Tag Archives: series

Rabbi Jack Moline’s Resistance Reading

by EfrenGell0 Posted on April 23, 2017

Mother Jones

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We asked a range of authors, artists, and poets to name books that bring solace or understanding in this age of rancor. Two dozen or so responded. Here are picks from the Rabbi Jack Moline, president of the Interfaith Alliance.

Latest book: Growing Up Jewish
Reading recommendations: I can’t avoid including the Book of Psalms. Aside from the fact that it is the only book in the Jewish Bible that is of undisputed human authorship, it is a collection of essential yearnings and gratitudes that give me a sense that our current troubles, existential and political both, are neither new nor permanent. In addition, the melodies to which so many of the psalms have been set are inseparable from the words. And how can I not also hear Leonard Cohen in every “hallelujah.”

Rainer Maria Rilke’s Book of Hours probably makes me sound like a poetry buff, which, alas, I am not. But Rilke’s extraordinary talent for combining deep spiritual sensitivity with intuition about the human condition can rescue me from almost any funk. I feel the same way about Israeli poet Dan Pagis.

I remember reading Margaret Atwood‘s The Handmaid’s Tale when it first came out. I can remember where I was sitting as I read each chapter. The early chapters that almost breezily describe how quickly an inclusive society can collapse into a corrupt theocracy and, most impressively to me, the epilogue in which future academics look back with disdain and incredulity on the dark age of female servitude still inspire me never to give up resisting injustice and never to give up hope that the moral arc of the universe…well, you know. These two features, by the way, are what make this book a better choice right now than Philip Roth’s The Plot Against America.
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So far in this series: Kwame Alexander, Margaret Atwood, W. Kamau Bell, Jeff Chang, T Cooper, Dave Eggers, Reza Farazmand, Piper Kerman, Bill McKibben, Rabbi Jack Moline, Karen Russell, Tracy K. Smith. (New posts daily.)

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Rabbi Jack Moline’s Resistance Reading

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These Photos of Botswanan Metalheads Are Pretty Mind-Blowing

by GayAbdullah Posted on February 12, 2017

Mother Jones

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In December 2015, Spanish photographer and filmmaker Pep Bonet, who has documented the aftermath of war in Sierra Leone and the global ravages of HIV/AIDS, set out for Botswana, in pursuit of a more positive Africa story.

A largely white genre, heavy-metal music has been gaining popularity in countries like South Africa and Kenya, Bonet says, but Botswana is the “pioneer.” At the heart of the scene is the band Overthrust­, fronted by a singing, bass-playing cop named Tshomarelo Mosaka. “They don’t mind about color or race,” Bonet told me. “They believe heavy metal unites people.”

Lacking access to store-bought fashions, these local “hellbangers” create their own—embellishing leatherware with rivets, chains, and animal bones. (“Desert Super Power,” below, makes money crafting outfits for fellow metalheads.) “They look very similar, many of them, to the Ace of Spades album cover,” notes Bonet, a big metal fan himself, who is also known for his extensive work with the British band Motörhead. “It’s definitely a lifestyle. They live for this!”

“Hardcore Series” and “Dignified Queen” Pep Bonet/NOOR/Redux

“Blade” told Bonet: “I used to see music videos for Hammer Fall, and I liked the way they were looking onstage, dressed in leather pants and nice boots. I started buying metal attire and that’s how I became a rocker.” Pep Bonet/NOOR/Redux

“Hardcore Series” enjoys custom handwear. Pep Bonet/NOOR/Redux

“Desert Super Power” designs clothes for the scene. Pep Bonet/NOOR/Redux

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These Photos of Botswanan Metalheads Are Pretty Mind-Blowing

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ERP Blogstorm Part 4: Miscellaneous

by GloriaSocha0239 Posted on December 19, 2016

Mother Jones

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The fourth and final part of our series of charts from the Economic Report of the President has no theme. It’s just three unrelated charts that I felt like posting. First up, here is the IMF’s forecast of global growth over the six years since the end of the Great Recession:

Every year they think the decline in growth is over and the global economy will pick up again. And every year they’re wrong. Now they’re forecasting the same thing in 2016. Next year we’ll find out if they’re finally right.

Next up is a chart that shows how oil prices affect national economies in the Middle East:

Kuwait can balance its budget with an oil price of $50 per barrel. Saudi Arabia needs about $70. Bahrain needs $90. And Libya needs to start spending less.

Finally, here’s a chart I’ve put up in various forms several times over the years:

We’ve grown used to thinking of health care costs as spiraling out of control, but that wasn’t a regular fact of life until the early 80s. Then, for the next 20 years, health care inflation ran way higher than overall inflation. However, the gap started narrowing as early as the mid-90s. Here’s a chart of my own that shows the gap directly:

Using a 10-year rolling average helps smooth out the spikes so we can focus on the trend instead. Medical inflation was fairly moderate in the late 50s and then declined fairly steadily to even lower levels until the early 80s. Then it skyrocketed, and this is the era we’re most familiar with. But by the early aughts it had fallen back to its previous level in the 60s and 70s, and it’s stayed there for the past 15 years.

The authors of the report try to make a case that the subdued medical inflation of the past few years is due to Obamacare, but they try too hard. Obamacare has likely had some effect, but basically it just had the good luck to go into effect at a time when medical inflation was already pretty low.

What this all shows is that we should change how we think of medical inflation. Most of us think of it as something that’s out of control, and we hope that the recent slowdown isn’t just a blip. Instead, we should think of the period from 1980-2000 as a blip. Except for those two decades, medical inflation has run steadily at about 1.5 percent above overall inflation, and there’s no special reason to think this will change. That’s the normal rate for the postwar era.

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ERP Blogstorm Part 4: Miscellaneous

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We just lost another critical climate satellite

by FloydHeady Posted on April 27, 2016

Pour one out

We just lost another critical climate satellite

By on Apr 26, 2016Share

One of climate change’s most important biographers — a 2,700-pound satellite orbiting 450 miles above the surface of the Earth — just recorded its last data point.

Earlier this month, the National Snow and Ice Data Center announced that, after nine years and five months in orbit, the satellite known as F17 had stopped transmitting sea ice measurements. That’s not unusual — satellites in F17’s series, all named sequentially, are normally expected to last about five years, though some make it much longer. But F17’s failure could preempt the end of the series entirely. Walter Meier, a sea ice researcher at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, called the satellite program “one of the longest, most iconic datasets” illustrating climate change, particularly in the Arctic and Antarctic.

Since 1978, the satellites, each equipped with a set of passive microwave sensors, have been recording conditions on Earth, day in and day out. By measuring the amount of radiation given off by the atomic composition and structure of different substances, like ice or seawater, microwave sensing is a useful tool for pilots and military officers tracking weather conditions. Over time, these measurements can also track cumulative changes in sea ice. As early as 1999, scientists saw that sea ice cover was decreasing more quickly than it had in previous decades — and they’ve been observing similar trends ever since.

Until now, there have always been three or four satellites in the series orbiting at a time, as part of one of the country’s oldest satellite programs, the Defense Meteorological Satellite Program (DMSP). Over time, as new satellites were launched and older models went dark, overlapping data have kept the 40-year sea-ice dataset consistent.

With F17 floating in unresponsive silence, the bulk of the responsibility has been placed on F18, launched in 2009, as the newest of the series still in working condition (a newer satellite, F19, was launched in 2014 but failed last February). It’s not ideal to rely on a 7-year-old satellite, says Meier, but at least it is possible to keep the dataset continuous — for now. If this one were to conk out, too (knock on wood), there are some other options, including a Japanese research satellite launched in 2011. But, Meier says, the sensors vary slightly, and the data simply won’t be as consistent.

“The real problem is that there’s nothing on the horizon,” said Meier. “There’s nothing funded, or planned right now.”

Arctic sea ice extent hit a new low in 2012, compared to the average minimum extent over the previous 30 years.

There is one other option — but it’s sitting in a storage room somewhere on Earth. This satellite, F20, was the last of its series to be built, and was tentatively planned to launch in 2018. That plan fell through last June, when the Senate Appropriations Committee revoked funding for the DMSP, even rescinding $50 million that had been specifically designated for launching F20. Without Congressional approval, F20 is grounded.

“It’s sitting there, ready to be launched,” said Meier. He pointed out that the data from the satellite series is also used to study snow cover on land, ocean currents, temperature change, drought detection, and many other natural cycles. “The benefit is beyond my own work on sea ice.”

That research, he said, has led to critical discoveries. One of the most important was the observation of record-low sea-ice cover in 2007 and in 2012, findings that Meier says went even further than those reported by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

“All of sudden, it was like, ‘Whoa! The ice cover is not as resilient as we thought, and things are moving a lot faster than we expected,’” he said, worrying that if another satellite were to fail, these kinds of observations would be jeopardized. “It would be a real shame if this data gets interrupted.”

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A eulogy for Marco Rubio’s political career

by KyleKeegan0 Posted on March 16, 2016

A eulogy for Marco Rubio’s political career

By on 15 Mar 2016commentsShare

Little Marco! O, the waterfalls we shed for your departure!

Senator Rubio! How we weep for your consistency.

When the climate changed, Marco, you refused to do the same. We don’t remember you voting much at all in the Senate, but when you did, we remember you voting against an amendment that said human activity significantly contributes to our climate woes. “The climate is changing and one of the reasons why the climate is changing is the climate has always been changing,” you trumpeted. You were steadfast: a Florida coastline refusing to be swallowed by the rising seas of scientific consensus.

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“America is not a planet,” you once sighed. There was nothing we could do to change the climate, you explained. And there was nothing we could do to change you.

You pointed to China’s coal, to the fallacy of economic and environmental tradeoffs, to governmental overreach of the sordid left. You supported Keystone XL and lifting the crude export ban. You were the climate bad boy: the Daniel Desario we knew we shouldn’t hang out with — but you were just so dangerous. Like February 2016, you were just so hot.

Mere days before your dear departure from the race, you doubled down. The 21 Floridian mayors’ letter begging for reason on climate was met only by your trademark dismissal thereof. You always sounded so convincing! You teased and toyed with Jake Tapper: “I think the fundamental question for a policymaker is, is the climate changing because of something we are doing, and if so, is there a law you can pass to fix it?” There were plenty of laws that would do exactly that, but you preferred the rhetorical question. Denialism had such a palatable face with you on the stage. We wanted to believe.

And now you leave us bitter. Climate denial in the remaining Republican pool sports a different mask; a mask wearing a zanier expression than yours ever did.

¡Marcito! Your interventionism terrified us all, but your Spanish was so smooth. You disagreed with abortion, even in cases of rape — but you did have that one polished October jab against Jeb. “Donald is not going to make America great,” you said. “He is going to make America orange!” And now, sweet Marco, sad clown: You only make America blue.

Readers! Mourners! A man’s presidential hopes have faltered! He has traveled far and wide; he has sweat torrentially. But let us dispel with the notion that the wanderer is lost. Let us dispel once and for all with this fiction that Marco Rubio doesn’t know what he’s doing. He knows exactly what he’s doing. He is pulling himself up by his chic boot-zips and dusting the cobwebs from his Senate seat. Until, of course, he breaks our heart again, in 2017.

Marco Rubio is survived by the Zodiac Killer, the Frontrunner Who Shall Not Be Named, and his extraordinary, unforgettable glitch.

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A eulogy for Marco Rubio’s political career

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CDC prevents thousands of foodborne illnesses every year

by LamontLeGrand Posted on March 15, 2016

CDC prevents thousands of foodborne illnesses every year

By on 15 Mar 2016commentsShare

Humans love drama. That’s why Trump gets headlines, and Kasich doesn’t. It’s why we love Lucy and forget Ethel. It’s why we envy Sherlock and shrug at Watson, laugh at Kel and put up with Kenan. And it’s why for every foodborne illness outbreak that we freak out about, there’s a non-outbreak that we ignore. .

But it’s time to flip the script. According to a new study published in the American Journal of Preventative Medicine, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention prevents hundreds of thousands of cases of foodborne illnesses every year, saving the U.S. more than $500 million in the process. And it does it all with PulseNet — a nationwide network of 83 laboratories that detects and traces outbreaks by sharing information about local illnesses.

Launched 20 years ago, PulseNet is the safe and responsible Richard to Chipotle’s Tommy Boy, quietly trying to keep things together while Tommy loses his shit (foodborne pathogens cause about 48 million illnesses, 128,000 hospitalizations, and 3,000 deaths in the U.S. every year, according to the study). And for the first time, researchers have attempted to quantify just how effective the network is at keeping us healthy and happily scarfing down ground beef and burritos.

To do so, they first identified the two ways in which PulseNet prevents illnesses: by halting outbreaks in real time through recalls, and by instigating “process changes” in industry and government that prevent future outbreaks. Then, using data from 1994 to 2009 on illnesses due to E. coli, Listeria, and Salmonella — the three bacteria that PulseNet has been tracking for the longest — they found the following:

Conservatively, accounting for underreporting and underdiagnosis, 266,522 illnesses from Salmonella, 9,489 illnesses from Escherichia coli (E. coli), and 56 illnesses due to Listeria monocytogenes are avoided annually. This reduces medical and productivity costs by $507 million. Additionally, direct effects from improved recalls reduce illnesses from E. coli by 2,819 and Salmonella by 16,994, leading to $37 million in costs averted.

Not too shabby, considering PulseNet itself costs just about $7.3 million to run, according to the study. And these numbers are likely an underestimate of the network’s total impact, given that they only account for three bacterial pathogens and don’t account for monetary costs due to premature death and reduced quality of life, the researchers point out in a press release.

And of course, we’re partly to blame for all of this — antibiotic-resistant superbugs and E. coli outbreaks are more interesting than an unremarkable brunch — so happy 20th birthday, PulseNet. We don’t appreciate you like we should, but you’ve always got our backs, and for that, we thank y — wait. Did someone just say something about recalled pistachios?

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Could you be Grist’s newest fellow?

by KelleDeBernales Posted on March 15, 2016

COME WORK WITH US

Could you be Grist’s newest fellow?

By on 15 Mar 2016commentsShare

Are you an early-career journalist, storyteller, or multimedia wizard who digs what we do? Then Grist wants you!

We are now accepting applications for the fall 2016 class of the Grist Fellowship.

Once again we’re inviting writers, editors, and online journalists of every stripe to come work with us for six months. You get to hone your journalistic chops at a national news outlet, deepen your knowledge of environmental issues, and experiment with storytelling. We get to teach you and learn from you and bring your work to our audience. You won’t get rich — but you will get paid.

You’ll work closely with our editors in Seattle on reporting and executing stories for Grist. Our primary subject areas are food, climate and energy, cities, science and technology, pop culture, and environmental justice. If your skills extend into realms like video, audio, and data visualization, all the better.

Our fellows have been up to some stellar work of late. Clayton Aldern brought you the brainy Climate on the Mind series while Raven Rakia explored the environmental quagmire that is Rikers Island. We’re proud of ’em.

For fellowships that begin in August 2016, please submit applications by May 2, 2016. Full application instructions here.

Good luck!

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E.U. biodiesels could be dirtier than fossil fuels, according to new report

by Hyatt Monien Posted on March 15, 2016

E.U. biodiesels could be dirtier than fossil fuels, according to new report

By on 15 Mar 2016commentsShare

Switching to renewable energy is meant to decrease the level of greenhouse gas emissions — a message that someone should really pass on to the European Union.

A new analysis conducted by the Ecofys Consultancy for the European Commission shows that biodiesel from palm oil can produce three times the emissions of conventional diesel oil and biofuel from soybeans can produce twice as many emissions as diesel. It’s an important finding for the E.U., where countries are pushing for 10 percent of transport fuel to come from renewable sources by 2020.

The land-use impacts of palm oil and soybeans biofuels had a major effect on their calculated footprints. The issue is twofold: Large tracts of carbon sinks, mainly forests and peatland, are clear-cut or drained to make way for giant palm or soy plantations; and new land must also be cleared to grow food that could have been planted on plots now being used for biofuels.

The report was taken down shortly after publication and a source told the Guardian that its original release was delayed due to biofuel-friendly pressure. The industry has publicly pushed back against the study’s findings, with the European Biodiesel Board telling Biofuels News that the research is based on “a model which has still not been disclosed nor validated by peers.” The board called into question the academic validity of the report, arguing that other research conducted in California showed lower values for emissions from indirect land-use changes.

If the findings of the report are accurate, the E.U.’s transport directive could have a big impact on carbon emissions. The inclusion of palm and soybean biodiesel in the E.U.’s transportation goals would add two gigatons of greenhouse gases to the atmosphere, according to green think tank Transport and Environment — annually accounting for 2-3 percent of the Europe’s total carbon output. Transport and Environment director Jos Dings told the Guardian that biodiesel is “a big elephant in the room.”

Though soybean and palm oil are considered, even encouraged, as renewable energy sources by the E.U., they are, according to the research, changing the emissions of an entire continent. With that in mind, a different, stricter, version of the word “renewable” might be necessary.

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Could there be a Fukushima-like disaster in the U.S.?

by RobynJeffrey Posted on March 12, 2016

Could there be a Fukushima-like disaster in the U.S.?

By on 11 Mar 2016commentsShare

Five years ago this Friday, a magnitude 9.0 earthquake off the coast of Japan triggered a massive tsunami that reached heights of 50 feet and traveled six miles inland. The quake moved the main island of Japan 8 feet to the east and shifted the Earth on its axis. An estimated 18,000 people died.

That was the “natural” part of this disaster. What happened next was made exponentially worse by the human: Flooding from the tsunami led to power failures at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant, which led to a now-infamous meltdown. Over 150,000 people fled their homes, and over 100,000 of those have yet to return, many out of fear of radiation poisoning. Much of the land will be uninhabitable for generations. As Japan marks the anniversary, you might think: Could it happen here?

That depends on who you ask.

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In 2012, the American Nuclear Society’s Special Committee on Fukushima called the disaster a “complex story of mismanagement, culture, and sometimes even simple errors in translation.” In other words, it was human error. Experts from the Carnegie Endowment’s nuclear program agreed, writing in The New York Times that Tokyo Electric Power (Tepco), the plant’s owner, had been negligent: “Had Tepco and the nuclear safety agency followed international standards and best practice, the Fukushima accident would have been prevented.”

The Special Committee was optimistic about such a thing never happening in the United States. After a 30-year hiatus in nuclear plant construction, there are currently five reactors being built in the U.S, and they will be equipped with safety features that should prevent what happened at Fukushima.

But there are 99 existing reactors in the country that can’t be retrofitted with such features. David Lochbaum, a former nuclear industry whistleblower and director of the Nuclear Safety Program for the Union of Concerned Scientists, writes that “if exposed to similarly complex challenges, all 99 operating reactors in the United States would likely have similar outcomes. Worse,” he continues, “Japanese and U.S. regulators share a mindset that severe, supposedly ‘low probability’ accidents are unlikely and not worth the cost and time to protect against.”

Lochbaum and other scientists have also raised concern about a design flaw, reportedly present in almost every nuclear plant in the country, that could impact the emergency core cooling systems and lead to Fukushima-like meltdowns. In early March, the group petitioned the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to either immediately either fix the problem or shut down these plants. The industry did neither.

Of course, the United States isn’t Japan. Japan is located in the Pacific Ring of Fire, an area of intense seismic activity. As many as 1,500 earthquakes are measured there each year, and the frequent underseas earthquakes make the island nation vulnerable to tsunamis. But even if earthquakes are less common in the U.S., there are plenty of other natural disasters to worry about.  

Take floods. Because nuclear reactors require water to operate, they’re often built in close proximity to lakes, rivers, or — in Fukushima’s case — the ocean. A dam burst upstream of a nuclear facility could cut off the power supply — which is exactly what happened in Fukushima. In 2009, the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission found 35 reactors across the U.S. were vulnerable to flooding. That’s 35 potential disasters.

So could Fukushima happen here? Yes, it probably could. Nuclear energy is inherently dangerous. Even when sites are decommissioned, they require massive cleanup — and it’s massively expensive. After Fukushima, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission ordered nuclear facility owners to improve safety and expand protections by December of this year. Let’s just hope the big one doesn’t hit before then.

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Marco Rubio keeps digging himself a deeper hole on climate change

by JRZAnhljyrpbrtu Posted on March 11, 2016

U.S. Republican presidential candidate Marco Rubio speaks during a campaign event in North Charleston, South Carolina February 19, 2016. Reuters / Chris Keane

Marco Rubio keeps digging himself a deeper hole on climate change

By on 11 Mar 2016commentsShare

Less than 12 hours after the Miami Republican presidential debate, Marco Rubio found himself grilled for a second time by CNN on climate change. The night before, Rubio responded to a question on climate from Miami Republican Mayor Tomás Regalado, who, as an appropriately concerned Floridian, acknowledges and cares about the science and policy causing his city’s flooding. “Well, sure, the climate is changing and one of the reasons why the climate is changing is the climate has always been changing,” Rubio said Thursday night. Which is really all you need to know to get a sense of his position on climate.

“Why not embrace the science though?” asked CNN’s Chris Cuomo Friday morning. “You didn’t speak to that specifically last night. The science to 99 percent of the community is clear. It’s something that’s seen as a future perspective. Why don’t you share it?”

“OK, there is a consensus among scientists around the world that humans are contributing to what’s happening in our climate,” said Rubio. “What there is no consensus on is how much of the changes that are going on are due to human activity, in essence the sensitivity argument.”

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“You know, here’s the bottom line,” Rubio continued. “We don’t know how much of it is due to human activity, and that’s relevant in the policy world because they are asking me to support public policies that, by their own admission of the climate activists, these climate policies they want us to adopt would not have a measurable impact on the ecology or the environment now or for the foreseeable future, meaning in my lifetime, yours, or my children’s.”

It’s the kind of answer that has a whiff of nuance. Unfortunately for the senator, it’s also incorrect. Here’s what the sensitivity argument actually looks like, when adapted from the 2013 IPCC report, the world’s authority on climate science:

The probability density function for the amount of warming since 1950 attributable to human causes.

RealClimate

The IPCC explains: “It is extremely likely that more than half of the observed increase in global average surface temperature from 1951 to 2010 was caused by” greenhouse gas emissions and other human factors. Another way to think about it is the chance that humans are not the major cause of warming is improbably low, at less than 1 in 10,000.

But the science doesn’t tell us which policies to pursue. Climate policy is hard. Because Rubio has one thing right: Something like the Clean Power Plan won’t prevent a certain number of inches of sea level rise in his lifetime. But that’s also not the point. Climate policy requires looking past the immediate-term. For some communities, climate change is here, right now. For others, the effects won’t be felt for a century. Rubio bills himself as taking a courageous stand against consensus, but it’s more courageous to trust the science and stand up for people who haven’t yet been born.

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Marco Rubio keeps digging himself a deeper hole on climate change

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