In 1996, the gun industry got Republicans and some Democrats in congress to vote for a law that banned research on public health impacts of gun ownership and violence. The research ban was triggered by a 1993 research paper that showed gun ownership was a risk factor for domestic homicide. The NRA went nuts after that paper. The research ban is still partly in effect today. The gin violence research ban was devastatingly effective.
In a replay of that wildly successful research ban tactic, the pro-carbon pollution energy sector has bought some corrupt Republicans government-hater ideologues in congress to employ the same tactic. Corrupted, pay-to-play Republicans are quietly inserting language in spending bills that prevent the American government from combating or even researching climate change. The Lever writes:
As scientists warn of a mass extinction and ecological tipping points, congressional Republicans are helping their fossil fuel industry donors by quietly inserting provisions into annual spending bills designed to bar the American government from combating and researching climate change, according to the fine print of legislative text reviewed by The Lever. Some provisions also require the leasing of federal lands and waters for oil and gas development, while potentially limiting such leases for wind power.
In all, Republican leaders have added at least a dozen such environmental provisions to four annual government spending bills as property damage and death tolls mount from historic heat waves, floods, and wildfires.
By adding the provisions to annual must-pass spending bills, Republicans who control the U.S. House are attempting to force Senate Democrats to choose between either accepting them or blocking the spending bills and shutting down the government.One of the most aggressive Republican climate provisions moving through Texas Republican Rep. Kay Granger’s House Appropriations Committee panel is buried in legislation funding the government’s science agencies. As waters around South Florida set records for the hottest ocean temperatures ever recorded, a line in the bill would bar the Biden administration from spending any money on “climate change fisheries research.”
The subcommittee that originally authored the fisheries legislation is headed by Republican Rep. Hal Rogers, who hails from the coal-rich state of Kentucky and whose top career campaign contributors include donors from the mining and fossil fuel industries.
Rogers has raised more than half a million dollars from the mining industry over the course of his career, and $390,000 from the oil and gas industry, according to data from OpenSecrets. In the 2019-2020 cycle, Rogers’s campaign paid $66,000 to his wife Cynthia.
The GOP legislation also moves to defund a separate Biden order from April 2022 that sought to enhance the federal government’s forest stewardship and promote “climate-smart stewardship of mature and old-growth forests.”
The radicalized Republican Party, authoritarian, corrupt, mendacious, morally rotted, pro-pollution, pro-climate change and pro-species extinction.
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From the Global Warming Is Not A Hoax Files: The AP writes:
The water temperature around the tip of Florida has hit triple digits — hot tub levels — two days in a row. Meteorologists say it could be the hottest seawater ever measured, although some questions about the reading remain.
Scientists are already seeing devastating effects from prolonged hot water surrounding Florida — coral bleaching and even the death of some corals in what had been one of the Florida Keys’ most resilient reefs. Climate change has set temperature records across the globe this month.
The warmer water is also fuel for hurricanes.
Scientists were careful to say there is some uncertainty with the reading. But the buoy at Manatee Bay hit 101.1 degrees Fahrenheit (38.4 degrees Celsius) Monday evening, according to National Weather Service meteorologist George Rizzuto. The night before, that buoy showed an online reading of 100.2 F (37.9 C).“This is a hot tub. I like my hot tub around 100, 101, (37.8, 38.3 C). That’s what was recorded yesterday,” said Yale Climate Connections meteorologist Jeff Masters.
The consequences for sea corals are serious. NOAA researcher Andrew Ibarra, who took his kayak out to the area, “found that the entire reef was bleached out. Every single coral colony was exhibiting some form of paling, partial bleaching or full out bleaching.”
Some coral even had died, he said. This comes on top of bleaching seen last week by the University of Miami, when NOAA increased the alert level for coral earlier this month.
A dead coral at Cheeca Rocks off the coast of
Islamorada, Fla., on July 23, 2023
Q: Which is the actual hoax here, global warming or the corrupted, radicalized Republican Party?
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Social psychology and plastic pollution: The conversation writes:
Decades of public messages about recycling in the UShave crowded out more sustainable ways to manage waste
You’ve just finished a cup of coffee at your favorite cafe. Now you’re facing a trash bin, a recycling bin and a compost bin. What’s the most planet-friendly thing to do with your cup?
Many of us would opt for the recycling bin – but that’s often the wrong choice. In order to hold liquids, most paper coffee cups are made with a thin plastic lining, which makes separating these materials and recycling them difficult.
In fact, the most sustainable option isn’t available at the trash bin. It happens earlier, before you’re handed a disposable cup in the first place.
In our research on waste behavior, sustainability, engineering design and decision making, we examine what U.S. residents understand about the efficacy of different waste management strategies and which of those strategies they prefer. In two nationwide surveys in the U.S. that we conducted in October 2019 and March 2022, we found that people overlook waste reduction and reuse in favor of recycling. We call this tendency recycling bias and reduction neglect.
Producing and disposing of goods is a major source of greenhouse gas emissions and a public health threat, especially for vulnerable communities that receive large quantities of waste. New research suggests that even when plastic does get recycled, it produces staggering amounts of microplastic pollution.
No big deal, right? All congress has to do is pass a non-trivial tax on disposable single use plastic items, like hot beverage cups and demand will decrease. Or, just pass a carbon tax law.
Oh, no wait. Can't do that. The radicalized, authoritarian, corrupt, mendacious, morally rotted Republican Party will block anything the government tries to do. Never mind. The problem is not solvable, right? Right.
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A NYT opinion pience comments about Mussolini style fascism rising again in Italy:
Ahead of Italy’s election last fall, Giorgia Meloni was widely depicted as a menace. By this summer, everything — her youthful admiration for Benito Mussolini, her party’s links to neofascists, her often extreme rhetoric — had been forgiven. Praised for her practicality and support for Ukraine, Ms. Meloni has established herself as a reliable Western partner, central to Group of 7 meetings and NATO summits alike. A visit to Washington, which takes place on Thursday, seals her status as a valued member of the international community.
But the comforting tale of a populist firebrand turned pragmatist overlooks something important: what’s been happening in Italy. Ms. Meloni’s administration has spent its first months accusing minorities of undermining the triad of God, nation and family, with dire practical consequences for migrants, nongovernmental organizations and same-sex parents. Efforts to weaken anti-torture legislation, stack the public broadcaster with loyalists and rewrite Italy’s postwar constitution to increase executive power are similarly troubling. Ms. Meloni’s government isn’t just nativist but has a harsh authoritarian streak, too.
For Italy, this is bad enough. But much of its significance lies beyond its borders, showing how the far right can break down historic barriers with the center right. Allies of Ms. Meloni are already in power in Poland, also newly legitimized by their support for Ukraine. In Sweden, a center-right coalition relies on the nativist Sweden Democrats’ support to govern. In Finland, the anti-immigrant Finns Party went one better and joined the government. Though these parties, like many of their European counterparts, once rejected membership of NATO and the European Union, today they seek a place in the main Euro-Atlantic institutions, transforming them from within. In this project, Ms. Meloni is leading the way.
Once again, voters vote for dictatorship, bigotry and inconvenient truth. European democracy and NATO could both rot from within, just like democracy is rotting from within here in the US. Once those authoritarians get enough power and control, they will turn on democracy, secularism, pluralism and respect for truth, the law and fair elections. They will probably wind up supporting Russia in the long run.
That's like what America's radicalized, intolerant, authoritarian Republican Party has done. That applies to most Republican elites and most of the rank and file. They too will probably wind up eventually supporting Russian dictatorship, bigotry and brutality. And the corruption that usually accompanies dictatorships.
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