Another Month on a Warming Planet: Record-Hot November
The New York Times – December 7, 2020 – Henry Fountain
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/07/climate/climate-change-hottest-november.html
Warm conditions persisted over large swaths of the planet, with temperatures the highest above average across Northern Europe and Siberia, as well as the Arctic Ocean. Much of the United States was warmer than average as well… “These records are consistent with the long-term warming trend of the global climate,” the service’s director [Copernicus Climate Change Service], Carlo Buontempo, said in a statement. “All policymakers who prioritize mitigating climate risks should see these records as alarm bells.”
Where We Stand on Climate
The New Yorker – December 11, 2020 – Bill McKibben
https://www.newyorker.com/news/annals-of-a-warming-planet/where-we-stand-on-climate
To put it simply, the temperature is increasing steadily and at a pace scientists had predicted. (The latest figures from Columbia University’s James Hansen and other climate scientists suggest an acceleration of warming over the past few years.) “We have entered a new climate,” the meteorologist Jeff Masters, a contributor to Yale Climate Connections, said last week. “Heat is energy and when everything else comes together,” he added, “things are going to go bonkers.” Given the pace of physical change, the question becomes how fast societies can move to counter it. So far, the signs are not encouraging… So the right metaphor for where we are now is a race—one that we are losing. We can’t actually win it, in the sense that we’ve already done so much damage, and far more is locked in for the future. But, if we act with daring and haste in the decade ahead, we can still achieve a world in which the temperature rises by two degrees Celsius or less, instead of by three or four or more—and that could easily make the difference between a civilization that survives and one that collapses.
The Deadly Cost of America’s Pandemic Politics
The New Yorker – December 8, 2020 – Dhruv Khullar
https://www.newyorker.com/science/medical-dispatch/the-deadly-cost-of-americas-pandemic-politics
The law around pandemic restrictions is mostly clear. It’s the politics that are at issue. The balancing of individual liberty and public health may now be the most contentious issue in American life. Vaccines for the novel coronavirus are on the way, but until they arrive tens of thousands of lives depend on community-based intervention—such as masks, distancing, and isolation—that must be carried out by ordinary Americans. Their willingness or unwillingness will determine how many people die. Our differences of opinion, therefore, have concrete, immediate, and drastic consequences… Adam Berinsky, a political scientist at M.I.T., studies the links between public opinion, misinformation, and political polarization. Berinsky divides the population into three groups: people who are correctly informed, people who are uninformed, and people who are actively misinformed… Rarely, if ever, have so many lives depended so directly on the project of persuasion, empathy, and understanding. Faced with the prospect of the deadliest winter in modern U.S. history, we must not give up on that project. We cannot stop talking to one another.
People’s Vaccine: Calls Grow for Equal Access to Coronavirus Vaccine as Rich Countries Hoard Supply
Democracy Now! – December 9, 2020 – Mohga Kamal-Yanni and Achal Prabhala
https://www.democracynow.org/2020/12/9/coronavirus_vaccine_access
While the United States, Britain and other wealthy countries race to vaccinate their populations against the coronavirus, a new report finds that as much as 90% of the population in dozens of poorer countries could be forced to wait until at least 2022 because wealthy countries are hoarding so much of the vaccine supply. A growing movement is calling for the development of a people’s vaccine and the suspension of intellectual property rights to expand access. We speak with Dr. Mohga Kamal-Yanni, a policy adviser to the People’s Vaccine Alliance, and Achal Prabhala, a public health advocate and coordinator of the AccessIBSA project, which campaigns for access to medicines in India, Brazil and South Africa.
What’s Not Being Said About the Pfizer Coronavirus Vaccine. “Human Guinea Pigs”?
Global Research – December 5, 2020 – F. William Engdahl
https://www.globalresearch.ca/what-not-said-pfizer-coronavirus-vaccine/5729461
Is the technology for breaking and splicing of human genes so absolutely safe that it is worth risking on a novel experimental vaccine never before used on humans? Contrary to what Bill Gates claims, the scientific answer is no, it is not proven so safe. In a peer reviewed article in the October, 2020 journal Trends in Genetics, the authors conclude that “the range of possible molecular events resulting from genome editing has been underestimated and the technology remains unpredictable on, and away from, the target locus.”… Clearly the well-established Precautionary Principle–if in serious doubt, don’t– is being ignored by Fauci, Pfizer/BioNTech and others in rushing to approve the new mRNA vaccine for coronavirus. Messenger RNA technology has yet to produce an approved medicine, let alone a vaccine.
Recognition of Native Treaty Rights Could Reshape the Environmental Landscape
In These Times – December 5, 2020 – Alex Brown
https://inthesetimes.com/article/native-american-treaty-rights-sovereignty-environment
The U.S. has largely ignored the nearly 400 treaties signed with tribal nations, but that may be starting to change. And some think that could prevent, or even reverse, environmental degradation… For the most part, the U.S. has ignored its obligations. Game wardens have targeted and arrested tribal members seeking to exercise their hunting and fishing rights. Governments and private interests have logged and developed on hunting grounds, blocked and polluted waterways with dams and destroyed vast beds of wild rice. If Native treaty rights had been honored, the natural landscape of the U.S. might look very different today… “What does the world look like if those treaty rights are protected?” asked Cordalis, the Yurok attorney. ?“We start healing our environment and start seeing things being put back together?—?healthy ecosystems, clean water, healthy forests and rivers. You would start seeing the planet regenerating itself. It’s one way we start pulling ourselves out of the climate crisis. We start asserting rights that protect nature.”
Trump’s Final Days of Rage and Denial
The New York Times – December 7, 2020 – Peter Baker
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/05/us/politics/trump-presidency-election-loss.html
The final days of the Trump presidency have taken on the stormy elements of a drama more common to history or literature than a modern White House. His rage and detached-from-reality refusal to concede defeat evoke images of a besieged overlord in some distant land defiantly clinging to power rather than going into exile or an erratic English monarch imposing his version of reality on his cowed court.
Get Trump Out Before He Blows Up the World
The American Prospect – December 7, 2020 – Robert Kuttner
https://prospect.org/blogs/tap/get-trump-out-before-he-blows-up-the-world/
It’s evident that Trump is, as the English say, barking mad. There are an agonizing 44 days to go before Biden’s inauguration, and Trump will only get crazier. We can hope that the generals will restrain Trump, if he decides in a fit of petulance and self-pity to push the nuclear button. But there are many other ways that Trump could start World War III by degrees.
Runoff Elections in Georgia Are Disasters for Democrats. Here’s Why This Time Is Different.
Mother Jones – December 7, 2020 – Ari Berman
https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2020/12/runoff-elections-in-georgia-are-disasters-for-democrats-heres-why-this-time-is-different/
Organizing against voter suppression and high turnout in November are giving Democrats hope.
Millions Enrolled In Medicaid & Medicare Do Not Have Access to Dental, Vision, and Hearing Benefits
Center on Budget and Policy Priorities – December 8, 2020 – Hannah Katch and Paul N. Van de Water
https://www.cbpp.org/research/health/medicaid-and-medicare-enrollees-need-dental-vision-and-hearing-benefits
Ensuring that Medicaid as well as Medicare enrollees can access these benefits could reduce disparities in access to care and prevent more serious health problems and the need for invasive, costly care later in life.
The world’s first DNA ‘tricorder’ in your pocket
Phys.org – December 7, 2020 – Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory
https://phys.org/news/2020-12-world-dna-tricorder-pocket.html
By pairing an iPhone with a handheld DNA sequencer, users can create a mobile genetics laboratory, reminiscent of the “tricorder” featured in Star Trek. The iGenomics app runs entirely on the iOS device, reducing the need for laptops or large equipment in the field, which is useful for pandemic and ecology workers.
Giant vertical farm opens in Denmark
TechXplore – December 7, 2020 – Camille Bas-Wohlert
https://techxplore.com/news/2020-12-giant-vertical-farm-denmark.html
Some 200 tonnes of produce are due to be harvested in the first quarter of 2021, and almost 1,000 tonnes annually when the farm is running at full capacity by the end of 2021, explains Anders Riemann, founder and chief executive of Nordic Harvest. That would make the Taastrup warehouse one of Europe’s biggest vertical farms.
GOP Senators And Democratic Defectors Save Donald Trump’s Biggest Arms Deal
Huffpost – December 9, 2020 – Akbar Shahid Ahmed
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/trump-uae-senate-weapons-sale_n_5fd1417dc5b61d81b33ba36c
A slim bipartisan majority of senators endorsed the Trump administration’s plan to sell $13 billion in sophisticated weaponry to the United Arab Emirates on Wednesday, defying concerns about the UAE’s role in civil wars and likely war crimes and President Donald Trump’s rushed process of pushing through the arms deal. The result is a big loss for lawmakers and activists who want a less hawkish U.S. foreign policy — and a signal that they have a lot of work to do under President-elect Joe Biden.
World Food Program receives Nobel Peace Prize
NBC News – December 10, 2020 – Claudio Lavanga
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/world-food-program-receive-nobel-peace-prize-covid-proof-ceremony-n1250670
WFP Executive Director David Beasley received the prize, medal and diploma at the organization’s headquarters in Rome… “Famine is at humanity’s doorstep,” he said, accepting the award. “Because of so many wars, climate change and a global health pandemic that makes all that exponentially worse, 270 million people are marching towards starvation. Failing to address their needs will cause a hunger pandemic which will dwarf the impact of Covid.
Bank of America (finally) joins every other major U.S. bank in committing to keep their money out of Arctic Refuge drilling!
The Independent – December 1, 2020 – Louise Boyle
https://www.independent.co.uk/environment/climate-change/bank-of-america-joins-all-other-big-us-banks-and-rules-out-financing-arctic-drilling-b1764514.html
Bank of America has ruled out financing oil drilling in the Arctic region, including the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, according to Bloomberg. It joins all other major American banks – Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, Chase, Wells Fargo, and Citi – who announced similar policies earlier this year. “There’s been misunderstanding around our position, but we have not historically participated in project finance for oil and gas exploration in the Arctic,” Larry Di Rita, head of public policy for the bank, told Bloomberg on Monday. “But given that misinterpretation, we’ve determined that it’s time to codify our existing practice into policy.”… Ben Cushing from the environmental organization, Sierra Club, said: “It has long been clear that drilling in the Arctic Refuge would trample Indigenous rights, threaten vulnerable wildlife, and worsen the climate crisis. “Now that every major American bank has stated unequivocally that they will not finance this destructive activity, it should be clearer than ever that any oil company considering participating in Trump’s ill-advised lease sale should stay away.”
Court Nixes Trump’s Greenlight of Arctic Oil Scheme
Center for Biological Diversity – December 10, 2020
https://biologicaldiversity.org/publications/earthonline/endangered-earth-online-no1066.html
In a magnificent win for the wild Arctic, a federal appeals court on Monday rejected the Trump administration’s approval of what would have been the first offshore oil-drilling development located fully in federal Arctic waters. Hilcorp Alaska got approval in 2018 to build and operate its controversial “Liberty” project, an artificial drilling island and underwater pipeline that could have spilled oil into the sensitive Beaufort Sea and harmed Arctic wildlife and communities. Conservation groups including the Center for Biological Diversity filed suit to stop it. “This is a huge victory for polar bears and our climate,” said Kristen Monsell, oceans legal director at the Center. “This project was a disaster waiting to happen that should never have been approved. I’m thrilled the court saw through the Trump administration’s attempt to push this project through without carefully studying its risks.”
Section 230 is Good, Actually
Electronic Frontier Foundation – December 3, 2020 – Jason Kelley
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2020/12/section-230-good-actually
Section 230 (47 U.S.C. § 230) is one of the most important laws protecting free speech online. While its wording is fairly clear—it states that “No provider or user of an interactive computer service shall be treated as the publisher or speaker of any information provided by another information content provider” —it is still widely misunderstood. Put simply, the law means that although you are legally responsible for what you say online, if you host or republish other peoples’ speech, only those people are legally responsible for what they say… Without Section 230, the Internet would be a very different place, one with fewer spaces where we’re all free to speak out and share our opinions.
Reusing, recycling, rethinking
The Washington Post – December 10, 2020 – Jessica Wolfrom
https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-solutions/2020/12/10/climate-solutions-zero-waste/
Although the zero-waste movement, which looks to minimize garbage through reducing consumption, reusing materials and recycling residual waste, has been around for decades, it’s finding new prominence as concern about the environmental impact of trash — particularly plastic pollution — continues to grow.
An eye-opening look into America’s criminal justice system
Bill Gates Blog – December 8, 2020
https://www.gatesnotes.com/Books/The-New-Jim-Crow?WT.mc_id=20201208100000_EOYBooks2020_MED-MED_&WT.tsrc=MEDMED
Mass incarceration is a cycle. Once you’ve been in prison, you can’t often get a job after you get out because having a felony on your record makes it hard to get hired. In some cases, the only way to make money and support your family is through illicit means—which can land you back in prison. The result of this cycle is a permanent underclass that is disproportionately Black and low-income.
How Biden could save $437 Bn, create millions of Jobs, by Reversing Trump Tariffs on Solar Panels
Informed Comment – December 12, 2020 – Juan Cole
https://www.juancole.com/2020/12/millions-reversing-tariffs.html
Michelle Lewis at Electrek discusses a new study that finds hundreds of billions of dollars in savings and millions of jobs created if the US can power a quarter of its households with rooftop solar… As Lewis notes, the report concludes that “Deploying at least 247 GW of local rooftop and community solar on the grid would be the most cost-effective way to transition to a clean energy system by 2050. It is also the most cost-effective way to reach 95% emission reductions from 1990 levels. That’s enough to power 25% of all US homes.”… It really isn’t politically difficult to decarbonize electricity by 2035, since there are actually very few losers in that scenario. And there is lots of money to be made in wind, solar and storage. Better, there is half a trillion dollars to be saved by backing sources like rooftop solar in a big way.
2020 the Year of the Infodemic, When Disinformation Broke the US
Portside – BuzzFeed News – December 12, 2020 – Jane Lytvynenko
https://www.portside.org/2020-12-12/2020-year-infodemic-when-disinformation-broke-us
In 2020, facilitated by self-serving social media companies, fringe ideas became mainstream political discourse. Disinformation won’t go away in 2021, and the propaganda machine Trump fueled won’t grind to a halt because there’s a new president… “I think disinformation is playing a role in polarizing the country,” Arisha Hatch, vice president of Color of Change, an online racial justice organization, told BuzzFeed News. “We’re obviously seeing a lot of organizing attempts by white supremacist groups in connection with many of the protests.”… “At the core of the disinformation we’re seeing across a number of different issues is the desire to undermine institutions,” Hatch said.
Biden Needs to Go Big to Rebuild America
Yes! Magazine – December 7, 2020 – Neil M. Maher
https://www.yesmagazine.org/opinion/2020/12/07/biden-civilian-conservation-corps/
Illinois U.S. Sen. Dick Durbin has introduced the RENEW Conservation Corps Act, which proposes putting 1 million unemployed Americans to work on conservation and recreational projects over the next five years. The bill improves on the original CCC in several important respects: All citizens and legal permanent residents over the age of 16 would be eligible to enroll; projects would involve the conservation of natural resources as well the mitigation of climate change; and work projects would benefit rural, suburban, and urban communities. Finally, in exchange for one year of service, all enrollees receive credits they can use towards their postsecondary education.
A Crisis Reveals What Is in Our Hearts
Portside – The Nrw York Times – November 29, 2020 – Pope Francis
https://www.portside.org/2020-11-29/pope-francis-crisis-reveals-what-our-hearts
It is better to live a shorter life serving others than a longer one resisting that call. That’s why, in many countries, people stood at their windows or on their doorsteps to applaud them in gratitude and awe. They are the saints next door, who have awakened something important in our hearts, making credible once more what we desire to instill by our preaching. They are the antibodies to the virus of indifference. They remind us that our lives are a gift and we grow by giving of ourselves, not preserving ourselves but losing ourselves in service… To come out of this crisis better, we have to recover the knowledge that as a people we have a shared destination. The pandemic has reminded us that no one is saved alone. What ties us to one another is what we commonly call solidarity. Solidarity is more than acts of generosity, important as they are; it is the call to embrace the reality that we are bound by bonds of reciprocity. On this solid foundation we can build a better, different, human future.
An Economy Built on Sharing
Yes! Magazine – December 10, 2020 – Liesl Clark and Rebecca Rockefeller
https://www.yesmagazine.org/economy/2020/12/10/shop-less-share-more/
Our homes are filled to the brim with personal sets of everything that advertising has told us we need to fulfill our dreams, and everything we think we need to have in case times are tough and we find ourselves alone, needing to survive hardship. What if each household stopped buying these things, and we shared more? Would we find things of value? Our original hope in launching the Buy Nothing Project was that by doing so, we would reduce our overall consumption and yet still meet our daily needs. By building social status through our generosity as givers and grace as recipients, we would each learn how to share, with trust, on an equal playing field. And most important, we would learn to trust that there is enough (stuff, bounty, human kindness) to go around… When a group of people witnesses giving, receiving, and sharing on a daily basis, it builds stronger connections among everyone, not just those on either end of each item or service being shared. There’s a sense of collective joy that builds around watching gifts being given and received.