s not only about ice melting and rising temperatures. It’s also about a region that is beingtransformeddramatically by climate change. The way the Arctic is evolving comes with consequences for the environment, biosphere, international relations, and geopolitical balance. Scientists indicate that the recent heat wave in Siberia would have been virtually impossible without anthropogenic climate change. But how are these conclusions drawn, and how accurate is it to make these claims?
he word “Arctic” is seldom associated with images of sweltering heat. Yet in recent months, popular perceptions have changed. Everyone has heard about the record-breaking heatwave burning through Siberia. The high temperatures are melting permafrost, and air temperatures have hit up to 38ºC, breaking records in the remote town of Verkhoyansk that recorded the highest temperature ever in the Arctic.
The Arctic is warming at twice the rate of the global average, and at the end of June, land surface temperatures reached a staggering 45ºC in a variety of spots, according to European satellite data. Although land surface temperatures are not […]
Stephan: Trump doesn't give a damn about the people in Louisiana and Texas who just had their lives turned upside down by Hurricane Laura; he just stripped $44 billion out of FEMA as described in this report.
Lawmakers are concerned that President Donald Trump’s decision to swipe $44 billion from the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) will leave its disaster fund depleted amid a record-setting hurricane season.
Trump issued a memorandum allowing states to use $44 billion from FEMA’s Disaster Relief Fund to pay $300 per week in enhanced federal unemployment benefits earlier this month. The move came after Trump and Senate Republicans refused to budge on their demands to slash boosted unemployment benefits, repeating a widely-debunked claim that the extra pandemic aid was a disincentive for workers to return to their jobs. House Democrats, meanwhile, approved a full extension of the $600-per-week benefit back in May.
After Hurricane Laura made landfall this week in Louisiana amid a hurricane season which has already seen a record-setting number of named storms, lawmakers worry Trump’s move could leave FEMA unprepared to respond to recovery efforts. If the entire $44 billion is used, it could deplete the disaster relief agency’s budget to as low as $25 billion, according to the Louisiana news outlet NOLA.com.
Craig Fugate, the former FEMA administrator under former […]
Neelu Tummala, ENT doctor with George Washington Medical Faculty Associates - Scientific American
Stephan: I don't know why there is so little commentary about what climate change is going to do to the human body. If viruses like Covid-19 are mutating to accommodate to new circumstances how could anyone not know that the components of the human body will also be affected. Here is one of the first reports on this issue I have seen.
Credit: Getty
The wildfire season is off to a roaring start. The hot summer is worsening drought and drying out vegetation—an unfortunately ideal environment for wildfires to rage. But that’s just one consequence of global warming; it’s also leading to flooding, torrential rainstorms and heat-related deaths. In fact, the climate crisis has led to a widespread public health crisis. And as an ear, nose and throat physician, I see the effects more and more often.
I vividly remember a patient who came in late for her appointment during a July heat wave. When I walked in, she said, “I’m so sorry I’m late, I was up all night walking my grandbaby around the train station.” Without air conditioning at home, the child was sweating through her clothes in the heat of the night, putting her at risk for dehydration.
July 2019 was the hottest July on record; September 2019 was the hottest on record; January 2020 was the hottest on record; May 2020 was the hottest on record. This is not a coincidence. It is a pattern. Carbon dioxide, an important greenhouse […]
