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Planting trees won’t save the planet from climate change

Planting trees won’t save the planet from climate change

Erle C. Ellis, Mark Maslin and Simon Lewis write: One trillion trees. At the World Economic Forum last month, President Trump drew applause when he announced the United States would join the forum’s initiative to plant one trillion trees to fight climate change. More applause for the decision followed at his State of the Union speech. The trillion-tree idea won wide attention last summer after a study published in the journal Science concluded that planting so many trees was “the…

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Palestine and the West: A century of betrayal

Palestine and the West: A century of betrayal

Avi Shlaim writes: Noam Chomsky described settler-colonialism as the most extreme and sadistic form of imperialism. The Palestinian people have suffered the unique misfortune of being at the receiving end of both Zionist settler-colonialism and western imperialism for the last century. The first and most crucial betrayal was the Balfour Declaration of 1917. It committed the British government to support the establishment of a national home for the Jewish people in Palestine, provided nothing was done to “prejudice the civil…

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How dark is the cosmic web?

How dark is the cosmic web?

Paul M. Sutter writes: The universe is permeated by a vast, invisible web, its tendrils weaving through space. But despite organizing the matter we see in space, this dark web is invisible. That’s because it is made up of dark matter, which exerts a gravitational pull but emits no light. That is, the web was invisible until now. For the first time, researchers have illuminated some of the darkest corners of the universe. A long time ago, the universe was…

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Over 1,100 former Justice Department lawyers condemn ‘Barr’s interference in the fair administration of justice’

Over 1,100 former Justice Department lawyers condemn ‘Barr’s interference in the fair administration of justice’

The New York Times reports: More than 1,100 former federal prosecutors and Justice Department officials called on Attorney General William P. Barr on Sunday to step down after he intervened last week to lower the Justice Department’s sentencing recommendation for President Trump’s longtime friend Roger J. Stone Jr. They also urged current government employees to report any signs of unethical behavior at the Justice Department to the agency’s inspector general and to Congress. “Each of us strongly condemns President Trump’s…

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Trump’s soft touch with China’s Xi may undermine efforts to combat coronavirus outbreak

Trump’s soft touch with China’s Xi may undermine efforts to combat coronavirus outbreak

The Washington Post reports: President Trump has lavished praise on Chinese President Xi Jinping for his handling of the growing coronavirus outbreak — a posture some in his administration are growing increasingly uncomfortable with as his advisers remain concerned about China’s lack of transparency and handling of the epidemic. Worries about rattled financial markets and their effect on the economy as well as the delicate negotiations with China over a trade deal — a key to Trump’s reelection — have…

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Trump’s quest to rewrite history and cover up Russia’s role in making him president

Trump’s quest to rewrite history and cover up Russia’s role in making him president

The Washington Post reports: The U.S. intelligence community long ago produced evidence of Russia’s illegal interference in the 2016 presidential election to try to boost Donald Trump’s candidacy. Then the special counsel investigating the matter detailed myriad ways President Trump sought to stymie the probe. And then Robert S. Mueller III testified to Congress about Trump’s conduct — and warned of Russia’s continued interest in thwarting U.S. elections. But it is Trump who is trying to have the last word….

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How your money is being spent at Trump properties

How your money is being spent at Trump properties

Zach Everson writes: On Wednesday night, when President Donald Trump addressed supporters from behind a Trump Hotels lectern in a room at his Trump International Hotel Washington, D.C., one of his company’s most faithful customers accompanied him. The U.S. Secret Service. The government agency charged with protecting the president has paid his businesses at least $471,000 to fulfill its congressional mandate, according to documents The Washington Post recently obtained via the Freedom of Information Act. That’s money from U.S. taxpayers…

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The world we are heading towards if we fail to reverse climate change

The world we are heading towards if we fail to reverse climate change

Christiana Figueres and Tom Rivett-Carnac write: It is 2050. Beyond the emissions reductions registered in 2015, no further efforts were made to control emissions. We are heading for a world that will be more than 3C warmer by 2100 The first thing that hits you is the air. In many places around the world, the air is hot, heavy and, depending on the day, clogged with particulate pollution. Your eyes often water. Your cough never seems to disappear. You think…

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Tackling the climate crisis is a human rights issue

Tackling the climate crisis is a human rights issue

Andrew Gilmour writes: Every society in the world is going to pay a price for global warming. But it’s the poorest countries and communities who will suffer the most from rising seas and burning lands — and likely also from any drastic measures taken to prevent climate change. The environmental crisis is closely linked to the humanitarian one, and requires the joint action of climate and human rights activists. They’d seem to be natural allies. They both regard (with good…

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How pluralistic ignorance affects voting choices

How pluralistic ignorance affects voting choices

Erika Weisz writes: Not too long ago, I briefly met Elizabeth Warren in a restaurant in Cambridge, near Harvard, where I’m now a postdoc in psychology. My dad and I saw the Massachusetts senator, a 2020 presidential candidate, walking in as we were walking out. “Give ’em hell,” my dad told the senator, harkening back to Harry Truman’s 1948 presidential campaign. She laughed. “That’s what I do!” Last summer, in a New York Times article about Warren, a voter stated,…

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Bloomberg for years has battled women’s allegations of profane, sexist comments creating a hostile workplace

Bloomberg for years has battled women’s allegations of profane, sexist comments creating a hostile workplace

The Washington Post reports: As Mike Bloomberg celebrated his 48th birthday in 1990, a top aide at the company he founded presented him with a booklet of profane, sexist quotes she attributed to him. A good salesperson is like a man who tries to pick up women at a bar by saying, “Do you want to f—? He gets turned down a lot — but he gets f—– a lot, too!” Bloomberg was quoted in the booklet as saying. Bloomberg…

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AIPAC is helping fund anti-Bernie Sanders Super PAC ads in Nevada

AIPAC is helping fund anti-Bernie Sanders Super PAC ads in Nevada

The Intercept reports: The American Israel Public Affairs Committee is helping to fund a Super PAC launching attack ads against Sen. Bernie Sanders in Nevada on Saturday, according to two sources with knowledge of the arrangement. The ads are being run by a group called Democratic Majority for Israel, founded by longtime AIPAC strategist Mark Mellman. The Nevada attack ads, which will air in media markets in Reno and Las Vegas, follow a similar spending blitz by DMFI ahead of…

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Fearful of Trump’s attacks, Justice Dept. lawyers worry Barr will leave them exposed to political meddling

Fearful of Trump’s attacks, Justice Dept. lawyers worry Barr will leave them exposed to political meddling

The New York Times reports: In an email a few days ago to the 270 lawyers he oversees, Nicola T. Hanna, the United States attorney in Los Angeles, offered a message of reassurance: I am proud of the work you do, he wrote. Other U.S. attorneys in the Justice Department’s far-flung 93 field offices relayed similar messages of encouragement after President Trump’s efforts to influence a politically fraught case provoked the kind of consternation the department has rarely seen since…

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State Department keeps quiet as Pompeo reports to Lavrov in Munich

State Department keeps quiet as Pompeo reports to Lavrov in Munich

Poltico reports: U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo met Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov on the sidelines of the Munich Security Conference on Friday in an encounter the American side apparently wanted to keep under wraps. The State Department made no announcement of the meeting, which took place in Lavrov’s own dedicated meeting room at the Hotel Bayerischer Hof, where the major annual conference of politicians, policymakers and security experts is held. Pompeo’s aides also did not provide any readout…

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