It’s not just about hurricanes and polar bears

Ten Lesser Known Effects of Climate Change and Environmental Abuse

By Richard Matthews

The effects of climate change and environmental abuse are far ranging and may include some pretty strange phenomenon. A number of studies show the wide assortment of deleterious impacts from climate change, including increasing heat waves, drought, rising sea levels, ocean acidification, extreme weather, storm surges, and wildfires. 

While climate change and environmental abuse is already causing death and disease, there are also a host of related impacts that include diminished agricultural yields, reduced labor productivity, social tensions, conflict and war.

Many of these impacts are already with us today and will only increase if we continue with business as usual. According to a new report from the World Meteorological Organisation, because of climate change, the world is five times more disaster prone today than it was in the 1970s. It is also far more deadly, causing millions of deaths in the last few decades.

Town screws up the math on DiBello settlement

$100,000 “Oops!”

By Will Collette

This statement is wrong on two counts - the math is wrong and
the claim this will not affect your taxes is false.

When the Charlestown Town Council announced it had made the deal with one of its colleagues, Councilor Lisa DiBello, to settle her long legal dispute with the town for $450,000, they said that the direct cost to Charlestown taxpayers would be $400,000 after a $50,000 payment from the RI Interlocal Trust, the town’s insurance carrier.

They said that $382,957.82 would be paid out of the town’s Legal Contingency Fund which had been funded by tax dollars for such matters. The remaining $17,042.18 was to come from some other, unspecified source. Read the Town's release in its entirety HERE.

The Council declared that this settlement “has no effect on the town of Charlestown tax rate.”

As more facts emerge, it turns out the Council was wrong on where the money would come from and lied about the effects on the tax rate.

Right-wing guide to fixing the economy

Only Clay Pell and Taveras have actual plans on the environment

Gubernatorial Candidates' Thoughts On Environment

By TIM FAULKNER/ecoRI News staff

ecoRI News profiled the six top-polling candidates running in the Sept. 9 primary for governor. We encapsulate each candidate’s environmental platform and share their responses to six targeted questions on specific topics: fossil-fuel divestment, plastic bag ban, funding for environmental compliance, renewable energy, the Executive Climate Change Coordinating Council (EC4) and open-space protection.

DEMOCRATS

Todd Giroux calls for a revolving loan fund to upgrade Rhode Island’s aging housing stock and make it more energy efficient. The Bristol contractor also supports a Workers Progress Administration-style program for green jobs training. EDITOR’S NOTE: Giroux plans to fund his loan fund by taking money from the state pension funds. This is illegal.

He didn't respond to our specific questions.

Clay Pell has a lengthy environmental action plan. He advocates for greater energy-efficiency programs and enhanced development of brownfield sites, open-space protection and expanded recycling. He supports many of the state’s existing energy-efficiency and renewable-energy programs. He would continue the initiatives run by the state Office of Energy Resources. New programs would target specific vehicle-emission reductions.

Other plans include greater use of low-impact development and better management of stormwater runoff; a statewide organics recycling program and enhanced residential composting; and development of a green infrastructure design industry. He would keep the Renewable Energy Fund under the oversight of the Rhode Island Commerce Corporation.

Renewable energy takes hold

Renewable Energy Provides 100 Percent of New Electrical Generation in July

BY THOMAS SCHUENEMAN

Data from the latest Energy Infrastructure Update report just released from the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission’s Office of Energy Projects shows that 100 percent of new U.S. electrical generating capacity put into service for July came from renewable energy sources. 

Those sources include 379 megawatts (MW) from wind energy, 21 MW of solar power and 5 MW of hydropower.

July follows on the trend of previous months of 2014. For the first seven months of the year renewable energy sources contributed 53.8 percent of all new electrical generating capacity, for a total of 4,758 MW coming online. 

Whatever

In our digital world, are young people losing the ability to read emotions?

Science Daily

Children's social skills may be declining as they have less time for face-to-face interaction due to their increased use of digital media, according to a UCLA psychology study.

UCLA scientists found that sixth-graders who went five days without even glancing at a smartphone, television or other digital screen did substantially better at reading human emotions than sixth-graders from the same school who continued to spend hours each day looking at their electronic devices.

"Many people are looking at the benefits of digital media in education, and not many are looking at the costs," said Patricia Greenfield, a distinguished professor of psychology in the UCLA College and senior author of the study. "Decreased sensitivity to emotional cues -- losing the ability to understand the emotions of other people -- is one of the costs. The displacement of in-person social interaction by screen interaction seems to be reducing social skills."

Kitty of the Week

Meet Brody

From the Animal Rescue League of Southern RI

Hi, my name is Brody.  What can I say?  I am a playful yet shy cat who really misses being in a home. 

I would really like a new home, a place where I can be loved and return the favor without other animals making me nervous. 

Adventure is my game, and if you could share your home with me I will not only entertain myself, but with time, I will follow you around the house ready for whatever adventure may come next. 

I like to nuzzle and get head scratches. All I ask is that you give me a little time to adapt and get comfortable once again. 

Beyond that, I will love every minute of calling your home mine as well.

How the CCA Party won the 2012 election

Understanding the Charlestown Citizens Alliance, Part 2

By Will Collette

Click here for Part 1

Prepare yourself for a deluge of CCA Party lies and fear-mongering
For more cartoons by Joel Heller, click here

After the Charlestown Democrats failed to wrest control of Charlestown town government from the Charlestown Citizens Alliance (CCA Party) in 2012 despite a good slate and effective fund-raising, I spent a good deal of time thinking about how the CCA Party did it.

Town Democrats ran three candidates for Town Council and four candidates for the Planning Commission and managed to get one candidate elected for each body – Paula Andersen for Council and Brandon Cleary for Planning. 2012 was the first time since 2004 that Charlestown Democrats ran a serious endorsed slate (the Mageau slate in 2006 were not endorsed).

Rep. Donna Walsh was the town’s top vote-getter (2547 Charlestown votes), swamping her two Charlestown-based opponents Tina Jackson and Kevin Prescott, although it helped that both had extensive criminal records.

Charlestown went heavily for Cathie Cool Rumsey, helping her to defeat incumbent Republican Senator Frank Maher. Charlestown voted by large margins for President Obama, Senator Whitehouse and Congressman Langevin.

Democratic votes were great in three out of Charlestown’s four electoral precincts, where Paula Andersen, Donna Walsh, Cathie Cool Rumsey, President Obama, Sen. Whitehouse and Rep. Langevin won by good to excellent margins. 

Only Precinct Three which includes Charlestown’s wealthiest neighborhoods (East & West Beach, Quonochontaug, Shady Harbor, etc.) was a glaring weak spot for the Democrats. Ironically, Cathy and I live in the third precinct.

Looking strictly at the numbers, it was like that crass old joke about the Lincoln Assassination (“Other than that, Mrs. Lincoln, how did you like the play?”) because in the end, the CCA Party still firmly controlled all the levers of power in Charlestown. 

If you analyze the Charlestown elections in 2008, 2010 and 2012, you can pretty much figure out how the CCA Party plans to win in 2014 – through lots of out-of-state money, fear-mongering and lies, and an effective get-out-the-vote (GOTV) effort, especially in Precinct #3.

Policing Wall Street

What if Ferguson cops went after bankers?

By Jen Sorenson

It's fun to think about, so click here.

VIDEO: The history of the minimum wage

Give Workers Something to Cheer About

Labor Day should be a day on, not a day off, in the effort to reclaim the American dream for working people.

By Robert L. Borosage

Labor Day is supposed to be a celebration of workers, but it’s been a long time since workers have been celebrated — or for that matter, have had a reason to celebrate. That’s because the union movement that gave us this holiday is, at least numerically, a shadow of its former self.

If we really want to give workers something to cheer about, we need to revitalize unions.

It’s no coincidence that prosperity was widely shared when unions were at the height of their power in the decades after World War II, and that inequality has soared as unions have been weakened.

That’s what I conclude in Inequality: Rebuilding the Middle Class Requires Reviving Strong Unions, a new Campaign for America’s Future report. My analysis tracks the simultaneous decline in the power of the labor movement and the fortunes of middle-class workers. It makes the case in simple terms.

Unions DO make a difference

Clamping Down on the Labor Extortion Racket

Mass mobilization for higher pay is leading to minimum wage increases across the nation.

By Jim Hightower

This Labor Day, you can mull some good news about American jobs for a change.

Take the federal minimum wage of $7.25 an hour — please! That poverty pay is a shameful stain on our extremely rich nation.

But don’t count on Washington, D.C. to lift our wage floor. Indeed, pigheaded Republican Congress critters refuse to consider it. Senator Lamar Alexander, a Tennessee Republican, has even called for abolishing the minimum wage.

So where’s the good news? Maybe right where you live.

Millions of low-wage workers themselves — from fast food workers to adjunct college professors — are organizing and mobilizing. They’re pushing local leaders to take action against the immoral inequality that’s ripping our society apart and sinking our economy.

Charlestown Police puts out APB for this hairy guy

Marmalade cat on the loose

From the CPB Facebook page. Please call the number if you spot this lost kitty.

Happy Labor Day!