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A Last Word from the New York Times Editorial Board

By dianeravitch
November 4, 2024 //
11

This editorial appeared on November 2.

You already know Donald Trump.
He is unfit to lead. Watch him.
Listen to those who know him best.
He tried to subvert an election 
and remains a threat to democracy.
He helped overturn Roe, with
terrible consequences. Mr. Trump’s
corruption and lawlessness go
beyond elections: It’s his whole
ethos. He lies without limit. If he’s re-
elected, the G.O.P. won’t restrain
him. Mr. Trump will use the
government to go after opponents.
He will pursue a cruel policy of mass 
deportations. He will wreak havoc
on the poor, the middle class and
employers. Another Trump term will
damage the climate, shatter alliances
and strengthen autocrats. Americans
should demand better. Vote.

The New York Times editorial board is a group of opinion journalists whose views are informed by expertise, research, debate and certain longstanding values. It is separate from the newsroom.

Categories Accountability, Cruelty, Democracy, Elections, Environment, Extremism, Lies, Trump

GOP PACs Are Supporting Jill Stein’s Candidacy–to Hurt Kamala

By dianeravitch
November 3, 2024 //
20

Jill Stein was a spoiler in 2016. She won enough votes in battleground states to enable Trump to win the electoral college, as he was losing the popular vote. She claims to represent the Green Party but her candidacy elected the most anti-environment President in recent memory. Other presidents may have been indifferent to climate change, but Trump aggressively insists it’s a hoax. He even made the bizarre claim that rising tides would create more waterfront property even though the opposite is true.

Now Jill Stein is up to her old tricks.

Politico reports that her third party candidacy is sponsored by GOP donors.

I’m not sure what her goal is but she risks returning Trump to the White House. That must be what she wants.

Adam Wren of Politico wrote:

A Republican-aligned super PAC is sending texts in Georgia telling voters to “Join The Movement For Equality” and vote for Jill Stein — a sign some Republicans believe her candidacy could harm Kamala Harris’ chances in the battleground.

American Environmental Justice PAC, which filed with the Federal Election Committee on Oct. 1, is urging voters to back the Green Party candidate.

The text calls the two parties “a uni-party,” and says “you can count on Jill Stein.” An X user shared a screenshot of one text with a disclosure that it was paid for by American Environmental Justice PAC.

In the group’s sole filing, it reported receiving the entirety of its $35,000 in funding from Lin Rogers of Atlanta. Rogers has donated tens of thousands to Trump, including $12,500 to The Trump 47 Committee, Inc. A call to the phone number listed for the treasurer on the federal filing led to an inoperable number.

The PAC is at least the second pro-Stein, GOP-backed entity of its kind operating in an electoral battleground that has emerged in recent days: CNN reported that Badger Values is backing Stein with robocalls in Wisconsin.

Categories Accountability, Democracy, Disruption, Elections, Environment, Hypocrisy, Republicans, Trump

Melting Glaciers Produce Long-Lost Corpses: Climate Change Is Real

By dianeravitch
October 19, 2024 //
7

Some Republican leaders, including Trump, believe that climate change is a hoax. The Trump administration banned the use of the term by government agencies. Florida recently declared it would not adopt science textbooks that explain climate change. It’s not real.

Really? Read this story, which appeared in the Los Angeles Times.

Jack Dolan, staff writer, reports:

In late June, as a group of mountaineers descended a treacherous glacier high in the Peruvian Andes, they spotted a dark, out-of-place lump resting on the blinding white snow.

When they approached, they realized it wasn’t a rock, as they had initially assumed. 

It was a corpse. 

When they got a little closer, they could tell from the out-of-date clothes and the condition of the skin that the dead man had been there for a very long time. A miraculously well-preserved California driver’s license in the man’s pocket identified him as Bill Stampfl, a mountaineer from Chino who had been buried by an avalanche in 2002.

Avalanches begin as loose, flowing rivers of ice and snow that sweep their victims off their feet and wash them down the mountain. When the frozen debris stops, it quickly solidifies into something like a concrete tomb.
But in recent years, as the planet has warmed and ice has melted at an alarming rate, receding glaciers on the upper reaches of many of the world’s most celebrated and deadly peaks have begun surrendering the bodies of long-lost mountaineers.
It’s a blessing and a relief for grieving families who crave closure, but it creates a grim chore for public officials whose job it is to respectfully remove the remains.

Last year, on the heels of a heat wave that triggered the fastest loss of glacial ice in Swiss history, the boot of a German climber who disappeared in 1986 began poking out of a well-traveled glacier near the mountain town of Zermatt, not far from the Matterhorn.
In the Himalayas, where hundreds of adventurers have perished on the slopes of Mt. Everest since the 1920s, Nepali officials have been forced to launch risky, arduous expeditions to retrieve the recently revealed — and rapidly thawing — corpses.
“Because of global warming, the ice sheet and glaciers are fast melting and the dead bodies that remained buried all these years are now becoming exposed,” Ang Tshering Sherpa, former president of the Nepal Mountaineering Assn., told the BBC in 2019.
And now, a similarly gruesome scenario has played out on the slopes of 22,000-foot Huascaran, Peru’s highest mountain.

The warming planet is “definitely the reason we found Bill,” said Ryan Cooper, a personal trainer from Las Vegas who was among the group of climbers who discovered Stampfl’s body a few weeks ago.
When Stampfl and two climbing partners disappeared in 2002, rescuers went looking for them. They found one body, that of Steve Erskine, but Matthew Richardson and Stampfl could not be located.
“If Bill had been on top of the ice they would have found him, but he was buried back then,” Cooper said in an interview.

A lot has changed in 22 years.
Hauscaran is the highest point, and crown jewel, of the Cordillera Blanca, a region of breathtaking natural beauty that’s home to a dozen peaks higher than 20,000 feet and hundreds of alpine glaciers.
These ancient, frozen reservoirs supply irrigation and hydroelectric power to much of Peru. But, as with glaciers everywhere on the planet as temperatures have risen, those in the Cordillera Blanca have lost significant mass, as much as 27% in the last five decades, according to official estimates.

Cooper said he didn’t understand the extent and speed of the changes underway until days before his guided climb was supposed to begin. He and his brother, Wes Warne, were hanging out in the Peruvian mountain town of Huaraz, listening in as other climbers and guides compared notes.
They heard the glaciers were melting so fast that previously manageable crevasses — cracks caused by natural movement of the ice — had turned into deep, yawning chasms up to 60 feet wide that could swallow an entire team of climbers.
And they heard that many guides had begun steering their clients to more stable summits, because conditions on Huascaran had become so dicey.
Nevertheless, Cooper’s team decided to give their planned route a try.

The five days they spent on the glaciers were tense, Cooper said, an up-close look at the chaos warmer-than-expected temperatures can cause.
“You’re just hearing avalanches, you’re hearing rock fall, you’re hearing ice fall all around you,” Cooper said. “I’ve never been on a mountain that was so active.”
Eventually, the guides decided not to push for the summit, Cooper said. Instead, they led the group down an older, less traveled route that had been the standard track “back in the day,” he said, before shifting terrain prompted climbers to start taking a different approach.
That’s where they came upon Stampfl’s body, at about 17,000 feet, resting alone, undisturbed and almost completely exposed.
In other cases, when just part of a body is sticking out of the ice, excavation can be a grueling ordeal. Rescuers use shovels, axes, boiling water — anything to help coax and pry remains free.
As soon as they discovered Stampfl was American, Cooper said, he and his brother set aside their frustrations about not making the summit. They now had a much higher goal — getting Bill home.
Once they had climbed down far enough to have cellphone reception, a flurry of text messages began, and Cooper’s wife joined the search for Stampfl’s family.
Before long, Cooper found himself on the phone with Joseph Stampfl, Bill’s son.

Please open the link to finish the story.

Categories DeSantis, Environment, Florida, Hoax, Lies

MAGA on Climate Change: Are They Lying or Stupid?

By dianeravitch
October 18, 2024 //
9

Jack Hassard is a retired professor of science education emeritus at Georgia State University. His blog is titled “Citizen Jack.” In this post, he asks whether Donald Trump and Marjorie Taylor Greene are lying about climate change or just plain ignorant.

Hassard writes:

This post is about the misinformation that Republicans are spreading in light of recent disasters. Two of the deadliest hurricanes have swept through Florida, Georgia, North Carolina, South Carolina, East Tennessee, Virginia, and West Virginia and then through Florida again.

Millions of Floridians were displaced by one of the fiercest storms of the century to strike the west coast of the state. I saw some of the displaced people as they escaped Hurricane Milton to Atlanta and beyond.

Life in our warming world is becoming more dangerous.   Many have been forced to flee their homes two times in the past month. They know that hurricanes are part of life living where they do. One person wrote that her house has been demolished three times by hurricanes before Milton came roaring into the St Petersburg-Tampa Bay shoreline cities.

The rescue efforts by first responders are planned by folks that take their life saving work seriously. The people in need during these disasters look for help from first responders and local, state, and federal government.

THE DESPICABLES

But lurking in the bushes are two despicable liars, Donald Trump and Marjorie Taylor Greene.

Donald Trump is the one who never changed a tire or diaper (accord, but can spread misinformation about the weather (remember Sharpie), immigration, political rivals, the press, etc.

Marjorie Taylor Greene, a do-nothing conspiracy theorist. She thinks “they” cause Hurricanes. Not so.

One is a convicted felon, a sex offender and rapist, and a fraudster. He also was impeached twice and indicted for trying to overthrow the results of the 2020 election and stealing classified documents from the U.S. government. 

The other is a known bully, liar, and conspiracy storyteller. She is a Republican representative from one district in Georgia. During her first term in Washington, she was barred from serving on any committees because of one of her conspiracy theories. She has done nothing in Congress except shout, insult, argue, and defame others.

DISINFORMATION: AN INSULT TO FIRST RESPONDERS AND PEOPLE IN NEED

Deliberately spreading false informationamid national disasters should be a crime, as Donald Trump and Marjorie Taylor Greene have done. We call this disinformation. 

“Disinformation is designed or spread with full knowledge of it being false (information has been manipulated) as part of an intention to deceive and cause harm. The motivations can be economic gain, ideological, religious, political, or supporting a social agenda. Misinformation and disinformation may cause harm, which comprises threats to decision-making processes and health, environment, or security. The critical difference between disinformation and misinformation is not the content of the falsehood but the knowledge and intention of the sender.” (Source: World Health Organization).

Trump is spreading lies about the government’s ability and will to help people recover from these hurricanes. He’s said that FEMA has no money for disaster relief because they gave it to migrants. This is not true. 

He says that folks in need will only get $750. This is not true. These lies have caused great harm, and he doesn’t care. He will continue with these lies forever. He lacks empathy. Instead, he kicks people when they are down. 

According to the World Health Organization, spreading disinformation is considered one of the top five threats to human health. 

“THEY”

CLIMATE CHANGE

Marjorie Taylor Greene believes that “they” control the weather. In fact she reports that “they” direct hurricanes over people living in red states such as Florida, Georgia, and North Carolina. Well, let’s see. Georgia has two blue Senators, and NC has a blue governor. That should debunk her theory, but not in MAGA land nor in Greene’s conspired mind. Scientists have had to publicly admit that we humans can’t control hurricanes, or tornadoes, and any other weather phenomenon. 

Neither Trump or Greene have clue about the effect of the earth’s warming on hurricanes and other environmental disasters inciting fires, flooding and drought.

They deny global warming and claim it’s a hoax. Trump thinks the Chinese created the hoax. Their denial is dangerous. They deliberately harm others by refusing to accept the established truth that earth’s climate has warmed because of fossil fuel burning. 

For decades, science education researchers have explored trends in proposed US state legislation employed from 2003 to 2023 by anti-evolution and anti-climate change education movements to constrain the teaching of these sciences.  This is a critical issue in the education of students who will live in rapidly changing world. 

ANTI-CLIMATE CHANGE AND ANTI-EVOLUTION

In a recent study about anti-climate change and anti-evolution, researchers used a historical qualitative research design; document analysis was used to evaluate state legislation and reports from the National Center for Science Education(NCSE).

Two hundred and seventy-three climate and evolution-related House and Senate bills, concurrent resolutions, and joint resolutions were identified, coded, and analyzed. 

Eleven anti-science education legislative tactics were employed from 2003 to 2023. Five were first identified in the literature review: academic freedom (42.1%), rebranding (12.1%), balanced treatment (12.1%), censorship (2.6%), and disclaimers (2.6%). 

The analysis revealed six new tactics: anti-indoctrination (16.8%), standards (12.1%), instructional materials (10.3%), religious liberty (8.8%), avoidance (4.4%), and religious instruction (4.0%). 

One-quarter of bills and resolutions employed a combination of tactics. The most ubiquitous tactics were academic freedom bills, which urge science teachers to introduce ideas like intelligent design or climate change denial under the mantle of academic freedom, and anti-indoctrination bills, which prevent teachers from advocating for controversial topics deemed political. 

Since 2017, anti-indoctrination has become the preferred tactic. Southern, southeastern, and midwestern states were the most prolific in their contribution to anti-science education legislation. Qualitative analysis revealed that bill and resolution language was often recycled across years and states, with slight changes to wording. From 2003 to 2023, the total number of anti-science education state legislative efforts increased, as did the number of passed bills and resolutions. 

CLIMATE RESOURCES

Categories Elections, Environment, Ethics, Extremism, Failure, Fake News, Ignorance, Lies, Trump

Media Matters: A Definitive Guide to Project 2025

By dianeravitch
October 10, 2024 //
7

Media Matters has done a thorough review of the contents of Project 2025, which was written as a playbook for the next Trump administration. It was released and posted on the web in 2023, without fanfare. As more people read it and expressed their indignation, Trump claimed he knew nothing about it. Ever heard of it. Didn’t know who wrote it.

But the authors of the plan included 140 people who had worked in the Trump administration. The plan was developed by the rightwing Heriage Foundation, whose president is Kevin Roberts, a friend of Trump’s.

He knew.

It’s the roadmap for the second Trump term in office.

For education, the main feature of Project 2025 is its strong support for school choice, especially vouchers. It is a formula for directing federal funds to public funding of private and religious schools, as well as home schooling. It’s the Betsy DeVos model. Its purpose is to end public schools.

Categories Accountability, Budget Cuts, Civil Rights, Democracy, Economy, Education Industry, Elections, Environment, Extremism, Freedom, Freedom of Speech, Freedom of the Press, Freedom to Read, Funding, Trump, Unions

Right Before Hurricane, These Republicans Voted AGAINST FEMA Funding

By dianeravitch
October 7, 2024 //
12

The hypocrisy of Republicans is astounding. Right before Hurricane Helena devastated parts of Florida, North Carolina, Georgia, and Tennessee, Congress voted on nearly $20 billion in funding for FEMA.

Every Democratic member of Congress voted for fully funding FEMA. Large numbers of Republicans voted NAY, including some from the states hit hardest by Helene.

Newsweek reported:

As Hurricane Helene careened toward Florida’s Panhandle, numerous Republicans voted against extending funding for the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA).

Last week, Congress approved $20 billion for FEMA’s disaster relief fund as part of a stopgap spending bill to fund the government through December 20. But the measure left out billions of dollars in requested supplemental disaster funding.

The Senate approved the measure by a 78-18 vote on September 25 after it passed the House in a 341-82 vote. Republicans supplied the no votes in both chambers.

Some of the Republicans who voted against the bill represent states that have been hard hit by Helene, including Florida Representative Matt Gaetz.

These are the Republicans who voted NO to FEMA funding. Note how many come from states that were hit hard by the hurricane:

House of Representatives:

Representative James Baird of Indiana

Representative Troy Balderson of Ohio

Representative Jim Banks of Indiana

Representative Lauren Boebert of Colorado

Representative Mike Bost of Illinois

Representative Josh Brecheen of Oklahoma

Representative Tim Burchett of Tennessee

Representative Eric Burlison of Missouri

Representative Kat Cammack of Florida

Representative Michael Cloud of Texas

Representative Andrew Clyde of Georgia

Representative Mike Collins of Georgia

Representative Eli Crane of Arizona

Representative John Curtis of Utah

Representative Warren Davidson of Ohio

Representative Byron Donalds of Florida

Representative Jeff Duncan of South Carolina

Representative Ron Estes of Kansas

Representative Mike Ezell of Mississippi

Representative Randy Feenstra of Iowa

Representative Brad Finstad of Minnesota

Representative Michelle Fischbach of Minnesota

Representative Russell Fry of South Carolina

Representative Russ Fulcher of Idaho

Representative Matt Gaetz of Florida

Representative Tony Gonzales of Texas

Representative Bob Good of Virginia

Representative Lance Gooden of Texas

Representative Paul Gosar of Arizona

Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia

Representative Morgan Griffith of Virginia

Representative Michael Guest of Mississippi

Representative Harriet Hageman of Wyoming

Representative Andy Harris of Maryland

Representative Clay Higgins of Louisiana

Representative Jim Jordan of Ohio

Representative John Joyce of Pennsylvania

Representative Trent Kelly of Mississippi

Representative Darin LaHood of Illinois

Representative Laurel Lee of Florida

Representative Debbie Lesko of Arizona

Representative Greg Lopez of Colorado

Representative Anna Paulina Luna of Florida

Representative Morgan Lutrell of Texas

Representative Nancy Mace of South Carolina

Representative Tracey Mann of Kansas

Representative Thomas Massie of Kentucky

Representative Tom McClintock of California

Representative Rich McCormick of Georgia

Representative Mary Miller of Illinois

Representative Max Miller of Ohio

Representative Cory Mills of Florida

Representative Alex Mooney of West Virginia

Representative Barry Moore of Alabama

Representative Nathaniel Moran of Texas

Representative Ralph Norman of South Carolina

Representative Andy Ogles of Tennessee

Representative Gary Palmer of Alabama

Representative Scott Perry of Pennsylvania

Representative Bill Posey of Florida

Representative John Rose of Tennessee

Representative Matt Rosendale of Montana

Representative Chip Roy of Texas

Representative David Schweikert of Arizona

Representative Keith Self of Texas

Representative Victoria Spartz of Indiana

Representative Claudia Tenney of New York

Representative William Timmons of South Carolina

Representative Jeff Van Drew of New Jersey

Representative Beth Van Duyne of Texas

Representative Derrick Van Orden of Wisconsin

Representative Mike Waltz of Florida

Representative Randy Weber of Texas

Representative Daniel Webster of Florida

Representative Bruce Westerman of Arkansas

Representative Roger Williams of Texas

Representative Rudy Yakym of Indiana

Senate

Senator Marsha Blackburn of Tennessee

Senator Mike Braun of Indiana

Senator Katie Britt of Alabama

Senator Ted Budd of North Carolina

Senator Mike Crapo of Idaho

Senator Deb Fischer of Nebraska

Senator Bill Hagerty of Tennessee

Senator Josh Hawley of Missouri

Senator Ron Johnson of Wisconsin

Senator Mike Lee of Utah

Senator Roger Marshall of Kansas

Senator Markwayne Mullin of Oklahoma

Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky

Senator Pete Ricketts of Nebraska

Senator James Risch of Idaho

Senator Eric Schmitt of Missouri

Senator Tim Scott of South Carolina

Senator Tommy Tuberville of Alabama

Categories Environment, Extremism, Florida, Funding, Georgia, North Carolina, Republicans, Tennessee, Wall of Shame

Washington Post Fact-Checks Trump on Hurricane Claims

By dianeravitch
October 6, 2024 //
15

Glenn Kessler, professional fact-checker for The Washington Post, reviewed Trump’s claims about federal aid to states hit by Hurricane Helene. Trump tried to politicize the Hurricane, claiming that Biden had not acted. Trump lied.

Kessler writes:

“The Harris-Biden administration says they don’t have any money [for hurricane relief]. … They spent it all on illegal migrants. … They stole the FEMA money just like they stole it from a bank, so they could give it to their illegal immigrants that they want to have vote for them.”
— Former president Donald Trump, remarks at a campaign rally in Saginaw, Mich., Oct. 3

Trump has been trying to weaponize the Hurricane Helene relief efforts, accusing the Biden administration of failing to provide adequate assistance. As part of his critique, he claims there is no money available for hurricane relief because it was spent already to handle the surge of migrants at the southern border.

“They stole the FEMA money just like they stole it from a bank,” Trump charged, referring to the Federal Emergency Management Agency, adding in the additional falsehood that Vice President Kamala Harris wants illegal immigrants to vote for her. As we have explained many times before, this would be against the law and there is no evidence to support this claim.

Trump’s claims have been echoed by his supporters, such as billionaire Elon Musk. But Trump is completely wrong.

Even though Trump was once president, he still appears to have little clue about the appropriations process. What’s even richer is that when he was president, he did exactly what he claims Biden did — take money from FEMA’s disaster fund to fund migrant programs at the southern border.

The Facts

FEMA is part of the Department of Homeland Security. On Wednesday, DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas told reporters: “We are meeting the immediate needs with the money that we have. We are expecting another hurricane hitting. FEMA does not have the funds to make it through the season.”

He emphasized there was plenty of money to deal with the current disaster. “We are meeting the moment,” he said, adding: “We have the immediate needs right now. On a continuing resolution, we have funds, but that is not a stable source of supply, if you will.”

Congress, as part of a short-term spending bill, recently provided $20 billion to the FEMA disaster relief fund. But Mayorkas noted: “That doesn’t speak about the future and the fact, as I mentioned earlier, that these extreme weather events are increasing in frequency and severity, and we have to be funded for the sake of the American people. This is not a political issue.”

In other words, Trump falsely claimed that there is no money left for Hurricane Helene survivors. That’s the opposite of what Mayorkas said.

“FEMA has what it needs for immediate response and recovery efforts,” FEMA spokeswoman Jaclyn Rothenberg said on X. “As [FEMA Administrator Deanne Criswell] said, she has the full authority to spend against the President’s budget, but we’re not out of hurricane season yet so we need to keep a close eye on it. We may need to go back into immediate needs funding and we will be watching it closely.”

So how does Trump link this to migrants? A Trump campaign spokesman pointed to FEMA’s Shelter and Services Program, which gives grants to local governments and nonprofits to take care of undocumented immigrants. Congress boosted the budget from $360 million in fiscal year 2023 to $650 million in fiscal year 2024. The program’s 2023 annual report says it provides shelter, such as hotel/motel services, food and transportation, including plane tickets up to $700 a person.

As we said, Congress appropriated this money, just as it did the disaster fund. There’s no evidence that any money from the disaster fund was used to help migrants.

“These claims are completely false,” DHS said in a statement Thursday night. “As Secretary Mayorkas said, FEMA has the necessary resources to meet the immediate needs associated with Hurricane Helene and other disasters. The Shelter and Services Program (SSP) is a completely separate, appropriated grant program that was authorized and funded by Congress and is not associated in any way with FEMA’s disaster-related authorities or funding streams.”

Trump has a habit of assuming other politicians act in the same way as he would. So we wondered why he would accuse Biden of raiding the FEMA disaster fund to handle undocumented migrants.

It turns out that’s because he did this. In 2019, the Trump administration, in the middle of hurricane season, told Congress that it was taking $271 million from DHS programs, including $155 million from the disaster fund, to pay for immigration detention space and temporary hearing locations for asylum seekers who had been forced to wait in Mexico. “The U.S. is facing a security and humanitarian crisis on the Southern border,” the administration said in its notice that it was redirecting the funds.

The monthly reports issued by the FEMA disaster fund show $38 million was plucked and given to Immigration and Customs Enforcement in August that year — just before the prime storm period of September and October.
The Trump campaign did not respond to questions about Trump’s actions in 2019.

The Pinocchio Test

Trump falsely claims FEMA has run out of disaster money — and then falsely says that’s because money instead was spent on migrants. There is no evidence the Biden administration spent FEMA disaster money on migrants. Rather, that’s what Trump did.

He earns Four Pinocchios.

Four Pinocchios

Categories Elections, Environment, Lies, Trump

David Wallace-Wells: The Tragedy of Hurricane Helene

By dianeravitch
October 5, 2024 //
32

David Wallace-Wells, a regular contributor to the New York Times, is confounded by the lack of preparation for Hurricane Helene. The weather reports warned that it would be a deadly storm, yet many people thought they could ride it out, and they paid with their lives. Extreme weather events are becoming more frequent, and the public is not adequately prepared. Have they been lulled by the politicians who claim that climate change is a hoax? Climate change denial claims lives.

Wallace-Wells writes:

Last week, warning about the imminent arrival of Hurricane Helene, the National Weather Service in Tallahassee, Fla., used the word “unsurvivable.”

And yet the storm seemed to take much of the country by surprise. You might have thought, not that long ago, that the arrival of extreme weather could wake us up, belatedly, from climate complacency. But the dull drumbeat of disaster seems almost to be putting us to sleep instead. Even the imminent arrival of a cataclysm like Helene, a Category 4 storm that spanned more than 400 miles across the Gulf Coast and threatened communities as far north as Appalachia, was not enough to generate all that much attention ahead of time, when more might have been done to limit the devastation. The storm has so far produced at least 100 deaths and perhaps $160 billion in damages (according to early estimates).

In Florida’s Big Bend region, Helene was the third hurricane to make landfall in barely a year, flattening beach towns and barrier islands and sending water into the attics of homes as far away as Tampa Bay. In several states to the north, locals from dozens of communities hundreds of miles from one another were calling the storm “our Katrina,” some of them watching whole homes or shiny caskets carried downstream, others clinging to tree branches for hours on end waiting for the floodwaters to recede or help to arrive. In Tennessee, there was no emergency declared before hospital patients were evacuated from a rooftop by helicopter, and as of Saturday, across western North Carolina, hundreds of vulnerable power substations were still down, along with the infrastructure and power lines meant to actually deliver electricity and the vast majority of the world’s supply of high purity quartz, a necessary input for the production of semiconductors. Dozens of coal ash ponds holding billions of tons of toxic coal ash have likely been flooded, as well. Cars and trucks “were tossed around like toys.”

Forty trillion gallons of rain fell in total, the equivalent of one-third of the total volume of Lake Erie, enough to cover the entire state of Massachusetts in 23 feet of water. The intense rainfall was made, over the last week, perhaps 50 percent more intense over parts of Georgia and the Carolinas by global warming. (Other rapid assessments suggested it was perhaps only 20 percent more intense.) Entire towns appear to have been turned into flotsam or pulverized into splinters, and few of those living in the hardest-hit areas even carried flood insurance. In Asheville, N.C., which sits hundreds of miles from the coastline and thousands of feet above sea level and is now the drowned ground zero of the storm, the National Flood Insurance Program coverage rate was under 1 percent. Across the country, as many as six million more homes are at severe risk of flooding than are even included on the federal government’s flood risk maps, Michael Thomas pointed out in the aftermath of the storm. Across Asheville’s Buncombe County, 17 times as many homes had been judged at risk in a 100-year flood event as carried insurance against that risk; Helene was called a “thousand-year” flood for certain parts of the Southeast, though those terms grow less meaningful almost by the day. Another ostensible thousand-year storm had hit the coastal Carolinas just one week before. “Sometimes ‘worst case’ scenarios really do come to pass,” the climate scientist Daniel Swain wrote over the weekend on Sunday, “and I think we often lack the collective imagination to fully envision what that looks like.”

Former President Trump was the first politician to arrive, and he indulged his impulse to politicize the disaster. He asserted, falsely, that President Biden refused to take calls from Georgia Governor Brian Kemp, though Kemp said that he had talked to Biden, who sent the help he asked for. Trump also claimed that Biden wasn’t sending help to states with Republican leaders (every state but North Carolina), but that wasn’t true either.

Trump never learned that natural disasters are times when people help people, regardless of party.

Categories Environment, Florida, Georgia, North Carolina, Tennessee

Scientific American Endorses Kamala Harris

By dianeravitch
September 30, 2024 //
18

For only the second time in its 179-year history, the prestigious magazine Scientific American issued a Presidential endorsement. It endorsed Kamala Harris. The only other endorsement in its history was four years ago for Joe Biden. The magazine cares deeply about science, climate change, health, and factual evidence. For these reasons, it opposes Trump.

The editors of Scientific American wrote:

In the November election, the U.S. faces two futures. In one, the new president offers the country better prospects, relying on science, solid evidence and the willingness to learn from experience. She pushes policies that boost good jobs nationwide by embracing technology and clean energy. She supports education, public health and reproductive rights. She treats the climate crisis as the emergency it is and seeks to mitigate its catastrophic storms, fires and droughts.

In the other future, the new president endangers public health and safety and rejects evidence, preferring instead nonsensical conspiracy fantasies. He ignores the climate crisis in favor of more pollution. He requires that federal officials show personal loyalty to him rather than upholding U.S. laws. He fills positions in federal science and other agencies with unqualified ideologues. He goads people into hate and division, and he inspires extremists at state and local levels to pass laws that disrupt education and make it harder to earn a living.

Only one of these futures will improve the fate of this country and the world. That is why, for only the second time in our magazine’s 179-year history, the editors of Scientific American are endorsing a candidate for president. That person is Kamala Harris.

Before making this endorsement, we evaluated Harris’s record as a U.S. senator and as vice president under Joe Biden, as well as policy proposals she’s made as a presidential candidate. Her opponent, Donald Trump, who was president from 2017 to 2021, also has a record—a disastrous one. Let’s compare.

HEALTH CARE

The Biden-Harris administration shored up the popular Affordable Care Act (ACA), giving more people access to health insurance through subsidies. During Harris’s September 10 debate with Trump, she said one of her goals as president would be to expand it. Scores of studies have shown that people with insurance stay healthier and live longer because they can afford to see doctors for preventive and acute care. Harris supports expansion of Medicaid, the U.S. health-care program for low-income people. States that have expanded this program have seen health gains in their populations, whereas states that continue to restrict eligibility have not. To pay for Medicare, the health insurance program primarily for older Americans, Harris supports a tax increase on people who earn $400,000 or more a year. And the Biden-Harris administration succeeded in passing the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), which caps the costs of several expensive drugs, including insulin, for Medicare enrollees. Harris’s vice presidential pick, Tim Walz, signed into law a prohibition against excessive price hikes on generic drugs as governor of Minnesota.

When in office, Trump proposed cuts to Medicare and Medicaid (Congress, to its credit, refused to enact them.) He also pushed for a work requirement as a condition for Medicaid eligibility, making it harder for people to qualify for the program. As a candidate, both in 2016 and this year, he pledged to repeal the ACA, but it’s not clear what he would replace it with. When prodded during the September debate, he said, “I have concepts of a plan” but didn’t elaborate. Like Harris, however, he has voiced concern about drug prices, and in 2020 he signed an executive order designed to lower prices of drugs covered by Medicare.

The COVID pandemic has been the greatest test of the American health-care system in modern history. Harris was vice president of an administration that boosted widespread distribution of COVID vaccines and created a program for free mail-order COVID tests. Wastewater surveillance for viruses has improved, allowing public health officials to respond more quickly when levels are high. Bird flu now poses a new threat, highlighting the importance of the Biden-Harris administration’s Office of Pandemic Preparedness and Response Policy.

Trump touted his pandemic efforts during his first debate with Harris, but in 2020 he encouraged resistance to basic public health measures, spread misinformation about treatments and suggested injections of bleach could cure the disease. By the end of that year about 350,000 people in the U.S. had died of COVID; the current national total is well over a million. Trump and his staff had one great success: Operation Warp Speed, which developed effective COVID vaccines extremely quickly. Remarkably, however, Trump plans billion-dollar budget cuts to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the National Institutes of Health, which started the COVID-vaccine research program. These steps are in line with the guidance of Project 2025, an extreme conservative blueprint for the next presidency drawn up by many former Trump staffers. He’s also talked about ending the Office of Pandemic Preparedness and Response Policy, calling it a pork project.

REPRODUCTIVE RIGHTS

Harris is a staunch supporter of reproductive rights. During the September debate, she spoke plainly about her desire to reinstate “the protections of Roe v. Wade” and added, “I think the American people believe that certain freedoms, in particular the freedom to make decisions about one’s own body, should not be made by the government.” She has vowed to improve access to abortion. She has defended the right to order the abortion pill mifepristone through the mail under authorization by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, even as MAGA Republican state officials have tried—so far unsuccessfully—to revoke those rights. As a U.S. senator, she co-sponsored a package of bills to reduce rising rates of maternal mortality. In August, Trump said he would vote against a ballot measure expanding access to abortions in Florida, where he lives. The current Florida “heartbeat” law makes most abortions illegal after six weeks of pregnancy, before many people even know they are pregnant.

Trump appointed the conservative U.S. Supreme Court justices who overturned Roe v. Wade, removing the constitutional right to a basic health-care procedure. He spreads misinformation about abortion—during the September debate, he said some states support abortion into the ninth month and beyond, calling it “execution after birth.” No state allows this. He also refused to answer the question of whether he would veto a federal abortion ban, saying Congress would never approve such a ban in the first place. He made no mention of an executive order and praised the Supreme Court, three justices of which he placed, for sending abortion back to states to decide. This ruling led to a patchwork of laws and entire sections of the country where abortion is dangerously limited.

GUN SAFETY

The Biden-Harris administration closed the gun-show loophole, which had allowed people to buy guns without a license. The evidence is clear that easy access to guns in the U.S. has increased the risk of suicides, murder and firearm accidents. Harris supports a program that temporarily removes guns from people deemed dangerous by a court.

Trump promised the National Rifle Association that he would get rid of all Biden-Harris gun measures. Even after Trump was injured and a supporter was killed in an attempted assassination, the former president remained silent on gun safety. His running mate, J. D. Vance, said the increased number of school shootings was an unhappy “fact of life” and the solution was stronger school security.

ENVIRONMENT AND CLIMATE

Harris said pointedly during the September debate that climate change was real. She would continue the responsible leadership shown by Biden, who has undertaken the most substantial climate action of any president. The Biden-Harris administration restored U.S. membership in the Paris Agreement on coping with climate change. Harris’s election would continue IRA tax credits for clean energy, as well as regulations to reduce power-plant emissions and coal use. This approach puts the country on course to spend the authorized billions of dollars for renewable energy that should cut U.S. carbon emissions in half by 2030. The IRA also includes a commitment to broadening electric vehicle technology.

Trump has said climate change is a hoax, and he dodged the question “What would you do to fight climate change?” during the September debate. He pulled the U.S. out of the Paris Agreement. Under his direction the Environmental Protection Agency and other federal agencies abandoned more than 100 environmental policies and rules, many designed to ensure clean air and water, restrict the dangers of toxic chemicals and protect wildlife. He has also tried to revoke funding for satellite-based climate-research projects.

TECHNOLOGY

The Biden-Harris administration’s 2023 Executive Order on Safe, Secure and Trustworthy Development and Use of Artificial Intelligence requires that AI-based products be safe for consumers and national security. The CHIPS and Science Act invigorates the chipmaking industry and semiconductor research while growing the workforce. A new Trump administration would undo all of this work and quickly. Under the devious and divisive Project 2025 framework, technology safeguards on AI would be overturned. AI influences our criminal justice, labor and health-care systems. As is the rightful complaint now, there would be no knowing how these programs are developed, how they are tested or whether they even work.

The 2024 U.S. ballots are also about Congress and local officials—people who make decisions that affect our communities and families. Extremist state legislators in Ohio, for instance, have given politicians the right to revoke any rule from the state health department designed to limit the spread of contagious disease. Other states have passed similar measures. In education, many states now forbid lessons about racial bias. But research has shown such lessons reduce stereotypes and do not prompt schoolchildren to view one another negatively, regardless of their race. This is the kind of science MAGA politicians ignore, and such people do not deserve our votes.

At the top of the ballot, Harris does deserve our vote. She offers us a way forward lit by rationality and respect for all. Economically, the renewable-energy projects she supports will create new jobs in rural America. Her platform also increases tax deductions for new small businesses from $5,000 to $50,000, making it easier for them to turn a profit. Trump, a convicted felon who was also found liable of sexual abuse in a civil trial, offers a return to his dark fantasies and demagoguery, whether it’s denying the reality of climate change or the election results of 2020 that were confirmed by more than 60 court cases, including some that were overseen by judges whom he appointed.

One of two futures will materialize according to our choices in this election. Only one is a vote for reality and integrity. We urge you to vote for Kamala Harris.

Categories Elections, Environment, Extremism, Harris, Kamala, Health, Science, Trump

Project 2025 Calls for a Resumption of Nuclear Testing: A Terrible Idea!

By dianeravitch
September 22, 2024 //
15

Tom Armbuster writes in the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists about a little-noticed feature of Project 2025, the agenda for a second Trump administration prepared by the Heritage Foundation. The 900-page document calls for a resumption of nuclear testing. Armbruster is deeply knowledgeable about the horrible after-effects of atomic testing, whether in the open air or underwater.

Armbruster was US Ambassador to the Republic of the Marshall Islands, where several nuclear tests were conducted, which poisoned people, the land and the sea.

He writes:

There are few places more peaceful than a Pacific island. At 6:45 am on a March morning in 1954, that peace was shattered by the largest nuclear test in American history: Operation Bravo.

The Bravo test was a thousand times more powerful than the Hiroshima bomb. Now, 70 years later, Project 2025 is proposing a resumption of testing. That should alarm every military service member, downwinder, Pacific Islander, and taxpayer.

As US Ambassador to the Republic of the Marshall Islands, I joined in the solemn observance of “Remembrance Day,” the Marshallese national holiday that pays tribute every March 1 to those who lost their homeland, fell victim to cancer, or were otherwise affected by the Bravo shockwave and fallout.

The shorthand for the 67 nuclear tests from 1946 to 1958, including two undersea tests that wiped out rich Pacific marine life, is the “Nuclear Legacy.” It would be more accurate to call it the “Nuclear Wound.” The tests on Bikini, Enewetak, and Kwajalein wounded the land and the ocean, the people—both Marshallese and American servicemen—and the relationship between our two countries. Healing is marked in decades, if not centuries.

We’ve had the nuclear tiger by the tail for a long time. No leader of any country would want their legacy to be the use of such indiscriminate and destructive weapons. When I joined the Foreign Service from Hawaii, Ronald Reagan was President. A chance for nuclear disarmament came and went with his summit with Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev in Reykjavik. Today, the Soviet Union is gone but nuclear weapons are still here. We’ve made progress, but Reagan’s vision of a nuclear-free world remains out of reach. Until we achieve that goal, maintaining a test ban is in everyone’s interest. It is part of the legacy we leave our children.

It is simply incomprehensible that the people who created Project 2025 would advocate a return to one of the most destructive practices in our history.

Categories Democracy, Elections, Environment, Extremism, Health, Science, Trump
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