Many of the officials in the Earth Day photo ops are, at best, stagnant when it comes to environmental initiatives

Earth Day Events in R.I. ‘Reek of Blatant Deception’

By Victor Martelle

Prime example

Rhode Island news has been abuzz with Earth Day activities, from tree planting and cleanups to cookout celebrations. 

While a lot of this is pushed by local groups, city officials have also taken hold of the spotlight. They’re often seen in photo-ops, posting on social media, or participating directly.

For Rhode Islanders at least, it feels like a kick in the teeth: many of these same officials, at best, are stagnant when it comes to environmental initiatives, while some take staunch anti-environmental actions the rest of the 364 days out of the year. 

Yet, when Earth Day rolls around, they all equally come out of the woodwork to show their support, likely for a piece of that sweet green media pie — yuck!

It’s been said that Rhode Island’s environmental track record is notoriously slow-moving, where laws and regulations are hardly enforced, its own DEM is inept, and the top officials hardly care. 

This extends down to the state’s municipalities, where we’ve seen recent backward peddling examples in Pawtucket, Providence, Lincoln, and nearly every other city and town should you look further. It doesn’t help that these mayors and council members prop this up, all the while, strutting their stuff on Earth Day, claiming that we need to be more environmentally conscious.

None of this feels right; in fact, it reeks of blatant deception. We don’t even need to look that far to notice either. 

The notion of having to volunteer highlights the fact that there are ongoing, unaddressed problems: Why do we need to clean up that area? Why does this street require the planting of trees and shrubbery? Why are we creating cutouts of animals and insects — shouldn’t we be able to see them regularly? 

Better yet, why do we continually let these things fall into these conditions, and why don’t we have adequate laws encouraging and enforcing even the most basic green initiatives?

Suffice it to say, there’s nothing wrong about taking time to focus on something, but we must examine why we need to do so in the first place and look at who is involved and what they’re doing. 

This extends to not just municipal officials either, but to businesses and leaders within our communities. Are they behaving like they genuinely care, or for a PR push or business bump? Additionally, as a side, what can we locals do to push them in a better direction?

Let’s not kid ourselves, either; if we want more permanent fixes, it won’t be easy. Given that we live on the coast, and with landscapes ranging from city to rural, long-term solutions will vary and may very well be complex. However, it doesn’t feel like we’ve taken the first steps. 

We need better oversight from the state, followed by initiatives, ordinances, and encouragement by the towns and cities therein. Until we attempt to crawl, we can’t even think about walking. With that, let’s stop kidding ourselves and hope that one day in the future, there won’t need to be an Earth Day.

About as clear as it gets

For more cartoons by Ruben Bolling, CLICK HERE.

I miss Dr. Fauci. Hope he's enjoying his retirement

 

Wild turkey numbers are falling in some parts of the US

Maybe we should stop shooting them

Photo by Will Collette

Marcus Lashley, University of Florida and William Gulsby, Auburn University

Birdsong is a welcome sign of spring, but robins and cardinals aren’t the only birds showing off for breeding season. In many parts of North America, you’re likely to encounter male wild turkeys, puffed up like beach balls and with their tails fanned out, aggressively strutting through woods and parks or stopping traffic on your street.

Wild turkeys were abundant across North America when European settlers arrived. But people killed them indiscriminately year-round – sometimes for their meat and feathers, but settlers also took turkey eggs from nests and poisoned adult turkeys to keep them from damaging crops. Thanks to this unregulated killing and habitat loss, by 1900 wild turkeys had disappeared from much of their historical range.

Turkey populations gradually recovered over the 20th century, aided by regulation, conservation funding and state restoration programs. By the early 2000s, they could be found in Mexico, Canada and every U.S. state except Alaska.

Healthy or high risk?

New analysis warns of pesticide residues on some fruits and veggies

CAREY GILLAM  

PHOTO: SARAH ANNE WARD

Several types of fruits and vegetables generally considered to be healthy can contain levels of pesticide residues potentially unsafe for consumption, according to an analysis conducted by Consumer Reports (CR) released on Thursday.

The report, which is based on seven years of data gathered by the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) as part of its annual pesticide residue reporting program, concluded that 20% of 59 different fruit and vegetable categories included in the analysis carried residue levels that posed “significant risks” to consumers of those foods.

Those high-risk foods included bell peppers, blueberries, green beans, potatoes and strawberries, according to CR. The group found that some green beans even had residues of an insecticide called acephate, which has been banned for use on green beans by US regulators since 2011. 

To understand the risks posed by AI, follow the money

"Cui bono" probably isn't you

Tim O'Reilly, UCL; Ilan Strauss, UCL; Mariana Mazzucato, UCL, and Rufus Rock, UCL

Shutterstock/Chaosamran_Studio

Time and again, leading scientists, technologists, and philosophers have made spectacularly terrible guesses about the direction of innovation. 

Even Einstein was not immune, claiming, “There is not the slightest indication that nuclear energy will ever be obtainable,” just ten years before Enrico Fermi completed construction of the first fission reactor in Chicago. Shortly thereafter, the consensus switched to fears of an imminent nuclear holocaust.

Similarly, today’s experts warn that an artificial general intelligence (AGI) doomsday is imminent. Others retort that large language models (LLMs) have already reached the peak of their powers.

It’s difficult to argue with David Collingridge’s influential thesis that attempting to predict the risks posed by new technologies is a fool’s errand. Given that our leading scientists and technologists are usually so mistaken about technological evolution, what chance do our policymakers have of effectively regulating the emerging technological risks from artificial intelligence (AI)?

We ought to heed Collingridge’s warning that technology evolves in uncertain ways. 

However, there is one class of AI risk that is generally knowable in advance. These are risks stemming from misalignment between a company’s economic incentives to profit from its proprietary AI model in a particular way and society’s interests in how the AI model should be monetized and deployed.

Photograph of Albert Einstein in his office at Princeton
University, New Jersey, taken by Roman Vishniac in 1942.
 Magnes Collection of Jewish Art and Life/Flickr, CC BY-NC-SA

The surest way to ignore such misalignment is by focusing exclusively on technical questions about AI model capabilities, divorced from the socio-economic environment in which these models will operate and be designed for profit.

Focusing on the economic risks from AI is not simply about preventing “monopoly,” “self-preferencing,” or “Big Tech dominance”. 

It’s about ensuring that the economic environment facilitating innovation is not incentivizing hard-to-predict technological risks as companies “move fast and break things” in a race for profit or market dominance.

It’s also about ensuring that value from AI is widely shared, by preventing premature consolidation. We’ll see more innovation if emerging AI tools are accessible to everyone, such that a dispersed ecosystem of new firms, start-ups, and AI tools can arise.

Billionaires are bad for democracy

Taxing them is good for it

By Omar Ocampo 

A new, disturbing milestone has been confirmed in the latest Forbes World Billionaires List. The U.S. billionaire class is now larger and richer than ever, with 813 ten-figure oligarchs together holding $5.7 trillion.

This is a $1.2 trillion increase from the year before — and a gargantuan $2.7 trillion increase since March 2020.

The staggering upsurge shows how our economy primarily benefits the wealthy, rather than the ordinary working people who produce their wealth. Even worse, those extremely wealthy individuals often use these assets to undermine our democracy.

Billionaires have enormous power to influence the political process. They spent $1.2 billion in the 2020 general election and more than $880 million in the 2022 midterms. Even when their preferred candidates aren’t in office, our institutions are still more likely to respond to their policy preferences than the average voter’s, especially when it comes to taxes.

The vast majority of Americans, including 63 percent of Republicans, support higher taxes on the wealthy. Yet our representatives consistently fail to deliver. A quintessential example was Donald Trump’s 2017 tax cuts for corporations and the rich — the most unpopular legislation signed into law in the past 25 years.

Donny's new business

The price of gas

 

Westerly plans to bio-bomb mosquitos on Monday

Helicopters will spread bacteria that kills mosquito larvae on Chapman Pond

The Rhode Island Department of Environmental Management (DEM) is announcing that the Town of Westerly will conduct an aerial application of mosquito larvicide across 500 acres of Chapman Swamp and nearby swamplands by helicopter on Monday, April 29, weather permitting. 

The application, which consists of pellets that kill mosquito larvae being dropped by a helicopter, will take place between 8 AM and 3 PM. In the event of inclement weather, a rain date will occur on Tuesday, April 30, weather permitting.

Bti, a naturally occurring bacterium applied in granular form to control mosquito breeding in swamps and other breeding habitats, is the treatment that will be applied. It is applied to standing water where developing larvae are found. 

It is an environmentally friendly product whose toxins specifically affect the larvae of only mosquitoes, black flies, and fungus gnats and do not pose a risk to human health. 

Larviciding is recommended as part of the state's action plan to control West Nile Virus and Eastern Equine Encephalitis (EEE) and considered an effective strategy to reduce mosquito populations and related disease risk.

In most communities, the state recommends applying larvicide by hand to roadside catch basins. In the Chapman Swamp area of Westerly, however, aerial application is recommended given the area’s remote location and large footprint. Mosquitoes carrying the EEE virus were found in Chapman Swamp in 1996, 2003, 2019, 2020, 2022. 

Since 1997, the Town has applied Bti annually to help control mosquito breeding. Additional dates for treatment may be scheduled by the Town; the targeted areas include portions of Chapman Swamp and swampland near Hespar Drive.

For additional mosquito prevention tips, videos, and local data from the Rhode Island Department of Health, visit health.ri.gov/mosquito.

For more information on DEM programs and initiatives, visit www.dem.ri.gov. Follow DEM on Facebook, Twitter (@RhodeIslandDEM), or Instagram (@rhodeisland.dem) for timely updates.

New Research Reveals Why You Should Always Refrigerate Lettuce

Eat your greens but store them safely

By UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS COLLEGE OF AGRICULTURAL, CONSUMER AND ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES 

A new study explores E. coli contamination in leafy greens, finding that factors like temperature and leaf characteristics affect susceptibility. 

Lettuce is particularly vulnerable, but kale and collards show promise as less susceptible options due to their natural antimicrobial properties when cooked.

Leafy greens are valuable for their dietary fiber and nutrients, yet they may also carry dangerous pathogens. Lettuce, in particular, has frequently been linked to foodborne illness outbreaks in the U.S. A recent study from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign investigates the factors influencing E. coli contamination in five different types of leafy greens: romaine lettuce, green-leaf lettuce, spinach, kale, and collard greens.

Medical Providers Still Grappling With UnitedHealth Cyberattack

‘More Devastating Than Covid’

Samantha Liss 

DALL-E Created Thumbnail

Two months after a cyberattack on a UnitedHealth Group subsidiary halted payments to some doctors, medical providers say they’re still grappling with the fallout, even though UnitedHealth told shareholders on Tuesday that business is largely back to normal.

“We are still desperately struggling,” said Emily Benson, a therapist in Edina, Minnesota, who runs her own practice, Beginnings & Beyond. “This was way more devastating than covid ever was.”

Change Healthcare, a business unit of the Minnesota-based insurance giant UnitedHealth Group, controls a digital network so vast it processes nearly 1 in 3 U.S. patient records each year. The network is a critical conduit for shuttling information between most of the nation’s insurance companies and medical providers, who submit claims through it to get paid for treating patients.

We can't recycle our way out of our plastic mess

Reduce. Period.

By Daily Dose

This year’s Earth Day theme was Planet vs. Plastics, a problem we have been railing against since Alan Weisman first published his essay “Polymers Are Forever,” in 2007, where we first learned about the persistence of microplastics and their infiltration into the marine food chain.

“Plastic is still plastic. The material still remains a polymer. Polyethylene is not biodegraded in any practical time scale. There is no mechanism in the marine environment to biodegrade that long a molecule.” Even if photodegradable nets help marine mammals live, he concluded, their powdery residue remains in the sea, where the filter feeders will find it.

“Except for a small amount that’s been incinerated,” says Tony Andrady the oracle, “every bit of plastic manufactured in the world for the last fifty years or so still remains. It’s somewhere in the environment.”

The official Earth Day organization is “demanding a 60% reduction in the production of ALL plastics by 2040. Our theme, Planet vs. Plastics, calls to advocate for widespread awareness on the health risk of plastics, rapidly phase out all single use plastics, urgently push for a strong UN Treaty on Plastic Pollution, and demand an end to fast fashion.”

What a nice boy!

Draw your own conclusions

Star Trek's Holodeck recreated using ChatGPT and video game assets

What could possibly go wrong?

University of Pennsylvania School of Engineering and Applied Science

Many of STNG's worst episodes centered around
holodeck malfunctions, such as "Fistful of Datas"

In Star Trek: The Next Generation, Captain Picard and the crew of the U.S.S. Enterprise leverage the holodeck, an empty room capable of generating 3D environments, to prepare for missions and to entertain themselves, simulating everything from lush jungles to the London of Sherlock Holmes. Deeply immersive and fully interactive, holodeck-created environments are infinitely customizable, using nothing but language: the crew has only to ask the computer to generate an environment, and that space appears in the holodeck.

Today, virtual interactive environments are also used to train robots prior to real-world deployment in a process called "Sim2Real." However, virtual interactive environments have been in surprisingly short supply. 

Rhode Island public radio and TV merger is OK'd

Hopes high for stronger non-profit journalism

By Alexander Castro, Rhode Island Current

AG Peter Neronha's statement that the
merger offers "a community benefit"

Rhode Island PBS and The Public’s Radio’s will soon be one entity.

Rhode Island Attorney General Peter Neronha announced the approval of the merger of the two public media organizations Tuesday after conducting a review to ensure compliance with state law.

Elizabeth Delude-Dix, chair of the board of directors of The Public’s Radio, thanked the attorney general’s office and said in a statement: “The Public’s Radio and Rhode Island PBS have long provided honest journalism, robust educational programming, and engaging and entertaining content to Rhode Island and southeastern Massachusetts. Our impact will be increased and our audience expanded as we take these next exciting steps forward.” 

Torey Malatia, CEO of The Public’s Radio, said via email: “I agree the new institution has great potential for community service.”

Now, a new jointly-made board will begin to work with staff from both broadcast stations to align their respective operations and administration, according to a press release from Rhode Island PBS. 

UAW wins big at Volkswagen in Tennessee – its first victory at a foreign-owned factory in the American South

The first of many wins?

Bob Bussel, University of Oregon

Volkswagen workers celebrate in Chattanooga, Tenn.,
after their bid to join the UAW union prevailed.
 AP Photo/George Walker IV

A decisive majority of the Volkswagen workers employed at a factory in Chattanooga, Tennessee cast their ballots in favor of joining the United Auto Workers union, the German automaker announced on April 19, 2024.

Persuading any Southern autoworkers to join a union had long been one of the U.S. labor movement’s most enduring challenges, despite persistent efforts by the UAW to organize this workforce.

To be sure, the UAW already has members employed by Ford and General Motors at facilities in Kentucky, Texas, Missouri and Mississippi.

However, the union had previously tried and largely failed to organize workers at foreign-owned companies, including Volkswagen and Nissan, in Southern states – where about 30% of all U.S. automotive jobs are located. It was the UAW’s third election at the same factory since 2014. The prior two ended in narrow losses.

The victory follows the UAW’s most successful strike in a generation against Detroit’s Big Three automakers, through which it won higher pay and better benefits for its members in 2023.

Volkswagen said it will await certification of the results by the National Labor Relations Board, the federal agency responsible for enforcing U.S. workers’ rights to organize. As long as neither side challenges the results within five business days, the NLRB will certify them – greenlighting the start of bargaining over a contract.

The union has already scheduled another election that will occur less than a month after the Volkswagen vote. More than 5,000 workers at the Mercedes-Benz plant in Vance, Alabama, will have their say on whether to join the UAW in a vote that will run May 13-17, 2024.

5 years after the Mueller report into Russian meddling in the 2016 US election on behalf of Trump

Mueller did a poor job of putting the facts about Russia's election interference before the public

Howard Manly, The Conversation

In the long list of Donald Trump’s legal woes, the Mueller report – which was released in redacted form on April 18, 2019 – appears all but forgotten.

But the nearly two-year investigation into alleged Russian interference in the 2016 U.S. presidential election dominated headlines – and revealed what has become Trump’s trademark denial of any wrongdoing. For Trump, the Russia investigation was the first “ridiculous hoax” and “witch hunt.”

Mueller didn’t help matters. “While this report does not conclude that the president committed a crime, it also does not exonerate him,” the special counsel stated.

Trump Bible: illustrated version

I'm with Joe

Biden's new solar energy plan will bring $50 million to Rhode Island

On Earth Day, RI Delegation Delivers $49.3M for Cost-Saving Clean Energy Upgrades

In an effort to make clean energy upgrades accessible to more Rhode Islanders, U.S. Senators Jack Reed and Sheldon Whitehouse and Congressmen Seth Magaziner and Gabe Amo announced that the state will receive $49.3 million in federal funding through the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Solar for All Program.

The Biden Administration’s $7 billion announcement of clean energy funding comes on Earth Day 2024 and was made possible by the landmark Inflation Reduction Act (P.L. 117-169), which Democrats passed in 2022. 

The funding secured for Rhode Island Equitable Access to Solar Energy (EASE) programs will support the launch and expansion of a comprehensive suite of seven financial assistance programs and twelve project deployment technical assistance initiatives designed to equitably address financial barriers to solar adoption. 

These initiatives will facilitate broader, more equitable access to reliable solar power across Rhode Island’s most historically underserved communities. 

According to Rhode Island Office of Energy Resources (OER), these funds will help serve thousands of households in the Ocean State, help to unlock millions in household energy cost savings over time, and realize significant reductions in annual carbon dioxide emissions.

EDITOR'S NOTE: In 2017, we took advantage of the Solarize Charlestown to install solar panels at a discount. Over the past seven years despite living in a wooded area, our monthly electricity bill is much lower plus we get a monthly check from National Grid for their purchase of excess power our panels produce and feed into the grid. We've long past the break-even point. Charlestown ought to do this again and if they do, you ought to consider going solar.     - Will Collette

Here are ways to filter out some harmful ‘forever chemicals’ at home

Removing PFAS from public water will cost billions and take time

Kyle Doudrick, University of Notre Dame

PFAS are showing up in water systems across the U.S.
 Jacek Dylag/Unsplash, CC BY

Chemists invented PFAS in the 1930s to make life easier: Nonstick pans, waterproof clothing, grease-resistant food packaging and stain-resistant carpet were all made possible by PFAS. 

But in recent years, the growing number of health risks found to be connected to these chemicals has become increasingly alarming.

PFAS – perfluoroalkyl and polyfluoroalkyl substances – are now either suspected or known to contribute to thyroid disease, elevated cholesterol, liver damage and cancer, among other health issues.

They can be found in the blood of most Americans and in many drinking water systems, which is why the Environmental Protection Agency in April 2024 finalized the first enforceable federal limits for six types of PFAS in drinking water systems. 

The limits – between 4 and 10 parts per trillion for PFOS, PFOA, PFHxS, PFNA and GenX – are less than a drop of water in a thousand Olympic-sized swimming pools, which speaks to the chemicals’ toxicity. The sixth type, PFBS, is regulated as a mixture using what’s known as a hazard index.

Meeting these new limits won’t be easy or cheap. And there’s another problem: While PFAS can be filtered out of water, these “forever chemicals” are hard to destroy.

My team at the University of Notre Dame works on solving problems involving contaminants in water systems, including PFAS. We explore new technologies to remove PFAS from drinking water and to handle the PFAS waste. Here’s a glimpse of the magnitude of the challenge and ways you can reduce PFAS in your own drinking water:

EPA’s New Guidelines, and Funding, Will Boost Testing and Controls of PFAS in Rhode Island

Numerous sites across South County, including Charlestown

By Mary Lhowe / ecoRI News contributor

PFAS, manufactured since the 1940s, can be found in our food, our drinking water, and in our body tissue. They are in the soil, in rainwater, and in emissions spewed into the air. (EPA)

The Biden administration and the Environmental Protection Agency announced new guidelines this month that will give a push to efforts around the nation, including in Rhode Island, to eliminate or reduce toxic per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances — a class of chemicals known as PFAS — from drinking water.

The announcement created the first nationwide and enforceable ceiling — or “maximum contaminant level” (MCL) — of 4 parts per trillion (ppt) of PFAS in drinking water. A few types of PFAS chemicals were given a federal MCL of 10 ppt.

The new federal levels are more restrictive than the current maximum contaminant level in Rhode Island, which is 20 ppt in drinking water. Up to April 10, when the guidelines were announced, no federal level existed; states devised maximum contaminant levels for themselves.

The announcement also said the federal government would offer $1 billion to states and territories for testing and treatment of drinking water. It is part of a $9 billion investment through the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law to help communities track and clean up PFAS and other “emerging contaminants” in drinking water.

EPA believes that 6% to 10% of the nation’s 66,000 public drinking water systems may have to take action to reduce PFAS to meet the new standards. It also said the final rule of April 10 would reduce PFAS exposure for about 100 million people.

Both through legislation and in water treatment facilities and water pipes, Rhode Island has been working over the past few years to get control over PFAS — a class of toxic chemicals that have been used since the 1940s in a wide range of consumer products from food wrappers to carpets to Teflon pans to firefighting foam.

Republicans keep wasting our money on their ideological boondoggles

Americans Pay a High Price for the GOP's Fiscal Irresponsibility

DAN BROOK for Common Dreams

The GOP is fiscally irresponsible in all sorts of ways.

Republicans are worse for the economy overall, worse for gross domestic product, worse for the budget deficit and national debt, worse for the trade deficit, worse for job growth, worse for wage increases, worse for inequality, worse for the stock market, and worse for much else.

No modern Republican president has ever reduced the deficit in any year with any budget. Every Republican president raised the federal budget deficit by overspending wildly on the military, the wealthy, and other wasteful things that don't constructively add to our economy or society.

The only three modern presidents to reduce the budget deficit have been Bill Clinton (who eliminated it and created a surplus), Barack Obama, and Joe Biden, all Democrats.

• About three-fourths of the entire national debt was accrued under Republican borrow-and-spend presidents.
• Republicans run higher trade deficits than Democrats.
• Unemployment is higher under Republican administrations
• The stock market does worse under Republican administrations, on average.
• Most recessions have begun under Republican administrations, as did the Great Depression.

None of the tax cuts for the rich and corporations that Republicans said would pay for themselves wound up paying for themselves. Instead, they made the wealthy wealthier. 

Push back on November 5

 

A cartoon by Clay Bennett

No good deed goes unpunished

 

URI-led team finds direct evidence of ‘itinerant breeding’ in East Coast shorebird species

And they DANCE!

Migration and reproduction are two of the most demanding events in a bird’s annual cycle, so much so that the vast majority of migratory birds separate the two tasks into different times of the year.

But a study by University of Rhode Island researchers has found direct evidence of a species – the American woodcock, a migratory shorebird from eastern and central North America – that overlaps periods of migration and reproduction, a rare breeding strategy known as “itinerant breeding.” Their work, backed by collaborators across the East Coast, was published in the biological sciences journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B.

Fermented foods sustain both microbiomes and cultural heritage

Don't fear the pickle

Andrew Flachs, Purdue University and Joseph Orkin, Université de Montréal

Each subtle cultural or personal twist to a fermented
dish is felt by your body’s microbial community.
 microgen/iStock via Getty Images

Many people around the world make and eat fermented foods. Millions in Korea alone make kimchi. 

The cultural heritage of these picklers shape not only what they eat every time they crack open a jar but also something much, much smaller: their microbiomes.

On the microbial scale, we are what we eat in very real ways. Your body is teeming with trillions of microbes. These complex ecosystems exist on your skin, inside your mouth and in your gut. They are particularly influenced by your surrounding environment, especially the food you eat. Just like any other ecosystem, your gut microbiome requires diversity to be healthy.

People boil, fry, bake and season meals, transforming them through cultural ideas of “good food.” When people ferment food, they affect the microbiome of their meals directly. Fermentation offers a chance to learn how taste and heritage shape microbiomes: not only of culturally significant foods such as German sauerkraut, kosher pickles, Korean kimchi or Bulgarian yogurt, but of our own guts.

RI Congressional incumbents amass impressive campaign war chests

Lots of green helps keep RI Blue

By Janine L. Weisman, Rhode Island Current

Congratulations to Seth and wife Julia McDowell
on the birth of their new daughter, and son Max's
new sister. Not to mention the healthy
campaign war chest.

The state’s Democratic congressional delegates up for re-election this year are showing healthy war chests, according to first quarter campaign finance reports with the Federal Elections Commission.

U.S. Rep. Seth Magaziner reported he had over $1 million in cash on hand as of March 31 for his reelection bid to seek a second term in his 2nd Congressional District seat.

The first quarter filing deadline was Monday.

Republican Steven Corvi, a Warwick resident, formally announced his campaign to run for the 2nd Congressional District seat to the news media on April 13. Corvi, whose LinkedIn page says he has a Ph.D. in history, is listed as an adjunct history professor at Bentley University and Northeastern University. 

Westerly Rep. Azzinaro sets up redundant commission

Waste of time

By Will Collette

UPDATE: If you really want to know more about the climate crisis and our shoreline, I suggest you attend this forum (or you can wait for Sam's commission to come out with its findings, presuming it ever meets:

RI State Senator Victoria Gu and RI State Representative Tina Spears will host a Town Hall on Climate Resiliency on Monday April 29th, 6-8pm at the Quonochontaug Grange Hall (5662 Post Road, Charlestown, RI). RI CRMC, RI EMA, and FEMA representatives will also be participating.

They will discuss some frequently asked questions about recent storm recovery work, regulations, and funding opportunities for mitigation work.

FEMA and RI EMA representatives will do a presentation and will be available to assist individuals and business owners who sustained losses during the Dec 17-19th 2023/Jan 9th-13th 2024 storms and are eligible for federal disaster relief funds. May 20th, 2024 is the deadline to apply (people may also visit www.DisasterAssistance.gov).

Residents, local officials, and businesses are invited to share their ideas, experiences, and priorities regarding climate resiliency efforts in our area.

For well over a decade, anyone who has been paying attention knows we are in a worsening climate crisis. Its effects on Rhode Island are already clear - bizarre weather, bigger and more frequent storms and sea level rise.

For more than a decade, government, academia and non-profit organizations have devoted considerable time and money to study this problem and come up with ways to cope. URI, the Woods Hole Institute, NOAA, DEM and the CRMC have looked closely what to do about Rhode Island's climate-driven coastal erosion problem.

Some fine work has already been done and lots of different options have been explored, including some that have already been put into effect.

Two local General Assembly members from Charlestown's Rep. Tina Spears and Sen. Victoria Gu, jointly sponsored legislation to promote coastal resiliency, drawing on the hard work already done by scientists and experts. 

So why then does Rep. Sam Azzinaro (DINO-Westerly) want to set up a new study commission on beach erosion? 

It's hardly within the scope of his two main categories of concern, namely veterans' affairs and anything of concern to the Roman Catholic Diocese of Providence. (He once said he put the interests of ex-Bishop Thomas Tobin over his own constituents). 

Azzinaro says, as if this had not occurred to him before, "We have a serious problem here...This commission will be an important tool to protect our beaches and hopefully reverse the erosion that is plaguing too many oceanfront communities.”

His commission would include the same agencies that has already done the work but adds the director of the Misquamicut Business Association.

The House approved the resolution probably for the same reason they had approved ex-Rep. Justin Price (MAGA-Richmond) legislation to create a study commission on "chemtrails - to shut him up. Price's chemtrail commission never met and never issued findings. I am willing to bet the same fate awaits Sam's commission.

I suggest it is time for Sam to consider retirement and let voters choose a new representative. Or at minimum, he should stick to what he knows.

Here's the official news release on Azzinaro's commission: 

Always classy: snoozing and farting through his criminal trial

By Chris Britt

Keep Donald Trump away from babies

Concerned about developing babies, EPA warns about danger of weed killer used on farms, golf courses

JOHNATHAN HETTINGER  

The US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) on Monday took the rare step of issuing a warning about “serious, permanent, and irreversible health risks” associated with a chemical used to kill weeds on farms and golf courses and athletic fields. 

Citing “significant health risks to pregnant individuals and their developing babies,” the agency said farmworkers and others handling dimethyl tetrachloroterephthalate, more commonly known as DCPA, were at risk, as are people who might play on courses or fields recently sprayed with the pesticide. 

The most serious risks extend to the developing babies of pregnant women, especially those handling DCPA products.  

The agency said pregnant women exposed to DCPA could experience changes to fetal thyroid hormone levels, which are linked to low birth weight, impaired brain development, decreased IQ, and impaired motor skills later in life.  

Though product labels say people should stay out of fields for 12 hours after they are sprayed with DCPA, the EPA said evidence indicates that in many cases, sprayed fields would be unsafe for 25 days or more. 

The agency additionally said that mothers and their developing babies could be at risk if they live near areas where DCPA is used because the pesticide can drift.

Microplastics Make Their Way from the Gut to Other Organs

How do they get there? What do they do?

By Nicole San Roman

It’s happening every day. From our water, our food and even the air we breathe, tiny plastic particles are finding their way into many parts of our body.

But what happens once those particles are inside? What do they do to our digestive system?

In a recent paper published in the journal  Environmental Health Perspectives, University of New Mexico researchers found that those tiny particles – microplastics – are having a significant impact on our digestive pathways, making their way from the gut and into the tissues of the kidney, liver and brain.

Research continues to show the importance of gut health. If you don't have a healthy gut, it affects the brain, it affects the liver and so many other tissues. So even imagining that the microplastics are doing something in the in the gut, that chronic exposure could lead to systemic effects.

Governors of old Confederacy states declare war on the United Auto Workers

Goes to show how alive the plantation mentality is in the South

Is the South preparing itself for a second Civil War? The following statement was issued by the Republican Governors of Mississippi, Alabama, Texas, South Carolina, Georgia and Tennessee. It speaks for itself.

Three days after this denunciation of unions, the UAW won an election at a big Volkswagen plant in Tennessee on April 19. 

President Joe Biden made this comment on the union's win:

"Let me be clear to the Republican governors that tried to undermine this vote: there is nothing to fear from American workers using their voice and their legal right to form a union if they so choose."

 Here's the full statement by the Republican governors:

MONTGOMERY, APRIL 16, 2024– Governor Kay Ivey, along with the governors of Georgia, Mississippi, South Carolina, Tennessee and Texas, issued the following joint statement:

“We the governors of Alabama, Georgia, Mississippi, South Carolina, Tennessee and Texas are highly concerned about the unionization campaign driven by misinformation and scare tactics that the UAW has brought into our states. As governors, we have a responsibility to our constituents to speak up when we see special interests looking to come into our state and threaten our jobs and the values we live by.

“The reality is companies have choices when it comes to where to invest and bring jobs and opportunity. We have worked tirelessly on behalf of our constituents to bring good-paying jobs to our states. These jobs have become part of the fabric of the automotive manufacturing industry. Unionization would certainly put our states’ jobs in jeopardy – in fact, in this year already, all of the UAW automakers have announced layoffs. In America, we respect our workforce and we do not need to pay a third party to tell us who can pick up a box or flip a switch. No one wants to hear this, but it’s the ugly reality. We’ve seen it play out this way every single time a foreign automaker plant has been unionized; not one of those plants remains in operation. And we are seeing it in the fallout of the Detroit Three strike with those automakers rethinking investments and cutting jobs. Putting businesses in our states in that position is the last thing we want to do.

If Trump Wins, the GOP Is Ready to Wage War on the Working Class

Their Project 2025 plan shows what they plan to do to workers

REBECCA GORDON for the TomDispatch

Recently, you may have noticed that the hot weather is getting ever hotter. Every year the United States swelters under warmer temperatures and longer periods of sustained heat. 

In fact, each of the last nine months—May 2023 through February 2024—set a world record for heat. As I’m writing this, March still has a couple of days to go, but likely as not, it, too, will set a record.

Such heat poses increasing health hazards for many groups: the old, the very young, those of us who don’t have access to air conditioning. One group, however, is at particular risk: people whose jobs require lengthy exposure to heat. 

Numbers from the Bureau of Labor Statistics show that about 40 workers died of heat exposure between 2011 and 2021, although, as CNN reports, that’s probably a significant undercount. 

In February 2024, responding to this growing threat, a coalition of 10 state attorneys general petitioned the federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) to implement “a nationwide extreme heat emergency standard” to protect workers from the kinds of dangers that last year killed, among others, construction workers, farm workers, factory workers, and at least one employee who was laboring in an unairconditioned area of a warehouse in Memphis, Tennessee.

Facing the threat of overweening government interference from OSHA or state regulators, two brave Republican-run state governments have stepped in to protect employers from just such dangerous oversight. Florida and Texas have both passed laws prohibiting localities from mandating protections like rest breaks for, or even having to provide drinking water to, workers in extreme heat situations. 

Seriously, Florida and Texas have made it illegal for local cities to protect their workers from the direct effects of climate change. Apparently, being “woke” includes an absurd desire not to see workers die of heat exhaustion.

And those state laws are very much in keeping with the plans that the national right-wing has for workers, should the wholly-owned Trump subsidiary that is today’s Republican Party take control of the federal government this November.