Clean power is not enough

It will take social and political change as well to meet climate targets

Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK)

Coal power versus wind and solar energy -- debates about the Paris climate targets often centre around electricity supply. 

Yet, even in a world of stringent climate policies and a clean power generation, the remaining use of fossil fuels in industry, transport and heating in buildings could still cause enough CO₂ emissions to endanger the climate targets agreed on by the international community, an international team of researchers finds. 

Published in Nature Climate Change, their elaborate study is the first to focus specifically on the residual fossil fuel emissions from sectors that are not as easily decarbonized as power generation.

Worried about flame retardants?

Clean your house (and hands)!

Brian Bienkowski for the Environmental Health News

Some women experienced a 74 percent decrease in levels after upping the cleaning of their house for a week

After a small group of women increased their house cleaning and hand washing, the levels of harmful common flame retardants in their bodies plummeted, according to a new study .

The study, published in the Journal of Exposure Science and Environmental Epidemiology, is the first to look at exposure to the chemicals before and after increases in house cleaning and hand washing, and suggests some simple lifestyle changes can significantly reduce our toxic loads.

The chemicals are often found in furniture and electronics to suppress flames and prevent fires. 

Researchers believe household dust is the primary way most people are exposed to flame retardants, which leach out of products into the environment.

Furthermore a lot of the dust enters our bodies when we put our hands to our mouths—which leaves children most susceptible.

Will Supremes go from bad to worse?

Even before Justice Kennedy's announcement, the Supreme Court was turning weird

By Peter Certo 

The Supreme Court is a real piece of work. Over the last few days it’s been popping off far-right proclamations like a drunk uncle at Thanksgiving. Except this uncle gets to make the rules in your house, and he can stay there until he dies.

Over about 48 hours, the nation’s highest court gutted the ability of America’s public employee unions to fundraise. 

It ruled that a president can freely apply his well-documented anti-Muslim bigotry to U.S. immigration policy, as long as he says that’s not what he’s doing. 

And it upheld deeply gerrymandered congressional maps in North Carolina and Texas, which lower courts ruled were blatantly designed to make the votes of poor people and people of color count for less.

These decisions weren’t without their dissenters — Justice Sonia Sotomayor in particular delivered fiery rebukes to the Muslim ban and gerrymandering decisions. But each one was decided by a rigid 5-4 vote, with the court’s right-wing majority carrying the day.

Please recall how this majority came to be.

The battle ahead

RI has created a political environment where women are ignored

RI NOW Women in UpriseRI

On June 23 the Rhode Island legislative session ended with no movement on legislation pertaining to equal pay, reproductive freedom, or sexual harassment. 

On June 26, the Supreme Court of the United States in National Institute of Family and Life Advocates v Becerra found that anti-abortion crisis pregnancy centers do not need to fully disclose their purpose.

In reacting to the decision NARAL Pro-Choice America President Ilyse Hogue said, “One vote made all the difference today, and it could also be the only thing between upholding Roe or outlawing legal abortion in America.”

On June 27, we found out that “one vote,” Justice Anthony M Kennedy, widely seen as holding the center on the Supreme Court of the United States, is retiring on July 31^st of this year.

But that’s not all. Former Representative John Carnevale filed to run for his old seat in District 13.

Carnevale did not run in 2016 after he was kicked off the primary ballot for not living in the District—a transgression for which he is still facing three counts of perjury and one count of filing a false document.

However, that is not the main reason why RI NOW is concerned about Carnevale being in the State House.

Safety first

Today is World UFO Day. Not making this up.

From Fake Science, where they break down the facts so simply that even Justin Price might be able to understand them.

Trump’s Wall won’t fix this

Those invading animals!

Peter Dykstra for Environmental Health News

In the history of American cinema, the 1950's and 1980's stand out as decades where cheap sci-fi films about animals gone mad garnered their share of the box office.

But sci-fi meets sci-fact in the Everglades. Despite a stint on the endangered species list and a whole lot of bad press, the American Alligator has been deposed as the king of the Everglades food chain.

Last week, the Miami Herald reported on Mike Kimmel, a trapper who, for the third time in his career, found himself saving a gator from the grips of the new king, a Burmese Python. 

While neither was the biggest of its species, the 10-foot snake was constricting the four-foot gator in a pinnacle example of reptile-on-reptile violence.

Health insurance plans may be fueling opioid epidemic

Insurers need to cover alternative treatments to opioids
Johns Hopkins University Bloomberg School of Public Health

Example: massage therapy can reduce opioid use but is rarely covered
by insurance

Health care insurers including Medicare, Medicaid and major private insurers have not done enough to combat the opioid epidemic, suggests a study led by researchers at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.

The Bloomberg School researchers examined major insurers' 2017 coverage policies for drugs to treat chronic lower-back pain, and concluded that these policies missed important opportunities to steer patients towards safer and more effective treatments than prescription opioids.

On global trade, Trump doesn’t know what he’s talking about

Tiffs with multinational corporations are bogus

By Phil Mattera for the Dirt Diggers Digest

Donald Trump seems to live in a world in which there is global trade but no foreign direct investment. 

He recently denounced BMW imports at a South Carolina rally while ignoring the German automaker’s production facility a short distance away in Spartanburg, which has been in operation since 1994.

The president also seems to be less than fully informed when it comes to the foreign operations of U.S. corporations.

He has been berating Harley-Davidson for announcing plans to shift some production to Europe to circumvent the tariffs the EU is imposing on selected American products in response to Trump’s trade policies. In his tweet tirade, Trump demand that Harleys “never be built in another country—never.”

In fact, Harley already has offshore production facilities. 

Bad to the bone

Curdling the milk of human kindness

By Michael Winship for Common Dreams

Our “I alone can fix it” president has gotten us in another fix, all right.

Of course, whenever he screws up big time, Mister I Alone starts blaming everyone but Mister I Alone.

He had admitted as much the other day when he was in Singapore for his summit with North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un and bragged about the great deal he imagined he had made: “I may stand before you in six months and say, ‘Hey, I was wrong.’ I don’t know that I’ll ever admit that, but I’ll find some kind of an excuse.” He was, in his gruesome way, joking, but many a truth in jest, etc.

Last week, The Daily 202, the compendium of political news from the Washington Post, made a list of some of the many times Donald Trump has tried to avoid responsibility—when he ended DACA, when Congress failed to completely scuttle Obamacare, when anti-gun violence legislation failed to pass, when the tax cut plan was in danger, when a failed covert operation in Yemen cost the life of a Navy SEAL.

“Time and time again, the president has sought to shift the blame for his own decisions and their consequences to his political opponents,” James Hohmann wrote. “He’s doing it again this week by falsely blaming Democrats for his own policy of forcibly separating migrant children from their parents at the border, which he could stop with one phone call.”

It's logical

For more cartoons by Ted Rall, CLICK HERE.

Why Vote Blue?

First tests of mosquitos shows signs of EEE

Later tests can’t confirm

DEM Weekly Mosquito Advisory

The Rhode Island Department of Environmental Management (DEM) announced that 53 mosquito samples from 13 traps set on Monday, June 11; 106 samples from 33 traps set on Monday, June 18; and 15 samples from three traps set on Wednesday, June 20 have tested negative for both West Nile Virus (WNV) and Eastern Equine Encephalitis (EEE).

In addition, EEE was detected in mosquito samples from three traps set on June 11; however, this highly unusual and uncommon finding was not substantiated by traps set at the suspect sites on both June 18 and June 20. 

To date, in Rhode Island, there have been no findings of WNV in mosquito samples. On June 26, Connecticut and Massachusetts reported this year's first findings of WNV in mosquito samples.

Personal protection is the first line of defense against mosquitoes that may carry WNV, EEE, or other diseases – and the most effective way to avoid infection. 

With WNV and EEE established throughout the state, DEM and RIDOH remind the public to eliminate mosquito breeding grounds and prevent being bitten, whenever possible. 

The following precautions are advised:

Bad air, bad water, bad weather

Heat wave problems
By Will Collette

So, this current heat wave poses the following health challenges to local residents and visitors' health.

A bad air alert for unhealthy ozone levels covering at least the next three days. The Health Department says the worst readings will be in our area. 

People with sensitivities to air pollution should stay indoors and try to stay cool. Children with asthma and adults with COPD are especially at high risk.

You are also urged to curb unnecessary driving, outdoor burning, use of things like gas-powered lawn mowers or solvents. Shooting off fireworks isn't going to help. In other words, try not to make a bad situation worse.

Continue for information on other weather-related risks.

Details, details

These Trump Staffers — Including an ex-NRA Lobbyist — Left Their Financial Disclosure Forms Blank

By Gabriel Sandoval for ProPublica

Before accepting a position at the U.S. Department of the Interior last October, Benjamin Cassidy championed gun rights for nearly seven years as a lobbyist for the National Rifle Association, collecting a peak annual salary of $288,333 for his work on Capitol Hill.

The public wouldn’t know that by looking at Cassidy’s government financial disclosure report. The form, which he filed soon after taking a job as senior deputy director of the office of intergovernmental and external affairs, doesn’t list his old job at the NRA — or any past job, for that matter. 

Cassidy’s form was nearly blank, save for his name, title and some bank holdings and investments. In the space allotted to show his income, it incorrectly stated “None.”

Federal law requires nearly all executive branch employees to submit reports intended to reveal and resolve conflicts of interest that might arise from their personal finances. The reports are supposed to be carefully reviewed, preferably by agency ethics attorneys, before being made public.

After we asked the Interior Department about the failure of Cassidy and at least three other staffers to disclose their work histories and finances, the agency responded with a bullet-pointed assessment that acknowledged ongoing problems while also noting that they “predated the current administration.” 

Among the department’s findings: