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How rogue Republicans killed Oregon’s climate-change bill

How rogue Republicans killed Oregon’s climate-change bill

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Carolyn Kormann reports: Early Tuesday morning, in Oregon, Shilpa Joshi, the coalition director of Renew Oregon, a clean-energy advocacy organization, rented a minivan from a lot on the outskirts of Portland, picked up a group of high-school students, and headed for the state capitol building, in Salem, where they’d be staging a protest. She was anxious and deeply concerned. “This might be a really sad day for us,” she said, en route. A major climate-change bill, which she had worked…

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What changes have climate scientists made to their own lives to tackle the climate emergency?

What changes have climate scientists made to their own lives to tackle the climate emergency?

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Prof Dave Reay writes: I’ve worked on climate change for nearly 25 years. My first degree was in marine biology and I went on to study warming in the Southern (Antarctic) Ocean, simulating future climates. Now my specialism is land use, agriculture and climate change – not just in terms of emissions from the food that’s produced, but also the impact of climate change on our food system, and the uptake of carbon from the atmosphere by soils, trees and…

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Orangutans: Palm oil industry still threatens the lives and habitat of ‘people of the forest’

Orangutans: Palm oil industry still threatens the lives and habitat of ‘people of the forest’

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The New York Times reports: The men came at Hope and her baby with spears and guns. But she would not leave. There was no place for her to go. When the air-gun pellets pierced Hope’s eyes, blinding her, she felt her way up the tree trunks, auburn-furred fingers searching out tropical fruit for sustenance. By the end, Hope’s torso was slashed with deep lacerations. Multiple bones were broken. Seventy-four pellets were lodged in her body. Her months-old baby had…

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The looming information apocalypse

The looming information apocalypse

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Charlie Warzel reports: In mid-2016, Aviv Ovadya realized there was something fundamentally wrong with the internet — so wrong that he abandoned his work and sounded an alarm. A few weeks before the 2016 election, he presented his concerns to technologists in San Francisco’s Bay Area and warned of an impending crisis of misinformation in a presentation he titled “Infocalypse.” The web and the information ecosystem that had developed around it was wildly unhealthy, Ovadya argued. The incentives that governed…

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80% of the stock market is now on autopilot

80% of the stock market is now on autopilot

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CNBC reports: It’s no secret that machines are taking up a bigger and bigger share of investing, but the extent of their influence is approaching shocking proportions. It is as high as 80%, according to one major investing firm. Passive investments such as index funds and exchange-traded funds control about 60% of the equity assets, while quantitative funds, those which rely on trend-following models instead of fundamental research from humans, now account for 20% of the market share, according to…

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Elizabeth Warren’s plan to revitalize diplomacy

Elizabeth Warren’s plan to revitalize diplomacy

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Elizabeth Warren writes: American security and prosperity depend on robust diplomacy. Our diplomats are the front line of our engagement with the world. They serve in over 270 posts worldwide, many in difficult or dangerous locations. They communicate our goals in more than 70 languages. They manage conflict, help U.S. companies compete, and assist Americans abroad. Most importantly, they reflect our values on the world stage. But a diplomacy-first strategy to meet the challenges of the 21st century means that…

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No country for old white men: Kamala Harris leads changing of the guard

No country for old white men: Kamala Harris leads changing of the guard

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David Smith writes: It was as if “Sleepy Joe” Biden had been jolted awake and found himself in a terrifying parallel universe. No longer was he the former senator and vice-president who once lunched weekly with Barack Obama at the White House. Instead he was the accused, standing in the dock under the hot lights on a debate stage in Miami, as a fierce and formidable prosecutor tore into his record on race. The inquisitor was Senator Kamala Harris, ablack…

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Jimmy Carter says Trump wouldn’t be president without help from Russia

Jimmy Carter says Trump wouldn’t be president without help from Russia

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The Washington Post reports: Former president Jimmy Carter said Friday that he believes a full investigation of the 2016 election would show that President Trump prevailed because of Russian interference on his behalf and otherwise would not be in office. “There’s no doubt that the Russians did interfere in the election, and I think the interference, although not yet quantified, if fully investigated would show that Trump didn’t actually win the election in 2016,” Carter said. “He lost the election,…

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Trump jokes with Putin about meddling in elections and getting rid of journalists

Trump jokes with Putin about meddling in elections and getting rid of journalists

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The Guardian reports: Donald Trump joked with Vladimir Putin about getting rid of journalists and Russian meddling in US elections when the two leaders met at the G20 summit in Japan. As they sat for photographs at the start of their first formal meeting in nearly a year, the US president lightheartedly sought common ground with Putin at the expense of the journalists around them in Osaka. “Get rid of them. Fake news is a great term, isn’t it? You…

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Trump’s peace plan is immoral, impractical — and could blow up the Middle East

Trump’s peace plan is immoral, impractical — and could blow up the Middle East

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Ami Ayalon, Gilead Sher, and Orni Petruschka, write: It sounds great on paper: The U.S. administration will hold a “peace to prosperity” economic workshop in Bahrain on June 25 and 26 to jumpstart Israeli-Palestinian peace talks. Yet scratch the shiny PR surface and you’ll find a dangerously simplistic approach to a complicated situation. Anybody who followed the last 30 years of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict understands that President Donald Trump’s announcement of this first step on the way to a deal…

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Tulsi Gabbard’s growing popularity — among Trump supporters

Tulsi Gabbard’s growing popularity — among Trump supporters

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BuzzFeed News reports: Among some conservative pundits there was one clear winner of Wednesday night’s Democratic primary debate: Rep. Tulsi Gabbard, the long-shot, anti-war Hawaii member of Congress. More than any other Democratic candidate, Gabbard has developed a favorable presence in the right-wing media. She’s made appearances from time to time on Fox News shows like Tucker Carlson Tonight, and her unorthodox candidacy has attracted praise from those farther to the right as well. Gabbard has been controversial; she has…

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In his rambling screed against Megan Rapinoe, Trump revealed a lot about his worldview

In his rambling screed against Megan Rapinoe, Trump revealed a lot about his worldview

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Jemele Hill writes: President Donald Trump doesn’t understand a basic principle that I learned from my mother in elementary school: If you treat people with respect, they’ll likely respect you in return. Trump took to Twitter on Wednesday to blast Megan Rapinoe, a co-captain of the U.S. women’s national soccer team, after the soccer magazine Eight by Eight posted a video of her saying that if the women win the World Cup, she’s not “going to the fucking White House.”…

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U.S. generates more power from renewables — decline of coal ‘unstoppable’ despite Trump’s rhetoric

U.S. generates more power from renewables — decline of coal ‘unstoppable’ despite Trump’s rhetoric

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The Guardian reports: The US generated more electricity from renewable sources than coal for the first time ever in April, new federal government data has shown. Clean energy such as solar and wind provided 23% of US electricity generation during the month, compared with coal’s 20%, according to the Energy Information Administration. This represents the first time coal has been surpassed by energy sources that do not release pollution such as planet-heating gases. April was a favorable month for renewables,…

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Shell’s natural ecosystems fund is blatant greenwash

Shell’s natural ecosystems fund is blatant greenwash

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George Monbiot writes: It is hard to believe it needs stating, but it does. The oil industry is not your friend. Whatever it might say about its ethical credentials, while it continues to invest in fossil fuels, it accelerates climate breakdown and the death of the habitable planet. You would think this point was obvious to everyone. But over the past few weeks, I have spoken to dozens of environmentalists who appear to believe that Shell is on their side….

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