Tag Archives: depression

Coronavirus has erased 600,000 clean energy jobs in two months — and that’s just the start

by Rachel06Hscjsgt Posted on May 14, 2020

Renewable energy has been one of the few bright spots amid a global pandemic, as solar and wind power have surged across electricity grids worldwide. But the industry that supports renewable power is getting devastated: The U.S. economy lost nearly 600,000 clean energy jobs in March and April, setting what had been one of the country’s fastest-growing sources of employment on edge. All the job gains in renewables over the last five years have now been wiped out.

The numbers demolished earlier estimates. Jobs in energy efficiency, renewable energy, and electric vehicles tripled the losses originally reported for March, according to an analysis of Department of Labor data by BW Research. Their previous analysis had estimated that the industry would lose half a million jobs by the end of June; but that grim milestone arrived at the end of April instead.

“We saw those March figures and thought, ‘This is really quite severe and it’s going to get worse,’” said Gregory Wetstone, president and CEO of the American Council on Renewable Energy, one of the green energy groups which commissioned the report. “But I think what we didn’t realize is that March was just a signal of what was to come.”

With state governments locking down huge areas of the United States in an attempt to curb the coronavirus, the unemployment rate has jumped to almost 15 percent, the worst since the Great Depression. The Labor Department reported Thursday morning that claims for unemployment benefits have reached 36.5 million.

Clean energy workers are no exception. During the pandemic, workers are unable to enter homes and buildings to retrofit aging equipment to make it more efficient. Financing for clean energy projects has also dried up, as investors try to wait out the economic downturn. And even those projects that are up and running are struggling to buy panels and parts from shuttered factories around the world.

The clean energy industry employed over 3.4 million Americans last year, triple the number employed by the fossil fuel sector — and without federal aid, industry leaders warn that the situation could get much worse. BW Research now estimates that the industry could lose 850,000 jobs, a quarter of those employed in clean energy, by the end of June.

Wetstone said he hopes that the federal government will take a page out of the 2009 Obama-era Recovery Act, which helped renewable energy rebound from the Great Recession. That bill included a provision allowing wind and solar developers to continue to use federal tax credits.

Even in good times, renewable developers often don’t owe enough in tax to the federal government to make green energy tax credits worthwhile, so they partner with big investors that can offset their own own taxes. When the economy slumps, however, investors don’t owe as much tax — and so are unwilling to participate. The 2009 bill bypassed this problem by turning those tax credits into grants. Doing that now, Wetstone said, could get many people back to work sooner.

So far, however, there are few signs that the federal government will help out the struggling renewable industry. “We’ve seen the president be outspoken in defense of the oil and gas sector,” Wetstone said. “And we certainly hope that our champions are willing to likewise stand up and provide the help that we’re seeking in the clean power sector.”

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Coronavirus has erased 600,000 clean energy jobs in two months — and that’s just the start

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Study: Climate change makes rich countries richer and poor ones poorer

by MakaylaAsher Posted on April 23, 2019

It’s not just capitalism that’s making the rich richer and the poor poorer: Climate change is exacerbating the trend worldwide. The economic gap between the richest and poorest nations, in terms of per capita income, is now about 25 percent larger than it would have been without human-caused climate change, according to a new study from Stanford University.

“Our results show that most of the poorest countries on Earth are considerably poorer than they would have been without global warming,” climate scientist Noah Diffenbaugh, lead author of the study, said in a statement. Meanwhile, to add insult to injury, some rich countries have actually benefited economically from global warming.

Between 1961 and 2010, warming temperatures have significantly slowed economic growth in tropical countries like India and Nigeria, while aiding economic growth in cooler countries like Canada and the U.K., according to the study, which was published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences on Monday.

“The historical data clearly show that crops are more productive, people are healthier, and we are more productive at work when temperatures are neither too hot nor too cold,” said study co-author Marshall Burke, a Stanford assistant professor of Earth system science, in a press release. “This means that in cold countries, a little bit of warming can help. The opposite is true in places that are already hot.”

While it’s been well-documented that low-income communities bear the brunt of flooding, famine, and other climate change-related horrors, this study endeavors to show the big picture of which countries win and which lose out as a result of global warming.

The researchers drew on several previous studies, analyzing annual temperature changes over 50 years and 165 countries’ economic growth data to estimate how the shifting climate has affected growth. The U.S. was middle of the road: Climate change dragged down its GDP by just 0.2 percent from 1961 to 2010.

Sudan was the biggest loser, so to speak. The researchers estimated that the country’s gross domestic product (GDP) is 36 percent smaller today because of global warming. India closely followed, with a 31 percent loss, and Nigeria, with a 29 percent blow.

Norway was the big winner: Researchers estimated that its current GDP is 34 percent higher because of climate change. Canada’s is 32 percent higher, and in recent years, Russia’s has also seen a boost due to warming.

The numbers the study produced are stark, shocking even (India’s GDP could have grown by almost third more over the past half-century, if not for climate change!?). And they don’t represent outliers in the data. The Stanford researchers drew these estimates of climate change’s economic effects from a wide range of projections — 20,000 versions per country, to be precise.

“For most countries, whether global warming has helped or hurt economic growth is pretty certain,” Burke said.

Tropical countries truly got the short end of the stick. They tend to contribute far less to greenhouse gas emissions than more economically well-off nations.  And, according to Burke, “There’s essentially no uncertainty that they’ve been harmed.”

The economic loss some countries faced “is on par with the decline in economic output seen in the U.S. during the Great Depression,” Burke said. “It’s a huge loss compared to where these countries would have been otherwise.”

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Study: Climate change makes rich countries richer and poor ones poorer

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Elizabeth Warren’s latest policy proposal shares roots with the Green New Deal

by KoryZgwkuqz Posted on April 16, 2019

For all her experience and name recognition, Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren is being out-fundraised by relative newcomers like Texas’ Beto O’Rourke and Indiana’s Pete Buttigieg this quarter. But when it comes to policy proposals, the Democrat is still outpacing most of her rivals in the 2020 Democratic primary.

On Monday, Warren released a proposal that promises, among other things, an executive ban on new offshore leases and drilling on government-owned lands on her first day in office. It marks her sixth policy plan in three and a half months, and is one of the primary field’s first climate proposals that touches on the themes laid out in the Green New Deal.

Warren’s proposal includes free access to national parks for American citizens and pledges to restore protections to national monuments like Bears Ears that were rolled back by the Trump administration. Most interestingly, she introduces the framework for the kind of conservation workforce that would put a smile on FDR’s face.

The 21st Century Civilian Conservation Corps, as she describes it, “will create job opportunities for thousands of young Americans caring for our natural resources and public lands.” The idea is to house the new corps under the umbrella of Americorps — the voluntary civil society program funded by the federal government.

If you squint you can see some similarities between Warren’s notion of putting 10,000 young Americans and veterans to work in conservation and the federal jobs guarantee laid out in the Green New Deal, which promises a family-sustaining wage to every American. The two plans, of course, borrow from Franklin Roosevelt’s economic stimulus package post-Depression in both name and content.

The centerpiece of the larger proposal is two-pronged: a moratorium on new drilling on federal lands with “a goal of providing 10% of [the nation’s] overall electricity generation from renewable sources offshore or on public lands.” Her idea effectively swaps oil and gas for renewable energy projects on public lands.

While some regions across the country have taken it upon themselves to impose their own temporary or permanent fossil fuel moratoriums, doing it on a federal level across all American public lands — more than 25 percent of the country’s total land — is unprecedented. Obama, in his last year as president, accomplished a portion of his (now partially dismantled) climate legacy through executive action. His administration removed certain areas of the country from oil and gas drilling, such as parts of the Atlantic Coast and Alaska, but also encouraged natural gas development as part of its “all-of-the-above” energy policy.

Warren’s public lands proposal contains seeds of what could grow into a full-fledged Green New Deal if the senator manages to clinch the presidency next year. Regardless of where she ends up, her plan is ambitious enough that her fellow 2020 contenders will likely feel the need to produce their own climate and environment proposals lickity-split.

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Elizabeth Warren’s latest policy proposal shares roots with the Green New Deal

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Victory! Federal Court Orders EPA to Ban Toxic Pesticide

by BaileyWinfrey8 Posted on August 13, 2018

There?s a new victory for environmentalists, health advocates and anyone who cares about their health: a federal court ordered the Environmental Protection Agency to ban the toxic pesticide chlorpyrifos.

The decision puts an end to the EPA?s lengthy history of stall tactics and seeming unwillingness to protect people or the environment from this nasty toxic chemical.

The EPA?s History of Stall Tactics and Non-Protection

The EPA banned the brain-damaging pesticide from household use almost two decades ago in 2000. But, the so-called ?environmental protection? agency continued to allow the toxic chemical to grow food and for other agricultural purposes.

Additionally, the EPA had planned to completely ban chlorpyifos over a year ago but then mysteriously reversed its decision after meeting with the CEO of Dow Chemical, Andrew Liveris. Scott Pruitt, the then EPA administrator. Instead, they decided to keep the brain-damaging insecticide in use and to reverse the ban.

While the court has ordered the Environmental Protection Agency to ban the toxic pesticide, a spokesperson for the agency said that the agency ?is reviewing the decision.? That sounds like still another stall tactic by the agency that has already been court-ordered to immediately ban the chemical. Interestingly, and not surprisingly, as part of the decision, the judge admonished the EPA for ?having stalled on banning chlorpyrifos,? and ordered that all commercial registrations for chlorpyrifos be cancelled or revoked within 60 days.

Chlorpyrifos?A Serious Brain Toxin

Also known as CPF, or Dursban, the pesticide is an established nerve agent that has been linked to disruption of the brain messenger acetylcholine which is involved in memory and motor function and poor coordination, interference in the formation of brain cells and communication between brain cells, hyperactivity, learning impairment, depression?and other social and emotional changes. It has also been linked to headaches, blurred vision, unusual fatigue and other health issues.

Children are the Most Vulnerable

Research published in the journal Neurotoxicology found that the developing brains of children, especially those who are two years old and under, are most vulnerable to the harmful effects of these toxic pesticides.

Research published in the journal Pediatrics found that children with high exposures to this herbicide are more vulnerable to attention deficit disorder (ADD), attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and other developmental disorders. Yet, children are often the ones who are most exposed to the chemical because it is still sprayed on schoolyards and playgrounds. Another study published in Pediatrics found that fetal exposure may be linked to developmental problems.

In a study published in the journal Environmental Health, researchers labelled chlorpyrifos exposure as the ?Silent Epidemic? that is destroying our brain and neurological health.

How to Minimize Your Exposure to Chlorpyrifos

While the chemical will remain in the environment long after the ban is officially implemented, there are still things you can do to limit your exposure, including:

-Eat organic food as much as possible. Organic food is not sprayed with harmful pesticides; however, it may still come in contact with them during transportation or in grocery stores. Ideally, choose organic food at your local farmer?s market from a farmer that you know is exclusively growing organically.

-Avoid grass or parks that have been sprayed. And, definitely do not let your children play in the grass of parks or lawns that have been sprayed with pesticides. If you?re not sure about the area, assume it has been sprayed.

-Avoid spraying your lawn, flower, fruit or vegetable gardens with chemical pesticides of any kind.

-Don?t spray any chemical insecticides in your home.

-Grow your own sprouts. Not only is it the best example of eating locally, as long as you use organic seeds and pure water, they?ll be pesticide-free. Learn more about how to grow your own sprouts here.

-Place a ?Pesticide-free? yard sign to encourage others to do the same and to contribute to the increasing number of yards that are pesticide-free.

–Write to the EPA telling them to follow the court order and insisting that they not employ further stall tactics or waste more taxpayer money by appealing the decision. You can reach them by mail at: Environmental Protection Agency, 1200 Pennsylvania Avenue, N.W., Washington, DC 20460. You can also make your opinions known on their Facebook page, Twitter page, Instagram page?or Flickr page.

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Dr. Michelle Schoffro Cook, PhD, DNM is the publisher of the free e-newsletter World?s Healthiest News, the Cultured Cook, co-founder of BestPlaceinCanada, and an international best-selling and 20-time published book author whose works include: The Cultured Cook: Delicious Fermented Foods with Probiotics to Knock Out Inflammation, Boost Gut Health, Lose Weight & Extend Your Life.? Follow her work.

Disclaimer: The views expressed above are solely those of the author and may not reflect those of Care2, Inc., its employees or advertisers.

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Victory! Federal Court Orders EPA to Ban Toxic Pesticide

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6 Benefits Of Natural Light & How To Maximize It In Your Home

by claudiospeckman Posted on June 30, 2017

There is nothing more glorious than a room filled with sunlight.

Natural light seems to bring out the beauty, and indeed color, of everything it touches. When it fills our homes, it brings with it a sense of freshness, vitality and even makes us healthier.

6 Health Benefits Of Natural Light

Research has shownthat:

1. Employees working in natural light recorded higher levels of energy and productivity than those working under artificial light.

2. Natural light can lower the risk of nearsightedness in children and young adults by helping the eye produce dopamine, which aids in healthy eye development.

3.Exposure tosunlight, especially early in the morning for at least half an hour, increases your chances of a good nights sleep.

4. Sunlight helps the body produce thehappy hormone serotonin which combatsa type of depression calledSeasonal Affective Disorder (SAD).

5. Rooms with ample sunlight have been shown tohelp hospital patients heal fasterafter surgical procedures

6. Sunlight in the classroom has been shown to havea positive impacton student test scores.

But the benefits of natural light don’t end with your health and mood.

Related:7 Little-Known Benefits Of Sunlight

Using Natural Light To Reduce Energy Consumption

As you’ll read in the infographic below, capitalizing on your home’s natural light can help toreduce your energy bills, saving money and slashing your carbon footprint.

“In a typical building, lighting accounts for 25-40 percent of energy consumption. By allowing more natural light to penetrate and controlling both its light and heat components, the financial savings could be considerable,”Marilyne Andersen,assistant professor Marilyne Andersen of MIT’s Department of Architecture, toldScienceDaily.

Simply letting the sun shine in can drastically reduce those energy costs while delivering all the benefits listed above, but it has to be done thoughtfully. By making small changes to the way you use windows, doors, skylights, mirrors, paint colors and even furnishings, you can take advantage of the free light and energy the sun provides.

Scroll through the infographic below for small tweaks and tips that can help you to maximize your home’s natural light.

Infographic via HalfPrice.com.au

Image via: Thinkstock

Disclaimer: The views expressed above are solely those of the author and may not reflect those of Care2, Inc., its employees or advertisers.

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6 Benefits Of Natural Light & How To Maximize It In Your Home

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Why Are Former Presidents Supposed to Shut Up About Their Successors?

by YettaPreiss Posted on June 3, 2017

Mother Jones

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Since leaving office, Barack Obama has made a few veiled criticisms of Donald Trump. Conservatives are pretty unhappy about this. It’s tradition for ex-presidents to maintain a dignified silence about their successors, after all.

This is mostly true, but when did it become a tradition? It certainly hasn’t been one forever. Herbert Hoover was a constant presence on the radio blasting FDR during the Depression, and Harry Truman remained a gadfly after he left office.

Eisenhower changed things up. After beating Hitler and serving two terms as president, he decided to adopt the elder statesman role. Then Kennedy died before leaving office, LBJ slunk back to Texas a broken man, and Nixon resigned in disgrace. By hook or by crook, the “tradition” of ex-presidential silence was two decades old by the time Reagan became president. It’s mostly held ever since.

Is there a good reason for this? The pretense seems kind of precious to me. Why treat sitting presidents like china dolls who can’t take some heat from their predecessors? Ex-presidents are among the greatest politicians alive, and usually the effective leaders of their party, at least for a while. They typically command a throng of admirers. The most natural thing in the world would be for them to maintain a robust political presence if they want to. Why shouldn’t they?

Ditto for losing presidential candidates. This is usually less of an issue, since most people don’t really want to listen to losers. But not always. Hillary Clinton should never run for office again—and she’s said she won’t—but why shouldn’t she stay loudly involved in politics if she can help lead the loyal opposition until Democrats coalesce around a new party leader?

Does anyone know the answer about this tradition? Is it really just an Eisenhower thing that somehow congealed into conventional wisdom? Do other countries have anything similar?

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Why Are Former Presidents Supposed to Shut Up About Their Successors?

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A Brief, Checkered History of Prom in America

by DamianDarden950 Posted on May 28, 2016

Mother Jones

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Do you remember how you were asked to your high school prom? (Or how you asked?) Maybe it was some cheesy romantic gesture. Or maybe it was a very informal conversation that took place near your locker between classes. Either way, it probably wasn’t documented and put online to become a viral hit. America’s prom tradition, instead of fizzling over the years, has only grown more sacred with time. From April to June, prom season reigns in high schools nationwide as juniors and seniors pair up, beautify, and ask older siblings to snag them some bottom-shelf booze to pass around at the after-party. But before party buses, $400 dresses, and hotel ballrooms were a thing, prom was just an annual dance that took place in the school gym under the watchful eye of teacher chaperones. With the season upon us, we decided to take a look back at the history of this peculiar institution.

1920s: The “democratic debutante ball” makes its high school debut. In theory, any student can attend a “promenade”—but teens of color are excluded thanks to Jim Crow and unequal access to education.

1930s: With the Depression in full swing, some Chicago principals cancel prom to ensure poor students aren’t “psychologically wounded.”

1950s: During the postwar boom, one advice book offers a warning: “Girls who try to usurp the right of boys to choose their own dates will ruin a good dating career.”

1960s: Despite the repeal of Jim Crow, white-only proms persist in the South.

1969: Jessica McClintock takes over dressmaker Gunne Sax and becomes America’s prom-dress queen, draping two decades of high school girls in “leg o’ mutton” styles—marked by puffy sleeves and corset bodices.

Sissy Spacek will forever be remembered as the telekinetic teen outcast in the movie Carrie, who gets drenched in pig’s blood at prom. MGM/Red Bank Films

1974: In Stephen King’s Carrie, a telekinetic outcast terrorizes her classmates at the prom. Sissy Spacek stars in the 1976 film.

1975: First daughter Susan Ford hosts prom at the White House. “I was told that we had to choose a band that didn’t have any kind of drug charge,” one organizer recalled later. “It was pretty hard.”

Susan Ford’s White House prom. Joseph H. Bailey/NGS/White House Historical Association

1979: Police in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, show up to protect the first openly gay couple in prom history. “Many students came over and congratulated us,” one of the boys said, despite threats to “tar and chicken feather” the pair.

1980: A Rhode Island senior sues his school after his principal rejects his request to bring a male prom date. A federal judge sides with the boy.

1980s: Hollywood goes gaga for prom flicks, with Valley Girl (1983), Footloose (1984), Back to the Future (1985), and Pretty in Pink (1986).

Jon Cryer and Molly Ringwald in 1986’s Pretty In Pink (left). Nicholas Cage and Deborah Foreman in 1983’s Valley Girl (right). Paramount Pictures, Valley 9000/Atlantic Releasing

1994: A biracial student in Wedowee, Alabama, sues her principal and school board after they threatened to cancel prom to keep interracial couples from attending.

1997: Actor Morgan Freeman offers to cover the cost of a prom in Charleston, Mississippi, so long as all races can attend. No such luck. The city’s proms remain segregated for 11 more years.

2009: Students at Fairfax High in Los Angeles pass over eight girls to select a gay senior boy as prom queen. “Tears were almost falling down my face,” a jubilant Sergio Garcia tells ABC News.

Amy Poehler, as the obsessive mother of popular girl Regina George (Rachel McAdams) in the 2004 hit Mean Girls, snaps a shot of her daughter. Paramount

2013: A group of girls from Georgia’s Wilcox County High holds an all-inclusive prom, eschewing the segregated affairs. The school makes it official in 2014. “The adults should have done this many, many moons ago,” notes the mother of one of the girls.

2016: #promposal is the hot Instagram meme: One student gets a cop to pull a girl over and hand her a “ticket”—his prom invite. Another takes his girlfriend to a gun range, with “yes” and “no” targets set to go.

I’ve got good aim

Others are more creative in design:

Thank you for the most legendary promposal in the 607â&#157;¤ï¸&#143;

A photo posted by Shayna Will (@shayna_will) on May 11, 2016 at 4:50pm PDT

I guess being pulled over isn’t always a bad thing

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A Brief, Checkered History of Prom in America

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Iggy Pop’s Menacing "Post Pop Depression"

by AraceliOster Posted on March 26, 2016

Mother Jones

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Iggy Pop
Post Pop Depression
Rekords Rekords/Loma Vista/Caroline International

Nasty Little Man

Rightly credited as one of punk’s founding fathers, the force of nature known as Iggy Pop is also a superior crooner, capable of channeling Frank Sinatra or Jim Morrison with un-ironic verve. That gift is on full display in Post Pop Depression, a collaboration with Queens of the Stone Age leader Josh Homme that proves to be a perfect fit. Iggy’s knack for brooding balladry meshes surprisingly well with the Queens’ style of epic melodies on such gems as the ominous “Break Into Your Heart,” a love song doused in menace, and the jumpy “Gardenia,” which echoes his classic late-’70s albums with David Bowie. As usual, Iggy muses on the meaning of life and his looming mortality muttering, “Death is a pill that’s hard to swallow,” in “American Valhalla,” a blunt reflection given extra poignancy by his friend’s recent passing. Now in his late 60s, Iggy periodically insists that he’s going to quit rock’n’roll, but if Post Pop Depression proves to be his parting shot, he’s leaving on a high note.

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Iggy Pop’s Menacing "Post Pop Depression"

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Sorry, I Don’t Know Why Murder Rates Are Up In a Bunch of Big Cities

by TKICheriugkxd Posted on September 1, 2015

Mother Jones

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I’ve gotten enough requests to comment on this piece from the New York Times that I guess I’d better do so:

Cities across the nation are seeing a startling rise in murders after years of declines, and few places have witnessed a shift as precipitous as this city. With the summer not yet over, 104 people have been killed this year — after 86 homicides in all of 2014.

More than 30 other cities have also reported increases in violence from a year ago. In New Orleans, 120 people had been killed by late August, compared with 98 during the same period a year earlier. In Baltimore, homicides had hit 215, up from 138 at the same point in 2014. In Washington, the toll was 105, compared with 73 people a year ago. And in St. Louis, 136 people had been killed this year, a 60 percent rise from the 85 murders the city had by the same time last year.

Law enforcement experts say disparate factors are at play in different cities, though no one is claiming to know for sure why murder rates are climbing. Some officials say intense national scrutiny of the use of force by the police has made officers less aggressive and emboldened criminals, though many experts dispute that theory.

The reason I haven’t said anything about this until now is that I had nothing to say. I have no more idea what’s driving this increase than anyone else.

But what about lead? Here’s the problem: gasoline lead explains one thing and one thing only. And that thing is the huge violent crime wave of 1960-1990 followed by the equally huge drop of 1990-2010. But that’s over. What we’re left with now is the baseline level of violent crime, which obviously wouldn’t be zero even if there were no lead in the environment at all. And the causes of this baseline level of violent crime are all the usual suspects: poverty, race, drugs, policing, guns, demographics, and so forth. A more detailed explanation is here. At this point, lead is a very small contributor to the crime level.

It’s also worth pointing out that crime figures, and murder figures in particular, are extremely noisy. Lead explains long-term shifts. It doesn’t explain short-term spikes or (in most cases) differences from one city to another. The current increase in murder rates could be due to lots of things, or it could just be the usual noise in the numbers. Maybe they’ll go right back down next year.

But I don’t know. The only thing I do know is that lead is playing no particular role in this, either good or bad.

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Sorry, I Don’t Know Why Murder Rates Are Up In a Bunch of Big Cities

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Science Marches On: We Now Have a Yard Sale That Runs Backward In Time

by ScarletCawthorn Posted on September 1, 2015

Mother Jones

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A sentence to ponder:

The world’s longest yard sale runs for nearly 700 miles along a mostly vertical line connecting Alabama and Michigan, from the first Thursday in August through the first Sunday.

But what if the first Sunday comes before the first Thursday? Do they cancel the sale that year? Does it run backward through time? I demand answers.

(Via Tyler Cowen.)

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Science Marches On: We Now Have a Yard Sale That Runs Backward In Time

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