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Trump’s Racist Appeal Becomes More Explicit Every Day

by BennettWertheim Posted on July 13, 2016

Mother Jones

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I can’t believe I missed this, but I did:

During two separate discussions of Black Lives Matters protests on Tuesday, Donald Trump claimed that people have called for moments of silence for Micah Johnson, the gunman who killed five police officers in Dallas and injured nine others, without specifying who or where.

On an O’Reilly Factor segment….“I saw what they’ve said about police at various marches and rallies,” said Trump. “I’ve seen moments of silence called for for this horrible human being who shot the policemen.”

Trump repeated the claim Tuesday night, saying at a rally in Indiana, “The other night you had 11 cities potentially in a blow-up stage. Marches all over the United States—and tough marches. Anger. Hatred. Hatred! Started by a maniac! And some people ask for a moment of silence for him. For the killer!”

Josh Marshall:

This isn’t getting a lot of attention. But it should….There is no evidence this ever happened. Searches of the web and social media showed no evidence. Even Trump’s campaign co-chair said today that he can’t come up with any evidence that it happened.

….A would-be strong man, an authoritarian personality, isn’t just against disorder and violence. They need disorder and violence. That is their raison d’etre, it is the problem that they are purportedly there to solve. The point bears repeating: authoritarian figures require violence and disorder. Look at the language. “11 cities potentially in a blow up stage” … “Anger. Hatred. Hatred! Started by a maniac!” … “And some people ask for a moment of silence for him. For the killer.”

Trump’s explicit race baiting has been so normalized by now that we hardly notice this stuff. This kind of talk from a major-party candidate for president should be front-page news everywhere. Instead, it warrants a few words in various campaign roundups.

Blacks, Hispanics, Muslims, foreigners of all stripes: they’re all grist for Trump’s crusade to convince white voters that they’re surrounded by rapists, murderers, terrorists, and assorted other predators who want to take their jobs away and impoverish them. It’s his whole campaign.

This is loathsome. For years it’s been clear that the Republican Party could only win by turning out an ever greater share of the white vote. But by 2012 they seemed to have done everything they possibly could: Fox News stoked the xenophobia, Republican legislatures passed voter ID laws, and outreach to white evangelicals had reached saturation levels. What more did they have on their plate? Now we know the answer: nominate a guy who doesn’t play around with dog whistles anymore. Instead he comes out and flatly runs as the candidate of white America, overtly attacking every minority group he can think of. That shouldn’t work. In the year 2016, it should alienate at least as many white voters as it captures. But so far it seems to be doing at least moderately well.

President Obama was right yesterday: America is not nearly as divided as the media makes it seem. But the only way for Donald Trump to win is to make it seem otherwise. That’s what he’s been doing for the past year, and the media has been playing along the whole time, exaggerating existing grievances where they can and inventing them where they can’t.

I’m not scared that America is such a hotbed of racial resentment that it’s about to implode. But I’m increasingly scared that Donald Trump can make it seem that way, and that the press—always in search of a dramatic narrative—will go off in search of ways to leverage this into more eyeballs, more clicks, and more paid subscriptions. There’s still time for us all to decide we should handle this differently. But that time is running out.

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Trump’s Racist Appeal Becomes More Explicit Every Day

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Aromatherapy for Sensual Living – Elana Millman

by Myrna Posted on July 13, 2016

READ GREEN WITH E-BOOKS

Aromatherapy for Sensual Living

Essential Oils for the Ecstatic Soul

Elana Millman

Genre: Health & Fitness

Price: $1.99

Publish Date: June 16, 2015

Publisher: Skyhorse Publishing

Seller: The Perseus Books Group, LLC


Aromatherapy has successfully infiltrated our world. The flowers are speaking and we are listening. Innocuously, most people have a bottle of lavender, peppermint, or even oregano tucked away in the back of the drawer or medicine cabinet for an emergency bout of insomnia or nausea or to conquer a cold or flu. We have been told that flowers heal and cure and we believe. Through positive experimentation, most people understand that essential oils can be used, not only for beauty or as perfume, but also for medicinal purposes. With the trend toward more natural remedies, aromatherapy is quickly becoming a staple for those who want to empower their own health and healing and avoid costly doctor visits. People are waking up to the inherent powers of nature and doing so with brilliant results. However, most people don’t yet know the depth and breadth to which essential oils can heal and help. Be the Flower is here to teach. With the daily use of essential oils, your immune system will be stronger, you will look more youthful, and you will actively be aligning yourself with the divine knowledge held within the plant kingdom. You have virtually endless options to choose from to empower your health and open a treasure trove of luscious libations to tempt and tease.

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Aromatherapy for Sensual Living – Elana Millman

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The Dallas Police Shooter Bought an AK-47 Via Facebook

by emiliachavez422 Posted on July 13, 2016

Mother Jones

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In 2014, Micah Johnson, who killed five police officers and injured seven in an ambush in Dallas last week, purchased an AK-47 rifle in a deal arranged through Facebook and finalized in a Target parking lot, according to the New York Daily News. In an interview with the Daily News, the seller, 26-year-old Colton Crews, said that Johnson “didn’t stand out as a nut job. He didn’t stand out as a crazy person at all.” In fact, because Johnson had been a US military service member, Crews said that “he was like your first pick when you’re selling a gun to somebody.”

The AK-47 was apparently not used in the Dallas attack. Citing an unnamed law enforcement official, the Wall Street Journal reported on Monday that Johnson used an Izhmash-Saiga 5.45mm rifle, an AK-style variant, in the shooting. But news of the sale highlights just how easy it is to acquire a gun through Facebook. The social media giant has come under fire from activists who say the company isn’t doing enough to make sure the site isn’t used as an online weapons bazaar. In Texas, where Johnson purchased the AK-47 from Crews, background checks are not required in private sales, and Facebook pages dedicated to selling firearms are ubiquitous.

In the wake of the Orlando massacre last month, a disparate collection of individuals began taking to Facebook to report pages and individuals advertising gun sales in an attempt to get them kicked off the site for violating its user rules. In January, Facebook banned users from coordinating unregulated gun sales, but it has left the enforcement of the ban entirely to users who report violators.

In his interview with the Daily News, Crews said, “First off, it was my belief Johnson would have passed a background check. He didn’t seem weird in any way, just a normal guy.” At the Target parking lot where the deal was finalized, they made small talk. They checked out the AK-47, making sure it was in working condition, and Crews’ stepdad thanked Johnson for his service. Johson made a comment about how he missed the rifle’s firepower since returning home from Afghanistan. “He seems like he’s 100 percent on the up and up.”

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The Dallas Police Shooter Bought an AK-47 Via Facebook

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Cleveland Police Are Gearing up for Mayhem at the GOP Convention

by edwinputilin54 Posted on July 13, 2016

Mother Jones

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With the Republican National Convention imminent, the Cleveland Police Department is finalizing its security plan for what is expected to be a volatile few days. The city announced last Friday that it was updating its plan following last week’s mass shooting of police officers in Dallas, and though it shared scant detail, the Cleveland PD is set to be outfitted with plenty of heavy gear.

The RNC is designated as a National Special Security Event by the US Department of Homeland Security, which entitled Cleveland to a $50 million federal grant toward its security plan. According to bids the city has posted to its website and reports from local news outlets, so far Cleveland has spent the money on:

2,000 sets of riot gear
2,000 steel batons
325 sets of tactical armor
300 patrol bicycles, with accompanying riot gear
25 rifle scopes
10,000 flexible handcuffs

Other supplies include bulletproof helmets, pepper spray, two-point slings (used to carry rifles) and inmate mattresses. The Cleveland PD also asked the Chicago Police Department to loan them three bearcats, and Taser International is loaning the department 300 body cameras that can be attached to riot suits. The city also put out a bid for tear gas, according to the Washington Post, and recently upped its protest insurance coverage from $9.5 million to $50 million.

This approach by the city isn’t unusual per se; Tampa bought similar kinds of equipment (though less of it) ahead of the RNC there in 2012. But Cleveland is the first city to host a political convention with its police department under a consent decree with the federal government. The Cleveland PD has been under the oversight of a federal monitoring team charged with enforcing the decree since October 2015, due to a history of excessive force and other abuses. Jonathan Smith, a former Justice Department lawyer who supervised the agency’s Cleveland PD investigation, told the Marshall Project, “You would want a department to provide security that has systems that are in place where there is better accountability and better supervision.” In a report issued in June, the team monitoring the Cleveland PD under the decree characterzied the police department’s ability to investigate officer misconduct as “dire.” Cleveland’s consent decree calls for changes to the department’s use of force policy and internal review protocol, but those changes are still in progress.

Joycelyn Rosnick, an attorney with the National Lawyers Guild’s Cleveland office, told Mother Jones the group has concerns about the equipment and tactics that the Cleveland PD plans to deploy. The police department’s purchase of 10,000 flexible handcuffs, she said, indicates “they are preparing for mass arrests.” She also cautions about potential escalation: Earlier this year, a coalition of international civil liberties groups released a report on the health impacts of crowd-control weapons commonly used by law enforcement. The report focused on how projectile weapons such as rubber bullets or bean bags can cause severe injuries, including ruptured organs and even death. The report also found that chemical weapons like tear gas and pepper spray can cause permanent disabilities such as blindness and respiratory problems.

Rosnick also notes that wearing riot gear is a display of force that could chill people’s First Amendment right to protest. (Cleveland officials have said that officers will only wear riot gear if it becomes necessary.) And she wonders whether the Cleveland PD has sufficient training or will show adequate restraint. “The police department that was found to use excessive force a couple months ago,” she said, “is still the department we have today.”

Jane Castor, who was chief of the Tampa Police Department when that city hosted the RNC in 2012, told the Cleveland Plain Dealer that the Tampa PD’s approach to security—which included officers working in standard uniforms, passing out food and water to protesters, and arresting people only as a last resort—resulted in just two convention-related arrests and zero lawsuits from protesters after the convention. Cleveland is expected to see many more protesters than Tampa did, however.

Militarization of police departments has returned to the spotlight since the country erupted with protests last week following two high-profile fatal shootings by cops. Baton Rouge police officers used tear gas, pepper spray, and a Long Range Acoustic Device (LRAD) to disperse protesters during demonstrations over the police shooting death of Alton Sterling. And officers in St. Paul, MN, used smoke bombs to disperse a crowd that had blocked a highway.

Watchdogs are working to prepare protesters for what may come. Matthew Barge, the attorney appointed to lead the federal oversight effort, told the Marshall Project that the public could report instances of police abuse at the RNC on the monitoring team’s website. “We are not going to be bashful about reviewing what happens at the RNC,” he said.

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Cleveland Police Are Gearing up for Mayhem at the GOP Convention

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This Salvadoran Woman Served 4 Years for Having a Miscarriage

by AishaMcLean5884 Posted on July 12, 2016

Mother Jones

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Maria Teresa Rivera didn’t realize she was pregnant in 2011 when she went into early labor. The 28-year-old factory worker in El Salvador, who already had one son, started bleeding heavily late one night, so her family called an ambulance to drive her to the hospital. The next day, Rivera was taken to jail.

Her crime? Having a miscarriage.

Rivera is one of a number of women in El Salvador incarcerated not for abortion, which is illegal, but as a result of miscarriages. An abortion rights group in the area has identified 17 people convicted of homicide, with sentences upward of 40 years, after facing obstetric emergencies such as miscarriage or stillbirth.

After serving four of her 40-year prison sentence for aggravated homicide, Rivera’s conviction was overturned by a judge and she walked free this spring. But the prosecution appealed her release, and this week a three-judge panel will decide whether to hold a new hearing or throw out the charges for good.

Only six countries in the world, including El Salvador, ban abortion in all cases, even when the pregnancy is the result of rape or threatens the life of the mother. Nicaragua, Chile, the Dominican Republic, the Vatican city-state, and Malta are the only other places with similar prohibitions. In January, El Salvador’s deputy health minister told women to avoid getting pregnant for two years because of worries over the effects of Zika virus.

“A woman who procures herself an abortion is running a very high risk,” Carmen Barroso, the former regional director of the International Planned Parenthood Federation in the Western Hemisphere, told Mother Jones. “She’ll run the risk to her life because she’ll have to have an unsafe abortion because they are so limited in availability. It is tragic.”

The ban in El Salvador got international attention in 2013, when the country’s highest court rejected the abortion request of a young woman, known only as Beatriz, with a potentially life-threatening pregnancy, ruling the “rights of the mother cannot be privileged over those” of the fetus. The fetus suffered from anencephaly, a severe congenital disorder where the fetus’ brain and skull stop growing, giving it little chance of surviving outside the womb. The woman survived after getting a controversial caesarian section.

Despite the ban, more than 19,000 illegal abortions were reported in El Salvador between 2005 and 2008, according to the Ministry of Health’s Information, Monitoring, and Evaluation Unit, an estimate that advocates say is low. Nearly a third of abortions performed were on adolescents, who make up a large percent of the region’s unplanned pregnancies. According to the World Health Organization, 9 percent of maternal deaths in Central America are the result of illegal abortions.

As a result of the criminalization, women in El Salvador frequently face legal scrutiny for abortion-related crimes. According to research done by a Salvadoran advocacy group, between 2000 and 2011 about 130 women were criminally prosecuted for ending their pregnancies. That number doesn’t include cases where the allegations were dropped or cases involving minors, whose records are sealed. Almost 50 women were convicted of either illegal abortion or different degrees of homicide, which carries a sentence of up to 50 years.

Then there are the cases of the 17 women who are part of “Las 17,” as they’re known, who are all, like Rivera, young, impoverished, and accused of losing their pregnancies on purpose. Guadalupe Vasquez, a housekeeper, was only 17 years old when she became pregnant from rape. She decided to keep the baby but lost it during labor. After her employer sent her to the hospital, she was reported to the police and eventually sentenced to 30 years behind bars.

Many of the women, including Rivera, were reported to the police by medical staff at the hospital. In some cases, neighbors or friends called law enforcement.

“I felt the need to go to the bathroom, I pushed, and it was the baby that came out into the latrine,” Rivera said in a video from prison. She passed out from loss of blood and was in the hospital when she woke up. “Then they took me to this place,” she said.

Rivera was convicted “despite the complete lack of evidence of any wrongdoing,” according to an analysis of Las 17 cases by a Salvadoran lawyer and a Harvard sociologist. The analysis also concluded that Salvadoran courts systematically discriminated against the women by aggressively pursuing “the mother’s prosecution instead of pursuing the truth.”

“In stark contrast to the courts’ findings, our analysis concludes that the legal and medical facts in the majority of these cases correspond with medical emergency—not with homicide,” they wrote.

Rivera successfully appealed her conviction and has spent the last two months walking free.

“What worries me is leaving my son alone again,” Rivera, who grew up in orphanages, told Rewire after being released in May. “I was forced to abandon him for four and a half years, and he suffered greatly during that time.”

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This Salvadoran Woman Served 4 Years for Having a Miscarriage

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Is Zero Waste Just for the Young and Affluent?

by RosettaMaas2622 Posted on July 11, 2016

Many online commenters complain about the fact that Zero Waste blogs tend to be run by primarily young, affluent females who have the time and money to run around town, visiting numerous stores in order to source their favorite local, organic ingredients in fancy glass jars and stainless containers, before heading home to DIY everything from bread and yogurt to toothpaste and body wash. (I realize I, too, am guilty of giving this impression.)

For many, Zero Waste has become synonymous with privilege and wealth because there is so little online discussion about how people who donotfit those categories can possibly attain Zero Waste standards. This is hardly fair.

Just because someone has very little money or lives with disabilities doesnt mean they dont care about the environment, nor have the willpower and desire to implement waste reduction in their personal lives. More bloggers should be asking, “How does Zero Waste benefit people with disabilities and low incomes? Is it even realistic for those with limited physical access and tight budgets?”

Ariana Schwarz addresses this topic in an excellent article called Is Zero Waste Unfair to People with Low Incomes or Disabilities? Schwarz believes that Zero Waste is not ableist or discriminatory toward the poor. In fact, it provides great opportunities to improve quality of life.

Take packaging, for example.So often we think of single-used packaging as convenient, and yetlesspackaging is typically more accessible. Imagine opening plastic blister packs, Tetrapaks, and Tupperware or other food storage containers, with their one-handed peel motion; twisting up deodorant tubes and toothpaste lids; and opening rigid plastic packaging (such as the type toothbrushes come in) or Ziplocs while suffering from arthritis or ALS. Compare that to cotton mesh drawstring bags, wide-mouth Mason jars, and flip- or swing-top glass bottles, where access is easier overall.

In terms of cost, Zero Waste can save precious money.Investing in reusables that require an initial investment can save significant amounts of money down the road, i.e. cloth diapers, a menstrual cup, safety razors, etc. Buying in bulk quantities reduces cost and the number of shopping trips. Many bulk stores have low-positioned bins with lids that are easier to open and access from a wheelchair than reaching the tops of supermarket shelves.

Having tight budgets encourages people to grow their own food in abandoned or under-utilized spaces to save packaging and cost. There are many farmers markets in the U.S. that accept SNAP cards and food stamps; in Georgia, aspecial programeven doubles SNAP at markets.

Health can improve through implementation of Zero Waste practices. One commenter on Schwarzs blog wrote:

Zero waste has been a savior in cost and mental peace of mind. My apartment building is falling apart and the carpet full of allergens, but cleaning with vinegar, baking soda, and soap have gone a long way for my health and wallet (cloth towels instead of paper help too). Our allergies are much improved. We’re hoping to get a bidet soon; there’s one on Amazon for barely more than a jumbo pack of toilet paper. Same for being mostly vegan life is much improved and costs are way down.

Keep in mind that embracing small challenges, such as saying no to single-use plastic containers, utensils, and grocery bags, sends a powerful message to whomever has offered it to you, regardless of physical or financial challenges, and its important not to underestimate that power.

Zero Waste practices can benefit everyone, but responsibility does lie with those who do not struggle with barriers to accessibility to push this lifestyle more into the mainstream and make it even easier for everyone to participate.

Schwarz writes: Could you volunteer to collect food that would otherwise go to waste and redistribute them to the needy? Petition local shops for more accessible bulk bins? Or assist handicapped or elderly persons in your community with the grocery shopping?

What are your experiences with Zero Waste living? Do you live with a disability or on a low income that makes it difficult to implement environmental practices? Please share any thoughts in the comments below.

Written by Katherine Martinko. Reposted with permission from TreeHugger.

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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Is Zero Waste Just for the Young and Affluent?

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Weeds That Are Good for Your Garden

by MeridithShade5 Posted on July 6, 2016

While some weeds are invasive and steal nutrients from intentionally planted flowers or edibles, there are other “weeds” that may actually helpyour garden or lawn. Before declaring war on those dandelions, read on to learn aboutsome of the beneficial volunteer plants.You might find some new helpers and save yourself some work.

1. Nitrogen Fixers

Plants require nitrogen to survive. The problem is most nitrogen naturally occurs as a gas in our atmosphere and is unavailable to plants.

Nitrogen fixing plants solve this issue with specialized root nodules that can take nitrogen from the air and store it in their roots. The nitrogen becomes available to other plants once the nitrogen fixers die and the roots start to decompose.

The legume family of plants are excellent nitrogen fixers, including clover, vetch, peas, beans, lupines, false indigo, and alfalfa. Leave these plants to die at the end of the season or till in perennial varieties to allow the nitrogen to be released.

Even some potentially weedy trees and shrubs are great for fixing nitrogen, such as sea buckthorn, broom, alder, locust trees, and Russian olives. The older roots that die off naturally will release nitrogen into the surrounding soil.

Dandelion

2. Deeply-Rooted Weeds

Plants with deep root systems, like docks, dandelion, pigweed, or thistles, will draw hidden nutrients to the soil surface. This often includes trace minerals that many of your shallow-rooted ornamental plants would have a hard time accessing. The deep roots also break up compacted soil to improve water permeability and texture.

These weeds are excellent to add to your compost. Try leaving some in place throughout the growing season to harvest and compost the leaves regularly before they start to flower or seed.

You can also dig up the roots at the end of the season. But make sure they dont survive in your finished compost. Try putting the harvested roots in the sun for at least a week to thoroughly dry out. Soaking the roots in a bucket of water until they ferment will also finish them off before adding to your compost.

3. Ground Covers

Ground cover plants in any form, including weeds, can help your garden in many ways.

Their roots will stabilize soil, preventing erosion and the loss of nutrient-rich top soil. The stems and leaves will provide shade to keep your ground moist and reduce irrigation needs.

Although it may sound contradictory, a good ground cover of weeds will also help with weed control. Weeds that make a tight mat of vegetation over the ground, such as purslane or dead-nettle, will prevent more invasive weeds from taking hold.

Chickweed

4. Edible Weeds

Many of our modern-day weeds were once sought-after food crops. The flavor of wild greens is often stronger than our cultivated varieties, but this is no reason to disregard them.

In fact, weeds such as lambs quarters, yellow dock, dandelion leaves, purslane, chickweed, and sorrel have two or three times the nutritional value of spinach or Swiss chard.

If you steam or saut the greens, it will remove any bitter aftertaste they may have when raw. Then you can use them as you would any other green vegetable in soups, stews, sauces, or as a simple side dish.

These are some tasty edible weeds you can try:

Dandelion (Taraxacum officinale) eat the fresh leaves or dry the roots in small pieces and use in tea.
Clover (Trifolium pretense) leaves and blossoms are good fresh, blossoms can be steeped in tea.
Plantain (Plantago major) leaves are excellent steamed.
Sorrel (Rumex acetosella) lemon-flavored leaves are tasty raw when young, or steamed when older.
Watercress (Nasturtium officinale) tangy leaves are good fresh or steamed.
Chickweed (Stellaria media) fresh leaves are great in salad.
Lambs quarters (Chenopodium album) young leaves are good raw or steamed, and the seeds are also very nutritious.

5. Cover Crops

The main purpose of a cover crop is to provide more nutrients and organic matter for your soil. Many farmers and gardeners will purposely sow certain plants as cover crops, but you can also use your existing weed species.

Its recommended to regularly cut off the greens of a cover crop and leave them as a mulch to decompose on the soil, or take them to your compost. The plants can be tilled into the ground at the end of the season.

You can leave lush weeds you already have in place, such as clover, burdock, thistles, chickweed, or pigweed. Just make sure to keep cutting them down before they flower and make seeds.

Ladybug on Burdock

6. Insect Attractants and Repellants

You can help support pollinating insects by keeping some wild, flowering weeds around to provide food. Some of their favorites include dandelions, clover, thistles, evening primrose, borage, and Queen Annes lace. Allowing weedy shrubs, such as wild cherries or roses, to grow in unused corners of your yard is also useful.

These weeds can attract beneficial predatory insects to your garden as well, such as ladybugs, parasitic wasps and lacewings, which control your bad bugs.

On the other hand, some weeds can keep unwanted bugs away. A study in Florida found there was less armyworm damage in cornfields with weeds like dandelion, cockleburs and goldenrod. Plants like pennyroyal, feverfew and peppermint are known to repel mosquitos.

Weeds can also lure harmful insects away from your desired plants. For example, lambs quarters often attracts leafminers, which could attack your spinach or other greens instead.

7. Soil Indicators

Certain weeds grow best under specific soil and climate conditions. If you see them growing in an area, youll have a good idea of whats going on in that soil.

For instance, knotweed, sow thistle and plantain are all indicators of an acidic soil. Whereas sheep sorrel and yellow toadflax will often grow in poor soils low in organic matter.

If you see a lot of one or two types of weeds in a location, look into what theyre telling you before you make any further plans for the area.

Related
Homemade Pepper Spray: To Deter Garden Critters Naturally
7 Phenomenal Companion Planting Pairs
How Much Do You Actually Have to Water Your Plants?

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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Weeds That Are Good for Your Garden

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Carbon prices are way down, thanks to the Supreme Court’s hold on Clean Power Plan

by FaithMcnamee Posted on July 6, 2016

Carbon prices are way down, thanks to the Supreme Court’s hold on Clean Power Plan

By on Jul 5, 2016

Cross-posted from

Climate CentralShare

A temporary halt to the federal government’s plan to cut electric power plant emissions has caused carbon prices in the Northeast’s only cap-and-trade program to plummet, according to the U.S. Department of Energy.

Carbon prices in the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative, or RGGI, have fallen 40 percent since the Supreme Court’s decision in February to stay the Clean Power Plan — from their peak at $7.50 per metric ton of carbon dioxide in December to $4.53 per ton in June.

RGGI is America’s first mandatory market-based cap-and-trade program, which places a collective limit on carbon emissions among its nine member states. Power plant emissions under that limit are called “allowances,” and the program stamps a price on them so they can be traded among polluters. Carbon prices are set at quarterly auctions, and proceeds are invested in state renewable energy, energy efficiency, and other sustainability programs.

The program is one of the Northeastern states’ strategies to comply with the Clean Power Plan if it withstands court challenges. The program is designed to reduce greenhouse gas emissions among all the New England states plus New York, Delaware, and Maryland as a way to reduce their contributions to global warming.

Experts disagree about what the sudden drop means for the future of carbon cutting in the Northeast and what direction the prices will go. Long-term low carbon prices could make it cheap to cut carbon throughout the Northeast, or it could chill future investment in renewables and other carbon-cutting measures because it will be less profitable to do so.

RGGI caps member states’ collective annual carbon emissions at a specific level, and they are set to decline 2.5 percent annually through 2020, encouraging states to develop renewables and other low-emissions energy sources to replace highly polluting ones.

RGGI auction prices for carbon pollution are considered low compared to California’s carbon trading market, where carbon emissions have been valued between roughly $12 and $13 per metric ton since 2014. RGGI prices had increased steadily from about $2 per ton 2012 to about $7.50 per ton 2015, but they fell sharply at the auctions held immediately after the Supreme Court decision.

U.S. Energy Information Administration analyst Thad Huetteman said the agency cannot comment on where prices may be headed because there are too many unknowns about RGGI’s future. But he said that if the Clean Power Plan is upheld in court, the EIA’s forecast suggests prices may remain low.

A spokesperson for RGGI declined to comment.

The James A. Fitzpatrick Nuclear Power Plant in Upstate New York.Nuclear Regulatory Commission

There is wide disagreement about the long-term implications of low RGGI prices and whether they’ll bounce back in the near future.

“Low RGGI prices hamper the region’s ability to pursue additional carbon cuts,” and make clean energy investment less profitable, said Jordan Stutt, a clean energy analyst for the Acadia Center, a New England climate policy think tank.

He said lower prices mean states earn less money from trading carbon, reducing the amount of auction money they will get that can be reinvested in state-run clean energy and energy efficiency programs.

RGGI has not established a carbon emissions cap for after 2020, and a new cap mandating strict emissions cuts could raise prices in the long run, he said.

William Shobe, a University of Virginia public policy professor who was part of the team that designed the RGGI carbon auction, is more optimistic about what low carbon prices mean for carbon cutting in the future.

Shobe said low carbon prices are good news for both the future of the cap-and-trade program and the region’s ability to slash its emissions.

“If you had a choice between high prices and low prices, you’d want low prices because the cost of accomplishing the (carbon cutting) goal is lower,” he said. “That means you’re getting what you want cheaper, and in the end you’ll want to buy more of it.”

The key is that RGGI states’ carbon emissions are determined by the cap they place on them, not the price of those emissions, he said.

“That’s the nice thing about cap-and-trade programs — you’ve got a guarantee you’re going to meet the emissions goal,” Shobe said. “The question is how expensive it’s going to be.”

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Carbon prices are way down, thanks to the Supreme Court’s hold on Clean Power Plan

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In Paris, bicycle highways are trés chic

by RandolpMilliman Posted on July 2, 2016

a la mode

In Paris, bicycle highways are trés chic

By on Jul 2, 2016Share

This story was originally published by CityLab and is reproduced here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration.

Paris has inaugurated its first bike highway. Opening last May, the 0.5-mile stretch of freshly paved road alongside the Bassin de l’Arsenal is part of the Réseau express vélo (“REVe”), an initiative to build fast-track bike lanes free of motorized vehicles. It’s only the first section of the soon-to-be 28-mile network of bike highways that will cross the city by 2020.

In 2015, the city voted unanimously to spend €150 million ($164.5 million) on expanding and improving its biking infrastructure, including REVe (which translates to “dream” in French). Cyclists will benefit from more bike-friendly rules — including the freedom to turn without waiting for a green light at every intersection — as well as new bike stands and two-way bike lanes on one-way streets.

Sandrine Gbaguidi, a local biking blogger, rarely leaves home without her bike, using it to run errands, get to work, or just find a nearby park. But that wasn’t always the case. When Gbaguidi moved to Paris from Dakar six years ago, she first used public transit to get around because she was too afraid to bike. She bought a bike after three years in Paris — and, as she feared, there was a steep learning curve. “You’re constantly on your guard and annoyed or irritated,” says Gbaguidi. “Biking is supposed to be fun and relaxing.”

The plan for the new REVe network.Mayor of Paris

Gbaguidi’s initial fears are not unique. In 2014, bikes amounted for only 5 percent of daily traffic in the city, accounting for about 225,000 trips. Although that number is growing annually, it still doesn’t compare to the 15.5 million daily trips by car, tallied in 2012. Meanwhile, other European cities like Copenhagen and Amsterdam report 55 and 43 percent, respectively, of their daily traffic happening on bikes.

Charles Maguin, president and co-founder of Paris en Selle, a biking association, says one reason people don’t bike in France’s capital is that they don’t feel safe competing with motorized vehicles on the road. Paris en Selle was founded in 2015 when Maguin noted the lack of biking groups advocating for the cyclist’s safety in terms of laws and infrastructure. “Parisians would rather take the Metro for a short commute than bike to work,” says Maguin.

But the Metro, while popular, is not valued for comfort or cleanliness, especially during rush hour. Commuters breathe in more pollution using the Metro than while riding a bike, according to a study conducted in 2009 by Airparif, an association monitoring atmospheric pollution in the greater Paris area.

Above ground, Maguin says that since the automobile became popular in the 20th century, the city has continued to prioritize cars over bicycles and pedestrians. To this day, there‘s a persisting stereotype of an average cyclist as a Parisian “bobo,” or hipster, biking in the city with a baguette in their front basket. But Maguin stresses that this cliché is outdated as more people consider biking for getting around the city. All that’s missing is the right infrastructure to encourage more riders.

By 2020, Paris will double its bike lanes, from 435 to 870 miles.Hélène Bauer

Riding a bike in Paris is as much a mental workout as it is a physical one. Although there are bike lanes on most roads in the city today, cyclists are still being pushed out by other vehicles that share the same lane. Sharing the road with motorized vehicles creates a sense of insecurity, says Maguin.

The new REVe network aims to counter that. With these new bike lanes, the city hopes to see daily bike trips increase from 5 to 15 percent by 2020. The initiative will not only build highways for bikes, but it will also double the number of bike lanes from 435 to 870 miles, making the system more efficient and inclusive. And with the creation of 7,000 more advanced stop lines at red lights (with priority given to bikes at every intersection), cyclists won’t be as restricted by car traffic.

Paris mayor Anne Hidalgo’s initiative to create a more bike and pedestrian-friendly city is part of a multi-year plan to make the city greener, including goals to reduce car traffic on its roads and the air pollution it creates. One of Hidalgo’s projects even involves turning major boulevards like the Champs Élysées into pedestrian streets.

Paris en Selle salutes the mayor’s effort to incorporate cyclists into city planning, but wants to push these initiatives even further. “I hope that biking gets to be considered as a viable alternative means to get around the city, and not just a project run by green parties for the Parisian hipster,” says Maguin.

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In Paris, bicycle highways are trés chic

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A Judge Just Slammed San Francisco Cops for Racist Policing

by GinaShephard Posted on July 1, 2016

Mother Jones

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A federal judge has ruled that there is “substantial evidence of racially selective law enforcement by the San Francisco Police Department.” The holding came on Thursday in a drug-related case, and as several SFPD officers are under investigation for allegedly sending racist and homophobic text messages. That’s the city’s second police texting scandal, and after a record year for fatal police shootings, it serves as more troubling background to the reform efforts following the firing of police chief Greg Suhr.

US District Judge Edward Chen ruled in favor of 12 defendants arrested during Operation Safe Schools, a series of drug stings carried out in San Francisco’s Tenderloin neighborhood by the SFPD and the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration in 2013 and 2014. All 37 people arrested during the stings were black. The defendants maintained they were the victims of racial policing. Noting that ethnicities of drug dealers in the Tenderloin vary, Chen’s ruling signaled he would dismiss all charges if the defendants could prove civil rights violations, and allowed them to seek further information, presumably on the races of arrestees and the agencies’ profiling policies, from law enforcement for the next steps of the trial, according to the San Francisco Chronicle.

Trial evidence included video of an undercover informant declining to buy drugs from an Asian dealer and waiting for another one, who was black, before making a purchase, according to the Chronicle. In a second video, an officer involved in the sting could be heard saying “fuck BMs”—a law enforcement term for black men—the officer holding the camera offered a warning: “Shhh, hey, I’m rolling!”

The ruling “sends a clear message to the government that racial discrimination and selective enforcement will not be tolerated,” said San Francisco’s chief public defender Jeff Adachi. Adachi has said that if the information obtained by the defendants shows a pattern of racism, it could be used to seek dismissal in other criminal cases.

Under new interim police chief Tony Chaplin, the SFPD has undertaken several reform efforts. Recently, the city’s Police Commission unanimously approved a new use-of-force policy that mandates officers attempt to deescalate conflicts before using force. The department’s policies and practices are also under review by the Department of Justice’s Office of Community Oriented Policing.

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A Judge Just Slammed San Francisco Cops for Racist Policing

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