Expect a deepening global depression; protracted economic, political, social, and institutional upheaval; mass unemployment, poverty, homelessness, and hunger; and severe repression to curb public anger. Blame it on decades of political influence buying yielding unprecedented returns for the privileged, but economic wreckage and catastrophic life changes for the rest. The price of excess is pain, lots of it for the world's disadvantaged, the ones who always pay for rich peoples' sins. [...more]
WE HAVE a problem. Despite broad and sustained scientific consensus about the growing incapacity of the planet to sustain us and the threat posed by climate change, our elected decision makers and key corporate players seem incapable of doing enough of what is required, to avert the coming crisis. [...more]
This 20-page report says that adult African Americans were arrested on drug charges at rates that were 2.8 to 5.5 times as high as those of white adults in every year from 1980 through 2007, the last year for which complete data were available. About one in three of the more than 25.4 million adult drug arrestees during that period was African American. [...more]
Organizations in the United States that are at the highest risk of sustaining damage from climate change are not adapting enough to the dangers posed by rising temperatures, according to a Yale report. [...more]
A voter facing a choice in the distant future is less interested in particular plans and policies than in broad, abstract themes. It is only as the election gets closer do voters start paying attention to details of the candidate's positions on issues of importance to them. [...more]
In May 2005, FBI Deputy Assistant Director for Counterterrorism John Lewis told a Senate panel that ecoterrorism is "one of today's most serious domestic terrorism threats." Then the FBI's James Jarboe estimated that two organizations (the Earth Liberation Front - ELF and Animal Liberation Front - ALF) committed over 600 criminal acts since 1996, causing over $43 million in damage. For his part, Lewis said both groups committed more than 1100 such acts since 1976, "conservatively" resulting in around $110 million in damages. [...more]
An investigation of the Environmental Protection Agency released today found that 889 of nearly 1,600 staff scientists reported that they experienced political interference in their work over the last five years. The study, by the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS), follows previous UCS investigations of the Food and Drug Administration, Fish and Wildlife Service, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, and climate scientists at seven federal agencies, which also found significant administration manipulation of federal science. [...more]
Although science is rarely the only factor driving public policy, scientific input should always be weighed from an impartial perspective. Unfortunately, numerous independent investigations have documented the suppression, manipulation, and distortion of federal science before it enters the policy process. Political interference in science has indeed become pervasive. [...more]
