Tuesday, February 28, 2017

Robert Mercer: the big data billionaire waging war on mainstream media

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2017/feb/26/robert-mercer-breitbart-war-on-media-steve-bannon-donald-trump-nigel-farage

Carole Cadwalladr
Feb. 26, 2017

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I did what I’ve been doing for two and a half months now. I Googled “mainstream media is…” And there it was. Google’s autocomplete suggestions: “mainstream media is… dead, dying, fake news, fake, finished”. Is it dead, I wonder? Has FAKE news won? Are we now the FAKE news? Is the mainstream media – we, us, I – dying?

I click Google’s first suggested link. It leads to a website called CNSnews.com and an article: “The Mainstream media are dead.” They’re dead, I learn, because they – we, I – “cannot be trusted”. How had it, an obscure site I’d never heard of, dominated Google’s search algorithm on the topic? In the “About us” tab, I learn CNSnews is owned by the Media Research Center, which a click later I learn is “America’s media watchdog”, an organisation that claims an “unwavering commitment to neutralising leftwing bias in the news, media and popular culture”.

Another couple of clicks and I discover that it receives a large bulk of its funding – more than $10m in the past decade – from a single source, the hedge fund billionaire Robert Mercer. If you follow US politics you may recognise the name. Robert Mercer is the money behind Donald Trump. But then, I will come to learn, Robert Mercer is the money behind an awful lot of things. He was Trump’s single biggest donor. Mercer started backing Ted Cruz, but when he fell out of the presidential race he threw his money – $13.5m of it – behind the Trump campaign.

It’s money he’s made as a result of his career as a brilliant but reclusive computer scientist.

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since 2010, Mercer has donated $45m to different political campaigns – all Republican – and another $50m to non-profits – all rightwing, ultra-conservative. This is a billionaire who is, as billionaires are wont, trying to reshape the world according to his personal beliefs.

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Robert Mercer very rarely speaks in public and never to journalists, so to gauge his beliefs you have to look at where he channels his money: a series of yachts, all called Sea Owl; a $2.9m model train set; climate change denial (he funds a climate change denial thinktank, the Heartland Institute); and what is maybe the ultimate rich man’s plaything – the disruption of the mainstream media. In this he is helped by his close associate Steve Bannon, Trump’s campaign manager and now chief strategist. The money he gives to the Media Research Center, with its mission of correcting “liberal bias” is just one of his media plays. There are other bigger, and even more deliberate strategies, and shining brightly, the star at the centre of the Mercer media galaxy, is Breitbart.

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But there was another reason why I recognised Robert Mercer’s name: because of his connection to Cambridge Analytica, a small data analytics company. He is reported to have a $10m stake in the company, which was spun out of a bigger British company called SCL Group. It specialises in “election management strategies” and “messaging and information operations”, refined over 25 years in places like Afghanistan and Pakistan. In military circles this is known as “psyops” – psychological operations. (Mass propaganda that works by acting on people’s emotions.)

Cambridge Analytica worked for the Trump campaign

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Last December, I wrote about Cambridge Analytica in a piece about how Google’s search results on certain subjects were being dominated by rightwing and extremist sites. Jonathan Albright, a professor of communications at Elon University, North Carolina, who had mapped the news ecosystem and found millions of links between rightwing sites “strangling” the mainstream media, told me that trackers from sites like Breitbart could also be used by companies like Cambridge Analytica to follow people around the web and then, via Facebook, target them with ads.

On its website, Cambridge Analytica makes the astonishing boast that it has psychological profiles based on 5,000 separate pieces of data on 220 million American voters – its USP is to use this data to understand people’s deepest emotions and then target them accordingly. The system, according to Albright, amounted to a “propaganda machine”.

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Facebook was the key to the entire campaign, Wigmore explained. A Facebook ‘like’, he said, was their most “potent weapon”. “Because using artificial intelligence, as we did, tells you all sorts of things about that individual and how to convince them with what sort of advert. And you knew there would also be other people in their network who liked what they liked, so you could spread. And then you follow them. The computer never stops learning and it never stops monitoring.”

It sounds creepy, I say.

“It is creepy! It’s really creepy! It’s why I’m not on Facebook! I tried it on myself to see what information it had on me and I was like, ‘Oh my God!’ What’s scary is that my kids had put things on Instagram and it picked that up. It knew where my kids went to school.”

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These Facebook profiles – especially people’s “likes” – could be correlated across millions of others to produce uncannily accurate results. Michal Kosinski, the centre’s lead scientist, found that with knowledge of 150 likes, their model could predict someone’s personality better than their spouse. With 300, it understood you better than yourself. “Computers see us in a more robust way than we see ourselves,” says Kosinski.

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Emma Briant, a propaganda specialist at the University of Sheffield, wrote about SCL Group in her 2015 book, Propaganda and Counter-Terrorism: Strategies for Global Change. Cambridge Analytica has the technological tools to effect behavioural and psychological change, she said, but it’s SCL that strategises it. It has specialised, at the highest level – for Nato, the MoD, the US state department and others – in changing the behaviour of large groups. It models mass populations and then it changes their beliefs.

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Sam Woolley of the Oxford Internet Institute’s computational propaganda institute tells me that one third of all traffic on Twitter before the EU referendum was automated “bots” – accounts that are programmed to look like people, to act like people, and to change the conversation, to make topics trend. And they were all for Leave. Before the US election, they were five-to-one in favour of Trump – many of them Russian. Last week they have been in action in the Stoke byelection – Russian bots, organised by who? – attacking Paul Nuttall.

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There’s nothing accidental about Trump’s behaviour, Andy Wigmore tells me. “That press conference. It was absolutely brilliant. I could see exactly what he was doing. There’s feedback going on constantly. That’s what you can do with artificial intelligence. You can measure ever reaction to every word. He has a word room, where you fix key words. We did it. So with immigration, there are actually key words within that subject matter which people are concerned about. So when you are going to make a speech, it’s all about how can you use these trending words.”

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There are quite a few pieces of research that show if you repeat something often enough, people start involuntarily to believe it. And that could be leveraged, or weaponised for propaganda. We know there are thousands of automated bots out there that are trying to do just that.”

THE war of the bots is one of the wilder and weirder aspects of the elections of 2016. At the Oxford Internet Institute’s Unit for Computational Propaganda, its director, Phil Howard, and director of research, Sam Woolley, show me all the ways public opinion can be massaged and manipulated. But is there a smoking gun, I ask them, evidence of who is doing this? “There’s not a smoking gun,” says Howard. “There are smoking machine guns. There are multiple pieces of evidence.”

“Look at this,” he says and shows me how, before the US election, hundreds upon hundreds of websites were set up to blast out just a few links, articles that were all pro-Trump. “This is being done by people who understand information structure, who are bulk buying domain names and then using automation to blast out a certain message. To make Trump look like he’s a consensus.”

And that requires money?

“That requires organisation and money. And if you use enough of them, of bots and people, and cleverly link them together, you are what’s legitimate. You are creating truth.”

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More than 100 generals sign letter warning against budget cuts



By Kylie Atwood CBS News February 28, 2017

More than 120 retired generals are making what may seem like a surprising defense of government spending on diplomacy. Their unified perspective is expressed in letter to congressional leadership and was prompted by an announcement of major cuts to the non-defense budget and a corresponding increase of $54 billion to defense spending.

The generals quoted Defense Secretary James Mattis to illustrate their point that foreign policy is not monolithic, and that diplomacy and defense are equal partners in U.S. policy.

“As Secretary James Mattis said while commander of U.S. Central Command, ‘If you don’t fully fund the State Department, then I need to buy more ammunition.’”

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Now, through his continued rhetoric and this budget announcement, it is evident that in Trump’s eyes, defending the nation means giving the military all the muscle that they need, to the detriment of diplomatic funding.

The signatories of this letter disagree that foreign policy should be approached purely as a militaristic endeavor. One signer is Marine Gen. John R. Allen, a retired United States Marine Corps four-star general, former top U.S. commander in Afghanistan, and 2014-2015 Special Presidential Envoy for the Global Coalition to Counter ISIL appointed by President Obama.

“Cutting the State Department budget by 30 percent is consigning us to a generational war. We cannot fight our way out of this. It is an issue which can be decided by decisive diplomacy and enlightened development,” General Allen told CBS News.

“If [the president] wants to eradicate radical Islamic terrorism, his only hope of doing it is not through an interminable war on Islam. It is by funding the very things in the State Department that give us the capacity to work with other countries and to help, in the context of development, to change the human condition in places in the world where young men and women are radicalized by virtue of the social environments they are in. They are pushed into the arms of extremists who we must fight.”

Other prominent generals who signed the letter include former NSA chief Gen. Keith Alexander and former Army Chief of Staff Gen. William Casey.

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“We know from our service in uniform that many of the crises our nation faces do not have military solutions alone -- from confronting violent extremist groups like ISIS in the Middle East and North Africa to preventing pandemics like Ebola and stabilizing weak and fragile states that can lead to greater instability,” the generals wrote.

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Trump's child care plan is gift to the rich, report says



by Heather Long @byHeatherLong February 28, 2017

President Donald Trump has vowed to make child care in America cheaper.

But Trump's current proposal, which he touted during his prime-time address to Congress Tuesday evening, will do little to help the working families who need the most relief. That's according to a new analysis from the non-partisan Tax Policy Center.

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Just about everyone agrees that child care costs in America are astronomical. It now costs more to put a kid in child care than college (if you get in-state tuition).

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But an analysis by the Tax Policy Center finds that Trump's proposal is a gift to the rich. The tax experts at TPC say 70% of the benefits will go to families that make $100,000 or more. And 25% will go to people earning $200,000 or more.

"Trump has identified a real challenge affecting working families, but his proposal would do little or nothing to help them," Elaine Maag, an expert at the Tax Policy Center, told CNNMoney. A typical middle class family earns about $56,000.

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The heart of Trump's plan is to significantly expand the tax deduction that families can take for child care expenses for kids under 13. Anyone making less than $250,000 ($500,000 if married) could deduct the average cost of child care in their state. (The average would be based on the age of their child, since it usually costs more to care for infants and toddlers).

That sounds great, but families have to pay income taxes to Uncle Sam in order to take advantage of the deduction. Many working class families pay nothing in federal income taxes because they earn too little in income to owe anything.

On top of that, Trump wants to create a "dependent care savings account" (DCSA) to allow families to save up to $2,000 tax-free that could be used to pay for care for kids or elderly parents. Parents could even use the money to pay for summer camp.

Again, it sounds good, but poor families that desperately need a break on child care are unlikely to have extra money to put into the savings account.

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The final part of Trump's plan is aimed at helping poorer families. It's a refundable tax credit so working parents who don't end up owing federal income tax could actually get money back from the government. The maximum amount a low-income family could receive is $1,200 under Trump's tax proposal, but most working class families would get far less than that.

The Tax Policy Center says a couple earning $30,000 a year would get $574 back. It's a modest amount compared to the average child care bill. Stay-at-home moms or dads would not be eligible for the tax credit, but wealthier stay-at-home parents can take advantage of the deduction.

Putting a four-year-old in full-time care ranges from $4,439 a year in Mississippi to a whopping $17,863 a year in Washington D.C., according to Child Care Aware.

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There are also concerns about how Trump will pay for this child care policy. The Tax Policy Center estimates just the tax deductions and credits will cost $115 billion over the next decade. The Tax Foundation estimates it would cost $500 billion over the next decade.

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Sunday, February 26, 2017

Eight a day is clearly best for the heart


800 grams = 28.2 ounces = 1.76 pounds

Useful pictures of what a pound of different fruits looks like:
http://www.thekitchn.com/heres-what-1-pound-of-fruit-looks-like-232571

Useful pictures of what a pound of different vegetables looks like:
http://www.thekitchn.com/heres-what-1-pound-of-vegetables-looks-like-232381


https://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2017-02/nuos-ead022317.php

Public Release: 23-Feb-2017
Eight a day is clearly best for the heart
Eight on a plate: The more fruits and vegetables a person eats, the lower his or her risk of heart disease, stroke and premature death
Norwegian University of Science and Technology

You've heard it a thousand times, that little catchphrase with the magic number encouraging you to eat "five a day" of fruits and vegetables for better health. But it turns out that the real magic number is eight, according to a new comprehensive study just published in the International Journal of Epidemiology.

The study, spearheaded by Dagfinn Aune, from the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU) and Imperial College London, shows that 7.8 million deaths worldwide could be prevented each year if people ate more fruits and vegetables. Aune says the more you eat, the lower the overall risk of heart disease, stroke, cancer and premature death.

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The study shows that the risk of dying prematurely from all causes was reduced by almost a third, and the risk of cardiovascular disease by about a quarter in people who ate 800 grams of fruit and vegetables every day, compared with those who ate very little or no fruits and vegetables.

"We see a gradual reduction in risk with increasing consumption, so a low or moderate intake is better than not eating fruits and vegetables at all," he said.

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"The risk of heart disease, strokes and premature death decreased by 10.8 per cent for each 200 gram increase in consumption of fruit or vegetables--up to an intake of 800 grams," Aune said.

He stressed that the greatest impact from increasing a person's daily intake of fruit and vegetables appears to be in people do not eat fruit and vegetables at all, or who eat very little of them. But there were also benefits from additional increases in fruit and vegetable consumption for people whose diets already include some fruit and vegetables.

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The meta-analysis is also the first to examine subcategories and individual varieties of fruits and vegetables that can be connected to a reduced risk of various diseases and premature death.

Apples and pears, citrus fruit, fruit juice, green leafy vegetables and fruits and vegetables rich in vitamin C were among the types of fruit and vegetables that were linked to a reduced risk of cardiovascular disease and premature death.

Canned fruits, however, were linked to increased risk of cardiovascular disease and premature death.

"However, we need more studies on specific types of fruit and vegetables because relatively few of the studies in our analysis had looked at this issue," said Aune.

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Winter Storm Intensity

http://www.climatecentral.org/gallery/graphics/winter-storm-intensity?utm_content=buffer2b8d6&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter.com&utm_campaign=buffer

Feb. 18,2017

Mid-latitude winter storms have increased in both intensity and frequency nationally since 1950. Overall, there were twice as many extreme winter storms in the U.S. in the second half of the 20th century as there were in the first half.

This is consistent with what you’d expect in a warming world. Higher temperatures lead to more evaporation from lakes, rivers and oceans, and warmer air can hold more moisture. What goes up must eventually come down, so climate science projects that extreme precipitation should increase. And that's just what meteorologists have observed, not just for snowfall, but for precipitation overall.

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Saturday, February 25, 2017

Thousands Of Toddler Swings Recalled After Dozens Report Injuries

http://philadelphia.cbslocal.com/2017/02/24/thousands-of-toddler-swings-recalled-due-to-fall-hazard/

Feb. 24, 2017

Little Tikes announced it is recalling approximately 540,000 toddler swings due to a fall hazard.

The company says it has received about 140 reports of the swing breaking, including 39 injuries to children including abrasions, bruises, cuts and bumps to the head.

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E-cigarettes may pose the same or higher risk of stroke severity as tobacco smoke

https://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2017-02/aha-emp021517.php

Public Release: 23-Feb-2017
E-cigarettes may pose the same or higher risk of stroke severity as tobacco smoke
Session A25 - Abstract LB10 in Grand Ballroom B
American Heart Association

Electronic cigarette (e-cigarettes) vaping may pose just as much or even higher risk as smoking tobacco for worsening a stroke, according to a preliminary study in mice presented at the American Heart Association's International Stroke Conference 2017.

Researchers found:

Mice exposed to e-cigarette vapor for 10 days or 30 days had worse stroke outcome and neurological deficits, than those exposed to tobacco smoke.

E-cigarette exposure decreased glucose uptake in the brain. Glucose fuels brain activity.

Both e-Cig and tobacco smoke exposure for 30 days decreased Thrombomodulin (anti-coagulant) levels.

From a brain health perspective, researchers said, electronic-cigarette vaping is not safer than tobacco smoking, and may pose a similar, if not higher risk for stroke severity.

Use of e-cigarettes is a growing health concern in both smoking and nonsmoking populations. Researchers said rigorous studies are needed to investigate the effects of the nicotine exposure via e-cigarettes on brain and stroke outcome.

The role of weight in postmenopausal women's longevity

https://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2017-02/w-tro022117.php

Public Release: 23-Feb-2017
The role of weight in postmenopausal women's longevity
Wiley

In a large multiethnic study, being underweight was linked with an increased risk of early death among postmenopausal women. Also, a higher waist circumference--but not being overweight or slightly obese--was associated with premature mortality, indicating that abdominal fat is more deadly than carrying excess weight.

Interestingly, Hispanic women in the study had a lower mortality rate at any given body mass index or waist circumference compared with non-Hispanic whites or African-Americans.

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Meditation benefits patients with ALS

https://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2017-02/w-mbp022117.php

Public Release: 23-Feb-2017
Meditation benefits patients with ALS
Wiley

An eight-week mindfulness-based meditation program led to improved quality of life and psychological well-being in clinical trial of patients with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS).

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Study finds resistant infections rising, with longer hospital stays for US children

https://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2017-02/pids-sfr022117.php

Public Release: 23-Feb-2017
Study finds resistant infections rising, with longer hospital stays for US children
Pediatric Infectious Diseases Society

Infections caused by a type of bacteria resistant to multiple antibiotics are occurring more frequently in U.S. children and are associated with longer hospital stays and a trend towards greater risk of death, according to a new study published in the Journal of the Pediatric Infectious Diseases Society. Previously acquired mostly while children were already in the hospital, the new findings also suggest the infections--caused by bacteria from the Enterobacteriaceae family that are resistant to multiple drugs--may be spreading more often in the community.

"Antibiotic resistance increasingly threatens our ability to treat our children's infections," said study author Sharon B. Meropol, MD, PhD, of University Hospitals Rainbow Babies and Children's Hospital in Cleveland and Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine. "Efforts to control this trend are urgently needed from all of us, such as using antibiotics only when necessary, and eliminating agricultural use of antibiotics in healthy animals."

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Bacterial infections resistant to multiple drugs are especially concerning in children, for whom there are a limited number of stronger antibiotics currently approved for use compared to adults, putting kids at higher risk for worse outcomes. In the study, children with Enterobacteriaceae infections resistant to multiple antibiotics had hospitals stays that were 20 percent longer than patients with infections that were susceptible to antibiotics, the researchers found. The results also suggest a greater mortality risk among pediatric patients infected with the resistant strains, although the increased odds for death were not statistically significant.

Most of the resistant infections were present when the children were admitted to the hospital, suggesting the bacteria may be increasingly spreading in the community. Older kids, children with other health conditions, and those living in the Western U.S. were more likely to have the infections, the study found. The results build on previous research reporting rising rates of these infections in adults and outbreaks in hospitalized children, especially in less-developed countries in Latin America and Asia, where antibiotics are available over the counter.

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Fasting-mimicking diet may reverse diabetes

https://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2017-02/uosc-rdw022117.php

Public Release: 23-Feb-2017
Fasting-mimicking diet may reverse diabetes
Periodic cycles of fasting reprogram pancreatic cells and restore insulin production
University of Southern California

A diet designed to imitate the effects of fasting appears to reverse diabetes by reprogramming cells, a new USC-led study shows.

The fasting-like diet promotes the growth of new insulin-producing pancreatic cells that reduce symptoms of type 1 and type 2 diabetes in mice, according to the study on mice and human cells led by Valter Longo, director of the Longevity Institute at the USC Leonard Davis School of Gerontology.

"Cycles of a fasting-mimicking diet and a normal diet essentially reprogrammed non-insulin-producing cells into insulin-producing cells," said Longo, who is also a professor of biological sciences at the USC Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences. "By activating the regeneration of pancreatic cells, we were able to rescue mice from late-stage type 1 and type 2 diabetes. We also reactivated insulin production in human pancreatic cells from type 1 diabetes patients."

The reprogrammed adult cells and organs prompted a regeneration in which damaged cells were replaced with new functional ones, he said.

The study published on Feb. 23 in the journal Cell, is the latest in a series of studies to demonstrate promising health benefits of a brief, periodic diet that mimics the effects of a water-only fast.

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Longo and his research team have amassed evidence indicating several health benefits of the fasting-mimicking diet. Their study published last week in Science Translational Medicine demonstrated that the fasting-mimicking diet reduced risks for cancer, diabetes, heart disease and other age-related diseases in human study participants who followed the special diet for five days each month in a three-month span.

Prior studies on the diet have shown potential for alleviating symptoms of the neurodegenerative disease multiple sclerosis, increasing the efficacy of chemotherapy for cancer treatments, and decreasing visceral fat.

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Bees can learn to use a tool by observing others

https://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2017-02/aaft-bcl022117.php

Public Release: 23-Feb-2017
Bees can learn to use a tool by observing others
American Association for the Advancement of Science

Simply by watching other bees, bumblebees can learn to use a novel tool to obtain a reward, a new study reveals. The results demonstrate the capacity of bees to learn how to solve a complex, goal-directed problem, and even improve upon the original process -- a capability long-known possible in humans, primates, marine mammals and birds, and here extended to invertebrates.

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Warming temperatures could trigger starvation, extinctions in deep oceans

https://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2017-02/osu-wtc022217.php

Public Release: 23-Feb-2017
Warming temperatures could trigger starvation, extinctions in deep oceans
Oregon State University

Researchers from 20 of the world's leading oceanographic research centers today warned that the world's largest habitat - the deep ocean floor - may face starvation and sweeping ecological change by the year 2100.

Warming ocean temperatures, increased acidification and the spread of low-oxygen zones will drastically alter the biodiversity of the deep ocean floor from 200 to 6,000 meters below the surface. The impact of these ecosystems to society is just becoming appreciated, yet these environments and their role in the functioning of the planet may be altered by these sweeping impacts.

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"Parts of the world will likely have more jellyfish and squid, for example, and fewer fish and cold water corals."

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"If we look back in Earth's history, we can see that small changes to the deep ocean caused massive shifts in biodiversity," Thurber said. "These shifts were driven by those same impacts that our model predict are coming in the near future. We think of the deep ocean as incredibly stable and too vast to impact, but it doesn't take much of a deviation to create a radically altered environment.

Top professional performance through psychopathy

https://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2017-02/uob-tpp022317.php

Public Release: 23-Feb-2017
Top professional performance through psychopathy
Study by the University of Bonn: The paradoxical personality also has its good sides under certain conditions
University of Bonn

The term "psychopath" is not flattering: such people are considered cold, manipulative, do not feel any remorse and seek thrills without any fear - and all that at other's expense. A study by psychologists at the University of Bonn is now shattering this image. They claim that a certain form of psychopathy can lead to top professional performance, without harming others or the company. The study has initially been published online. The print edition will be published in the journal Personality and Individual Differences in mid-April.

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"The toxic form of psychopathy is characterized by antisocial impulsiveness," says Prof. Gerhard Blickle from the Department of Psychology. Such people cannot control themselves, they take what they like, act without thinking beforehand and pass the blame to others. "The potentially benign form of psychopathy is named fearless dominance," adds co-author Nora Schütte. "It can develop to be bad, but also to be very good." People with these characteristics do not know fear, have pronounced self-confidence, good social skills and are extremely resistant to stress.

Whether a person with fearless dominance can potentially become a top employee depends on an important factor according to the current study: education. While people with fearless dominance and low education display behaviors that can harm the company, such "psychopaths" with high education are assessed by their colleagues in the workplace as outstandingly capable and in no way antisocial.

"The toxic form of psychopathy is characterized by antisocial impulsiveness," says Prof. Gerhard Blickle from the Department of Psychology. Such people cannot control themselves, they take what they like, act without thinking beforehand and pass the blame to others. "The potentially benign form of psychopathy is named fearless dominance," adds co-author Nora Schütte. "It can develop to be bad, but also to be very good." People with these characteristics do not know fear, have pronounced self-confidence, good social skills and are extremely resistant to stress.

Whether a person with fearless dominance can potentially become a top employee depends on an important factor according to the current study: education. While people with fearless dominance and low education display behaviors that can harm the company, such "psychopaths" with high education are assessed by their colleagues in the workplace as outstandingly capable and in no way antisocial.

Sugar's 'tipping point' link to Alzheimer's disease revealed

https://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2017-02/uob-sp022317.php

Public Release: 23-Feb-2017
Sugar's 'tipping point' link to Alzheimer's disease revealed
University of Bath

For the first time a "tipping point" molecular link between the blood sugar glucose and Alzheimer's disease has been established by scientists, who have shown that excess glucose damages a vital enzyme involved with inflammation response to the early stages of Alzheimer's.

Abnormally high blood sugar levels, or hyperglycaemia, is well-known as a characteristic of diabetes and obesity, but its link to Alzheimer's disease is less familiar.

Diabetes patients have an increased risk of developing Alzheimer's disease compared to healthy individuals. In Alzheimer's disease abnormal proteins aggregate to form plaques and tangles in the brain which progressively damage the brain and lead to severe cognitive decline.

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Penn study finds sons of cocaine-using fathers have profound memory impairments

https://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2017-02/uops-psf022317.php

Public Release: 23-Feb-2017
Penn study finds sons of cocaine-using fathers have profound memory impairments
University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine

Fathers who use cocaine at the time of conceiving a child may be putting their sons at risk of learning disabilities and memory loss. The findings of the animal study were published online in Molecular Psychiatry by a team of researchers from the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania. The researchers say the findings reveal that drug abuse by fathers--separate from the well-established effects of cocaine use in mothers-- may negatively impact cognitive development in their male offspring.

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tags: drug use, drug abuse

Air pollution may have masked mid-20th Century sea ice loss

https://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2017-02/agu-apm022317.php

Public Release: 23-Feb-2017
Air pollution may have masked mid-20th Century sea ice loss
American Geophysical Union

Humans may have been altering Arctic sea ice longer than previously thought, according to researchers studying the effects of air pollution on sea ice growth in the mid-20th Century. The new results challenge the perception that Arctic sea ice extent was unperturbed by human-caused climate change until the 1970s.

Scientists have observed Arctic sea ice loss since the mid-1970s and some climate model simulations have shown the region was losing sea ice as far back as 1950. In a new study, recently recovered Russian observations show an increase in sea ice from 1950 to 1975 as large as the subsequent decrease in sea ice observed from 1975 to 2005. The new observations of mid-century sea ice expansion led researchers behind the new study to the search for the cause.

The new study supports the idea that air pollution is to blame for the observed Arctic sea ice expansion. Particles of air pollution that come primarily from the burning of fossil fuels may have temporarily hidden the effects of global warming in the third quarter of the 20th Century in the eastern Arctic, the researchers say.

These particles, called sulfate aerosols, reflect sunlight back into space and cool the surface. This cooling effect may have disguised the influence of global warming on Arctic sea ice and may have resulted in sea ice growth recorded by Russian aerial surveys in the region from 1950 through 1975, according to the new research.

"The cooling impact from increasing aerosols more than masked the warming impact from increasing greenhouse gases," said John Fyfe, a senior scientist at Environment and Climate Change Canada in Victoria and a co-author of the new study accepted for publication in Geophysical Research Letters, a journal of the American Geophysical Union.

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Values gap in workplace can lead millennials to look elsewhere

https://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2017-02/uom-vgi022317.php

Public Release: 23-Feb-2017
Values gap in workplace can lead millennials to look elsewhere
Lack of corporate responsibility often a deal-breaker for young workers, University of Missouri study finds
University of Missouri-Columbia

Much has been made in popular culture about millennials as they join the working world, including their tendency to job hop. Although this behavior often is explained as a loyalty issue, new research from the University of Missouri reveals one reason young workers choose to leave a firm is because they find a disconnect between their beliefs and the culture they observe in the workplace.

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They found that workers expressed the most frustration if their employers touted a commitment to environmental sustainability publicly but did not follow through substantively in areas such as:

Materials selection, including the use of recycled materials
Proper management of pollutants, including chemicals and dyes
Working conditions in textile factories
Product packaging, distribution and marketing to consumers

"Fewer people of this generation are just looking for a paycheck," Ha-Brookshire said. "They have been raised with a sense of pro-social, pro-environment values, and they are looking to be engaged. If they find that a company doesn't honor these values and contributions, many either will try to change the culture or find employment elsewhere."

To ensure a good fit with a potential employer, the researchers recommend that job seekers speak with current and former employees at various levels of the organization, asking questions about areas that are particularly important to them, such as sustainability, work-life balance policies or community partnerships.

Conversely, in order to attract and retain the best employees, the researchers encourage companies to understand that the new generation of workers have high ethical and social expectations. Being transparent with potential employees about corporate culture can head-off some frustration, they said. In addition, giving employees the opportunity to shape cultural decisions through membership on committees and outreach efforts will help to increase morale.

•••••

Nicotinamide riboside (vitamin B3) prevents nerve pain caused by cancer drugs

https://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2017-02/uoih-nr022317.php

Public Release: 23-Feb-2017
Nicotinamide riboside (vitamin B3) prevents nerve pain caused by cancer drugs
Findings in female rats may lead to improved outcomes for patients receiving chemotherapy to treat breast and ovarian cancer
University of Iowa Health Care

A new study in rats suggests that nicotinamide riboside (NR), a form of vitamin B3, may be useful for treating or preventing nerve pain (neuropathy) caused by chemotherapy drugs. The findings by researchers at the University of Iowa were published recently in the Journal of the International Association for the Study of Pain (PAIN) and lay the groundwork for testing whether this nutritional supplement can reduce nerve pain in cancer patients receiving chemotherapy.

Although chemotherapies have improved cancer survival rates, many of these drugs also cause debilitating side effects that decrease the quality of life of patients and survivors. In particular, many anti-cancer drugs cause chemotherapy-induced peripheral neuropathy (CIPN) -- nerve damage and pain.

"Chemotherapy-induced peripheral neuropathy can both hinder continuation of treatment and persist long after treatment has ended, severely affecting the quality of life of cancer patients," says Marta Hamity, PhD, UI assistant research scientist and first author on the study. "Our findings support the idea that NR could potentially be used to prevent or mitigate CIPN in cancer patients, resulting in a meaningful improvement in their quality of life and the ability to sustain better and longer treatment."

•••••

FBI rejected WH request to deny contacts between Trump advisers and Russia

http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news/320933-fbi-rejects-white-house-request-to-shoot-down-reports-on-trumps

By Alexander Bolton - 02/23/17

The FBI rejected a recent request by the White House to dispute media reports that Trump campaign officials had regular contacts with Russian intelligence officials before the election, CNN reported.

The revelation comes days after White House chief of staff Reince Priebus said during a weekend television interview that senior intelligence officials assured him that there were not significant contacts between Trump advisers and Russian agents.

•••••

But CNN reported Thursday, citing “multiple U.S. officials briefed on the matter,” that the FBI declined to publicly corroborate Priebus, despite a rare request from the White House to do so. The New York Times and CNN reported last week that Trump campaign aides and associates were in touch with Russian intelligence officials during the campaign.

Rep. André Carson (D-Ind.), a member of the House Intelligence Committee, told CNN that it “exacerbates the air of suspicion” around the administration.

The report of White House communications with the FBI during a pending investigation into Russia’s influence on the 2016 presidential election could raise questions about whether the contacts violated restrictions established to insulate such probes from political influence.

•••••

The U.S. is Poised to Set a Record-Setting Record

http://www.climatecentral.org/news/record-high-temperature-february-21186

by Brian Kahn
Feb. 23, 2017

California's biblical deluge has occupied many a meteorologists’ mind this February. But another notable story is unfolding across the eastern U.S.

Unseasonable warmth has kickstarted spring up to a month early in the Southeast, cut into already paltry Great Lakes ice cover and created skiing conditions more reminiscent of April in the Northeast. But the most outstanding aspect of the persistent February warmth is what it has done to the ratio of record highs to record lows.

There have been 3,146 record highs set for the month-to-date compared to only 27 record lows, ensuring February will go down as the 27th month in a row with more highs than lows. The astonishing 116-to-1 ratio of highs to lows would easily set a record for the most lopsided monthly ratio in history. There have also been 248 monthly record highs and no monthly record lows.

•••••

The increasing ratio of record highs vs. record lows is one of the hallmarks of climate change. By raising the baseline temperature, climate change has made it more likely for record highs to be set while decreasing the odds of record lows. In a world that wasn’t warming, that ratio would remain constant right around 1-to-1, but research has shown that hasn’t been the case with highs outpacing lows more and more with each passing decade.

•••••

There has been a huge geographical spread of warm and downright hot weather stretching across the U.S. The latest bout of warm weather has seen Milwaukee reach 71°F, Madison hit 68°F and Green Bay crack 65°F on Wednesday. All are February records and about 30°F above normal for this time of year.

Galveston, Texas also set a daily record on Thursday at 76°F, the seventh time that’s happened this month. Memphis airport set a record topping out at 76°F, and well, the list goes on.

The warmth hasn’t just broken records. It has been long lasting, too. Atlanta has cracked 70°F four times in the past week and has now had more 70°F days in 2017 than any other year-to-date. Dallas has set a similar record for the most 80°F days, according to Capital Weather Gang.

Miami has had 54 days above 80°F while also failing to dip below 50°F this winter. Both are record-setting marks, according to Brian McNoldy, a climate researcher at the University of Miami.

More daily records are in danger of falling across the Northeast for the latter half of the week as warm weather continues its march across the country. On the Texas-Mexico border, it’s possible temperatures could crack 100°F on Thursday.

This year’s freakish February numbers only tell part of the story. The warm weather has acted like a time machine, turning the clock more than a month forward in places.

In the Southeast, locations are seeing spring arrive up to four weeks early, according to the U.S. National Phenology Network spring leaf index. Spring coming earlier is another hallmark of climate change.

•••••

Biologists say half of all species could be extinct by end of century

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/feb/25/half-all-species-extinct-end-century-vatican-conference

Robin McKie
Feb. 25, 2017

One in five species on Earth now faces extinction, and that will rise to 50% by the end of the century unless urgent action is taken. That is the stark view of the world’s leading biologists, ecologists and economists who will gather on Monday to determine the social and economic changes needed to save the planet’s biosphere.

“The living fabric of the world is slipping through our fingers without our showing much sign of caring,” say the organisers of the Biological Extinction conference held at the Vatican this week.

Threatened creatures such as the tiger or rhino may make occasional headlines, but little attention is paid to the eradication of most other life forms, they argue. But as the conference will hear, these animals and plants provide us with our food and medicine. They purify our water and air while also absorbing carbon emissions from our cars and factories, regenerating soil, and providing us with aesthetic inspiration.
Over half of world's wild primate species face extinction, report reveals
Read more

“Rich western countries are now siphoning up the planet’s resources and destroying its ecosystems at an unprecedented rate,” said biologist Paul Ehrlich, of Stanford University in California. “We want to build highways across the Serengeti to get more rare earth minerals for our cellphones. We grab all the fish from the sea, wreck the coral reefs and put carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. We have triggered a major extinction event. The question is: how do we stop it?”

•••••

Facebook down: App kicks users out of their accounts and doesn't let them back in

http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/gadgets-and-tech/news/facebook-down-app-website-site-broken-not-working-is-it-me-outage-problems-bugs-server-issues-a7598571.html

Andrew Griffin
Feb. 24, 2017

Facebook is kicking people out of their accounts and won't let them back in.

The issues appear to be the result of key parts of the Facebook infrastructure not working.

Some people are seeing strange alerts, like the site telling them that all of their messages have been deleted for being spam. Others are sent back to the login screen and then told that their accounts can't be verified.

Even more concerning messages seem to suggest that a users' account has been hacked and so they have been signed out or their password has been changed. Others request that people change their password because of an apparent hack, but that password will then not work as a way of getting into their account.

•••••

The problems are occurring across the world, according to the website Down Detector. In particular they are hitting Europe and the East coast of the US, but that might be a consequence of time zones rather than the geography of the problems.

Friday, February 24, 2017

Informative links



https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/feb/23/pope-francis-better-to-be-atheist-than-hypocritical-catholic
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/23/upshot/dismal-results-from-vouchers-surprise-researchers-as-devos-era-begins.html?mwrsm=Facebook
http://www.alternet.org/activism/verge-constitutional-collapse?akid=15228.275465.R356IO&rd=1&src=newsletter1072659&t=2
https://www.wired.com/2017/02/cognitive-bias-president-trump-understands-better/
http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2017/02/27/why-facts-dont-change-our-minds
http://www.cnn.com/interactive/2017/02/health/nursing-home-aide-rape-charges/

Tuesday, February 21, 2017

Informative links



http://wusfnews.wusf.usf.edu/post/florida-had-unusual-presidential-write-votes#stream/0
http://www.nbcnews.com/health/health-news/cats-don-t-cause-mental-illness-study-finds-n723866
http://www.ecowatch.com/chicks-left-to-die-2275976312.html
https://insideclimatenews.org/news/16022017/arctic-sea-ice-extent-nasa-global-warming-climate-change
All told, the invalid ballots outnumbered Republican Trump's margin of victory over Democrat Clinton of nearly 113,000 votes to clinch Florida's 29 electoral votes.
http://politicaldig.com/poor-suffering-trumpsters-just-got-owned/
https://www.yahoo.com/news/millions-sign-petitions-british-lawmakers-debate-trumps-state-204056862.html
http://www.cbsnews.com/news/kind-ceo-daniel-lubetzky-on-feed-the-truth-nutrition-policy-special-interest-lobbyists/
http://www.cbsnews.com/news/cave-life-mexico-might-be-50000-years-old/
http://www.cbsnews.com/news/teen-suicide-attempts-fell-as-same-sex-marriage-became-legal/
http://www.cbsnews.com/news/woman-jumps-on-back-of-man-attacking-baton-rouge-police-officer/
http://money.cnn.com/2017/02/20/technology/uber-sexism-allegations/index.html

Draft of first Trump budget would cut legal aid for millions of poor Americans

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/feb/21/trump-draft-budget-legal-aid-low-income

Tom McCarthy
Feb. 21, 2017

Cuts in Donald Trump’s first draft budget to funding for legal aid for millions of Americans could strip much-needed protections from victims of domestic violence, people with disabilities, families facing foreclosure and veterans in need, justice equality advocates warned Tuesday.

A Trump draft budget circulated over the weekend called for the elimination of the Legal Services Corporation (LSC), which has a $375m annual budget and provides free legal assistance to low-income people and others in need of help, with cases involving disability benefits, disaster relief, elder abuse, fair pay, wheelchair access, low-income tax credits, unlawful eviction, child support, consumer scams, school lunch, predatory lending and much more.
Trump budget plan could add $6tn to public debt in a decade, analysts say
Read more

The legal aid program, which represents a miniscule portion of the government’s projected $4tn budget, is one of many small but mighty programs flagged for elimination in Trump’s draft budget. Others include the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, Americorps and the National Endowments for the Arts and Humanities. Critics of the cuts point out that they won’t budge the deficit but would erode quality of life and threaten the most vulnerable.

The possible legal aid cuts would come at a time when potentially softer enforcement by the Trump administration of laws to punish domestic violence, protect Americans with disabilities and combat discriminatory housing practices could create a spike in demand, said Rebecca Buckwalter-Poza, a fellow at the Center for American Progress who has written on the issue.

•••••

“And what’s so disturbing about the potential for the administration to eliminate LSC altogether is that at the same time, you have a Department of Justice that’s probably not going to enforce the types of legislation on the government’s side that supplements private action, like the Fair Housing Act or the Americans With Disabilities Act. And at the same time that they’re going to stop doing that, people are going to have fewer options for seeking out free legal assistance.”

Linda Klein, president of the American Bar Association, the lawyers’ organization, said that the Legal Services Corporation assured “access to justice for all, the very idea that propelled our nation to independence”.

“Our nation’s core values are reflected in the LSC’s work in securing housing for veterans, freeing seniors from scams, serving rural areas when others won’t, protecting battered women, helping disaster survivors back to their feet, and many others,” Klein said in a statement. “Thirty cost-benefit analyses all show that legal aid returns far more benefits than costs to communities across America.”

The legal services corporation was created by a 1974 law, signed by Richard Nixon, acknowledging a “need to provide equal access to the system of justice in our nation”. The corporation helped an estimated 1.8m people in 2013, 70% of them women living near or below the poverty line. But studies indicate that legal aid offices turn away about 50% of clients in need owing to a lack of resources.

Trump’s proposed budget is not all – or even mostly – cuts. It emerged on Tuesday that the president had directed the Department of Homeland Security to hire 10,000 more customs and immigration agents. Trump has vowed to build a border wall costing billions and to ramp up military spending.

•••••

Monday, February 20, 2017

Climate impacts fuelling South Sudan war says minister

http://www.climatechangenews.com/2014/05/30/climate-impacts-fuelling-south-sudan-war-says-minister/

30/05/2014
By Sophie Yeo in Cancun

Climate change is exacerbating the civil war in South Sudan, according to the country’s environment minister, Deng Deng Hoc Yai.

He warned that the environmental damage caused by global warming was increasing the suffering that war was already causing in the strife-ridden country, worsening food shortages and building pressure on urban areas.

•••••

While most credit the current conflict to ethnic tensions and a dispute between the President and his deputy, the situation in South Sudan adds credence to scientists’ theories that climate change can act as a “threat multiplier”, aggravating the effects of pre-existing violence and triggering further tension, creating security threats in vulnerable countries.

•••••

But war can also act as an opportunity for countries to rebuild in a way that will help them to deal with the impacts of climate change, said Haddijatou Jallow, who leads the Environmental Protection Agency in Sierra Leone, another country to have recently experienced a civil war.

She told RTCC that rebuilding the country almost from scratch after the destruction caused by eleven years of violence had allowed it to embed climate into its constitution, including the 2008 Environment Protection Agency Act.

“What war does, it reduces you to zero, so you have to go back to the drawing board and literally start all over again,” she said.

“Starting all over again, that is an opportunity again to build adaptive measures, mitigation measures, and ensure that you put in mechanisms that will lessen the impacts of climate change.”

She added that climate measures had contributed to the country’s economic boom—a growth of around 17% in 2002, the year in which the civil war ended—although the immediate concerns of the population could still threaten to overshadow the environmental agenda.

•••••

Famine declared in South Sudan

http://www.cnn.com/2017/02/20/africa/south-sudan-famine/index.html

By Farai Sevenzo and Bryony Jones, CNN
Updated 6:13 PM ET, Mon February 20, 2017

Years of civil war, a refugee crisis and a collapsing economy have taken their toll on South Sudan since it gained its independence in 2011.

Now the UN World Food Programme and nongovernmental organizations are sounding the alarm, warning that more than a million children are suffering from acute malnutrition.
"Our worst fears have been realized," said Serge Tissot, of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations. "Many families have exhausted every means they have to survive."

•••••

Drew said the famine was "a man-made tragedy" and called for an end to the fighting so aid could get through to those most in need.

•••••

Fomiyen said humanitarian groups had found it extremely difficult to reach the hardest-hit areas.
"We have to talk to 10 to 15 people and ask if it's possible to send a team there," he said. "You cannot just access these places without prior agreement."
Fomiyen said the program's food supplies will run out unless it can secure "a substantial injection of funds" -- $205 million -- within the next six months.
"We are quite concerned that we do not have the resources," he said. "We could run out of food by the end of June. The needs are so huge; every time you are entering a new front, a new battle."

•••••

Fomiyen said humanitarian groups had found it extremely difficult to reach the hardest-hit areas.
"We have to talk to 10 to 15 people and ask if it's possible to send a team there," he said. "You cannot just access these places without prior agreement."
Fomiyen said the program's food supplies will run out unless it can secure "a substantial injection of funds" -- $205 million -- within the next six months.
"We are quite concerned that we do not have the resources," he said. "We could run out of food by the end of June. The needs are so huge; every time you are entering a new front, a new battle."

•••••

South Sudan is the world's newest country. It gained its independence from Sudan in 2011, after years of civil war.
But after two years of relative peace, trouble broke out between President Salva Kiir's mainly Dinka army and the Nuer people of his former deputy Riek Machar.
Since July 2016 that fighting has intensified to draw in other ethnic groups and render the countryside, including the formerly agriculturally rich Equatoria region, a permanent war zone that has been producing refugees instead of food.

Informative links


http://www.cnn.com/2017/02/20/politics/donald-trump-golfing-presidency/index.html
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/poaching-forest-elephants-mink%C3%A9b%C3%A9-gabon-africa_us_58ab4c3ae4b0a855d1d8bfe5
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/climate-consensus-97-per-cent/2017/feb/20/expect-to-see-more-emergencies-like-oroville-dam-in-a-hotter-world?CMP=share_btn_fb
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/feb/19/donald-trump-palm-beach-florida-social-set-wealth-mar-a-lago
http://www.ecowatch.com/abolish-epa-bill-pruitt-2267818117.html
http://www.cnn.com/2017/02/19/world/putin-critic-leaves-hospital/index.html
http://click.email.bostonglobe.com/?qs=719e42d8836cd7b7a05fe5d01f4f12c88d4a3ebeb670d488cd73c834a1554af00fd6cac499bc3eee3b409daef557b16b02d066a6e57a36b9
http://click.email.bostonglobe.com/?qs=719e42d8836cd7b7a05fe5d01f4f12c88d4a3ebeb670d488cd73c834a1554af00fd6cac499bc3eee3b409daef557b16b02d066a6e57a36b9
https://www.quora.com/Can-you-share-some-of-the-ways-to-de-escalate-and-smooth-things-over-with-narcissists/answer/Elinor-Greenberg
http://click.email.bostonglobe.com/?qs=53324b020526fc5c7a73b9202f7460bedb8033a1de59014d5f29ddd3b2bc63e327bc0f08ec76e7f3da2dbf44b5b43134f43efd4383c3e408
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/citizen-trump-likely-wouldnt-get-a-security-clearance-heres-why/2017/02/17/b2a7258e-f492-11e6-b9c9-e83fce42fb61_story.html?utm_term=.666e85365e7f&wpisrc=nl_most-draw14&wpmm=1
http://link.washingtonpost.com/click/8908488.303763/aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cud2FzaGluZ3RvbnBvc3QuY29tL3dvcmxkL2NoaW5hLXN1c3BlbmRzLW5vcnRoLWtvcmVhcy1jb2FsLWltcG9ydHMtc3RyaWtpbmctYXQtcmVnaW1lcy1maW5hbmNpYWwtbGlmZWxpbmUvMjAxNy8wMi8xOC84MzkwYjBlNi1mNWRmLTExZTYtYTliMC1lY2VlN2NlNDc1ZmNfc3RvcnkuaHRtbD93cGlzcmM9bmxfbW9zdC1kcmF3MTQmd3BtbT0x/584c4aa1e661f00c188b4925B28f0aabf
http://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/2017/02/18/scientists-feel-compelled-speak-out-trump/pJwmb99B5DdEyQA2T2dCLL/story.html?s_campaign=email_BG_TodaysHeadline&s_campaign=
http://www.bostonglobe.com/opinion/editorials/2017/02/19/don-cut-america-digital-lifeline/HsGS6liYOOhgeKNosZMYXI/story.html?s_campaign=email_BG_TodaysHeadline&s_campaign=
http://www.bostonglobe.com/business/2017/02/18/poverty-rising-affluent-communities/RzVJc6DyV7nfmlhEyhnCqJ/story.html?s_campaign=email_BG_TodaysHeadline&s_campaign=
http://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/2017/02/18/seas-rise-city-mulls-massive-sea-barrier-across-boston-harbor/dxtlbGrfSmYE2zacwUKakJ/story.html
https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2012/07/the-startling-accuracy-of-referring-to-politicians-as-psychopaths/260517/
http://thehill.com/blogs/congress-blog/energy-environment/318178-in-todays-hearing-smith-takes-aim-at-public-health#.WJndwqaOtaU.facebook%E2%80%AC
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/17/nyregion/new-york-math-camp.html
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/18/opinion/sunday/the-social-scientific-case-against-a-muslim-ban.html?_r=0

Sunday, February 19, 2017

Informative links


https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/feb/19/donald-trump-palm-beach-florida-social-set-wealth-mar-a-lago
http://www.ecowatch.com/abolish-epa-bill-pruitt-2267818117.html
http://www.cnn.com/2017/02/19/world/putin-critic-leaves-hospital/index.html
http://click.email.bostonglobe.com/?qs=719e42d8836cd7b7a05fe5d01f4f12c88d4a3ebeb670d488cd73c834a1554af00fd6cac499bc3eee3b409daef557b16b02d066a6e57a36b9
http://click.email.bostonglobe.com/?qs=719e42d8836cd7b7a05fe5d01f4f12c88d4a3ebeb670d488cd73c834a1554af00fd6cac499bc3eee3b409daef557b16b02d066a6e57a36b9
https://www.quora.com/Can-you-share-some-of-the-ways-to-de-escalate-and-smooth-things-over-with-narcissists/answer/Elinor-Greenberg
http://click.email.bostonglobe.com/?qs=53324b020526fc5c7a73b9202f7460bedb8033a1de59014d5f29ddd3b2bc63e327bc0f08ec76e7f3da2dbf44b5b43134f43efd4383c3e408
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/citizen-trump-likely-wouldnt-get-a-security-clearance-heres-why/2017/02/17/b2a7258e-f492-11e6-b9c9-e83fce42fb61_story.html?utm_term=.666e85365e7f&wpisrc=nl_most-draw14&wpmm=1
http://link.washingtonpost.com/click/8908488.303763/aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cud2FzaGluZ3RvbnBvc3QuY29tL3dvcmxkL2NoaW5hLXN1c3BlbmRzLW5vcnRoLWtvcmVhcy1jb2FsLWltcG9ydHMtc3RyaWtpbmctYXQtcmVnaW1lcy1maW5hbmNpYWwtbGlmZWxpbmUvMjAxNy8wMi8xOC84MzkwYjBlNi1mNWRmLTExZTYtYTliMC1lY2VlN2NlNDc1ZmNfc3RvcnkuaHRtbD93cGlzcmM9bmxfbW9zdC1kcmF3MTQmd3BtbT0x/584c4aa1e661f00c188b4925B28f0aabf
http://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/2017/02/18/scientists-feel-compelled-speak-out-trump/pJwmb99B5DdEyQA2T2dCLL/story.html?s_campaign=email_BG_TodaysHeadline&s_campaign=
http://www.bostonglobe.com/opinion/editorials/2017/02/19/don-cut-america-digital-lifeline/HsGS6liYOOhgeKNosZMYXI/story.html?s_campaign=email_BG_TodaysHeadline&s_campaign=
http://www.bostonglobe.com/business/2017/02/18/poverty-rising-affluent-communities/RzVJc6DyV7nfmlhEyhnCqJ/story.html?s_campaign=email_BG_TodaysHeadline&s_campaign=
http://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/2017/02/18/seas-rise-city-mulls-massive-sea-barrier-across-boston-harbor/dxtlbGrfSmYE2zacwUKakJ/story.html
https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2012/07/the-startling-accuracy-of-referring-to-politicians-as-psychopaths/260517/
http://thehill.com/blogs/congress-blog/energy-environment/318178-in-todays-hearing-smith-takes-aim-at-public-health#.WJndwqaOtaU.facebook%E2%80%AC
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/17/nyregion/new-york-math-camp.html
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/18/opinion/sunday/the-social-scientific-case-against-a-muslim-ban.html?_r=0

Droughts and flooding rains already more likely as climate change plays havoc with Pacific weather

https://www.facebook.com/events/1471519816216290/?notif_t=plan_user_invited¬if_id=1487553803857050

Feb. 8, 2017

Global warming has already increased the risk of major disruptions to Pacific rainfall, according to our research published today in Nature Communications. The risk will continue to rise over coming decades, even if global warming during the 21st century is restricted to 2℃ as agreed by the international community under the Paris Agreement.

In recent times, major disruptions have occurred in 1997-98, when severe drought struck Papua New Guinea, Samoa and the Solomon Islands, and in 2010-11, when rainfall caused widespread flooding in eastern Australia and severe flooding in Samoa, and drought triggered a national emergency in Tuvalu.

These rainfall disruptions are primarily driven by the El Niño/La Niña cycle, a naturally occurring phenomenon centred on the tropical Pacific. This climate variability can profoundly change rainfall patterns and intensity over the Pacific Ocean from year to year.

•••••

Recent research concluded that unabated growth in greenhouse gas emissions over the 21st century will increase the frequency of such disruptions to Pacific rainfall.

But our new research shows even the greenhouse cuts we have agreed to may not be enough to stop the risk of rainfall disruption from growing as the century unfolds.

•••••

While changes to the frequency of major changes in Pacific rainfall appear likely in the future, is it possible that humans have already increased the risk of major disruption?

It seems that we have: the frequency of major rainfall disruptions in the climate models had already increased by around 30% relative to pre-industrial times prior to the year 2000.

As the risk of major disruption to Pacific rainfall had already increased by the end of the 20th century, some of the disruption actually witnessed in the real world may have been partially due to the human release of greenhouse gases. The 1982-83 super El Niño event, for example, might have been less severe if global greenhouse emissions had not risen since the Industrial Revolution.

•••••

Saturday, February 18, 2017

Informative links


https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/16/upshot/republican-health-proposal-would-redirect-money-from-poor-to-rich.html?_r=0
http://www.salon.com/2017/01/11/new-report-suggests-donald-trumps-debts-are-1-5-billion-higher-than-previously-indicated/
http://money.cnn.com/2017/01/05/news/wall-street-journal-trump-business/
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/donald-trump-russia-hillary-clinton-fbi-letter-accusation-question-twitter-robby-mook-a7581316.html
http://harvardpolitics.com/culture/the-alabamafication-of-america/
http://www.forbes.com/sites/drewhansen/2016/02/09/unless-it-changes-capitalism-will-starve-humanity-by-2050/#42c15d784a36
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/congress-intends-to-destroy-your-rights-and-hopes-you_us_58a6263fe4b0fa149f9ac3b3?
https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2017-02-16/industrial-revolution-comparisons-aren-t-comforting?cmpid%253D=socialflow-twitter-view
http://www.cbsnews.com/news/nasa-satellite-spots-mile-long-iceberg-breaking-off-of-antarctic-glacier/
http://www.cbsnews.com/news/as-car-crash-deaths-rise-experts-say-were-not-doing-the-right-things-prevention/
http://www.cbsnews.com/news/mri-brain-scans-might-help-predict-autism-in-babies-before-symptoms-appear/
http://www.cbsnews.com/news/climate-change-is-transforming-the-worlds-food-supply/
http://www.cbsnews.com/news/antarctica-penguin-population-declining-as-glacier-recedes-and-ice-disappears/
http://time.com/4669401/americans-election-stress-anxiety/
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/is-the-dow-jones-index-misleading_us_58a64b5ae4b0fa149f9ac40d

Trump transition ordered government economists to cook up rosy growth forecasts

No surprise that Trump admires Russia since this is how they have done things there.

http://economistsview.typepad.com/economistsview/2017/02/report-trump-transition-ordered-government-economists-to-cook-up-rosy-growth-forecasts.html

http://www.vox.com/2017/2/17/14651208/trump-budget-forecast

Updated by Matthew Yglesias@mattyglesiasmatt@vox.com Feb 17, 2017

As the White House staff tries to put together a budget for President Donald Trump, they face a fundamental problem. Trump has promised to cut taxes, increase spending on the military and infrastructure, and avoid cuts to Social Security and Medicare. The only way to do that without producing an exploding budget deficit is to assume a big increase in economic growth.

And Nick Timiraos at the Wall Street Journal reports that Trump is planning to do just that — by making things up.

Deep into his story about Trump budget hijinks, Timiraos reveals that “what’s unusual about the administration’s forecasts isn’t just their relative optimism but also the process by which they were derived.” Specifically, what’s unusual about them is that they weren’t derived by any process at all. Instead of letting economists build a forecast, Trump’s budget was put together with “transition officials telling the CEA staff the growth targets that their budget would produce and asking them to backfill other estimates off those figures.”

Staff has been ordered to project that inflation-adjusted growth will average between 3 and 3.5 percent over the next decade, eventually settling at around 3.2 percent.

That’s drastically higher than the estimates provided by the Congressional Budget Office and the Federal Reserve, both of which see the economy growing at a bit less than 2 percent. The make-believe reasoning the administration is giving for this is that “a regulatory rollback and a tax-code revamp will unleash growth that drives a recovery in productivity, sends business investment higher and draws idled workers back to the labor force.”

At the same time, however, it’s projecting that an uptick in economic growth won’t lead to higher interest rates, “because the U.S. would become a more attractive place to park money.”

•••••

It’s customary for the White House to produce a budget forecast that is a bit rosier than what Congress, the Federal Reserve, or private sector forecasts generate. It’s unusually for it to be so wildly at odds with the consensus.

That’s in part because most presidents lack Trump’s shamelessness. Another part is that most presidents would worry that if you order CEA staff to make up fake numbers, they will leak that to the Wall Street Journal.

•••••

Friday, February 17, 2017

Interesting links


http://www.wvgazettemail.com/news-cops-and-courts/20170214/judge-blasts-wvdep-epa-over-lack-of-mine-pollution-cleanup
This is what the republicans will do to our whole country, except for their own property. At the same time, they get enraged if they have to look at windmills near their property.

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/16/business/dealbook/unitedhealthcare-improperly-took-money-from-medicare-suit-says.html?_r=0
https://www.yahoo.com/news/duterte-targets-philippine-children-bid-widen-drug-war-132029560.html
https://www.yahoo.com/news/m/fdba7472-3e11-3850-9558-f47874efb9a2/d.c.-region-has-deficient.html
https://www.yahoo.com/news/m/e11d8e23-9ce8-3d1d-8343-48e404d2f13f/report%3A-more-than-55%2C000-us.html
http://www.thefiscaltimes.com/2015/03/25/478B-Infrastructure-Bill-Blocked-Senate-GOP
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/politics/ct-donald-trump-infrastructure-spending-20161111-story.html
http://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/russian-aircraft-buzzed-u-s-destroyer-black-sea-pentagon-n721086?cid=sm_npd_nn_fb_ma
https://insideclimatenews.org/news/13022017/arctic-heat-wave-climate-change-australia-oklahoma-texas
http://www.norwichbulletin.com/news/20170208/trump-administration-halts-penalties-against-firms-that-punish-nuclear-whistleblowers
http://www.cbs46.com/clip/13095396/cancer-treatment-center-says-theyre-forced-to-turn-georgia-residents-away
http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/politics/2015/11/robert_lewis_dear_is_one_of_many_religious_extremists_bred_in_north_carolina.html
http://www.collective-evolution.com/2016/04/08/doctors-explain-how-hiking-actually-changes-our-brains/?utm_source=medmas&utm_campaign=ewao_network&utm_medium=social
http://snip.ly/or29t#http://thehill.com/blogs/pundits-blog/energy-environment/319020-the-unintended-consequences-of-the-congressional-review
https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2017/feb/14/bakersfield-california-bad-air-pollution-us
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/feb/14/canada-sixities-scoop-ruling-first-nations-children
http://www.cbsnews.com/news/not-just-any-kind-of-tax-cut-can-boost-economic-growth/
http://www.today.com/health/birth-order-first-borns-get-intellectual-advantage-t108042

Thursday, February 16, 2017

Millions of premature births could be linked to air pollution

https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2017/feb/16/premature-births-air-pollution-maternal-health-who-study

Jessica Glenza
Feb. 16, 2017

Air pollution could be a contributing factor in millions of premature births around the world each year, a new report has found.

Nearly 15 million babies are born annually before reaching 37 weeks gestation. Premature birth is the leading cause of death among children younger than five years old, and can cause lifelong learning disabilities, visual and hearing problems, the World Health Organization (WHO) reports.

Researchers for the Stockholm Environment Institute (SEI), the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine and the University of Colorado, have concluded that as many as 3.4 million premature births across 183 countries could be associated with fine particulate matter, a common air pollutant, with sub-Saharan Africa, north Africa and south and east Asia most impacted by the issue.

“Preterm birth and associated conditions are one of the biggest killers of children in the US and worldwide,” said Dr Paul Jarris, chief medical officer at the March of Dimes, a US-based nonprofit focused on maternal and baby health. “Yet, there’s a lot of things we don’t know about what causes preterm birth, so every bit of information we can get is helpful.”
Are you at risk? How pollution increases your chance of death – interactive
Read more

“We have known for a long time that air pollution contributes to asthma and heart disease in adults,” said Jarris. “What I think people fail to recognise is that so many of these risk factors impact babies before they are even born.”

•••••

“By showing in our study that 18% of preterm births are associated with air pollution, we are quantifying the health impacts of fine particulate matter on babies before they are born,” said Chris Malley, a researcher in SEI’s York Centre, at the University of York and lead author on the study.

Each year, around one in every 10 babies worldwide are born prematurely, according to the WHO. Africa and south Asia bear a disproportionate burden of premature births, accounting for 60% of all premature births globally. That region also dominated SEI’s report of premature birth associated with air pollution.

•••••

A similar study conducted in the US found that air pollution had a costly impact on unborn children, estimating that the economic impacts cost $4.33bn in 2010.

•••••

Scientists have just detected a major change to the Earth’s oceans linked to a warming climate

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/energy-environment/wp/2017/02/15/its-official-the-oceans-are-losing-oxygen-posing-growing-threats-to-marine-life/?utm_term=.6a9e726e8642&wpisrc=nl_most&wpmm=1

By Chris Mooney February 15, 2017

A large research synthesis, published in one of the world’s most influential scientific journals, has detected a decline in the amount of dissolved oxygen in oceans around the world — a long-predicted result of climate change that could have severe consequences for marine organisms if it continues.

The paper, published Wednesday in the journal Nature by oceanographer Sunke Schmidtko and two colleagues from the GEOMAR Helmholtz Centre for Ocean Research in Kiel, Germany, found a decline of more than 2 percent in ocean oxygen content worldwide between 1960 and 2010. The loss, however, showed up in some ocean basins more than others. The largest overall volume of oxygen was lost in the largest ocean — the Pacific — but as a percentage, the decline was sharpest in the Arctic Ocean, a region facing Earth’s most stark climate change.

•••••

Ocean oxygen is vital to marine organisms, but also very delicate — unlike in the atmosphere, where gases mix together thoroughly, in the ocean that is far harder to accomplish, Schmidtko explained. Moreover, he added, just 1 percent of all the Earth’s available oxygen mixes into the ocean; the vast majority remains in the air.

Climate change models predict the oceans will lose oxygen because of several factors. Most obvious is simply that warmer water holds less dissolved gases, including oxygen. “It’s the same reason we keep our sparkling drinks pretty cold,” Schmidtko said.

But another factor is the growing stratification of ocean waters. Oxygen enters the ocean at its surface, from the atmosphere and from the photosynthetic activity of marine microorganisms. But as that upper layer warms up, the oxygen-rich waters are less likely to mix down into cooler layers of the ocean because the warm waters are less dense and do not sink as readily.

“When the upper ocean warms, less water gets down deep, and so therefore, the oxygen supply to the deep ocean is shut down or significantly reduced,” Schmidtko said.

The new study represents a synthesis of literally “millions” of separate ocean measurements over time, according to GEOMAR. The authors then used interpolation techniques for areas of the ocean where they lacked measurements.

The resulting study attributes less than 15 percent of the total oxygen loss to sheer warmer temperatures, which create less solubility. The rest was attributed to other factors, such as a lack of mixing.

•••••

On top of all of that, declining ocean oxygen can also worsen global warming in a feedback loop. In or near low oxygen areas of the oceans, microorganisms tend to produce nitrous oxide, a greenhouse gas, Gilbert writes. Thus the new study “implies that production rates and efflux to the atmosphere of nitrous oxide … will probably have increased.”

•••••

When it comes to ocean deoxygenation, as climate change continues, this trend should also increase — studies suggest a loss of up to 7 percent of the ocean’s oxygen by 2100. At the end of the current paper, the researchers are blunt about the consequences of a continuing loss of oceanic oxygen.

“Far-reaching implications for marine ecosystems and fisheries can be expected,” they write.

January 2017: Earth's 3rd Warmest January on Record

https://www.wunderground.com/blog/JeffMasters/january-2017-earths-3rd-warmest-january-on-record-lake-oroville-wat

By: Jeff Masters and Bob Henson , 5:38 PM GMT on February 16, 2017

January 2017 was the planet's third warmest January since record keeping began in 1880, said NOAA's National Centers for Environmental Information (NCEI) on Thursday. NASA also rated January 2016 as the third warmest January on record. The only warmer Januarys were 2016 (highest) and 2007 (second highest). Global ocean temperatures during January 2017 were the second warmest on record, and global land temperatures were the third warmest on record. Global satellite-measured temperatures in January 2017 for the lowest 8 km of the atmosphere were the sixth warmest in the 39-year record, according to the University of Alabama Huntsville (UAH).

It's remarkable that Earth saw its third warmest January on record without any help from El Niño, which works to raise global air temperatures by exporting heat from the oceans. Sea-surface temperatures in the Niño 3.4 region of the tropical Pacific rose into the cool side of the neutral range during January, although a La Niña Advisory was still in effect. In contrast, the warmest and second warmest Januarys (2007 and 2016) both occurred during an El Niño event.

•••••

Wednesday, February 15, 2017

Russian ship hysteria

Maybe Russia has positioned it's ship near the U.S. to give Trump a chance to talk tough, then the Russian ship will back off, and Trump will have more support.


http://www.snopes.com/russian-spy-ship-east-coast/

A quick search of news stories makes it clear that sightings of similar Russian vessels happen with some regularity. In July 2016, the U.S. Navy reported seeing a spy ship in international waters off the Hawaiian coast. In January 2015, the Viktor Leonov was seen docked in Havana on the eve of a historic visit by senior U.S. delegates to Cuba.

Naveed Jamali, a former intelligence operative who worked undercover for the FBI against Russian intelligence, told us the sighting isn’t surprising because it’s nothing new, and in the minds of the Russians, the U.S. is an adversary:

I spent four years working against the Russians undercover and I can say that for the Russians, the Cold War never ended and the U.S. is still their main adversary. They see that hurting the United States is in their national interest. They can’t compete with us militarily and economically and it’s easier for them to bring us down than for them to build up those capabilities, so in essence, weakening the U.S. by extension strengthens Russia. They want to be a world power again, so showing that they can reach out and touch us is a way of making that point.
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Tuesday, February 14, 2017

Not just any kind of tax cut can boost economic growth

http://economistsview.typepad.com/economistsview/2017/02/what-type-of-tax-changes-boost-economic-growth.html

http://www.cbsnews.com/news/not-just-any-kind-of-tax-cut-can-boost-economic-growth/

President Donald Trump promised last week he would unveil a “phenomenal” tax reform package in the next few weeks. Although no details were offered, Mr. Trump’s past statements suggest that his proposal will adhere to fairly standard supply-side principles.

The idea behind supply-side policy is to encourage more investment, more labor effort and technological innovation through changes in the tax code and regulatory structure.

Have these policies been successful in the past? Are some types of policies better than others at spurring economic growth?

•••••

The Bush and Reagan tax cuts featured large tax cuts for wealthy households. According to proponents, allowing the wealthy to keep more of their income will increase the returns from taking risks on new business ventures and spur new, innovative businesses activity.

However, as many studies have shown, both presidents’ tax cuts had little, if any, impact on economic growth. For example, a report from the nonpartisan Congressional Research Service concluded that “The reduction in the top tax rates appears to be uncorrelated with saving, investment, and productivity growth. The top tax rates appear to have little or no relation to the size of the economic pie.”

Tax cuts for the wealthy did shift the distribution of income toward the top of the income distribution, and the reductions increased the federal deficit significantly, resulting in pressure to cut social programs, but they produced little in terms of growth.

Reduce taxes on capital gains and dividends: Lowered taxes on capital gains and dividends have also been a prominent feature of past Republican tax plans. But as with tax cuts for the wealthy, they haven’t done much to generate higher economic growth.

•••••

Another argument holds that corporate tax cuts make U.S. businesses more competitive with foreign businesses. But it’s not at all clear such cuts are needed because the effective tax rate for U.S. businesses -- the rate they actually pay as opposed to the statutory rate -- is not all that different from the rate in other countries.

•••••

The question then is whether the increase in investment the tax change is supposed to bring about, which would likely be small, is worthwhile, given how the tax burden would shift to consumers. If that shift came with an increase in the generosity of social programs so that consumers are better off overall, it might be worth supporting. (This is essentially how the value added tax works in Europe: It’s very regressive, but redistribution through government spending and transfers makes that system highly progressive overall.)

But if anything, the GOP-controlled Congress has hinted it would instead trim spending on social welfare programs, so this wouldn’t be a good deal for the typical American household.

•••••

Tax credits that encourage corporate R&D, support basic research and foster the formation of new, innovative businesses can have large payoffs for economic growth.

•••••

Support of basic research -- the discovery of new knowledge with no direct connection to the development of new products, at least initially -- has had a surprisingly large payoff in the past. With productivity falling in recent years, bolstering this type of research is essential.

In addition, support for higher education (along with improvements in elementary and high school so students are prepared when they get there) is needed so that American has an educated workforce ready to put new discoveries into place.

•••••

However, if the president’s tax policy leans heavily toward cuts for the wealthy, cuts to capital gains and dividends, and a shift in taxes from corporations to households -- as I suspect they will -- the effects on growth will be minimal, if history is any guide.

The main effects will likely be an even faster increase in inequality, higher government deficits and pressure to cut programs such as Social Security and Medicare that workers and their families increasingly rely on.

Monday, February 13, 2017

Australian Heat Wave Raises Concern for Country's New, Sizzling Normal

https://insideclimatenews.org/news/13022017/australia-heatwave-climate-change-sydney-melbourne

By Bob Berwyn, InsideClimate News
Feb 13, 2017

A summer heatwave scorched the most populated parts of Australia over the weekend, with temperatures topping 107 degrees Fahrenheit in Sydney and 96 degrees in Melbourne, with readings up to 117 degrees farther inland.

As wildfires raged and several weather stations reported all-time and monthly record highs, climate scientists warned that the this summer's extreme heat, super-charged by climate change, is becoming Australia's new normal.

Nearly every week has brought extreme heat this summer, but the latest surge was exceptional by encompassing nearly all of New South Wales, home to the capital Sydney and 7.5 million people. The average maximum temperature hit 111.2 degrees Fahrenheit Saturday across about 300,000 square miles, similar to an area the size of the southeastern U.S.

Temperatures were even hotter during the Great Heat Wave of 2013, but those extreme readings were concentrated in the less-populated, central area of the country.

The Australian Bureau of Meteorology reported that a weather station at White Cliffs, in the Southeast, recorded the warmest-ever nighttime low temperature in Australia, at 94.3 degrees Fahrenheit. Overnight temperatures are especially important in terms of human health impacts, because if nights don't cool down, people don't have a chance to recover from the extreme daytime temperatures.

Some spots in Queensland, in the Northeast, broke the 40 degree Celsius mark (104 degrees Fahrenheit) for the first time ever—another sign that heatwaves are broaching new frontiers, according to Sarah Perkins-Kirkpatrick of Australia's Climate Change Research Center at the University of New South Wales.

The heat has helped fuel large wildfires and as of late Sunday, 48 fires were burning out of control in New South Wales. Tens of thousands of people were being evacuated in some rural areas, with officials saying the conditions are worse than during the deadly Black Sunday fires that killed 173 people in 2009, Australian media reported. The Australian Bureau of Meteorology expects above-average heat to persist through February and into March.

•••••

"In Canberra, Australia's capital, the number of heat wave days has doubled in the past 60 years. In that same time, the beginning of the heatwave season in Sydney has advanced by three weeks, and in Melbourne, heatwaves are hotter," she said.

The buildup of heat-trapping greenhouse gas pollution in the atmosphere means things will get much worse. By the end of the century, Australia's tropics will see an additional 40-50 heatwave days, while Sydney and Melbourne will see 2030 more days of extreme heat annually.

"What's really interesting about this event is that all the physical mechanisms that drive heat waves are not in place," Perkins-Kirkpatrick said, explaining that normal climate cycles like El Niño and hemispheric wind patterns are not influencing Australia this summer.

"So we should have had average conditions, but what we have had is dominating high pressure systems keeping temperatures persistently hot."

Extreme heat has killed more Australians than any other type of natural disaster in the last 100 years, according to the Australian Climate Council.

Australia has always been prone to hot weather, but long-time researchers like forest and fire ecologist David Bowman said human-caused global warming is now having a noticeable effect.

"In the last few years it has crossed a line—the anomalous weather has become consistently anomalous. I am confident we are seeing climate change play out in bush fires," he said, citing a number of extreme and deadly fires that have blazed across Australia in the past 10 years.

•••••

Australia's current heatwave is just the latest in a series of extreme heat events around the world that are increasingly being linked with the buildup of greenhouse gases in a world that has set a global temperature record three years in a row.

Parts of South America have also warmed to record levels this year, including Chile, where 12 different weather stations set all-time temperature records above 110 degrees Fahrenheit in late January, as the largest wildfires on record in that country swept across more than 300,000 acres, according to Weather Underground.

And 2016 ended with a record heat wave and drought in the Southeast, where conditions also contributed to unusually large and intense wildfires, in some cases in normally moist hardwood forests that don't see much fire.

Sea Ice Hits Record Lows at Both Poles

http://www.climatecentral.org/news/sea-ice-hits-record-lows-both-poles-21160

By Andrea Thompson
Feb. 13, 2017

Arctic temperatures have finally started to cool off after yet another winter heat wave stunted sea ice growth over the weekend. The repeated bouts of warm weather this season have stunned even seasoned polar researchers, and could push the Arctic to a record low winter peak for the third year in a row.

Meanwhile, Antarctic sea ice set an all-time record low on Monday in a dramatic reversal from the record highs of recent years.

Sea ice at both poles has been expected to decline as the planet heats up from the buildup of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. That trend is clear in the Arctic, where summer sea ice now covers half the area it did in the early 1970s. Sea ice levels in Antarctica are much more variable, though, and scientists are still unraveling the processes that affect it from year to year.

The large decline in Arctic sea ice allows the polar ocean to absorb more of the sun’s incoming rays, exacerbating warming in the region. The loss of sea ice also means more of the Arctic coast is battered by storm waves, increasing erosion and driving some native communities to move. The opening of the Arctic has also led to more shipping and commercial activity in an already fragile region.

•••••

Sea ice area isn’t the only way to measure the health of Arctic sea ice; the thickness of the sea ice has also suffered during the repeated incursions of warmth.

Thin ice is more susceptible to melt come spring and summer, though it doesn’t guarantee that summer will also see record lows. For example, despite record low levels of sea ice last summer, cool, cloudy weather kept melt somewhat in check. The season still finished with the second lowest summer minimum on record, though.

Antarctic sea ice is an altogether different beast. Instead of an ice-filled ocean surrounded by land, it is a continent surrounded by ocean that sees much more variability in sea ice levels from year to year for reasons that aren’t fully understood.

For several of the past few years, the sea ice that fringed Antarctic reached record highs. That growth of sea ice could have potentially been caused by the influx of freshwater as glaciers on land melted, or from changes in the winds that whip around the continent (changes that could be linked to warming or the loss of ozone high in the atmosphere).

•••••

But this year, a big spring meltdown in October and November suddenly reversed that trend and has led to continued record low sea ice levels as the summer melt season progressed. On Monday, Antarctic sea ice dropped to an all-time record low, beating out 1997.

•••••

Oroville Dam: California officials ignored warnings a decade ago


Republicans should not evacuate until it is certain that it will be necessary, and until they know precisely when it is necessary. This is what they think we should do about climate disruption.

Global warming is causing an increase in the amount of moisture in the air, and thus more incidences of extreme precipitation. It is also causing snows to melt earlier, which is one of the causes of the Oroville problem.

http://www.cnn.com/2017/02/13/us/oroville-dam-warnings-ignored/index.html

By Chandrika Narayan, CNN
Updated 6:50 PM ET, Mon February 13, 2017

Environmental groups warned nearly 12 years ago that the nation's tallest dam in California was an imminent disaster.
They worried that heavy rain and fast-rising waters could overwhelm the main concrete spillway of the Oroville Dam, overflow the emergency spillway and flood communities downstream.
They were ignored.

And this weekend, some of their fears were realized.
Ron Stork, policy director with Friends of the River, a Sacramento environmental group, said state and federal officials were told to reinforce the spillway.
"We urged them to put concrete on the spillway -- our argument was that without a proper spillway, the hillside would wash away and cause catastrophic flooding," Stork said.
A perfect storm of events led this month to the partial failure of the dam, which provides flood control for the region.
"Extreme hydrologic events precipitated this near-disaster," said Blake Paul Tullis, a professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering at Utah State University.

•••••

Authorities ordered mass evacuations for some 188,000 people, out of concern the spillway could fail and send walls of water roaring downstream. The sudden evacuations sent residents into a panic.

•••••

Stork said he had seen this coming way back in October of 2005 when Friends of the River, along with the Sierra Club and the South Yuba Citizens League, filed a motion with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) as part of Oroville Dam's re-licensing process.
In the motion, they argued that the Oroville Dam -- which was completed in 1968 and owned by the state of California -- did not meet modern safety standards.
They stressed in the motion that the auxiliary spillway was designed to work with a replacement dam that was never built. Without that new dam, the Oroville Dam's auxiliary spillway was designed to be used in in a controlled, infrequent way and not in an emergency capacity, they said.

•••••

The energy regulatory commission rejected their motion to reinforce the emergency spillway with concrete.
Stork said money was an issue.
A response filed by the State Water Contractors and the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California said FERC, which issues the licenses, could not require them to pay the damages required for the upgrades.
The filing also said that flood control arguments were "misdirected and unsupported" due to routine dam safety checks and the uncertain effects of climate change on the river basin.

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