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Living within a living, loving planet
Archive for April, 2017
Who has crossed the Rubicon? Has the die been cast already?
Apr 27th
How to Undermine Democracy – Curtail Civil Society Rights
By Cathal Gilbert, Dom Perera, and Marianna Belalba, CIVICUS
http://www.ipsnews.net/2017/04/how-to-undermine-democracy-curtail-civil-society-rights/
JOHANNESBURG, Apr 25 2017 (IPS) – Recent elections and referendums in a growing number of countries from Turkey to the USA and beyond are producing leaders and policies, which directly threaten some of the core principles of democracy. In an increasing number of established and fledgling democracies, we see ruling parties violating the fundamental freedoms to speak-out, rally behind a cause and get involved in a social movement.
“Your Own Inaction Brought us Exactly Here”
Apr 25th
Naomi Wolf, author, political journalist and cofounder of DailyClout: ‘Trump didn’t do this. You did this. Your own inaction brought us exactly here’
The first 100 days of President Donald Trump
Only 18.7% of the total US population voted for Trump and only 26.3% of eligible voters actually voted for Trump.
Proportional representation would be an improvement.
We must not forget that the electoral system in the US was a compromise between states rights and federal control. The battle still rages.
“With PR, (Proportional_representation) there are no “swing seats”, most votes contribute to the election of a candidate so parties need to campaign in all districts, not just those where their support is strongest or where they perceive most advantage. This fact in turn encourages parties to be more responsive to voters, producing a more “balanced” ticket by nominating more women and minority candidates.[20] On average about 8% more women are elected.[23]
Since most votes count, there are fewer “wasted votes”, so voters, aware that their vote can make a difference, are more likely to make the effort to vote, and less likely to vote tactically. Compared to countries with plurality electoral systems, voter turnout improves and the population is more involved in the political process.[2][20][23]”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proportional_representation#Advantages_and_disadvantages
Scientists understood the climate 150 years ago better than the EPA head today
Apr 1st
Scientists understood the climate 150 years ago better than the EPA head today
Posted on 31 March 2017 by John Abraham
https://www.skepticalscience.com/scientists-understood-climate-150-yr-ago-better-than-pruitt.html
Recently he (Scott Pruitt) claimed on CNBC that carbon dioxide is not a primary contributor to global warming:
I think that measuring with precision human activity on the climate is something very challenging to do, and there’s tremendous disagreement about the degree of impact. So, no, I would not agree that’s a primary contributor to the global warming that we see. But we don’t know that yet. We need to continue the debate and continue the review and the analysis.
“There are two undeniable ironies in this statement. First, taken at face value it would suggest that we actually need to do more analysis – but the current administration is proposing draconian cuts in our climate science research budget. They are doing just the opposite of what he recommends.
The second irony is that scientists have known about the importance of carbon dioxide as a greenhouse gas for well over 100 years. There is no debate among any reputable scientists that carbon dioxide is the most important human emitted greenhouse gas. Furthermore, humans have increased the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere by 43%. These are facts.”
“The final stop on our way-back trip brings us to 1896 and Swedish researcher Svante Arrhenius. He became the first person (that I know of) to make predictions about how much the Earth temperature would change as we add carbon dioxide to the atmosphere. The title of his work, “On the Influence of Carbonic Acid in the Air upon the Temperature of the Ground” says it all.
Using measurements of the energy incoming from the moon, Arrhenius showed that changes to trace gases in the atmosphere can dramatically affect the temperature of the planet. He also discussed how gases are able to absorb specific wavelengths of light. Using experimental data from other preceding studies, he predicted global temperatures would rise approximately 5–6C in response to a doubling of atmospheric carbon dioxide.”