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The problem with the ‘warm’ in global warming: Most like it hot

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This story was originally published by Undark and is reproduced here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration.

With every incongruous 50-degree F day in Boston this winter, I noticed the same transformations in the people around me: Revelers shed their layers of clothing, smiled more, and made polite small talk about what a great, beautiful, or perfect day it was. I’m always on the outside looking in on these interactions. Whereas my fellow Bostonians take delight in the warm, snowless days, I find them inescapably grim this time of year. In light of what we know about climate change, I feel as though I’m clutching onto a season that is systematically disappearing from my part of the world — and that few others care.

In a report called “Most Like It Hot,” the Pew Research Center found that 57 percent of Americans prefer to live in a city with a hot climate, and only 29 percent prefer cold locales. (The rest don’t have a preference.) Even human psychoses reflect this preference for warmth. Almost always, the symptoms of seasonal affective disorder are triggered during the cold, dark winter months. Only 10 percent of people with seasonal affective disorder suffer symptoms during the summer. And if you track growth in American cities since the early 1900s, a clear pattern emerges: The biggest upward trends are in places known for warmth.

I have always known that my disdain for warm weather makes me an outlier, but lately I’ve been wondering if it also has something to do with the inertia I’ve witnessed when it comes to addressing global warming — a term, by the way, that has always evoked hell to me, though maybe not to others. Although most of us are now well aware that the potential dangers of global warming go beyond weather — devastating natural disasters, famine, the reemergence of centuries-old diseases from melting permafrost — perhaps a collective preference for warmth has dulled our response to these larger threats that come with climate change. Would there be more urgency and better compliance with initiatives like the Paris Climate Agreement if we were facing the threat of an ice age instead?

It’s not a completely outlandish thought experiment. From roughly the mid-1300s to the mid-1800s, there was a prolonged period of global cooling known as the Little Ice Age. Glaciers around the world grew robustly and average temperatures dropped by about 1 degree C (1.8 degrees F) from those of the preceding Medieval period. The cooling climate struck Europe first and hardest: Reportedly, it was so cold in some areas that wild birds could be seen dropping dead out of the sky as they flew, and major European rivers like the Thames and the Rhine froze over for such significant chunks of the year that they became reliable roads for carts and horses. 1816 was famously dubbed “the year without Summer,” a dubious accolade shared by the year 1628.

So how did people respond to this onset of perpetual winter? Basically, they spent 300 years just completely freaking out. Then reason and social progress prevailed.

To most people, life during the Little Ice Age was horrible beyond measure. Catastrophes like widespread crop failure, livestock death, famine, and epidemics were common, and child mortality rates climbed. Someone had to take the blame. Witches — who, according to the Bible, had the power to bring on calamitous hailstorms and other weather-related disasters — were widely cast as scapegoats. Present-day economists have shown a correlation between the most active years in witchcraft trials and the coldest spells in the region. In May of 1626, after a brutal hailstorm in southern Germany was followed by Arctic-like temperatures, 900 men and women deemed responsible for the weather shift were tortured and executed.

But this systematic killing wasn’t changing anything, and people saw that. The cold marched on relentlessly. And so while the first half of the Little Ice Age was characterized by fanaticism, chaos, disease, death, and famine, the 18th century saw a turn toward a new, multi-pronged attempt at problem solving, spurred by the Age of Enlightenment.

Across Europe there was a broad move away from beleaguered agrarian societies, whose livelihoods were inextricably linked to practices, like small-scale farming, that climate change could easily topple. Instead, societies began to embrace institutions that were meant to imbue order, stability, reason, and understanding amid climatic chaos: science academies that explicitly excluded theologians; university systems that swelled in size; and improved roads and canals that facilitated the spread of education, medical care, and global trade. This era also saw the publication of books on science-based agricultural reform that would become virtual gospels on subjects like crop rotation, fertilization, and bumper crop storage for hundreds of years to come.

These new systems were put to the test by subsequent cold waves that continued into the 18th century and extended beyond Europe — to places like New York City, where in 1780 the harbor froze so solidly that you could walk from Manhattan to Staten Island. Improved clothing, heat-retaining architecture, widespread international trade, and the increased knowledge about disease management coming out of the universities and science academies all worked to keep death and famine at levels far lower than those that Western societies had previously experienced.

Admittedly, the comparison between our reaction to climate change and those who came before us is imperfect; the people who lived through the Little Ice Age didn’t really understand the science behind what they were experiencing. But their passionate and sometimes extreme cultural, political, and religious responses to the effects of climate change suggest that had they been able to directly and intentionally stop global cooling, they probably would have.

Yet here we are, armed with the knowledge our forbearers were missing, having nonetheless just closed the books on the fourth-warmest year since 1880. Instead of marshalling the ingenuity of an Age of Enlightenment, as our predecessors did, we’ve spent the last few decades in an Age of Complacency.

Leo Barasi, an author who has written extensively about climate change apathy, captured a sentiment shared by many Britons after a heatwave swept through the U.K. last summer. “They believe [the heatwave] was definitely a sign of climate change, just as the science says,” he told the Independent. “But most people’s experience of it was not unequivocally awful — not like a massive forest fire or a terrible hurricane. Some people quite enjoyed it.”

Of course, the fact that most people remain unbothered by warm weather is neither the sole nor most significant reason we’re now nearing the end of the runway for wholesale mitigation of today’s climate change. It’s not that simple, and weather and climate are not one in the same.

But at the most basic human level, our gut feelings about our day-to-day experiences with weather do matter. They inform our inclinations about preserving the long-term patterns of climate — and preserving those patterns means protecting the winters that some people hate. It’s time to reckon with what that means for the future of our climate.

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The problem with the ‘warm’ in global warming: Most like it hot

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‘He’s a political prisoner’: Standing Rock activists face years in jail

This story was originally published by the Guardian and is reproduced here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration.

Standing Rock saved Little Feather’s life. Then the U.S. government took it from him.

Little Feather was one of thousands of Native Americans who traveled to North Dakota in 2016 to fight the construction of the Dakota Access pipeline. The 45-year-old member of the Chumash Nation was battling drug addiction at the time, said his wife, Leoyla Cowboy. But the “water protector” movement gave him a sense of purpose, a renewed connection to indigenous elders, and sobriety.

But last year as the oil pipeline began operations, authorities jailed him and charged him with felonies stemming from his involvement in the demonstrations. Little Feather’s case and the prosecution of hundreds of others is part of what activists say is an aggressive campaign by U.S. law enforcement to suppress indigenous and environmental movements, using drawn-out criminal cases and lengthy prison sentences.

“He has been taken from us, and it’s a huge void in our lives,” Cowboy, 44, told the Guardian in a recent interview after Little Feather, also known as Michael Giron, was sentenced to three years. “He is a political prisoner … We were protecting our land. It’s something we have to do, and we’re going to be met with this violence from these agencies, from the federal government, from the state.”

As Red Fawn Fallis prepares for her sentencing next week in the movement’s most high-profile prosecution, activists are speaking out about the toll the cases have taken — continuing to drag on and tear apart families — all as Standing Rock has almost entirely disappeared from headlines.

After Donald Trump took office and ordered expedited approval of the $3.7 billion pipeline last January, the crackdown on activists escalated. The cases stemmed from clashes with police in late 2016 when thousands gathered at Oceti Sakowin and other campsites by the pipeline, facing a highly militarized operation, brutal shows of force, mass arrests and widely condemned jail conditions.

Under Trump, who has had financial ties with the pipeline company, the U.S. Department of Justice has pressed forward with six cases against Native Americans. North Dakota prosecutors meanwhile have pursued more than 800 state cases against people at Standing Rock, including 165 still pending, according to the Water Protector Legal Collective, a legal support team.

“They needed these convictions to make examples of people,” said Rattler, another federal defendant who, like Little Feather, agreed to a plea deal. “We got their attention, and they are scared of us.”

Rattler, a Lakota Oglala man, and Little Feather were each charged with two felonies — civil disorder and use of fire to commit a felony — related to a standoff on Oct. 27, 2016, when police deployed pepper spray and armored vehicles in response to a roadblock set up by activists. More than 140 people were arrested.

The arson charges related to the fact that “several fires were set by unidentified protesters” to thwart police, as prosecutors wrote in one court filing.

If the men were convicted, they faced a mandatory minimum of 10 years. Activists argued the charges were excessive, and some thought the men would prevail in a courtroom, especially considering reporting by the Intercept, which uncovered how a private security firm had used military-style counter-terrorism methods to target and infiltrate the protests.

But the defendants and their attorneys ultimately had concerns about the risks of a trial. One survey of jury-eligible locals found that 82 percent to 94 percent had prejudged protesters as guilty or were biased against them.

“Having a fair trial in Bismarck was going to be impossible,” said Rattler, 45, whose legal name is Michael Markus. “If you go to court in North Dakota, you are going to get convicted.”

Wasté Win Young, a Standing Rock member who is still facing trespassing and rioting charges in North Dakota court, said she was now regularly targeted and racially profiled by locals and police in the area.

“It’s just surreal still living here,” she said, noting that the fossil fuel industry had a lot of influence in the area and that there was heavy local bias against the demonstrations. “They feel like their security, their well-being was threatened by the so-called violent protesters, which was not the case at all.”

Still, Young said she was not afraid to go to court: “I stood my ground and it was in honor of my ancestors and to protect their way of life.”

Red Fawn Fallis was originally accused of shooting at law enforcement, facing a potential life sentence. The case moved forward even after it was reported that a paid informant for the FBI had developed a romantic relationship with her during the protests and was the owner of the gun she allegedly fired. Prosecutors eventually dropped the charge in exchange for her pleading to lesser offenses, and on Monday, she is expected to receive a seven-year prison sentence.

The U.S. attorney’s office did not respond to a request for comment.

Rattler, who is expected to get three years in prison, said the pending case meant he was restricted from freely traveling to indigenous ceremonies and other events.

“That’s been going on for hundreds of years — the federal government telling indigenous people where they can and can’t go,” said Ollie, Rattler’s partner who requested not to use her full name. “They do it just because they can.”

Sandra Freeman, Rattler’s attorney, said it had been difficult coming to terms with the reality of his plea agreement: “He is someone who is a really gentle, non-violent person who has accepted significant, significant time in the Federal Bureau of Prisons.”

Despite everything, Rattler said he was glad he was involved in the movement and wanted to eventually continue the work: “I have no regrets about what I did.”

After Little Feather’s personal transformation at the Standing Rock camps, Cowboy said she was eager to start their lives together: “I have been praying for a person like Little Feather all my life.”

But her husband has been incarcerated since last March when police pulled them over and arrested him while the newlyweds were traveling to an indigenous march in Washington D.C.

With sentencing over, there was some relief in knowing he would eventually come home, Cowboy said. But she also recognized that there would be lasting consequences.

While she was inspired to see the momentum from Standing Rock spread to other fights, she said, it sometimes felt like those still suffering from the North Dakota movement had been left behind. “They are forgetting that we are still here.”

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‘He’s a political prisoner’: Standing Rock activists face years in jail

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The World of Laura Ingalls Wilder – Marta McDowell

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The World of Laura Ingalls Wilder

The Frontier Landscapes that Inspired the Little House Books

Marta McDowell

Genre: Nature

Price: $1.99

Publish Date: September 20, 2017

Publisher: Timber Press

Seller: Workman Publishing Co., Inc.


“For gardeners, botanists, and fans of Laura Ingalls Wilder, this book looks at the beloved Little House on the Prairie author’s relationship to nature.” — Publishers Weekly The universal appeal of Laura Ingalls Wilder’s books springs from a life lived in partnership with the land, on farms she and her family settled across the Northeast and Midwest. In this revealing exploration of Wilder’s deep connection with the natural world, Marta McDowell follows the wagon trail of the beloved Little House series. You’ll learn details about Wilder’s life and inspirations, pinpoint the Ingalls and Wilder homestead claims on authentic archival maps, and learn to grow the plants and vegetables featured in the series. Excerpts from Wilder’s books, letters, and diaries bring to light her profound appreciation for the landscapes at the heart of her world. Featuring the beloved illustrations by Helen Sewell and Garth Williams, plus hundreds of historic and contemporary photographs, The World of Laura Ingalls Wilder is a treasure for anyone enchanted by Laura’s wild and beautiful life. 

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The World of Laura Ingalls Wilder – Marta McDowell

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Trump Wants to Let Your Boss Take Away Your Birth Control

Mother Jones

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The Trump administration is considering a broad exemption to Obamacare’s mandate on contraceptive coverage, according to a leaked draft of the proposed rule published by Vox on Wednesday.

Since 2011, the Obamacare provision has required that most employers provide insurance that covers birth control, without any cost to the patient. The rule has been the target of a number of lawsuits by religious employers who felt that the requirement violated their religious beliefs. Showing sensitivity to such concerns, in 2014 the Supreme Court ruled in Burwell v. Hobby Lobby that some religious employers could opt out of the coverage. But the court required them to file paperwork indicating their objection, in turn triggering separate contraceptive coverage for employees provided directly by the insurance company. That ruling, though, didn’t settle the issue for religious groups. In a follow-up 2016 Supreme Court case, Zubik v. Burwell, a number of religious organizations said that even this accommodation required them to violate their beliefs, as the paperwork made them complicit in providing birth control coverage. The Supreme Court sent the case down to the lower courts, where it has still not been resolved.

Now, the Trump administration seems ready to extend the birth control exemption beyond just religious employers. According to the leaked draft, dated May 23, the new rule would allow virtually any organization to opt out of the mandate if they feel contraception coverage violates “their religious beliefs and moral convictions.”

“This rule would mean women across the country could be denied insurance coverage for birth control on a whim from their employer or university,” said Dana Singiser, vice president for public policy and government relations of Planned Parenthood Federation of America, in a statement. “It would expand the Supreme Court’s Hobby Lobby ruling to allow any employer—including huge, publicly traded companies—to deny birth control coverage to their employees. Think about it: Under this rule, bosses will be able to impose their personal beliefs on their female employees’ private medical decisions.”

What’s more, this draft doesn’t require employers opting out of the mandate to notify the government they are doing so; they’re only required to notify employees of a change in their insurance plans. Insurance companies could also themselves refuse to cover contraception if it violates their religious or moral beliefs.

This appears to provide an even broader exemption than what team Trump has previously signaled it would enact. Throughout the campaign, Trump assured religious leaders their organizations would not have to comply with the contraception mandate: “I will make absolutely certain religious orders like the Little Sisters of the Poor are not bullied by the federal government because of their religious beliefs,” he wrote in a letter to Catholic leaders last year, referring to the order of nuns that were party to the Zubik Supreme Court case. And on May 4, Trump, flanked by the Little Sisters of the Poor, signed an executive order about religious liberty, which encourages several agencies to address religious employers’ objections to Obamacare’s preventive care requirements, including contraception.

It is unclear what changes may have been made to this draft since May 23, but what is clear is that the rule is in an advanced stage of the process; the Office of Management and Budget announced that it is currently reviewing it, the penultimate step before the rule is enacted via posting in the Federal Register.

You can read the full draft, obtained by Vox, below:

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Preventive Services Final Rule (PDF)

Preventive Services Final Rule (Text)

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Trump Wants to Let Your Boss Take Away Your Birth Control

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Lunchtime Photo

Mother Jones

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This little girl looks…worried? Dismayed? Unsure? Maybe all those things. She had just been playing with her little sister and sort of “helped” her into a nearby fountain. Dad was nearby and didn’t seem especially concerned about the whole thing, but she doesn’t know that yet as she surveys the damage. She is not yet sure what the future holds for her.

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Lunchtime Photo

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Supreme Court Punts on Contraceptive Mandate Case

Mother Jones

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It didn’t take long for the US Supreme Court to dispense with the most controversial reproductive rights case on the docket this year. In a surprising move on Monday, the court issued an opinion in Zubik v. Burwell, a challenge by several religious organizations to the contraceptive mandate in the Affordable Care Act. The opinion essentially preserves the contraceptive mandate without addressing any of the larger questions about the religious freedom rights of employers.

Religious organizations and orders including Little Sisters of the Poor, a group of nuns who care for the elderly, had objected to a requirement by the Obama administration requiring them to alert the government of their religious objections to providing contraceptive coverage to their employees. The notification would have triggered an accommodation in which the employers’ insurance company would have covered contraception independently, without involving the religious objectors. Little Sisters of the Poor and the other plaintiffs had argued that even notifying the government of their desire to opt-out would have violated their religious beliefs.

The court didn’t rule on the merits of the case and declined to say whether the opt-out notification violated religious freedom rights. Instead, it sent the cases back to the lower courts to work out agreements between the government and the religious employers that would allow employees to have contraceptive coverage in the manner required by Obamacare, without onerous paperwork and without violating the religious freedom of the employers.

The decision was a per curiam opinion, meaning it was unsigned and without a breakdown of the vote. But Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote a separate concurring opinion, joined by Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, highlighting that the decision in no way validates the religious groups’ position, and that it was intended to preserve the contraceptive access of women who worked for those organizations.

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Supreme Court Punts on Contraceptive Mandate Case

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A Mesmerizing, Freewheeling JD McPherson Recaptures the Golden Era of Rock and Roll

Mother Jones

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JD McPherson
Let the Good Times Roll
Rounder

More than a half-century after the original golden era of rock and roll, it can be hard to remember just how disruptive—even dangerous—early stars like Eddie Cochran and Little Richard seemed with their crazy beats and oversize personalities.

Though no revivalist by any stretch, Oklahoma’s JD McPherson does a swell job of recapturing that freewheeling sense of abandon on his terrific second album. Not nearly as predictable as the generic title suggests, Let the Good Times Roll gets its sizzle from a rip-snorting backing band, snappy original songs and, most important, McPherson’s fiery vocals, which find him howling one moment and pleading the next, as if barely able to maintain control. Recalling the Blasters at their peak, he’s a mesmerizing showman with a timeless gift for deliciously greasy sounds.

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A Mesmerizing, Freewheeling JD McPherson Recaptures the Golden Era of Rock and Roll

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The Most Comprehensive Overview Yet of the Kinks’ Glorious Youth

Mother Jones

The Kinks
The Anthology—1964-1971
Sanctuary/BMG

The Kinks’ early years have been rehashed repeatedly over the last two decades, so don’t expect any major revelations from yet another archival dig. However, The Anthology—1964-1971 offers the most comprehensive overview yet of the London band’s glorious youth. With five discs and 140 tracks, this massive set is hardly for the casual listener. It includes demos, rehearsal snippets, alternate takes, and obscure mixes in the service of luring hardcore fans who think they’ve already heard it all. It traces the Kinks’ rapid evolution from a scrappy R&B band playing Chuck Berry and Little Richard covers to purveyors of furious rockers like “You Really Got Me” (arguably an inspiration for heavy metal and punk) to Ray Davies’ emergence as a singularly gifted writer who delivers wry social commentary on “A Well Respected Man,” attains magical beauty with “Waterloo Sunset,” and engages in subversive gender-bending in “Lola.” At their most elegant, the lads still displayed a strong rock and roll streak, thanks to brother Dave Davies’ wicked lead guitar and Mick Avory’s thrashing drums. And while the Kinks continued making strong music into the ’90, these amazing recordings are their best.

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The Most Comprehensive Overview Yet of the Kinks’ Glorious Youth

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The Little Black Gas Book (Saving Money Saving Time Saving the Environment)

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