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Author: John Hanno
Born and raised in Chicago, Illinois. Bogan High School. Worked in Alaska after the earthquake. Joined U.S. Army at 17. Sergeant, B Battery, 3rd Battalion, 84th Artillery, 7th Army. Member of 12 different unions, including 4 different locals of the I.B.E.W. Worked for fortune 50, 100 and 200 companies as an industrial electrician, electrical/electronic technician.
Voters Give Trump an ‘F’ Grade for First Year in Office, Poll Shows
Harriet Sinclair, Newsweek January 16, 2018
Voters Give Trump an F Grade for First Year in Office, Poll Shows
Donald Trump has been given an “F” grade for his first year as president by more than a third of voters, a new poll revealed.
The Morning Consult and Politico poll asked respondents to grade the president based on the previous 12 months, which have seen Trump criticized for a failed attempt to repeal Obamacare, several bungled attempts at a Muslim ban, and, most recently, a pledge to pull DACA, with the largest portion of voters giving him an F.
Of the 1,988 registered voters who took the survey, 698 of them (or 35 percent) said the president was failing in his first year in office, followed by the second largest group of 354 people (or 18 percent) who gave the president an A for his first year, highlighting the oft-discussed polarization in U.S. politics over the past 18 months.
Voters, who were surveyed from January 4-5 also felt the president had not done well on issues including tackling terrorism, foreign relations, debt, and the economy—with the largest groups being those who rated the president an F on the aforementioned topics.
Indeed, 26 percent of respondents gave the president an F on the economy, compared with 25 percent who gave him an A; 38 percent of respondents said the president had failed on health care, compared with 10 percent who gave him an A on the topic; and 28 percent rated the president an F on tackling terrorism compared with the 22 percent who believed Trump was excellent on tackling terrorism.
For his part, the president has previously suggested polls that dismiss his performance or give him a low approval rating are “fake polls” reported by “fake news,” and previous polls leading up to his surprise election victory did indeed suggest he had far less voter support than his base proved on the day.
However, his approval rating must be a cause for concern, with a CNN poll released before Christmas giving Trump the lowest approval rating of any president in modern history, and indicating a 10 percent drop in favorability since he took office.
Iranian Tanker Leaves Massive Oil Slick, Worries Mount Over Environmental Damage
Lorraine Chow January 15, 2018
Experts have expressed concern about the potential environmental aftermath of a stricken Iranian oil tanker that exploded and sank in the East China Sea on Sunday.
The Sanchi—carrying 150,000 tons, or nearly 1 million barrels, of condensate oil—collided with the CF Crystal on Jan 6. The tanker caught fire and burned for more than a week before sinking. Iranian officials said all 32 crew members on the tanker were killed.
According to the BBC, Chinese ships are racing to clean up a 46 square mile oil slick left behind. The slick is thought to be made up of heavy fuel used to power the vessel.
BBC’s China Correspondent Robin Brant reported that the oil slick has more than doubled in size since Sunday, noting that the big concern now is the environmental impact.
There could also be a very tall plume of condensate oil underneath the surface, Brant noted. Condensate is an ultra-light oil that is highly toxic and much more explosive than regular crude oil.
Experts worry that ship’s sinking would likely expel the remaining condensate and the tanker’s bunker fuel, contaminating the surrounding waters, Reuters reported.
According to Reuters, “bunker fuel is the dirtiest kind of oil, extremely toxic when spilled, though less explosive. Condensate is poisonous to marine organisms.”
As Rick Steiner, a U.S. marine scientist explained to the news service, the East China Sea is known for its rich—but already polluted—marine ecosystem that includes whales, porpoises and seabirds.
“As with all major oil spills, time is of the essence. This is particularly so with condensate spills, as the substance is so toxic and volatile,” said Steiner.
In a statement, Greenpeace said the explosion and sinking occurred in “an important (fish) spawning ground.”
“At this time of year the area is used as wintering ground by common edible species such as hairtail, yellow croaker, chub mackerel and blue crab. The area is also on the migratory pathway of many marine mammals, such as humpback whale, right whale and gray whale,” the environmental organization said.
Teng Da from the Chinese Oceanic Administration told CGTN, “Now that the tanker has sunk, what comes next to the ecological system the government should watch very closely.”
Two Major Food Companies Announce War on Packaging Waste
Lorraine Chow January 16, 2018
More and more businesses are stepping up to reduce consumer waste. Iceland Foods, a major UK supermarket chain specializing in frozen food, announced on Tuesday that it will eliminate plastic packaging from its own brand of products by the end of 2023.
In a separate announcement on Tuesday, McDonald’s said it will add recycling to its more than 36,000 locations around the world by 2025 and pledges that all packaging on customer products will come from “renewable, recycled or certified sources” by that same year.
The moves from Iceland and McDonald’s are very important. Sure, an individual’s own efforts to reduce their plastic footprint makes a difference, but when global corporations also step up to reduce waste, it can make a big impact.
“The onus is on retailers, as leading contributors to plastic packaging pollution and waste, to take a stand and deliver meaningful change,” Richard Walker, Iceland’s managing director, said. “Other supermarkets, and the retail industry as a whole, should follow suit and offer similar commitments during 2018. This is a time for collaboration.”
Iceland aims to become the first major retailer globally to eliminate plastic packaging from its own brand. Its new products will consist of paper or pulp trays food trays and paper bags instead of plastic ones. The items will be fully recyclable through domestic waste collection or in-store recycling facilities.
We’re becoming the first UK retailer to go #PlasticFree in its own-label product range by 2023. Are you with us? #TooCoolForPlastic
“There really is no excuse any more for excessive packaging that creates needless waste and damages our environment,” Walker added. “The technologies and practicalities to create less environmentally harmful alternatives exist, and so Iceland is putting a stake in the ground.”
John Sauven, the executive director of Greenpeace, applauded Iceland’s commitment to go plastic-free in five years.
“It’s now up to other retailers and food producers to respond to that challenge,” he said. “The tidal wave of plastic pollution will only start to recede when they turn off the tap.”
McDonald’s, the world’s biggest food chain, is also tackling the issue of unnecessary packaging. Currently, only 10 percent of McDonald’s tens of thousands of locations allow people to recycle. Its new goal is to recycle guest packaging in 100 percent of its restaurants by 2025.
“With 37,000 restaurants in more than 100 countries serving over 69 million customers daily, McDonald’s has the responsibility and opportunity to use our scale for good,” Francesca DeBiase, the chief supply chain and sustainability officer for McDonald’s said. “By acting now and boldly, we hope to lead the industry and our customers toward a more sustainable future and fuel a movement to address waste as a global community.”
“We understand that recycling infrastructure, regulations and consumer behaviors vary city to city and country to country, but we plan to be part of the solution and help influence powerful change,” DeBiase said.
“For example McDonald’s restaurants in UK offer recycling bins for our customers, and in Germany, our crew members separate the guest packaging for our customers,” DeBiase continued. “One of the strengths of the McDonald’s system is that together with our franchisees, we have global reach, and we integrate locally into the communities where we operate. We’re excited to keep learning about what works well for recycling in different geographies and localities, which will help us find solutions in places that are just getting started on this journey.”
McDonald’s also pledges that by 2025, 100 percent of its guest packaging will come from renewable, recycled or certified sources, with a preference for Forest Stewardship Council certification for fiber.
As Business Insider noted, McDonald’s latest move follows a recent announcement to ditch foam cold-beverage cups and trays. The company also has plans to use 100 percent recycled fiber-based packaging globally by 2020.
This was one of our most-viewed videos on Facebook this year.#BestOf2017: She's had her water supply contaminated by coalmining, her milk rendered undrinkable, and watched her property be coated in coal dust. Meet 83-year-old farmer Wendy Bowman, who refused to sell her Hunter Valley property to make way for a coalmine.
Renewable Energy Will Be Consistently Cheaper Than Fossil Fuels By 2020, Report Claims
Dominic Dudley, Contributor January 13, 2018
Opinions expressed by Forbes Contributors are their own.
The cost of renewable energy is now falling so fast that it should be a consistently cheaper source of electricity generation than traditional fossil fuels within just a few years, according to a new report from the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA).
The organization – which has more than 150 member countries – says the cost of generating power from onshore wind has fallen by around 23% since 2010 while the cost of solar photovoltaic (PV) electricity has fallen by 73% in that time. With further price falls expected for these and other green energy options, IRENA says all renewable energy technologies should be competitive on price with fossil fuels by 2020.
Globally, onshore wind schemes are now costing an average of $0.06 per kilowatt hour (kwh), although some schemes are coming in at $0.04 per kwh, while the cost of solar PV is down to $0.10 per kwh. In comparison, the cost of electricity generation based on fossil fuels typically falls in a range of $0.05 to $0.17 per kwh.
IRENA
A delegate walks through the lobby at the 8th Assembly of the International Renewable Energy Agency in Abu Dhabi on January, 2018 (Photo: IRENA).
The figures are contained in IRENA’s Renewable Power Generation Costs in 2017 report, which was released on January 13, the first day of the 8th IRENA Assembly in Abu Dhabi, the capital city of the UAE. The report predicts that solar costs will fall even further in the next few years, with a further halving of typical costs by 2020. That means onshore wind and solar PV projects could be consistently delivering electricity for as little as $0.03 per kwh within two years.
Adnan Amin, director-general of IRENA, says a significant shift is underway in the energy sector. “These cost declines across technologies are unprecedented and representative of the degree to which renewable energy is disrupting the global energy system,” he said.
The expected price falls for green energy will provide a fresh challenge to the market position of legacy fuels and to the countries that rely on them for export earnings, such as many Middle East states which have long looked to oil and gas sales as the bedrock of their economies. It also provides a challenge for some Western countries including the United States, where President Donald Trump has made a point of championing the coal industry and has taken steps to increase oil output.
If renewable energy is indeed able to undercut the cost of legacy fuels, then governments and large corporations building new power plants will almost certainly turn to green energy for any new capacity, which will reduce demand for oil, natural gas and coal.
There are several reasons for the fast-improving cost performance of the key renewable energy technologies. One is the growing preference among governments for competitive bidding processes when handing out contracts to develop new power plants, which is helping to force down the tariffs that project developers can demand. Alongside that, there is a growing base of experienced developers competing for project opportunities around the world. Thirdly, continued advances are being made in the technologies themselves.
While onshore wind and PV solar are leading the way, other sister technologies are also becoming more competitive. IRENA estimates that offshore wind and concentrating solar power should cost in a range of $0.06-$0.10 per kwh by 2020-22.
And although solar and wind power are the main drivers of a shift to renewable energy, other green energy sources are also becoming more competitive. The report points to bio-energy, geothermal and hydropower which, it says, have all been able to compete directly on cost with fossil fuels in some cases over the past year.
The falls in costs is leading to some big investments. IRENA says that since 2013 more than $1 trillion has been invested in renewable energy around the world and the industry now provides nearly 10 million jobs.
“Turning to renewables for new power generation is not simply an environmentally conscious decision, it is now – overwhelmingly – a smart economic one,” said Amin. “We expect the transition to gather further momentum around the world in 2018.”
IRENA
Adnan Amin, director general of the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA), speaking at the 8th IRENA Assembly in Abu Dhabi on January 13, 2018.
Dominic Dudley is a freelance journalist with almost two decades’ experience in reporting on business, economic and political stories in the Middle East, Africa, Asia and Europe.
Futurism
Denmark Breaks Own Record for Electricity Generated via Wind Power
The Wind Rises
Denmark recently set a new record in wind power generation, harvesting 43.4 percent of its electricity from the resource in 2017 — beating its previous best from 2016. The country’s government is hoping to use the momentum to encourage other countries to get on board.
“The price of wind energy is moving in one direction only, and that’s a steep downward trajectory,” commented Denmark’s energy minister Lars Chr. Lilleholt, according to a report from Bloomberg.
While Denmark’s decision to pursue renewable resources is part of a larger global effort to phase out fossil fuels, the country does have something of a vested interest. The world’s biggest turbine maker, Vestas Wind Systems A/S, is Danish. Furthermore, its government holds a controlling stake in Orsted A/S, which remains the biggest operator of offshore wind farms internationally.
Denmark still subsidizes wind power projects, as it has done since the 1970s. However, Lilleholt is confident that this will not be necessary for much longer.
Certain areas of the United States are making strides forward, like the record-breaking results reported in California and the enormous Amazon-backed wind farm set to be constructed in Texas. The future of those plans remains to be seen, however, as calls to discontinue tax credits promoting its usage would seem to be a step in the opposite direction.
AFP
Fossil fuels blown away by wind in cost terms: study
There is a bright future for wind and solar power as they are rapidly becoming cheaper than fossil fuel electricity plants, according to a new study. (AFP Photo/Johnathan Nackstrand)
January 13, 2018. Paris (AFP) – New onshore wind and solar energy projects are set to deliver electricity more cheaply than fossil fuels plants, with other green technologies also rapidly gaining a cost advantage over dirty fuels, a report published Saturday said.
According to a new cost analysis from the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA), within two years “all the renewable power generation technologies that are now in commercial use are expected to fall within the fossil fuel-fired cost range, with most at the lower end or undercutting fossil fuels”.
It expects renewables will cost between three and 10 US cents per kilowatt hour (kWh) by 2020, while the current cost spectrum for fossil fuel power generation ranges from five to 17 US cents per kwh.
“This new dynamic signals a significant shift in the energy paradigm,” said IRENA’s Director-General, Adnan Amin, in a statement.
“Turning to renewables for new power generation is not simply an environmentally conscious decision, it is now — overwhelmingly — a smart economic one,” he added.
Continued technological advancements are not the only factor helping drive down prices. The report found that the market was becoming more competitive and a number of experienced project developers had emerged in the sector.
The best onshore wind and solar PV projects are expected to deliver electricity for three US cents or less by next year.
But onshore wind and solar are not the only sectors becoming more competitive rapidly. The study found that new bio-energy and geothermal projects commissioned in 2017 had global weighted average costs of around seven US cents per kwh.
IRENA said auction results suggest that two other technologies –concentrating solar power (CSP) and offshore wind — will provide electricity for between 6-10 US cents per kwh by 2020.
“These cost declines across technologies are unprecedented and representative of the degree to which renewable energy is disrupting the global energy system,” said Amin.
The report was released on the first day of the eighth assembly of IRENA, which aims to be a global hub for renewable energy cooperation and information exchange by its 154 member countries.
Kentucky Just Made It Harder For Poor People To Get Health Care
It’s what the Trump administration wants — and more states will likely follow.
By Johnathan Cohn, Senior Correspondent, HuffPost January 12, 2018
The Trump administration on Friday told Kentucky it can go ahead with its controversial Medicaid overhaul ― an initiative that would reduce benefits, require some beneficiaries to work, and generally make it more difficult for people to stay on the program.
Administration officials and their Kentucky counterparts have portrayed the plan as a way to improve the health of low-income residents and encourage self-sufficiency among poor but able-bodied adults. “The result will be a transformational improvement in the overall health of our people and will provide a model for other states to follow,” Matt Bevin, the state’s Republican governor, said at a press conference Friday.
But there’s scant evidence that Kentucky’s changes will have the effects that Bevin and his allies are promising. In fact, of the roughly 95,000 people expected to lose coverage, some will almost surely be people who are working ― or have reasons why they can’t work ― but who failed to satisfy the new system’s paperwork requirements.
Almost by definition, the people likely to lose coverage already have some combination of financial and medical problems, and without coverage, both are likely to get worse. It’s not clear how much this worries Bevin and his allies in Washington ― or whether it worries them at all.
In the new scheme, most working-age adults in Kentucky would have to demonstrate that they have spent at least 80 hours a month working or engaged in employment-related activities, like searching for a job or performing community service. Many would also have to pay premiums, of up to $15 a month.
Anyone who does not pay their premiums or submit paperwork to show their eligibility would lose their coverage and would not be able to reapply for six months, although people who don’t pay premiums could restore coverage by completing a financial literacy course (the details of which aren’t yet clear).
The Kentucky initiative also eliminates a transportation benefit, designed to get poor people to the doctor or hospital when they don’t have the means to do so. And it ends “presumptive” or “retroactive” eligibility, under which Medicaid covers bills from the past three months for people who sign up for Medicaid only after they’ve had a medical episode that landed them in the hospital.
Kentucky’s proposal is likely to prompt legal challenges. If it survives, then the result will almost certainly be a smaller Medicaid program. Both the state and the federal government would likely end up spending less money than they would otherwise. But fewer people would be on Medicaid: The number of beneficiaries would drop by roughly 95,000 within five years, according to official state estimates.
By comparison, Kentucky’s total Medicaid enrollment ― including kids on the Children’s Health Insurance Program ― is about 1.25 million right now, according to official statistics.
In theory, the new requirements would not affect children, the elderly, pregnant women, primary caregivers or the “medically frail,” because Kentucky’s proposal explicitly exempts them. But those categories are narrower than they might seem, experts warned Friday as they pored over the final proposal and checked it against previous versions. (Every analyst studying it has warned that their conclusions are still a little tentative.)
“Medically frail,” for example, doesn’t appear to include people with serious chronic diseases that make jobs difficult to find and keep. And the new paperwork requirements will be difficult for some people to satisfy ― because they can’t get the right documentation, for example, or because overwhelmed state offices won’t be responsive to questions.
As a result, some people who remain eligible for Medicaid will almost surely end up losing coverage anyway. It’s happened that way before, when states introduced work requirements for food stamps and straightforward cash assistance.
“The policy could allow many people to fall through the cracks, including those with chronic health conditions, and those with mental health or substance use disorders such as opioid addiction,” Hanna Katch, a senior analyst at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, told HuffPost. “And for those who are eligible for an exemption, the policy could still require someone who is medically frail, for example, to jump through administrative hoops to demonstrate that they are eligible for an exemption.”
Kentucky isn’t the only state that wants to impose these kinds of restrictions on Medicaid. Nearly a dozen states have similar requests sitting in Washington, awaiting approval from the Trump administration that they’re almost certain to get. More could follow soon.
Friday’s approval of Kentucky’s new plan came one day after the Trump administration announced it would approve work requirements. This represented a considerable policy shift. Previously, the Obama administration had rejected such requests, arguing that work requirements violate Medicaid’s guarantee of health care for poor people. These are the same arguments that advocates for the poor are likely to make if and when they sue to block the changes.
Trump administration officials, like their Kentucky counterparts, know this. In their letter approving the proposal, they previewed their defense by making the same argument they did on Thursday ― that requiring able-bodied Medicaid recipients to work would improve their health outcomes and help them become familiar with the way private health insurance works. That is why, the administration said, it was within its rights to approve Kentucky’s request as a “demonstration project.”
But there’s very little evidence to suggest Kentucky’s overhaul will improve health outcomes, and quite a lot of evidence to suggest it will actually worsen them. Multiple studies, some of them focusing on Kentucky specifically, have shown that giving people Medicaid makes them healthier and more financially secure, which in turn makes it easier for them to find and hold on to jobs.
There is also little reason to think these changes would make Kentucky’s Medicaid program more efficient. On the contrary, new requirements such as checking to make sure people have jobs will inevitably require more administrative work ― not just for the people who want Medicaid, but for the state government as well.
Retroactive eligibility ― a key if underappreciated provision of Medicaid in most states ― doesn’t simply help low-income people avoid crippling medical debt. It also helps finance the operation of safety net hospitals. Ending it, as Kentucky plans to do, would likely hurt both. When another state, Indiana, experimented with having Medicaid recipients contribute toward the cost of their Medicaid, large numbers did not, and they ended up losing coverage as a result.
Those are just some of the reasons to think the real motivation for these changes has little to do with health outcomes, efficiency or the economy as a whole. A more plausible explanation is that Republican officials ― including Bevins and Seema Verma, the Trump administration official in charge of Medicaid ― think too many able-bodied adults are on the program. In fact, Verma has said this explicitly before.
Many Americans ― quite possibly most ― would have no problem linking Medicaid and work. But nearly 80 percent of people on Medicaid are already in families where somebody is employed, and nearly 60 percent work themselves, according to data from the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation. And of those who don’t work, most are in school or caring for a family member, or have a medical condition that they say prevents them from working. Other studies have yielded similar findings.
That all of this should be happening in Kentucky is ironic. Although a relatively conservative state, smack in the heart of what now qualifies as Trump country, Kentucky enthusiastically embraced the Affordable Care Act when it became law. It took advantage of new federal money to expand its Medicaid program, so it would be available to all people with incomes below or just above the poverty line.
Between 2013 and 2016, the share of Kentucky’s residents without insurance fell from 20.4 percent to 7.8 percent. That was the single biggest drop of any state in the country.
But that change took place while Steve Beshear, a Democratic governor enthusiastic about helping poor people get health insurance, was in charge. Bevins, his successor and a loud critic of “Obamacare,” campaigned on a promise to roll back the expansion. Although he backed off that promise ― perhaps because many of those who supported him would have been among the hundreds of thousands losing coverage ― he has continued to suggest Medicaid needs radical changes because, he says, it encourages dependency.
Bevin has also made a threat that if he can’t get his way on the work requirement and other changes, he will go ahead and roll back the expansion after all. That would leave a much larger number of Kentucky residents, perhaps approaching half a million, without health insurance.
Joy Reid responds to Pastor Mark Burns, who said that she should “move to Haiti” after his appearance on AM JOY, during which Joy expressed compassion for Haitian and all immigrants. Watch their full interview: http://www.msnbc.com/…/trump-s-hole-comments-doubted-by-pas…
Joy Reid responds to Pastor Mark Burns, who said that she should "move to Haiti" after his appearance on AM JOY, during which Joy expressed compassion for Haitian and all immigrants. Watch their full interview: http://www.msnbc.com/am-joy/watch/trump-s-hole-comments-doubted-by-pastor-on-am-joy-1136410691865?cid=sm_npd_ms_fb_jy
A delegate walks through the lobby at the 8th Assembly of the International Renewable Energy Agency in Abu Dhabi on January, 2018 (Photo: IRENA).
Adnan Amin, director general of the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA), speaking at the 8th IRENA Assembly in Abu Dhabi on January 13, 2018.
The Wind Rises
There is a bright future for wind and solar power as they are rapidly becoming cheaper than fossil fuel electricity plants, according to a new study. (AFP Photo/Johnathan Nackstrand)
