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Trump accepts climate change when it hits his golf course

by RichardWieck11 Posted on May 23, 2016

Trump accepts climate change when it hits his golf course

By on May 23, 2016Share

Donald Trump is pro choice, until he’s not. He’s self-funding his campaign, except when he’s taking donations. He thinks Hillary Clinton is a “terrific woman,” until he’s running against her. And he thinks climate change is a hoax, until it threatens his business.

Politico reports that the presidential hopeful has applied to build a seawall by Trump International Golf Links & Hotel in Ireland, citing erosion caused by “global warming and its effects.” Yes, that is the same global warming Trump is pretty sure was dreamed up by China.

Even a fellow Republican is shocked by the inconsistency.

“It’s diabolical,” former South Carolina Rep. Bob Inglis, who advocates for action on climate change, told Politico. “Donald Trump is working to ensure his at-risk properties and his company is trying to figure out how to deal with sea level rise. … You have a soft place in your heart for people who are honestly ignorant, but people who are deceitful, that’s a different thing.”

As for Trump’s sea wall — which would compromise 200,000 tons of rock along two miles of beach — he’s going to need it: Rising sea levels and escalating storms spell bad news for coastal sand dunes. Trump’s businesses could go the same way if they ignore climate change.

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Trump accepts climate change when it hits his golf course

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Not paying enough rent? New startup Rentberry could change that

by CelsaCowen129 Posted on May 18, 2016

Not paying enough rent? New startup Rentberry could change that

By on May 18, 2016 3:50 amShare

As if life for renters in big cities weren’t hellish enough, a new Bay Area startup promises to make it even more of a nightmare. Meet Rentberry.

The company, which launched Tuesday, is an auction site for rental properties brought to you by a team of pale people. Assuming this isn’t a scam or an elaborate Yes Men–style prank to draw attention to the soaring cost of housing, here’s how it’s supposed to work: Property owners list their units on the site, and then potential tenants compete to outbid each other for the privilege of having a place to live. Sounds great, right?

No, it sounds awful. The median rent for a one-bedroom in San Francisco is already a mind-blowing $3,560 a month, and Rentberry promises to make it go even higher. As of now, Rentberry only directly charges tenants — they must pay $25 at the time of lease signing — but the company intends to start charging landlords in the next six months or so. The plan, according to the San Francisco Chronicle, is that Rentberry will charge landlords 25 percent of the extra rent they generate beyond their initial asking price each month. So, if your landlord lists an apartment for $5,000 and the final bid is $6,000, Rentberry takes a quarter of the extra $1,000, or $250 a month.

Rentberry says that it is providing a service, and that tenants will save an average of seven to 10 hours of apartment hunting through the bidding process. But while saving all of 10 hours may be worth it for top earners, for everyone else, Rentberry is just the latest threat against the non-rich in San Francisco. Plus, Rentberry could be especially damaging for people of color: The site asks renters to provide profile photos, and, thanks to reports of minorities who’ve been declined service on sites like Airbnb, we know that housing discrimination through technology is very real.

So will renters actually go along with using a service built on the premise of increasing their rent? A quick poll of renters among the Grist staff returned comments from “lol” to “fuck no” to “NEVER.”

Then again, you can see the benefit for landlords. And that’s where the real threat comes in: Even though no renter in their right mind would freely choose to use a service designed to make their rent go up, if lots of landlords start using it, they may not have much choice.

Here’s hoping Rentberry is just a scam after all.

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Not paying enough rent? New startup Rentberry could change that

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Cities ask residents to snitch on illegal Airbnb rentals

by MitziPaspalis79 Posted on May 13, 2016

Cities ask residents to snitch on illegal Airbnb rentals

By on May 13, 2016 12:44 pmShare

Rental services like Airbnb and VRBO take up valuable real estate for short-term stays. This can mean that housing supply goes down, rent goes up, and residents get displaced by visitors, as we noted last week. That’s a big enough problem that now at least two German cities are asking their citizens to snitch on neighbors who are illegally renting homes to tourists.

Berlin, which has banned most vacation apartment rentals, has a website that enables people to anonymously inform on law-breaking landlords. And now Munich, which has also introduced laws cracking down on short-term rentals, is considering launching a snitch site as well, CityLab’s Feargus O’Sullivan reports. Even before the city’s leaders started talking about setting up such a site, the Munich Renters’ Association publicized an email address that people can use to tattle on their neighbors.

It’s an interesting concept, but one O’Sullivan finds problematic. “The plan to create a special website for informing on your neighbors might ultimately help the city become an easier place for permanent residents to find a home,” he writes. But, “It might also, in its own modest, quiet way, make Munich a place in which some would shudder to live.”

Personally, I see nothing wrong with tattling on scofflaw landlords, who probably deserve it. Cities aren’t just built for visitors, after all; they’re built for the people who live in them.

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Cities ask residents to snitch on illegal Airbnb rentals

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T. Boone Pickens backs Trump, expects to be dead by the time country collapses

by BrandiScanlon Posted on May 12, 2016

T. Boone Pickens backs Trump, expects to be dead by the time country collapses

By on May 12, 2016 5:04 pmShare

T. Boone Pickens has given up.

After penning a blog post last year indicating sympathy for the #NeverTrump cause, the billionaire oilman has abruptly reversed course and endorsed Donald Trump for president.

“We’ve turned our presidential selection process into a reality TV show,” Pickens lamented in that post in 2015. “Hell, it’s worse than reality TV. Why? Because this reality TV show is about selecting the leader of the Free World.”

But now, it seems, Boone has come to terms with the idea a reality TV star in the Oval Office, as ThinkProgress reports.

“Yes, I’m for Donald Trump,” Pickens said at a conference in Las Vegas this week. “I’m tired of having politicians as president of the U.S. Let’s try something different.”

Trump certainly is “different.” In addition to his famed plan to build along the U.S.-Mexico border, the real estate mogul has called for banning Muslims from entering the U.S. and has repeatedly said that climate change is a hoax created by the Chinese.

As for why Pickens — who gave $100,000 to Jeb Bush’s campaign — would change his mind about Trump, well, Pickens will probably be dead soon anyway. “I’m ready to take a chance on it,” the 87-year-old said in Vegas. “And just in case it’s a mistake, [I’ll] be gone.”

If only the rest of us were so lucky.

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T. Boone Pickens backs Trump, expects to be dead by the time country collapses

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Giant wildfire turns Canadian oil country into a post-apocalyptic nightmare

by Stan36091388457 Posted on May 4, 2016

Giant wildfire turns Canadian oil country into a post-apocalyptic nightmare

By on May 4, 2016Share

A massive wildfire is destroying everything in its path in a remote town located in the region of Canada that holds the third-largest oil reserves in the world. Nearly 90,000 residents of Fort McMurray have fled the flames, which have already consumed entire neighborhoods.

As 19-year-old resident Cassie White fled, she saw the gas station explode. “It almost looks like a zombie apocalypse,” she told The Globe and Mail. “At the time, I didn’t know if I was going to make it out … I felt like I was in a vacuum bag and all the air was being sucked out.”

While homes burn, the fire has left the nearby Athabasca oil sands unscathed. That could change; Fort McMurray Fire Chief Darby Allen called the fire a “moving animal.”

The massive fire in Fort McMurray comes unusually early in the year. It’s an increasingly common occurrence thanks to climate change, which is lengthening the wildfire season and increasing fires’ intensity. Last year’s wildfires were among the most damaging in history. If this early May fire is any indication, that is sure to continue this year. Perhaps it is fitting that Shell, a company directly responsible for a great degree of climate change, has been forced to shut down operations in the area. More oil companies are expected to follow.

See scenes from the conflagration below.

Here’s how you can help as the #FortMacFires continue to rage: http://bit.ly/1q0Qspk Image: Facebook/Raz Dee #YmmFire #FortMcMurray #solidarity

A photo posted by rabble.ca (@rabbleca) on May 4, 2016 at 11:22am PDT

Wildfire sure picked up in the last 1/2 hour #yikes #worried #ymm

A photo posted by Thomas Vogt (@thomasvogt) on May 3, 2016 at 12:11pm PDT

A photo posted by Adam King (@adamking107) on May 4, 2016 at 2:33am PDT

#gettingoutoftown #leavethetruck #bikesarefaster #FortMacsburning

A photo posted by John Ward (@johnward101) on May 3, 2016 at 10:46pm PDT

#prayforfortmcmurray

A photo posted by Imoudu Ibrahim (@imoudu.13) on May 3, 2016 at 10:13pm PDT

Absolutely devastating what is happening in Fort McMurray right now. So thankful we have an incredibly hard working crew fighting this relentless fire. Hoping everyone made it to safety, relieved to report that my friends and family are safe. My heart goes out to all. Taken at 2pm, on the way back from site, by helicopter. #ymmfire #aerialphotography #fortmcmurray #ymm #heartbreak #wildfire #rmwb #alberta #forestfire

A photo posted by Melissa Dubé (@melissa.dube) on May 3, 2016 at 9:51pm PDT

This is traumatizing to witness???? #SeekRefuge #Pray4FortMac????

A photo posted by @zaiffy on May 3, 2016 at 9:23pm PDT

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Jimmy Kimmel takes on Sarah Palin. And wins.

by MuhammadStillman Posted on May 3, 2016

Jimmy Kimmel takes on Sarah Palin. And wins.

By on May 3, 2016Share

In between stumping for Donald Trump and raving about the media on Facebook, Sarah Palin has a new gig: promoting Climate Hustle, a climate change conspiracy film by noted tool of the fossil fuel industry Marc Morano. Really, it’s perfect for her.

Jimmy Kimmel, unimpressed with Palin’s new mission, took her to task during his show Monday night.

“I have a theory,” Kimmel said. “I think maybe Sarah Palin wants global warming. It’s cold in Alaska. It would be welcome up there. But, the idea that she knows more than 97 percent of scientists is offensive and dangerous. No matter what Sarah Palin and these geniuses she surrounds herself with try to tell you, climate change is not a liberal-versus-conservative thing.”

Hopefully Palin was watching, and maybe even learned a little something. Check out the full video above, and believe us, it’s worth it.

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Jimmy Kimmel takes on Sarah Palin. And wins.

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Chipotle aims for a Better Burger (without making anyone sick)

by UlrichFocken Posted on March 31, 2016

Chipotle aims for a Better Burger (without making anyone sick)

By on 31 Mar 2016commentsShare

Stop the presses: Your favorite purveyor of burrito bowls and foodborne illness is branching out into burgers.

The Wall Street Journal reports that Chipotle Mexican Grill is developing a new burger chain. The name? Better Burger.

Better Burger will continue Chipotle’s existing model of providing fresher fast food than the classic preservative-laden slop you find at most American chains. Chipotle currently has around 2,000 burrito joints around the U.S., but sales and stocks plummeted last year after roughly 500 people in 13 states contracted food poisoning from the eatery.

The great E. coli, salmonella, and norovirus outbreaks of 2015 also forced the chain to close several stores around the country, and led to at least one lawsuit. In February, Chipotle closed all its stores for a day to discuss the crisis and proper food-handling protocol with employees. It also gave away a whole lot of burritos.

Diversifying the revenue stream could be a wise move, according to the WSJ, as the fresher fast food market has gotten increasingly crowded by competitors like Shake Shack and Five Guys. As to whether or not Better Burger will actually be a better burger, stay tuned, but it certainly can’t be any worse than the 14-year-old McDonald’s hamburger that looks the same as the day it was made. Or can it?

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Arctic sea ice hits another record low

by BarbraLlanas529 Posted on March 29, 2016

Arctic sea ice hits another record low

By on 29 Mar 2016commentsShare

The National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC) reports that a record amount of the Arctic sea never froze this winter. Ice extent, which usually hits a wintertime maximum around mid-March, was at a record-low for the second year in a row, 5,000 square miles below 2015’s record-low maximum extent. This year’s maximum extent is 431,000 square miles below averages from 1981 to 2010.

It’s a pattern that will likely continue, according to NASA Arctic sea scientist Walter Meier. “It is likely that we’re going to keep seeing smaller wintertime maximums in the future because in addition to a warmer atmosphere, the ocean has also warmed up,” Meier said. The amount of sea ice can vary a lot from year to year, but we’re seeing “significant downward trend” from warming conditions, Meier added.

This new record comes after another year of record high temperatures across the globe: 2015 broke the record for high temperatures set by 2014, and February of this year was the hottest month on record. And the Arctic is warming twice as fast as the rest of the planet. “I’ve never seen such a warm, crazy winter in the Arctic,” said NSIDC director Mark Serreze. “The heat was relentless.”

Arctic sea ice is vital to stabilizing Earth’s temperature, according to NASA; when it melts, the oceans absorb more sunlight and warm ever faster. Subsequently, this melts more sea ice, contributing to to global sea level rise. It’s a cycle. A very disturbing cycle. You can watch a visualization from NASA below.

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Trump says nuclear weapons are the riskiest kind of climate change

by LinneaDuesbury Posted on March 22, 2016

Trump says nuclear weapons are the riskiest kind of climate change

By on 21 Mar 2016commentsShare

National embarrassment and presidential hopeful Donald Trump met with The Washington Post’s editorial board on Monday and spouted some nonsense about climate change, among many other topics. The takeaways: He’s “not a big believer” in human-caused climate change; instead, he believes “our biggest form of climate change we should worry about is nuclear weapons.”

Here’s the full climate exchange:

FRED HIATT, WASHINGTON POST EDITORIAL PAGE EDITOR: You think climate change is a real thing? Is there human-caused climate change?

DONALD TRUMP: I think there’s a change in weather. I am not a great believer in man-made climate change. I’m not a great believer. There is certainly a change in weather that goes – if you look, they had global cooling in the 1920s and now they have global warming, although now they don’t know if they have global warming. They call it all sorts of different things; now they’re using “extreme weather” I guess more than any other phrase. I am not – I know it hurts me with this room, and I know it’s probably a killer with this room – but I am not a believer. Perhaps there’s a minor effect, but I’m not a big believer in man-made climate change.

STEPHEN STROMBERG, EDITORIAL WRITER: Don’t good businessmen hedge against risks, not ignore them?

DONALD TRUMP: Well I just think we have much bigger risks. I mean I think we have militarily tremendous risks. I think we’re in tremendous peril. I think our biggest form of climate change we should worry about is nuclear weapons. The biggest risk to the world, to me – I know President Obama thought it was climate change – to me the biggest risk is nuclear weapons. That’s – that is climate change. That is a disaster, and we don’t even know where the nuclear weapons are right now. We don’t know who has them. We don’t know who’s trying to get them. The biggest risk for this world and this country is nuclear weapons, the power of nuclear weapons.

FREDERICK RYAN JR., WASHINGTON POST PUBLISHER: Thank you for joining us.

No, thank you, Frederick Ryan Jr. and the WaPo editorial board, for reminding us to check out Mexico’s immigration policies. We hear the food’s great and there’s going to be a really big wall. Maybe that’ll keep Trump out.

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Trump says nuclear weapons are the riskiest kind of climate change

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Way more Americans are worried about climate change

by JanetteMacintyr Posted on March 17, 2016

Way more Americans are worried about climate change

By on 17 Mar 2016commentsShare

There’s good news and there’s bad news: More Americans are concerned about climate change now than at any time in the past eight years. But that’s because the consequences are getting harder to ignore.

According to a Gallup poll conducted in early March, 64 percent of Americans are worried about climate change a “great deal” or a “fair amount.” This is quite a jump over last year’s 55 percent.

However, as you can see from the graph above, the percentage of concerned citizens varies widely from year to year, and it actually peaked in the year 2000. What was going on in 2000? Well, the dot-com bubble burst, the Yankees won the World Series, yours truly finally cut off her ill-advised white-person dreadlocks, and — perhaps most notably — climate hawk Al Gore was running for president. So, big year. What followed was the Bush presidency, 9/11, the American invasions of both Iraq and Afghanistan, and steep declines in concern about climate change. Concern hit a low point in 2004, before rebounding for the next four years, starting right around the time Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans, Gore’s An Inconvenient Truth came out, and “Drop It Like It’s Hot” hit the airwaves.

Again, concern rose for the next four years, before dropping steeply and staying low until this year. What gives? Gallup has a theory:

A confluence of factors — the economic downturn, the Climategate controversy and some well-publicized pushback against global warming science — may have dampened public concern about global warming from about 2009 to 2015. However, Americans are now expressing record- or near-record-high belief that global warming is happening, as well as concern about the issue. Several years of unseasonably warm weather — including the 2011-2012, 2012-2013 and 2015-2016 winters — has potentially contributed to this shift in attitudes. If that’s true, continuation of such weather patterns would likely do more than anything politicians and even climate-change scientists can to further raise public concern.

In short, more people care about climate change now than they have in a long time. This probably has something to do with the fact that the effects of climate change are becoming increasingly apparent. From record-breaking wildfire seasons to the warmest year on record to the California drought to epic flooding in the South, it’s getting harder and harder to pretend that climate change isn’t already affecting us. The majority of us are paying attention.

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