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California is preparing for a weekend of wintertime wildfires.

Forests in the American West are having a harder time recovering from wildfires because of (what else?) climate change, according to new research published in Ecology Letters.

Researchers measured the growth of seedlings in 1,500 wildfire-scorched areas in Colorado, Wyoming, Washington, Idaho, and Montana. Across the board, they found “significant decreases” in tree regeneration, a benchmark for forest resilience. In one-third of the sites, researchers found zero seedlings.

The warmest, driest forests were hit especially hard.

“Seedlings are more sensitive to warm, dry conditions than mature trees, so if the right conditions don’t exist within a few years following a wildfire, tree seedlings may not establish,” said Philip Higuera, a coauthor of the study.

Earlier this month, a separate study found that ponderosa pine and pinyon forests in the West are becoming less resilient due to droughts and warmer temperatures. Researchers told the New York Times that as trees disappear, some forests could shift to entirely different ecosystems, like grasslands or shrublands.

You’d think the rapid reconfiguration of entire ecosystems would really light a fire under us to deal with climate change, wouldn’t you?

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California is preparing for a weekend of wintertime wildfires.

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Media Goes Wild Over Trump’s First Address to Congress

Mother Jones

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During his first major address before Congress Tuesday evening, President Donald Trump managed to stick to his prepared remarks without veering off into one of his signature, often incomprehensible, rants. The unusually staid performance inspired lavish praise from pundits and commentators, with several members of the media even marking the occasion as the moment Trump officially became president.

“He became President of the United States in that moment, period,” CNN’s Van Jones said in a post-speech wrap-up. The frequent Trump critic even crowned it one of the most “extraordinary” hours he had ever witnessed in American politics.

But as pundits fawned over the speech, some pointed to Trump’s actions and policies during his first month in office, and the many inaccuracies and falsehoods he laid out in his speech, to caution against excessive optimism merely because he softened his tone. Examples included Trump’s move to eliminate key Obama-era environmental protections just hours before he told Congress he supported clean air and water, as well as his hard line approach to immigration, despite his new stance supporting compromises on the issue. Trump also began the speech by referring to Black History Month, an annual celebration he and his aides repeatedly botched last month.

By Wednesday morning, however, it’s obvious all Trump heard was the word “presidential.”

Watch the rare media love-fest below:

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Media Goes Wild Over Trump’s First Address to Congress

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Of Course Trump’s Health Secretary Is a Friend of Big Tobacco

Mother Jones

The man Donald Trump has chosen to direct health policy for the federal government has close ties to the tobacco industry he will soon be charged with regulating. Rep. Tom Price (R-Ga.), who will likely be confirmed as health and human services secretary by the end of the week, has repeatedly voted against bills that could harm big tobacco. At the same time, he’s received thousands of dollars in political contributions from the industry and held investments in tobacco companies—investments he says he didn’t know about.

Early in Barack Obama’s presidency, Congress renewed the State Children’s Health Insurance Program. In order to pay for the program, lawmakers raised cigarette taxes by 62 cents per pack and cigar taxes by 40 cents per cigar. Price blasted the new fees. “Today’s tax hike serves as a useful reminder that the president is comfortable raising taxes on hard-working Americans to feed his reckless agenda,” Price said in an April 2009 statement. “President Obama has done nothing to demonstrate that he is a responsible steward of taxpayer money. Yet, he is forcing the American people to burn through even more of their income in the name of more government.”

A few months later, Congress passed the Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act, which empowered the Food and Drug Administration regulate tobacco products. (The Supreme Court had ruled in 2000 that the FDA did not have that authority under existing law.) The legislation has enabled the agency to ban certain flavored cigarettes that might entice young people to begin smoking. It also allows the FDA to require additional warnings on packages.

Price joined most Republicans in voting against the FDA legislation. But thanks to that bill, as health secretary, he will now have immense influence over how the tobacco industry operates. (The FDA is part of the Department of Health and Human Services.) In 2011, the Obama administration proposed adding graphic warning labels—including images of diseased mouths and lungs—to the top half of cigarette packs. That regulation was tied up in legal challenges but was ultimately upheld by the Supreme Court in 2013. After several years of inaction by the administration, a collection of medical and public health groups, including the American Cancer Society, sued the government last fall in an attempt to force it to finalize the new label requirements. Once he’s in place at HHS, Price can ask the FDA to move forward with the new rules, weaken them, or abandon them altogether.

The conservative website Hot Air celebrated the latter possibility when Price’s nomination was announced in November. “Fortunately for all of us, most of the sore spots on the HHS and FDA regulatory front don’t require cooperation from Congress or the courts,” the site said, pointing to regulations on cigars and electronic cigarettes. “These are things which can essentially be tidied up with a stroke of the pen once Trump and Price are in office.”

Price has benefited from numerous tobacco industry donations during his political career. Back when he was a state legislator in Georgia in 1998, Philip Morris gave Price’s campaign $300. More recently, the PAC for Altria Group, parent company to Philip Morris, donated $18,000 to Price’s congressional campaigns. From 2008 to 2012, Price also received $19,000 from the PAC of RJ Reynolds, the company behind Camel and other cigarette brands.

Price’s office did not respond to a request for comment.

Sen. Al Franken (D-Minn) raised concerns about Price’s personal investments in tobacco companies during his confirmation hearing last month. According to Price’s financial disclosure forms, he sold off 768 shares in Altria and Philip Morris International for $37,000 in 2012. (Altria owns the American Phillip Morris brand. Phillip Morris International has been a separate company since 2008.) Franken started by asking Price to identify the “leading cause of preventable death” and then informed him that it was smoking.

“That hits home,” Price replied. “I lost my dad, who was a Lucky Strike smoker from World War II, to emphysema. He prided himself on the fact that he never smoked a cigarette with a filter for years and years.”

Franken expressed surprise that Price, a physician, would invest in products that lead to the deaths of about 480,000 people in the country each year. “Congressman Price, you’re a physician, which means you took the Hippocratic oath, a pledge to do no harm,” Franken said. “How do you square reaping personal financial gain from the sales of an addictive product that kills millions of Americans every decade with also voting against measures to reduce the death toll inflicted by tobacco?”

“It’s a curious observation,” Price responded, claiming that he had “no idea” about the stocks he owned; he suggested that they were purchased by a mutual fund or pension plan he had invested in. The tobacco investments were publicly disclosed in his financial report, and at other points in his hearing he acknowledged that he had the ability to direct his stock broker on other investments he held.

“I find it very hard to believe that you did not know that you had tobacco stocks,” Franken responded.

Watch the full exchange above.

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Of Course Trump’s Health Secretary Is a Friend of Big Tobacco

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Note From a Conservative: Republicans Can’t Repeal Obamacare on Their Own

Mother Jones

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Conservative Ramesh Ponnuru considers what would happen if Republicans “repealed” Obamacare but left in place the preexisting conditions ban:

This course could cause the insurance exchanges, already in trouble, to collapse entirely. That’s because the Republican bill would scrap the individual mandate while keeping Obamacare’s requirement that insurers treat sick and healthy people alike.

….The Republicans to whom Philip Klein talked are blasé about this possibility. If millions of people lose their coverage, these Republicans plan to say that the exchanges were already collapsing before they touched the law. It seems unlikely that the press will go along with this narrative, in part because many health-care experts, liberal and conservative, will tell reporters that it’s false.

What Republicans have not faced is that they don’t have the votes to repeal Obamacare. Calling a bill that doesn’t repeal Obamacare’s central provisions “repeal” is no escape from that dilemma.

It’s a sign of the times that Ponnuru has to warn Republicans that the press won’t go along with their preferred narrative because it’s a lie. It’s also a bit starry-eyed, unfortunately. The fact that it’s a lie certainly wouldn’t stop the right-wing press; wouldn’t stop Trump; and would quite likely affect the rest of the press at least to the extent of calling it “controversial” and declining to take sides.

That said, Ponnuru is right. If you repeal some of Obamacare but leave the rest in place, it would cause the entire program to collapse. It might even go further, and cause the entire individual insurance market to collapse. Republicans better think hard about whether they want to be on the business end of something like that happening.

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Note From a Conservative: Republicans Can’t Repeal Obamacare on Their Own

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Trump asks Russia For Help Beating Hillary Clinton

Mother Jones

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Donald Trump reaches out to his buddy Vladimir Putin for help:

Just another day in Trumpland.

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Trump asks Russia For Help Beating Hillary Clinton

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Chris Christie Really Wants Republicans to Forget his Bromance With Obama

Mother Jones

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After a somewhat lackluster response to his announcement that he was entering the presidential race, New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie appears to be revving up his brusque, straight-talking persona in a big attempt to garner the attention of the GOP base. Christie angered many on the right when in the final months of the 2012 election he gushed about President Barack Obama’s leadership skills during Superstorm Sandy. He was, after all, a top surrogate for Mitt Romney. During a visit to New Hampshire this week, Christie went out of his way to take a swipe at the president.

According to Washington Post’s National Political Correspondent Philip Rucker, Christie said the following during a town hall meeting Thursday:

Christie certainly didn’t seem to feel this way in the aftermath of Superstorm Sandy, when he praised Obama’s “great” response to the natural disaster. “The president has been all over this and he deserves great credit,” he told MSNBC’s Morning Joe, before going on to brag about their late night phone calls, saying that Obama, “told me to call him if I needed anything and he absolutely means it, and it’s been very good working with the President and his administration.”

And it was a two way street. “I want to let you know your governor is working overtime,” Obama remarked after the duo finished up a tour of the damage.

By March 2014, having learned his lesson from the GOP base who shamed him, Christie was back to dissing the president, calling him a weak leader at a Conservative Political Action Conference. Expect plenty more Obama-bashing from Christie as he elbows his way into the crowded primary field.

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Chris Christie Really Wants Republicans to Forget his Bromance With Obama

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We’re Still at War: Photo of the Day for May 1, 2014

Mother Jones

U.S. Army Rangers, assigned to Charlie Company, 3rd Battalion, 75th Ranger Regiment, looks over their mission objectives during their annual Task Force Training at Fort Knox, KY., April 22, 2014. Rangers are constantly training to maintain the highest level of tactical proficiency. The training was to ensure all Soldiers are proficient in warrior skills and tasks in preparation for their upcoming deployment. (U.S. Army photo by Spc. Philip Diab/Released)

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We’re Still at War: Photo of the Day for May 1, 2014

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The Keystone XL pipeline could create as many as 20 long-term jobs

The Keystone XL pipeline could create as many as 20 long-term jobs

MCLA

There are more people in this picture than may have long-term jobs with the pipeline.

Last week year, Bloomberg did a little digging into the oft-mentioned “thousands of jobs” that would result if the Keystone XL pipeline were built. What they found, as they say, might surprise you, if you are surprised when fatuous political arguments turn out to be erroneous.

From the article:

The debate in Washington has focused on short-term construction and manufacturing jobs, rather than on permanent ones. Estimates for construction and manufacturing employment range from 2,500 to 20,000, depending on assumptions of how much of the project’s budget will be spent in the U.S. The company says some of the steel will be made in Canada and India.

TransCanada Vice President Robert Jones said permanent jobs would be “in the hundreds, certainly not in the thousands,” in a Nov. 11 interview on CNN.

Calgary-based TransCanada says construction will create 20,000 “new, real U.S. jobs.”

TransCanada left out one adjective: temporary. Over the long term, though, that number drops a little bit. Once construction is complete, there won’t be 20,000 jobs — there will be more like 20.

The number of people needed to operate and maintain the 1,661-mile (2,673-kilometer) pipeline may be as few as 20, according to the U.S. State Department, or as many as a few hundred, according to TransCanada.

There are all sorts of caveats that can and should be made: Construction employment is necessarily temporary, for example, and a project of this scope will likely have some ancillary job creation benefits (at refineries on the Gulf Coast, for example). But the fact remains that pipeline advocates have been harping on the project’s job creation potential, yet in a decade the pipeline may have added fewer than two dozen people to the workforce. That’s as many jobs as are created when a new restaurant opens.

That said, the low number makes sense. After all, the pipes in your house don’t need someone to constantly sit and watch them. On the rare occasion that something goes wrong, that’s the point at which you become a TransCanada-style job creator, calling in a plumber.

Which raises another point: It’s very possible that the pipeline will create more jobs down the road. One little rupture, and we’re talking about hundreds more short-term jobs in the lucrative oil-sopping and valve-turning industries.

Update: In my enthusiasm to share this number, I failed to notice that the February 13th on which the article came out was in 2012, not 2013. In the intervening year, it’s possible that the number of projected long-term employees could have reached 22. Maybe even 23.

Source

Keystone’s Thousands of Jobs Fall to 20 When Pipeline Opens, Bloomberg

Philip Bump writes about the news for Gristmill. He also uses Twitter a whole lot.

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The Keystone XL pipeline could create as many as 20 long-term jobs

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The success of London’s congestion charge, in three maps

The success of London’s congestion charge, in three maps

Bike commuters in London.

Streetsblog, a network of sustainable-transportation-focused websites that you should read regularly, used the occasion of the 10th anniversary of London’s congestion pricing system to review its effectiveness. As you probably know, congestion pricing is a tool by which cities limit automobile and other traffic to certain areas by charging a fee for access. In London, that fee is £10, or about $15.

Has it worked? Streetsblog says yes — or, it did for a bit.

In its first few years, the London charging scheme was heralded as a solid traffic-buster, with 15-20 percent boosts in auto and bus speeds and 30 percent reductions in congestion delays. Most of those gains appear to have disappeared in recent years, however. Transport for London (TfL), which combines the functions of our NYCDOT and MTA and which created and operates the charging system, attributes the fallback in speeds to other changes in the streetscape and traffic management …

The congestion charge also raised millions in revenue, some $435 million in 2008 alone.

But the benefit over the past decade can be seen most clearly in the three maps Streetsblog provides.

Car traffic declines.

Bicycle usage rises.

Public transit use increases.

Less traffic, less congestion, more public transit use, more money for government investment. All the sorts of things that drive right-wing Americans insane. So I wouldn’t hold my breath for implementation in a U.S. city any time soon.

Source

Lessons From London After 10 Years of the Congestion Charge, Streetsblog

Philip Bump writes about the news for Gristmill. He also uses Twitter a whole lot.

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North Dakota’s red-hot, frack-fueled economy is starting to slow down

North Dakota’s red-hot, frack-fueled economy is starting to slow down

Lindsey GeeA fracking rig in North Dakota.

Remember that massive economic boom in North Dakota? That was so early 2012.

The Atlantic‘s Derek Thompson outlines the state’s slowdown at the end of last year. He starts with this graph:

Derek Thompson/Atlantic

Click to embiggen.

This chart tells two stories about America’s little petro state. First story: At the beginning of 2012 (much like in 2011 and 2010), North Dakota’s stratospheric job creation numbers made even the next frothiest states look like they’re were suffering a post-Soviet-breakup depression. Second story: Something happened in the second half of 2012. North Dakota’s economy fell back to earth. …

You might say, don’t be unfair, North Dakota never could have kept up its 2011 rate!, and I might respond, you’re right. If the U.S. had experienced Dakotan growth across 2011, we would have added about 400,000 jobs per month, and that’s just absurd.

Why the slowdown? In part, because drilling (and ancillary costs) gets more expensive as it gets more popular. Supply and demand.

The rig count across North Dakota, and particularly in the rich Bakken shale, dropped sharply in September and hiring has slowed since the summer, as drilling companies have turned their focus to efficiency as capital costs (and concerns of regulation) rise in the Bakken. That’s probably had spill-over effects in transportation hiring.

And in housing: A massive spike in new house construction at the beginning of 2012 leveled off as oilfield hiring slowed.

Thompson notes that the state is not seeing a bust, just a slowdown. So if you want to get in on that North Frackota action, you still can. But open a hotel, not an oil well.

Source

Is North Dakota’s Miraculous Boom Already Over?, Atlantic

Philip Bump writes about the news for Gristmill. He also uses Twitter a whole lot.

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