The Duluth News Tribune had an article about climate scientists who are worried about Donald Trump's proposed appointments.
"Florida climate scientists worry as Trump picks his Cabinet and sea levels rise"
"These choices dismay Dan Weiss, a clean-energy consultant who has led climate change programs for several major environmental organizations.
“'Nominating climate science deniers to head EPA, Energy and Interior is the same as appointing an arsonist to head the fire department,' he told McClatchy. 'South Florida should get used to higher floods than it has today.'”
- Duluth News Tribune, 2016-12-22.
Maybe global warming is "fire the next time"?
Showing posts with label EPA. Show all posts
Showing posts with label EPA. Show all posts
Friday, December 23, 2016
Saturday, June 20, 2015
From my clippings file
Every so often, I email an article to myself for future reference, often with the idea of writing a blog entry. Most likely I don’t get around to it. So, since I don’t have a hot topic in my head this week, I thought I’d muse about some of these clippings. Don’t worry, I won’t write about all 59, just enough to fill a Reader Weekly page.
One apropos to the attempts to take some auditing work from the State Auditor was a letter to the Duluth News Tribune by Paul and Susan Schurke of Ely. They praise Rebecca Otto for pointing out that nobody knows what the potential cost to taxpayers of new mines will be. Is it any wonder that the corporate-lovers in the Minnesota legislators want reduce Otto’s authority? Strange that this same crowd complains about taxes.
“Otto’s common sense mining position can unite us all.” Duluth News Tribune, 2013-12-09.
Pete Seeger wrote long ago that we have the best politicians: “We elect them again and again.” One of the reasons we elect them again and again is that a plutocracy finances too many elections. Plutocracy is government by the rich. “Capitalism vs. Democracy” by Thomas B. Edsall (http://nyti.ms/Msy71t) asks “Is deepening inequality inevitable? The case for a global wealth tax.” - New York Times, 2014-01-28. It is a review of Thomas Piketty’s “Capital in the Twenty-First Century”. Edsall quotes Piketty’s assertion “when pay setters set their own pay, there’s no limit”.
A reverse on a wealth tax is offered by D. J. Tice in “There’s no pot of gold for the working poor”, Star Tribune, 2014-02-09. His first suggestion is “to stop raising their taxes.” He also suggests expanding both the State and Federal Earned Income Tax Credit. He also writes that any hike in the minimum wage will probably result in fewer workers over the long term. Think of how you once bought an ice cream cone. Somebody bent over the freezer and scooped your choice into a cone. Now you can go to Chilly Billy’s and fill your own cup with your choice of frozen yogurt.
My answer to when pay setters won’t set their pay is when the sun sets in the East. Joe Nocera wrote about all the gimmicks that CEOs and their boards use to keep raising the CEOs pay to ridiculous levels. See “CEO Pay Goes Up, Up, and Away”, New York Times, 2014-04-14 (http://nyti.ms/1erLn2H). Shareholders can vote against boards that grant obscene pay, but they will probably be outvoted by institutional investors who exercise “fiduciary responsibility” by voting in management’s favor. Even if that responsibility were directed at reducing executive pay, current law says that “Say on Pay” is only an advisory; management doesn’t have to honor the shareholders vote.
Have you considered that the wealthy wield much more power than kings of old? Except they don’t need armies of soldiers to stay in power, just armies of lawyers and lobbyists.
You can know that things are out of control when a “conservative” columnist calls attention to the inequalities. My favorite “conservative” columnist, Ross Douthat, wrote “College, the Great Unequalizer”, New York Times, 2014-05-03 (http://nyti.ms/1kzuuRQ). He says that the Party Scene at many colleges benefits the well-heeled student and sucks in the “lower-status” student. The well-heeled can rescue those who practice an excess of vices, but the less-well-off can’t. The well-heeled will go on to social or economic success regardless of their performance. Others will rarely join that social class.
And the upper-class is finding many ways to get their way no matter the cost to the rest of society. It is well-known, to those who care, that the Koch Brothers through their American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) are writing our laws in cahoots with Republican legislators. One of the current examples is “right-to-work” laws. Many of the laws are almost identical to what ALEC proposed. “Wisconsin’s law was a virtual copy of the 1995 model bill promoted by” ALEC. See “Scott Walker and the Fate of the Union”, New York Times, Dan Kaufman, 2015-06-12.
The article points out how the upper-class minions don’t care about much more than keeping their masters happy. The accident rate among workers is higher in right-to-work states. Scott Walker promised the president of the state-wide union of heavy machine operators that the “right-to-work bill” would not make it to his desk. Walker got his contribution and the labor guy lost Walker’s commitment.
How the Republican Party has changed! The 1956 Republican Party platform included “The protection of the right of workers to organize into unions and to bargain collectively is the firm and permanent policy of the Eisenhower administration.”
And it even gets worse. See “Energy Firms in Secretive Alliance With Attorneys General”, Eric Lipton, New York Times, 2014-12-06. The attorneys general are sending letters of complaint about air pollution to the Environmental Protection Agency that are almost duplicates of letters written by the lawyers of energy companies. These attorneys general are getting huge campaign contributions from energy companies. Thanks to these contributions, 27 of the states’ attorneys general are Republicans. Who was it that wrote, “We have the best government money can buy”?
Or to blaspheme Abraham Lincoln, “A government of the corporations, by the corporations, and for the corporations shall not perish from the earth.” Or should it be “shall destroy the earth”?
One apropos to the attempts to take some auditing work from the State Auditor was a letter to the Duluth News Tribune by Paul and Susan Schurke of Ely. They praise Rebecca Otto for pointing out that nobody knows what the potential cost to taxpayers of new mines will be. Is it any wonder that the corporate-lovers in the Minnesota legislators want reduce Otto’s authority? Strange that this same crowd complains about taxes.
“Otto’s common sense mining position can unite us all.” Duluth News Tribune, 2013-12-09.
Pete Seeger wrote long ago that we have the best politicians: “We elect them again and again.” One of the reasons we elect them again and again is that a plutocracy finances too many elections. Plutocracy is government by the rich. “Capitalism vs. Democracy” by Thomas B. Edsall (http://nyti.ms/Msy71t) asks “Is deepening inequality inevitable? The case for a global wealth tax.” - New York Times, 2014-01-28. It is a review of Thomas Piketty’s “Capital in the Twenty-First Century”. Edsall quotes Piketty’s assertion “when pay setters set their own pay, there’s no limit”.
A reverse on a wealth tax is offered by D. J. Tice in “There’s no pot of gold for the working poor”, Star Tribune, 2014-02-09. His first suggestion is “to stop raising their taxes.” He also suggests expanding both the State and Federal Earned Income Tax Credit. He also writes that any hike in the minimum wage will probably result in fewer workers over the long term. Think of how you once bought an ice cream cone. Somebody bent over the freezer and scooped your choice into a cone. Now you can go to Chilly Billy’s and fill your own cup with your choice of frozen yogurt.
My answer to when pay setters won’t set their pay is when the sun sets in the East. Joe Nocera wrote about all the gimmicks that CEOs and their boards use to keep raising the CEOs pay to ridiculous levels. See “CEO Pay Goes Up, Up, and Away”, New York Times, 2014-04-14 (http://nyti.ms/1erLn2H). Shareholders can vote against boards that grant obscene pay, but they will probably be outvoted by institutional investors who exercise “fiduciary responsibility” by voting in management’s favor. Even if that responsibility were directed at reducing executive pay, current law says that “Say on Pay” is only an advisory; management doesn’t have to honor the shareholders vote.
Have you considered that the wealthy wield much more power than kings of old? Except they don’t need armies of soldiers to stay in power, just armies of lawyers and lobbyists.
You can know that things are out of control when a “conservative” columnist calls attention to the inequalities. My favorite “conservative” columnist, Ross Douthat, wrote “College, the Great Unequalizer”, New York Times, 2014-05-03 (http://nyti.ms/1kzuuRQ). He says that the Party Scene at many colleges benefits the well-heeled student and sucks in the “lower-status” student. The well-heeled can rescue those who practice an excess of vices, but the less-well-off can’t. The well-heeled will go on to social or economic success regardless of their performance. Others will rarely join that social class.
And the upper-class is finding many ways to get their way no matter the cost to the rest of society. It is well-known, to those who care, that the Koch Brothers through their American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) are writing our laws in cahoots with Republican legislators. One of the current examples is “right-to-work” laws. Many of the laws are almost identical to what ALEC proposed. “Wisconsin’s law was a virtual copy of the 1995 model bill promoted by” ALEC. See “Scott Walker and the Fate of the Union”, New York Times, Dan Kaufman, 2015-06-12.
The article points out how the upper-class minions don’t care about much more than keeping their masters happy. The accident rate among workers is higher in right-to-work states. Scott Walker promised the president of the state-wide union of heavy machine operators that the “right-to-work bill” would not make it to his desk. Walker got his contribution and the labor guy lost Walker’s commitment.
How the Republican Party has changed! The 1956 Republican Party platform included “The protection of the right of workers to organize into unions and to bargain collectively is the firm and permanent policy of the Eisenhower administration.”
And it even gets worse. See “Energy Firms in Secretive Alliance With Attorneys General”, Eric Lipton, New York Times, 2014-12-06. The attorneys general are sending letters of complaint about air pollution to the Environmental Protection Agency that are almost duplicates of letters written by the lawyers of energy companies. These attorneys general are getting huge campaign contributions from energy companies. Thanks to these contributions, 27 of the states’ attorneys general are Republicans. Who was it that wrote, “We have the best government money can buy”?
Or to blaspheme Abraham Lincoln, “A government of the corporations, by the corporations, and for the corporations shall not perish from the earth.” Or should it be “shall destroy the earth”?
Sunday, May 12, 2013
Opposition to the EPA is just a GOP plot to dismantle public education
Mercury, lead, and several other pollutants are known for reducing cognitive function. If these pollutants are kept at high levels, then many children will not perform well in school. If many children don't perform well, it will demonstrate that public schools are failing. Thus, private interests, which always do "better" will take over. Of course, they can reject those children adversely affected by pollutants.
I posted the above as a comment to "The Latest G.O.P. Temper Tantrum", Robert B. Semple, Jr., New York Times, 2013-05-09. Temper tantrum is the description Semple gave the walkout by some G.O.P. Senators from the hearings for the confirmation of Gina McCarthy as the head of the EPA. See also "Lead and 'failing' schools".
E. Nowak of Illinois responded to my comment with
"And the closer people live to factories, the more toxins they breath in. The rich, always live far, far away from the industrial centers."
But we don't even have to live close to factories to be introduced to toxins. What are all the pesticides used in agriculture doing to us. What are the neoniconitides used to "kill aphids and other crop-destroying insects" doing to us? These are nerve poisons that disrupt neural activity. They are put into seeds and "become incorporated in the tissues of the adult plant". If we eat these plants what's to guarantee that the neurotoxins won't be affecting us? See "Honeybee die-off brings 'Silent Spring' back to mind", William Souder, Star Tribune, 2013-05-12. In other words, are these neurotoxins affecting the performance of school children?
I'm sorry if you think I'm a scold about free markets and Adam Smith's "invisible hand", but we really have to hold to account those who corrupt both ideas to hide their own self-interest against the public good. Please tell your friends about
"The Invisible Adam Smith" and "Humpty Dumpty and Free Markets".
I posted the above as a comment to "The Latest G.O.P. Temper Tantrum", Robert B. Semple, Jr., New York Times, 2013-05-09. Temper tantrum is the description Semple gave the walkout by some G.O.P. Senators from the hearings for the confirmation of Gina McCarthy as the head of the EPA. See also "Lead and 'failing' schools".
E. Nowak of Illinois responded to my comment with
"And the closer people live to factories, the more toxins they breath in. The rich, always live far, far away from the industrial centers."
But we don't even have to live close to factories to be introduced to toxins. What are all the pesticides used in agriculture doing to us. What are the neoniconitides used to "kill aphids and other crop-destroying insects" doing to us? These are nerve poisons that disrupt neural activity. They are put into seeds and "become incorporated in the tissues of the adult plant". If we eat these plants what's to guarantee that the neurotoxins won't be affecting us? See "Honeybee die-off brings 'Silent Spring' back to mind", William Souder, Star Tribune, 2013-05-12. In other words, are these neurotoxins affecting the performance of school children?
I'm sorry if you think I'm a scold about free markets and Adam Smith's "invisible hand", but we really have to hold to account those who corrupt both ideas to hide their own self-interest against the public good. Please tell your friends about
"The Invisible Adam Smith" and "Humpty Dumpty and Free Markets".
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