LISA SONG and LYLLA YOUNES, Investigative Reporters - Undark, ProPublica, and Grist
Stephan: And here we have another proof of how corporate greed takes priority over human wellbeing. The only thing that is going to change this is the people themselves. That's why I wrote The 8 Laws of Change; it explains how to do it. It's too long for a comment on SR.
A Denka factory in Reserve, Louisiana, on August 12, 2021. It is one of scores of refineries and petrochemical plants that contribute to toxic pollution along Cancer Alley. Visual: Emily Kask / AFP via Getty
“Louisiana must examine how polluters imperil the health of Black residents,” the Environmental Protection Agency said in a letter it sent last week to state regulators in response to civil rights complaints about air pollution in the region known as Cancer Alley.
Black residents in southeastern Louisiana bear a disproportionate cancer risk from industrial air pollution, the agency found, with children at one predominantly Black elementary school having been exposed to a dangerous carcinogen at levels 11 times what the EPA considers acceptable.
Stephan: The Republican christofascists are, as this article describes, literally dismantling America's medical training system. And if these MAGAts take over the Congress and various state houses, you are going to see a major debasement of social wellbeing. Sadly, I think the American people are going to vote to destroy themselves.
Dr. Nikki Zite, a professor at a University of Tennessee OB-GYN residency program, worries that top-tier candidates will not apply there because abortions cannot be performed in the state. Credit: Morgan Hornsby / The New York Times
Many medical residency programs that are educating the next generation of obstetricians and gynecologists are facing a treacherous choice.
If they continue to provide abortion training in states where the procedure is now outlawed, they could be prosecuted. If they don’t offer it, they risk losing their accreditation, which in turn would render their residents ineligible to receive specialty board certification and imperil recruitment of faculty and medical students.
“You have a legal body, the state, saying abortion is a crime and an accrediting body saying it’s a crucial part of training,” said Mary Ziegler, a law professor at the University of California, Davis, who specializes in the history of abortion. “I can’t think […]
Stephan: Yet further proof. If we are to survive as a civilization we have to -- yes, have to -- restructure ourselves so that wellbeing is the first priority of all technologies and businesses. And we don't have much time to wake up and do this.
Credit: Shutterstock
Scientists and activists expressed shock and the need for urgent climate action Wednesday as the United Nations’ World Meteorological Organization revealed that atmospheric levels of the three main greenhouse gases fueling catastrophic global heating all hit record highs in 2021.
The WMO’s annual Greenhouse Gas Bulletin warns that atmospheric carbon dioxide, methane, and nitrous oxide reached unprecedented levels last year. According to the report, carbon dioxide concentrations in 2021 were 415.7 parts per million (ppm), methane was 1908 parts per billion (ppb), and nitrous oxide was 334.5 ppb. These levels are, respectively, 149%, 262%, and 124% above pre-industrial levels.
The report notes that methane concentrations saw their biggest single-year increase since systematic measurements began nearly 40 years ago, while CO2 levels rose at a higher-than-usual rate.
“The brutal truth is here for everyone to see,” climate scientist Bill McGuire tweeted in response to the new figures. “Far from emissions being brought under control, they are actually accelerating. This is the worst possible news.”
“You can say goodbye to 1.5°C and 2°C too,” he added, […]
Stephan: All of this pain, stress or danger is directly attributable to MAGAt world and the Republican Party and particularly Donald Trump. Period. There is no progressive equivalent to this movement on the Democratic side. It is entirely one-sided. Trump and the Republican MAGAts, both media like Fox, and politicians like Marjorie Taylor Greene are literally tearing this country apart. And they have this power because millions of White people support them, fund them, vote for them, watch their television programs.
Are we going to survive as a country in which you will want to live? Frankly, I don't know, but I do know that if one-third of the country wants chaos and racist, male-dominant christofascism then the other two-thirds of us have to get out and vote Democratic for every post it is going to happen. It is up to you.
Ohio’s new abortion law forces doctor to fight to protect her patient’s life
Editor’s Note: This essay is part of the CNN Opinion series “America’s Future Starts Now,” in which people share how they have been affected by the biggest issues facing the nation and experts offer their proposed solutions. Dr. Mae-Lan Winchester, an obstetrician-gynecologist and specialist in maternal-fetal medicine, is an assistant professor at Case Western Reserve University and a fellow with Physicians for Reproductive Health. The views expressed here are her own. They do not represent the opinions of Case Western Reserve University.
The lives of the pregnant patients who walk into my Maternal Fetal Medicine clinic in Cleveland, Ohio, are never simple.
Because I specialize in diagnosing and treating high-risk patients, the people who come to me are already facing something they couldn’t possibly have planned for. I think about them constantly: The mother carrying twins, faced with aborting one fetus or risk losing both. A scared 21 year old with a life-threatening infection that developed two days after her water broke too early.
Stephan: I have been telling my readers for over 20 years that the central problem facing the United States is that it has become a culture with only one social priority and that is profit. Greed is our central value. Thom Hartmann now seems to agree. Good for him.
Credit: Shutterstock
As long as money is considered First Amendment-protected “free speech” under US law, we will remain gridlocked in a corrupt stasis where the will of the American people is ignored in deference to the will of billionaires and giant corporations.
I just checked, and there’s $86 in the pocket of my jeans. I rarely use cash anymore; it’s probably been in there for at least a month, maybe two. And in that entire time, I’ve never heard a single word, sound, or even a grunt from my small wad of dollar bills.
Nonetheless, in defiance of literally hundreds of good government laws passed over a 200-year period by both federal and state legislatures and signed by multiple presidents and governors, “conservatives” on the US Supreme Court have declared that my $86 is “speech.”
Now, I understand their logic. If I want my congressman to sponsor legislation to exempt most of my income from radio talk shows or book writing from taxation, the way they have for hedge funds and billionaires like Musk, Bezos, and Zuckerberg, I could […]
