Tag Archives: House

Books, Climate Solutions

Passive House is at the Heart of the Next Wave of Sustainable Infrastructure

Transportation has been the focus, due to Tesla’s rise, but houses and commercial buildings are next

When Tesla was still just an oddball upstart, there was plenty of skepticism that they would survive, let alone change the industry and define sustainable transportation and the future of EVs. This was before Tesla’s stock price soared, even as the climate crisis has become more serious.

Although the stock market is as irrational as ever, on another level the massive rise in market cap for the once underdog sustainable energy focused company can also be seen as a vote from the general public – a vote for the transition away from fossil fuels and toward a sustainable energy future..

Fast forward to 2022 and there is an entirely different situation in the automotive and transportation industries. The entire industry is shifting, rapidly, to 100% electric vehicle production and competing for the climate conscious upwardly mobile customer base that was first identified by Tesla’s “S3XY” marketing methods and designs.

Another underdog – Passive House is ready for the next wave of climate conscious changes

Although sustainable transportation infrastructure still has a long way to go and many issues to overcome, the speed of the transition over the last decade is, nevertheless, impressive.

The next phase of the transition toward sustainable energy infrastructure as a whole, however, is clearly going to be energy generation, solar, wind, geothermal and beyond. This will include design and construction of dwellings and commercial real estate with an eye toward efficient ways to decrease the carbon footprint and create structures that have a low carbon cost (embodied carbon and green cement, use of natural materials, etc.).

Passive house, a concept first pioneered in Germany, is at the center of the coming design revolution in architecture and sustainable construction. Andreas Benzing, of A.M.Benzing Architects PLLC has been at the forefront of the New York, NY movement (as executive director of NY Passive House) as it has grown for nearly two decades and is now ready to break out.

Emphasizing the active role that passive house can play in reaching ‘peak performance’ for dwellings and commercial structures, Benzing elucidates his credo and underscores the similarities to Tesla’s higher-end approach to EV’s, now poised to spearhead a similar revolution in architecture; “We strive to better user experience and comfort, engineer to easily achieve peak performance, and maximize the durability of quality materials.”

The books below are a few that show the history and concepts behind passive house from various perspectives. Houses and buildings that have a reduced carbon footprint, while at the same time generate energy from sustainable sources are becoming feasible and all have as a foundation the passive house standard for highly efficient design.

The New Net Zero

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The new threshold for green building is not just low energy, it’s net-zero energy. In The New Net Zero, sustainable architect Bill Maclay charts the path for designers and builders interested in exploring green design’s new frontier net-zero-energy structures that produce as much energy as they consume and are carbon neutral.

In a nation where traditional buildings use roughly 40 percent of the total fossil energy, the interest in net-zero building is growing enormously-among both designers interested in addressing climate change and consumers interested in energy efficiency and long-term savings. Maclay, an award-winning net-zero designer whose buildings have achieved high-performance goals at affordable costs, makes the case for a net-zero future; explains net-zero building metrics, integrated design practices, and renewable energy options; and shares his lessons learned on net-zero teambuilding.

Designers and builders will find a wealth of state-of-the-art information on such considerations as air, water, and vapor barriers; embodied energy; residential and commercial net-zero standards; monitoring and commissioning; insulation options; costs; and more.

The comprehensive overview is accompanied by several case studies, which include institutional buildings, commercial projects, and residences. Both new-building and renovation projects are covered in detail. 

The New Net Zero is geared toward professionals exploring net-zero design, but also suitable for nonprofessionals seeking ideas and strategies on net-zero options that are beautiful and renewably powered.

Passive House Details

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Passive House Details introduces the concepts, principles, and design processes of building ultralow-energy buildings. The objective of this book is to provide design goals, research, analysis, systems, details, and inspiring images of some of the most energy-efficient, carbon-neutral, healthy, and satisfying buildings currently built in the region. Other topics included: heat transfer, moisture management, performance targets, and climatic zones. Illustrated with more than 375 color images, the book is a visual catalog of construction details, materials, and systems drawn from projects contributed from forty firms. Fourteen in-depth case studies demonstrate the most energy-efficient systems for foundations, walls, floors, roofs, windows, doors, and more.

The Greenest Home

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Passive is the new green. Passive Houses–well insulated, virtually airtight buildings–can decrease home heating consumption by an astounding 90 percent, making them not only an attractive choice for prospective homeowners, but also the right choice for a sustainable future. The Greenest Home showcases eighteen of the world’s most attractive Passive Houses by forward-thinking architects such as Bernheimer Architecture, Olson Kundig Architects, and Onion Flats, among many others. Each case study consists of a detailed project description, plans, and photographs. An appendix lists helpful technical information. Including a mix of new construction and retrofit projects built in a variety of site conditions, The Greenest Home is an inspiring sourcebook for architects and prospective homeowners, as well as a useful tool for students, and builders alike.

The Solar House

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Passive solar heating and passive cooling–approaches known as natural conditioning–provide comfort throughout the year by reducing, or eliminating, the need for fossil fuel. Yet while heat from sunlight and ventilation from breezes is free for the taking, few modern architects or builders really understand the principles involved.

Now Dan Chiras, author of the popular book The Natural House, brings those principles up to date for a new generation of solar enthusiasts.

The techniques required to heat and cool a building passively have been used for thousands of years. Early societies such as the Native American Anasazis and the ancient Greeks perfected designs that effectively exploited these natural processes. The Greeks considered anyone who didn’t use passive solar to heat a home to be a barbarian 

In the United States, passive solar architecture experienced a major resurgence of interest in the 1970s in response to crippling oil embargoes. With grand enthusiasm but with scant knowledge (and sometimes little common sense), architects and builders created a wide variety of solar homes. Some worked pretty well, but looked more like laboratories than houses. Others performed poorly, overheating in the summer because of excessive or misplaced windows and skylights, and growing chilly in the colder months because of insufficient thermal mass and insulation and poor siting.

In The Solar House, Dan Chiras sets the record straight on the vast potential for passive heating and cooling. Acknowledging the good intentions of misguided solar designers in the past, he highlights certain egregious–and entirely avoidable–errors. More importantly, Chiras explains in methodical detail how today’s home builders can succeed with solar designs.

Now that energy efficiency measures including higher levels of insulation and multi-layered glazing have become standard, it is easier than ever before to create a comfortable and affordable passive solar house that will provide year-round comfort in any climate.

Moreover, since modern building materials and airtight construction methods sometimes result in air-quality and even toxicity problems, Chiras explains state-of-the-art ventilation and filtering techniques that complement the ancient solar strategies of thermal mass and daylighting. Chiras also explains the new diagnostic aids available in printed worksheet or software formats, allowing readers to generate their own design schemes.

The Passivhaus Designer’s Manual

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Passivhaus is the fastest growing energy performance standard in the world, with almost 50,000 buildings realised to date. Applicable to both domestic and non-domestic building types, the strength of Passivhaus lies in the simplicity of the concept. As European and global energy directives move ever closer towards Zero (fossil) Energy standards, Passivhaus provides a robust ‘fabric first’ approach from which to make the next step.

The Passivhaus Designers Manual is the most comprehensive technical guide available to those wishing to design and build Passivhaus and Zero Energy Buildings. As a technical reference for architects, engineers and construction professionals The Passivhaus Designers Manual provides: 

  • State of the art guidance for anyone designing or working on a Passivhaus project;
  • In depth information on building services, including high performance ventilation systems and ultra-low energy heating and cooling systems; 
  • Holistic design guidance encompassing: daylight design, ecological materials, thermal comfort, indoor air quality and economics; 
  • Practical advice on procurement methods, project management and quality assurance;
  • Renewable energy systems suitable for Passivhaus and Zero Energy Buildings; 
  • Practical case studies from the UK, USA, and Germany amongst others;
  • Detailed worked examples to show you how it’s done and what to look out for;
  • Expert advice from 20 world renowned Passivhaus designers, architects, building physicists and engineers.

Lavishly illustrated with nearly 200 full colour illustrations, and presented by two highly experienced specialists, this is your one-stop shop for comprehensive practical information on Passivhaus and Zero Energy buildings.

The New Net Zero
Passive House Details
The Greenest Home
The Solar House
The Passivhaus Designer’s Manual

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Climate Solutions, News, Observation

6 months after the climate summit, where to find progress on climate change in a more dangerous and divided world

Six months ago, negotiators at the United Nations’ Glasgow climate summit celebrated a series of new commitments to lower global greenhouse gas emissions and build resilience to the impacts of climate change. Analysts concluded that the new promises, including phasing out coal, would bend the global warming trajectory, though still fall short of the Paris climate agreement.

Today, the world looks ever more complex. Russia is waging a war on European soil, with global implications for energy and food supplies. Some leaders who a few months ago were vowing to phase out fossil fuels are now encouraging fossil fuel companies to ramp up production.

In the U.S., the Biden administration has struggled to get its promised actions through Congress. Last-ditch efforts have been underway to salvage some kind of climate and energy bill from the abandoned Build Back Better plan. Without it, U.S. commitments to reduce emissions by over 50% by 2030 look fanciful, and the rest of the world knows it – adding another blow to U.S. credibility overseas.

Meanwhile, severe famines have hit Yemen and the Horn of Africa. Extreme heat has been threatening lives across India and Pakistan. Australia faced historic flooding, and the Southwestern U.S. can’t keep up with the wildfires.

As a former senior U.N. official, I’ve been involved in international climate negotiations for several years. At the halfway point of this year’s climate negotiations, with the next U.N. climate conference in November 2022, here are three areas to watch for progress and cooperation in a world full of danger and division.

Crisis response with long-term benefits

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has added to a triple whammy of food price, fuel price and inflationary spikes in a global economy still struggling to emerge from the pandemic.

But Russia’s aggression has also forced Europe and others to move away from dependence on Russian oil, gas and coal. The G7 – Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the U.K. and the U.S. – pledged on May 8, 2022, to phase out or ban Russian oil and accelerate their shifts to clean energy.

In the short term, Europe’s pivot means much more energy efficiency – the International Energy Agency estimates that the European Union can save 15%-20% of energy demand with efficiency measures. It also means importing oil and gas from elsewhere.

In the medium term, the answer lies in ramping up renewable energy.

There are issues to solve. As Europe buys up gas from other places, it risks reducing gas supplies relied on by other countries, and forcing some of those countries to return to coal, a more carbon-intense fuel that destroys air quality. Some countries will need help expanding renewable energy and stabilizing energy prices to avoid a backlash to pro-climate policies.

As the West races to renewables, it will also need to secure a supply chain for critical minerals and metals necessary for batteries and renewable energy technology, including replacing an overdependence on China with multiple supply sources.

Ensuring integrity in corporate commitments

Finance leaders and other private sector coalitions made headline-grabbing commitments at the Glasgow climate conference in November 2021. They promised to accelerate their transitions to net-zero emissions by 2050, and some firms and financiers were specific about ending financing for coal plants that don’t capture and store their carbon, cutting methane emissions and supporting ending deforestation.

Their promises faced cries of “greenwash” from many climate advocacy groups. Some efforts are now underway to hold companies, as well as countries, to their commitments.

A U.N. group chaired by former Canadian Environment Minister Catherine McKenna is now working on a framework to hold companies, cities, states and banks to account when they claim to have “net-zero” emissions. This is designed to ensure that companies that pledged last year to meet net-zero now say how, and on what scientific basis.

For many companies, especially those with large emissions footprints, part of their commitment to get to net-zero includes buying carbon offsets – often investments in nature – to balance the ledger. This summer, two efforts to put guardrails around voluntary carbon markets are expected to issue their first sets of guidance for issuers of carbon credits and for firms that want to use voluntary carbon markets to fulfill their net-zero claims. The goal is to ensure carbon markets reduce emissions and provide a steady stream of revenue for parts of the world that need finance for their green growth.

Climate change influencing elections

Climate change is now an increasingly important factor in elections.

French President Emmanuel Macron, trying to woo supporters of a candidate to his left and energize young voters, made more dramatic climate pledges, vowing to be “the first major nation to abandon gas, oil and coal.”

With Chile’s swing to the left, the country’s redrafted constitution will incorporate climate stewardship.

In Australia, Scott Morrison’s government – which supported opening one of the world’s largest coal mines at the same time the Australian private sector is focusing on renewable energy – faces an election on May 21, 2022, with heatwaves and extreme flooding fresh in voters’ minds. Brazil’s Jair Bolsonaro faces opponents in October who are talking about protecting the climate.

Elections are fought and won on pocketbook issues, and energy prices are high and inflation is taking hold. But voters around the world are also experiencing the effects of climate change firsthand and are increasingly concerned.

The next climate conference

Countries will be facing a different set of economic and security challenges when the next round of U.N. talks begins in November in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt, compared to the challenges they faced in Glasgow. They will be expected to show progress on their commitments while struggling for bandwidth, dealing with the climate emergency as an integral part of security, economic recovery and global health.

There is no time to push climate action out into the future. Every decimal point of warming avoided is an opportunity for better health, more prosperity and better security.

Rachel Kyte, Dean of the Fletcher School, Tufts University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

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Breaking News, News, Politics

Trump Interview touches Ivanka, Jan. 6th Regrets and More

In new interview with The Washington Post today, ‘former guy’ Donald Trump ramped up his replies like someone about to run for re-election.

He commented on the fact that his daughter, Ivanka, was interviewed by the January 6th committee for eight hours this week and declared that this was a “shame and harassment”, while also stating that he did not know what she had or hadn’t divulged to the members of the committee.

Trump also said that he did not know what Jared Kushner, Ivanka’s husband, had said to the committee, but that he had offered both Ivanka and Jared “privilege” if they wanted it. Both of them declined, according to Trump.

Regarding the now ‘infamous’ 7 hour and 37 minute gap in the call logs for then President Trump on January 6th , which took place precisely as the Capitol building was being violently assaulted by his followers, Trump claimed that he had not destroyed any logs from that day and that he did not make any calls on any “burner phones”.

While claiming that he has a “very good” memory, he also stated that he was unable to recall who he had talked to during the time of the gap on January 6th.

“From the standpoint of telephone calls, I don’t remember getting very many” he said, adding subsequently, “Why would I care about who called me? There was nothing sensitive about it. There was no secret”.

Plotting or plodding, the announcement to run still unspecified

Overall the interview comes across as guarded, if Trump’s loose cannon style could ever be described that way.

Many of the topics, other than the comments on the January 6th committee above, were variations on themes Trump has used while he waits to officially declare (or not) for the 2024 Presidential race.

Mentioning the previous comments he had made regarding his health being a factor in his decision to run (or not) in 2024, Tump said that, while that was a consideration, he was currently in good health and then elaborated:

“You always have to talk about health. You look like you’re in good health, but tomorrow, you get a letter from a doctor saying come see me again. That’s not good when they use the word again,”

Continuing his now trademarked tease regarding the official decision to run he then closed with:

“I don’t want to comment on running, but I think a lot of people are going to be very happy by my decision,” adding: “Because it’s a little boring now.”

Not boring was the announcement today, via press release, that a motion has been filed to hold Trump in contempt and levy a $10k per day fine if he fails to comply.

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News, Observation, Politics

NY Attorney General files for Trump to be held in Contempt and $10,000 daily fine

photo collage / Lynxotic

The New York’s attorney general, Letitia James, filed a motion requesting from a state judge to hold Donald Trump in contempt. The former president has continually failed to comply with the official ruling that he turn over necessary documents. The details were in a press release published today by the office.

The judge had ordered Trump to follow the order for documents and information initially by March 3rd and was later extended further to a March 31st deadline. The state AG office reportedly requested documents on 8 separate occasions, and according to the filing, Trump has yet to produce any of the subpoenaed documents and on top of that has raised objections about it.

In a statement, James said “The judge’s order was crystal clear: Donald J. Trump must comply with our subpoena and turn over relevant documents to my office,” continuing he said “Instead of obeying a court order, Mr. Trump is trying to evade it. We are seeking the court’s immediate intervention because no one is above the law.” 

In addition to the New York state attorney general is asking the judge to issue an order of contempt, the ruling also has requested that Donald Trump be fined $10,000 each day until he complies with the ruling and provides the requested documentation. 

In the filing it states: “The Trump Organization is not presently searching any of Mr. Trump’s custodial files or devices, and has no intention of doing so between now and April 15, 2022”.

As reported by the NYT a spokesperson for the Trump Organization responded to the AG’s request as both “baseless” and the investigation referred to as a “witch hunt“.

On a very busy April 7th for the Trump ‘non-campaign’ an interview with The Washington Post was also published today. In this somewhat guarded interview Trump answered queries on the January 6th committee’s interviews with Ivanka and Jared, and on his intentions to declare himself as a candidate for the 2024 Presidential election.

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News, Observation, Politics

Ukraine war: inside the complex web of Russia’s warring intelligence agencies

Russian intelligence chief Sergey Beseda and his deputy, Anatoly Bolyukh, were placed under house arrest on March 9. Beseda and Bolyukh oversaw the foreign intelligence branch of the FSB, which is the Russian security service. They were allegedly the main proponents of the assumption that Ukraine would swiftly collapse, which has proved deeply flawed.

But, as has become increasingly clear over many years, Vladimir Putin has become intolerant of opinions that contradict his preferred course of action. So although the intelligence was flawed, Beseda’s claims likely manipulated facts to fit what the Russian president wanted to believe. Having led the foreign intelligence branch since 2009, it is likely Beseda knew what his boss wanted to hear. Yet both he and Bolyukh have taken the blame for the wider invasion failure.

Putin has been living in a virtual bunker. The presidential administration, his primary information source, is a secretive organisation and has been feeding Putin a controlled information flow for over a decade. The institution acts as a gatekeeper to Putin and blocks non-positive intelligence from reaching him.

This twisting of facts to fit a particular worldview is only part of the problem. Another factor is that the different security services compete and undertake their own projects in the hope that this pleases Putin.

The Federal’naya Sluzhba Bezopasnosti (FSB) or Federal Security Service, is one of many agencies. While the FSB is commonly thought of as a domestic intelligence agency, it also operates in other post-Soviet countries, except the Baltic states. Meanwhile the Sluzhba Vneshney Razvedkiis (SVR), or Foreign Intelligence Service is involved in foreign intelligence gathering outside the post-Soviet space. The Federalnaya Sluzhba Okhrany (FSO), or Federal Protective Service, protects high-ranking officials. The Glavnoye upravleniye (GU), or Main Directorate – previously the GRU – is military intelligence.

The Rosgvardiya, or National Guard, which was created in 2016, is not strictly an intelligence agency but is effectively Putin’s praetorian guard. It is increasingly involved in external operations and has a direct line to Putin through its chief, Viktor Zolotov. He was Putin’s personal bodyguard from 2000 to 2013 before becoming minister of internal affairs and head of the internal troops from 2014 to 2016.

Spy v spy

Ostensibly the different Russian security services are like their western counterparts. But the FSB in particular is more carnivorous than its western equivalents, having largely consumed the signal-intelligence service, FAPSI. Putin as a former KGB Officer himself views them as crucial to his personal survival and making Russia great again. In 2020 Russia spent 5.5 trillion roubles (US$69 billion) on the security services. This amounts to 28% of the annual budget or 3.5 times the amount spent on health and education combined.

This comes at a price, though, with Putin demanding results. Each service is aware that they need to come up with the scariest crisis – or intelligence that fits Putin’s worldview – to increase their budget and influence. One example of this scare tactic was FSB chief, Aleksandr Bortnikov, claiming that the 2012 Siberian forest fires were the work of al-Qaeda. Scare tactics and only providing positive information to Putin results in a lack of coherence.

Each security service jealously guards its own territory and views the others with suspicion. This makes working together for a common good difficult. This rivalry is intense, and is built on a combination of mistrust and wanting Putin’s attention. In particular, the FSB appears to have the highest level of mistrust for other services and is constantly sniping at them. Competition also occurs at the intra-service level, with different groups conducting their own policies sometimes to the detriment of the agenda of their own branch.

All this makes for a very confusing picture, which is likely by design. By having inter and intra-service rivalries, the security services are too focused on their own jealousies, rather than other issues. With the war not going to plan there have also been murmurings that some security personnel are considering a coup.

Isolated and out of touch

Increasingly Putin’s inner circle is getting smaller and there is a growing level of mistrust and discontentment both by and against Putin. Rosgvardiya deputy Roman Gavrilov resigned in March over alleged claims of leaking information. Like Zolotov, Gavrilov was part of Putin’s personal bodyguard and when Zolotov tried to intervene, Putin refused to see him.

In the past month, eight generals have allegedly been sacked, in another sign that Putin is growing more isolated. His rambling speech and potted history in the build-up to recognising the independence of the two Donbas people’s republics were from someone who appears increasingly out of touch.

Since the pandemic’s start, Putin was isolated in a bunker with disinfection tunnels and largely sequestered from face-to-face meetings. The March 18 rally at Moscow’s Luzhniki stadium is one of many pointers that Putin remains in – or very close to – a bunker, only appearing for crucial meetings.

The long table in the Kremlin is another sign that Putin fears face-to-face meetings. For years, he has had food tasters. This creates a certain paranoia and the Ukraine conflict – and before it the pandemic – has turbocharged it.

Putin has long believed he is the most informed politician in the world. But this simply is not the case. Like the emperor with no clothes, Putin suffers from a warped reality where only positive information is allowed. This is what makes the current Ukrainian conflict particularly dangerous.

Stephen Hall, Lecturer (Assistant Professor) in Politics, International Relations and Russia, University of Bath

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

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News, Observation, Politics

Biden Urged to Fire Entire USPS Board for Complicity in ‘Devastating Arson’ by Trump and DeJoy

This article originally appeared at Common Dreams. It is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 License. Feel free to republish and share widely.

Democratic Congressman Bill Pascrell, Jr. of New Jersey on Monday urged President Joe Biden to terminate all six sitting members of the U.S. Postal Service Board of Governors for their “silence and complicity” in the face of Postmaster General Louis DeJoy and former President Donald Trump’s full-scale assault on the beloved government mail agency.

“Through the devastating arson of the Trump regime, the USPS Board of Governors sat silent,” Pascrell wrote in a letter to Biden.

“Their dereliction cannot now be forgotten. Therefore, I urge you to fire the entire Board of Governors and nominate a new slate of leaders to begin the hard work of rebuilding our Postal Service for the next century.”

–Bill Pascrell, Jr

While the president does not have the authority under current law to fire DeJoy—a Republican megadonor to Trump who was unanimously appointed by the USPS Board of Governors last May—Biden does have the power to remove postal governors “for cause.” At present, the board consists entirely of Trump appointees—two Democrats and four Republicans.

Pascrell argued Monday that “the board members’ refusal to oppose the worst destruction ever inflicted on the Postal Service was a betrayal of their duties and unquestionably constitutes good cause for their removal.”

Election season chaos comes back to haunt

Far from opposing DeJoy’s sweeping operational changes—which resulted in massively disruptive, nationwide mail delays that persisted through the November election and holiday season—USPS governors publicly praised the postmaster general, with one Republican board member gushing in September that “the board is tickled pink, every single board member, with the impact” DeJoy was having on the agency.

That glowing assessment of DeJoy’s performance during his first several months on the job did not comport with the experiences of postal workers—who in some cases resisted DeJoy’s policies—or the agency’s own internal evaluations, which showed that widespread delays followed the postmaster general’s changes.

DeJoy put his damaging policy moves on hold in August amid nationwide outrage and accusations that he was working to disrupt the election for Trump’s benefit. With the presidential election now in the past, DeJoy has recently signaled he plans to push ahead with his agenda.

In his letter to Biden, Pascrell wrote that the “continued challenges in preserving our Postal Service to survive and endure are gargantuan, and so demand bold solutions to meet them.”

“To begin that work,” Pascrell added, “we must have a governing body that can be trusted to represent the public interest.”

There are currently four vacancies in top leadership positions at USPS, including three governor spots and the deputy postmaster general role. If Biden fills the remaining vacancies—USPS governors must be confirmed by the Senate—Democrats will have a majority on the board and potentially the votes needed to remove DeJoy from office.

“Trump confessed he was wrecking USPS to rig the election. His toady Postmaster General DeJoy carried out that arson. It’s time to clean house,”

Pascrell tweeted Monday. “DeJoy should be fired but also prosecuted.”

Asked about Pascrell’s demand during a briefing on Monday, White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki said, “It’s an interesting question.”

“We all love the mailman and mailwoman,” said Psaki. “I don’t have anything for you on it. I’m happy to check with our team on it and see if we have any specifics. I’m not aware of anything, but we’ll circle back with you.”

Read Pascrell’s full letter:

Dear President Biden:

After several years of unprecedented sabotage, the United States Postal Service (USPS) is teetering on the brink of collapse. Through the devastating arson of the Trump regime, the USPS Board of Governors sat silent. Their dereliction cannot now be forgotten. Therefore, I urge you to fire the entire Board of Governors and nominate a new slate of leaders to begin the hard work of rebuilding our Postal Service for the next century.

According to a report by the USPS Office of Inspector General, operational changes imposed by Postmaster General Louis DeJoy “negatively impacted the quality and timeliness of mail service nationally” and were “implemented quickly and communicated primarily orally,” resulting in confusion and inconsistent application across the country. As DeJoy’s efforts to dismantle mail sorting machines, cut overtime, restrict deliveries, and remove mailboxes slowed mail nationally, Donald Trump himself openly admitted that his administration was withholding funding for the Postal Service in order to make it harder to process mail-in ballots.

Things became so bad that on August 14, 2020, I filed a complaint with our state’s Attorney General calling on him to seek indictments against your predecessor and the Postmaster General for election subversion. Postal operations have continued to severely lag benchmark levels under DeJoy and this slate of Governors. This holiday season, USPS reported an unprecedented level of mail disruption, with only 64 percent of first-class mail delivered on time in late December. Through it all, the Governors were either silent or in support of DeJoy’s havoc.

The members of the USPS Board of Governors have but one central responsibility: “represent[ing] the public interest.” Members may be removed by the President “only for cause.” The board members’ refusal to oppose the worst destruction ever inflicted on the Postal Service was a betrayal of their duties and unquestionably constitutes good cause for their removal.

As America’s perhaps most enduringly trusted institution, a central economic and social engine for every community in America, and a vital vanguard of the democratic tradition, the Post Office must play an essential role in our national life for generations to come. The continued challenges in preserving our Postal Service to survive and endure are gargantuan, and so demand bold solutions to meet them. To begin that work, we must have a governing body that can be trusted to represent the public interest. Thank you for your continued dedication to saving our Post Office.

Sincerely,

Bill Pascrell, Jr.

Member of Congress

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Climate Solutions, News, Observation, Politics

‘Addiction to Fossil Fuels Is Mutually Assured Destruction,’ Warns UN Chief

Above: Photo Collage / Lynxotic / Adobe Stock

“Instead of hitting the brakes on the decarbonization of the global economy” amid Russia’s war on Ukraine, “now is the time to put the pedal to the metal towards a renewable energy future,” said United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres.

“The 1.5-degree goal is on life support. It is in intensive care.”

So said United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres on Monday, as he stressed that a swift and just transition to clean energy is necessary to meet the Paris agreement’s objective of limiting global temperature rise to 1.5°C above preindustrial levels—and warned against using Russia’s deadly assault on Ukraine as an excuse to ramp up fossil fuel production worldwide.

“We are sleepwalking to climate catastrophe.”

“The science is clear. So is the math,” the U.N. leader said during a speech delivered at a Sustainability Summit hosted by The Economist. “Keeping 1.5 alive requires a 45% reduction in global emissions by 2030 and carbon neutrality by mid-century.” And yet, “according to present national commitments, global emissions are set to increase by almost 14% in the 2020s.”

“We are sleepwalking to climate catastrophe,” Guterres continued. “Our planet has already warmed by as much as 1.2 degrees—and we see the devastating consequences everywhere. In 2020, climate disasters forced 30 million people to flee their homes—three times more than those displaced by war and violence.”

Just this past weekend, scientists conveyed shock and alarm in response to reports that temperatures at both of Earth’s poles reached more than 50°F above average last week. Peer-reviewed research published on Friday foundthat increasingly frequent and intense wildfires around the globe are exacerbating Arctic warming, which is worsening the conditions that make future blazes more likely.

“Two weeks ago,” said Guterres, citing part two of the U.N.’s landmark climate assessment, “the IPCC confirmed that half of humanity is already living in the danger zone. Small island nations, least developed countries, and poor and vulnerable people everywhere are one climate shock away from doomsday. In our globally connected world, no country and no corporation can insulate itself from these levels of chaos.”

“If we continue with more of the same, we can kiss 1.5 goodbye,” he added. “Even 2 degrees may be out of reach. And that would be catastrophe.”

Making matters worse, said Guterres, “the fallout from Russia’s war in Ukraine risks upending global food and energy markets—with major implications for the global climate agenda.”

“As major economies pursue an ‘all-of-the-above’ strategy to replace Russian fossil fuels, short-term measures might create long-term fossil fuel dependence.”

The United States, United Kingdom, and European Union have moved to restrict imports of Russian fossil fuels in response to Moscow’s military offensive. Although progressives have emphasized that the ongoing invasion should lead to an intensification of efforts to move awayfrom dirty energy, profit-hungry proponents of oil, gas, and coal have seized on surging prices to push for boosting extraction and exports.

Guterres warned that “as major economies pursue an ‘all-of-the-above’ strategy to replace Russian fossil fuels, short-term measures might create long-term fossil fuel dependence and close the window to 1.5 degrees.”

Think like a Monk

“Countries could become so consumed by the immediate fossil fuel supply gap that they neglect or knee-cap policies to cut fossil fuel use,” he said. “This is madness. Addiction to fossil fuels is mutually assured destruction.”

“As current events make all too clear, our continued reliance on fossil fuels puts the global economy and energy security at the mercy of geopolitical shocks and crises,” added Guterres. “We need to fix the broken global energy mix.”

Noting that “the timeline to cut emissions by 45% is extremely tight,” the U.N. leader stressed that “instead of hitting the brakes on the decarbonization of the global economy, now is the time to put the pedal to the metal towards a renewable energy future.”

His remarks came just hours before the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) kicked off a two-week meeting to validate part three of its report, which focuses on the need to drastically slash carbon pollution to avoid the most disastrous outcomes.

Guterres argued that cooperation between the developed and emerging economies of the G20—responsible for 80% of global emissions—is essential to addressing the planetary emergency.

“Accelerating the phase-out of coal and all fossil fuels and implementing a rapid, just, and sustainable energy transition,” he said, is “the only true pathway to energy security.”

Originally published on Common Dreams by KENNY STANCIL and republished under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0)

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Finance, News, Observation, Politics

Recent White House Study on Taxes Shows the Wealthy Pay a Lower Rate Than Everybody Else

Above: Photo / Lynxotic

Recent White House Study on Taxes Shows the Wealthy Pay a Lower Rate Than Everybody Else

A decade ago, in an essay for The New York Times, Warren Buffett disclosed that he had paid nearly $7 million in federal taxes in 2010. “That sounds like a lot of money,” he wrote. “But what I paid was only 17.4 percent of my taxable income — and that’s actually a lower percentage than was paid by any of the other 20 people in our office. Their tax burdens ranged from 33 percent to 41 percent and averaged 36 percent.”

ProPublica is a Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative newsroom. Sign up for The Big Story newsletter to receive stories like this one in your inbox. Series: A Closer Look Examining the News

The words “taxable income” are doing a lot of work in that sentence.

Buffett owns a substantial number of shares in Berkshire Hathaway, the fabulously successful holding company he founded decades ago. As the company’s shares have soared nearly every year, his wealth has grown by billions. Under the U.S. tax code, none of that is taxed until he sells shares at a profit.

A little math shows that Buffett’s 17.4% rate meant he reported roughly $40.2 million in income in a year where Forbes said his wealth grew by $3 billion. His revelation made it possible to compare how much he was paying the government to the increase in the size of his fortune.

No one did so, and Buffett became something of a folk hero for calling for any increase in taxes.

When we obtained access to a trove of tax data on the richest Americans, it quickly became clear to our reporters that Buffett’s comparison of his own tax rate to his employees’ vastly understates the inequity of our tax system. Buffett is far from unique; the documents showed that the amount of money people like Michael Bloomberg, Jeff Bezos or Elon Musk reported to the IRS as income was infinitesimal when measured against their annual gains in wealth.

And so the first story in our “Secret IRS Files” series set out a new concept that makes more sense in our 21st century Gilded Age; we called it “the true tax rate.” We compared the annual taxes paid by the ultrarich to their wealth gains to give readers a sense of how the system really works.

From 2014 to 2018, we pointed out, Buffett paid $125 million in federal taxes. As he said, that sounds like a lot. But according to Forbes, his riches rose $24.3 billion during that period, making his true tax rate 0.1%. In a detailed written response, Buffett defended his practices but did not directly address ProPublica’s true tax rate calculation.

When we published this story, howls of rage rang out from the freewheeling corners of Twitter to the ornate offices on Wall Street. Some of the most irate critics wrote to me directly and demanded to know whether I was so @#$!@ stupid that I didn’t understand the meaning of the word “income tax.”

“This story, sadly, reeks with ‘class envy,’” one angry reader wrote. “If this was intended to get clicks, you made your money.” We’re a nonprofit and our revenue from advertising adds almost nothing to our annual budget, but I understand this reader’s larger point, which we noted in the story: The ultrarich are doing only what the current tax code invites them to do.

The debate intensified, and the White House-backed proposals on taxes advanced by congressional Democrats largely followed the traditional approach of raising rates on income. A separate bill introduced by Sens. Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders to impose a 3% tax on all wealth above $1 billion is seen as having little chance of passing.

The reluctance to embrace a wealth tax is deeply rooted. The biggest donors to both parties would be hit hard by such a law. And as we pointed out in our initial story, the complexities of taxing wealth are not trivial. Several countries have tried and struggled to figure out a fair way to tax stock gains. Does an entrepreneur whose stock skyrockets in one year, and pays a big tax, deserve a rebate if his company’s shares plummet the next year?

All of that said, we took note when White House economists issued a study that used publicly available data to estimate “the average Federal individual income tax rate paid by the 400 wealthiest American families’ in recent years, determined using a more comprehensive measure of income.” Their methodology was similar to ours, and their findings — that those families gained $1.8 trillion from 2010 to 2018 and paid 8.2% in taxes — are in line with what we found in the tax data.

The authors say their findings are evidence in support of President Joe Biden’s plan for tweaking the existing system; the words “wealth tax” are not mentioned. They point to the administration’s proposal to impose higher tax rates on stock dividends and on capital gains, the profit an investor reaps when selling a stock whose value has risen.

(The Biden administration has proposed getting rid of a provision in the tax code that shields heirs who inherit stock from paying capital gains tax on the growth in value that occurred before the shares were transferred.)

None of the proposed changes come close to addressing the biggest hole in the system, which is that an ultrarich person can live comfortably off gains in wealth while never selling a single share. As our initial story pointed out, the Buffetts and Bezos of the world can borrow against the value of their considerable holdings and live comfortably without selling stock or receiving any income from dividends, which new companies like Tesla and Amazon don’t pay.

The strategy, known as “buy, borrow and die,” allows the wealthy to amass fast fortunes, pay no taxes on those gains and pass on much of the wealth to their descendants.

Herb and Marion Sandler, the founders of ProPublica, made it clear from the outset that they hoped our journalism would spur real-world change. They were not particularly interested in stories whose biggest effect was that they had “started a conversation.”

We still measure our success by tangible effects. But over the years, we have seen that the road to impact on very complex issues can begin by changing the conversation.

Lawmakers have said that some of the most egregious tax loopholes we’ve exposed, notably multibillion-dollar Roth IRA accounts, will be scrutinized as Congress takes up tax legislation in coming months.

There’s no telling where the larger conversation about taxing wealth will lead. As the White House paper suggests, a new way of thinking about equality and taxation has taken center stage. Whether that ultimately results in change remains very much an open question.

Originally published on ProPublica by Stephen Engelberg and republished under a Creative Commons License (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0)

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Business, Climate Solutions

Young PR and Ad Professionals Demand Industry Ditch Fossil Fuel Clients

Photo Credit/ Ehimetalor Akhere Unuabona / Unsplash

“You had a future, and so should we.”

That’s the first line of an open letter released Tuesday by 71 young professionals and students in the advertising and public relations industry calling for an end to contracts with fossil fuel companies, given their significant contributions to the climate emergency.

“The biggest threat to our future is climate change,” they write. “The world’s 20 biggest polluters are fossil fuel companies, with the entire energy sector responsible for creating 75% of carbon emissions. They are blocking necessary and urgently needed climate action.”

“And our industry is helping them do it,” the young professionals continue. “We’re angry. We’re afraid. And we refuse to sit back and watch it happen.”

The letter is clear in its demand:

“We, tomorrow’s leaders, call on all agencies, from the holding companies to the independent shops, to stop working with fossil fuel clients. This means oil giants as well as the alphabet soup of trade associations and front groups.”

– 71 Young Professionals

“No more marketing climate denial and disinformation” or “setting up fake front groups,” the letter adds, further calling for an end to “amplifying lies about how action will hurt the economy” and “greenwashing oil, gas, and coal companies, aiding them in their attempts to dodge pollution safeguards and block meaningful change.”

The signatories urge everyone in the industry—especially agency heads, founders, and leadership teams—to take a stand against continuing to work with polluters, emphasizing that the climate emergency is already taking a toll.

“We won’t be able to reduce, reuse, recycle our way out of tomorrow’s catastrophe—because it is already happening today,” says the letter, which is open for new signatories through the end of the week. “Over the last few years, we’ve seen the devastating impacts of climate-related disasters, like record-breaking wildfires, droughts, heatwaves, and hurricanes. Bold action is needed, at all levels and segments of society. The time has come for our industry to do its part.”

Fires are devouring swaths of the Western United States, forcing evacuations and shutting down every national forest in California. On Sunday, Hurricane Ida, a “poster child for a climate change-driven disaster,” slammed into the Gulf Coast as a Category 4 storm, killing at least four people, leaving more than a million without power amid widespread destruction, and sparking calls for President Joe Biden to declare a climate emergency.

“At some point in the recent past, climate change was something that was happening in some distant future, and maybe of little concern to most people. Well, that distant future is now today—everyone will experience climate change as a series of horrific front-page photos and videos until they themselves are taking those photos and videos. It’s no longer some abstract threat,” letter leader Joe Cole toldCommon Dreams.

Cole is strategist working with Clean Creatives, a campaign supported by Fossil Free Media that pressures ad and PR agencies to drop fossil fuel accounts.

The letter comes as the New York Times is under fire for allowing fossil fuel industry advertising, thanks to a new campaign and reporting by climate journalist Emily Atkin in her newsletter HEATED.

As Atkin reported Monday:

[A] new activist campaign to pressure the Times to stop creating and running fossil fuel ads is launching today. Called Ads Not Fit to Print, the campaign argues that fossil fuel advertisements endanger Times readers’ health in the same way now-banned cigarette ads did—and likely, even more.

“What the Times is doing right now is shameful,” said Genevieve Guenther, whose group End Climate Silence is spearheading the campaign. “On one hand, they’re trying to seem like part of the reality-based community who acknowledges the climate crisis and wants to solve it. On the other, they’re doing everything they can to keep the fossil fuel economy going because it is one of the sources of their own power and they believe in it.”

Activists aren’t the only ones taking issue with this practice, either. In conversations with HEATED over the last week, several current and former Times newsroom employees expressed concerns about the paper’s practice of creating and running fossil fuel ads. Their concerns ranged from undermining the Times‘ own climate reporting, to harming Times readers’ health, to aiding industry attempts to mislead the public about the deadly effects of fossil fuels.

Cole highlighted energy giants’ contributions to planet-heating pollution and told Common Dreams that “these clients are represented by some of the most storied ad agencies in the world like BBDO, Edelman, Ogilvy, and WundermanThompson.”

“These ads go on to be featured in some of the most prominent real estate around the world, from billboards to the NYT,” he said. “Although the tobacco industry was and is responsible for a personal health crisis, the fossil fuel industry is killing the entire planet.”

Praising Times journalists’ work on the climate emergency, Fossil Free Media director Jamie Henn tweeted that “the paper should stop doing them—and all of us—a disservice by continuing to make and run ads for fossil fuel corporations.”

In a statement about the letter Tuesday, Cole said that “any time our industry starts to change for the better, it is through a combination of outside and internal pressure. I believe in the power of young professionals in our industry—the leaders of tomorrow—to hasten the necessary transition away from fossil fuel clients.”

The strategist pointed to recent findings that July 2021 was the hottest month ever recorded and asserted that “it’s no longer acceptable for agency executives to ignore the damage their work with fossil fuel clients is doing to the planet.”

He argued that “even a single contract with a client like BP, Shell, or Exxon can wipe out the impact of an agency’s sustainability pledge. If agencies are serious about not only protecting the future of their young staff, but recruiting them in the first place they need to begin by transitioning away from fossil fuel work and rejecting new contracts.”

“The people signing this letter truly are the leaders of tomorrow,” Cole added, “and if agencies want to remain relevant, and attractive places to work for top young talent, they need to end their work for the worst polluters on the planet.”

Originally published by JESSICA CORBETT on Common Dreams via Creative Commons

This post has been updated with additional comment from Joe Cole.

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Breaking News, Observation, Politics

Trump is Guilty of High Crimes but 43 vote to Acquit

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Opinion and observation:

The meaning of this ongoing assault on the truth

One thing that was unavoidable during this unprecedented 2nd impeachment process was the sense that the facts and evidence of a heinous series of crimes left any sane individual utterly devoid of any doubt that Trump was guilty. And yet, in the face of so many facts and so many public acts, a minority of 43 Republicans voted to acquit and stood up to say, with that vote, that they do not care about the law, the constitution or even this country.

Read more: Trump’s Best Impeachment Defense: ‘I’m a Buffoon and it was all a Joke’

What that means going forward is only clear in a few, but very important, respects. It is clear that the majority in this country – demonstrably sane Republicans like the seven that did vote to convict, and the roughly 259 million that do not support Trump’s insanity – will have to continue to fight for what they believe in – even if opinions are diverse, and fight as much as necessary for the basic understanding that we will never follow a wannabe dictator and criminal.

Again, what is clearer today than before the trial, is that the forces that propelled Trump into power and, even to this day, seek to maintain some kind of grip on the poison political tribalism he stands for, will attempt to use it to regain power again and try to use it to terrorize the rest of us.

Read more: Georgia initiates Criminal Investigation into Trump’s call

No muddy waters, no reasonable doubt, just complicit co-conspirators

The inescapable takeaway from the entire fiasco of the so-called “Trump-era” is that, without some kind of active and confrontational prevention from those that believe in democracy and democratic values, there will be a continue to be a force from the far right that will fill any void and seek to destroy this country and potentially the world.

Because, in the end, political disagreements over tax policy, immigration, and so many other admittedly important concerns, it is the pro-oil, anti-environmental, climate change-denying racist and corrupt evil that must be prevented, from this moment forward, from ever wielding power in this country again.

There is no reconciliation with a coalition that seeks to destroy the world in the name of religious fantasies and lust for a racist reckoning or misanthropic judgement day.

No Justice, no Peace

The future will, quite simply, not exist if neanderthal bigots (sorry neanderthals, you deserve better) with zero moral consciousness are permitted any say in government. This is not a political disagreement or lack of consensus. This is dangerous criminal terrorist elements that believe they have the right to decide the future of this country for all of us, against any person that holds views that would prevent Trump or any person with his destructive and worthless character.

Trump’s hyperbolic call to arms: “If you don’t fight, you won’t have a country” is, in reality, some kind of perverse projection, as it is us, those that have been terrorized by this malignant clown, that must listen and realize that he is right, not about the duped and manipulated followers he was lying to, but about us: we are the ones that almost lost our country.

And who should be the judge of the character of would be “leaders”? That is, and must be, we the people. If there are, in reality, 74 million people who are either brainwashed or simply ignorant enough to support a criminal like Trump, then the will of the majority, of the 259 million with the better sense not to support such a person, must be the arbiter of what is right.

The next chapter in the ugly and disgusting Trump saga will be private and legal efforts to stop him or anyone descending from his corrupt and bankrupt “cause” from re-entering the political arena.

This must not be seen as petty vengeance but as a sacred quest to protect, not only this country, but the entire world from the plague that we have all witnessed and endured other the last 5 years.

The losses must be recovered and the wrongs set right

The poisoning of the national discourse, the destruction of institutions, the loss of lives in the insurrection and the nearly half a million dead, in part, due to maladministration of the government response to the pandemic, all of this and so much more might not have happened if Trump had been stopped sooner.

There is no clearer course, and no outcome more important to prevent, than any return to the horrors that were perpetrated with this demented and dangerous man at the helm of our country.

And the proof today is in the bogus acquittal by 43 ,who share his guilt, proof of the absolute necessity to actively prevent any reemergence of his poisonous reign, or that of any acolyte that may attempt to rise carrying his diseased, corrupt mantel.

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Observation, Politics

As Trump Flees to Florida, Memes Follow

First a middle-finger toward tradition by skipping the Inauguration, then reactions to the entire debacle begin

So much to unpack – like an abused child we all stand in seeming disbelief as the maniac-in-chief finally recedes from view. Thanks to twitter for giving us a well deserved foretaste of a Trump-less future by deleting his account a week-plus ago.

In typical fashion Trump took a government jet to Mar-a-lago while making sure that Biden did not receive the customary loan of any government jet and had to fly private. Many will take solace in the uncertain and unlikely to be pleasant future for the accused insurrectionist, and still many more have celebrated, how else, with twitter memes specially designed for the occaision. Below we’ve gathered a few:

https://twitter.com/jmckelvey1979/status/1351885127287246849?s=20
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Entertainment, Politics

Barack Obama invokes Navy Seals as way to remove Trump from WH in flashback to Bin Laden Take-down

Video
https://video.twimg.com/amplify_video/1329557828713938946/vid/1280x720/NlpIIPfkdig7KNOx.mp4?tag=13

The former POTUS gave a scathing, hilarious interview on “Jimmy Kimmel Live!”

In Barack Obama’s latest book “A Promised Land” he writes how the Navy Seal team was charged the take-down of Osama Bin Laden.  On the late night show, Jimmy Kimmel Live!”. During an appearance to promote his book, the former President laughed with the host as to what steps might be needed to get Trump out of the White House come January.

Jimmy Kimmel asked the former POTUS if there was “a place somebody could hide in the White House if they knew they were going to be removed” — and Obama jokingly responded, “Well, I think we can send some navy seals in to dig him out,”.

Click to see ” A Promised Land“
and help independent bookstores. 
Also available on Amazonand Walmart.

Jimmy also noted that Obama’s new book is 701 pages long, and asked if he had purposely made the book so long so Trump wouldn’t pick up it. Obama made reports that he planned, at least initially to write a 500 page memoir within a years time, then, he instead wrote a whopping 700 pages.  It will now be the first of an anticipated two set volume, as the book ends with the Bin Laden episode in May of 2011.  Watch the video clip above to hear Barak’s response that hilariously roasted the soon-to-be-booted current resident of 1400 Pennsylvania Ave. 

Obama’s book went on sale on Nov. 17, 2020;  the memoir sold 890,000 copies in the U.S. and Canada in the first 24 hours of release, setting a record for publisher Crown, an imprint of Penguin Random House. “A Promised Land” continues to hold steady at #1 on Amazon and as one of the top leading non-fiction bestsellers since its release. 

To read more information Barak Obama’s book and help independent bookstores click the link for “Barak Obama’s book”, also available on Amazon and Walmart.

A Promised Land 

In the stirring, highly anticipated first volume of his presidential memoirs, Barack Obama tells the story of his improbable odyssey from young man searching for his identity to leader of the free world, describing in strikingly personal detail both his political education and the landmark moments of the first term of his historic presidency–a time of dramatic transformation and turmoil.

Obama takes readers on a compelling journey from his earliest political aspirations to the pivotal Iowa caucus victory that demonstrated the power of grassroots activism to the watershed night of November 4, 2008, when he was elected 44th president of the United States, becoming the first African American to hold the nation’s highest office.

Reflecting on the presidency, he offers a unique and thoughtful exploration of both the awesome reach and the limits of presidential power, as well as singular insights into the dynamics of U.S. partisan politics and international diplomacy. Obama brings readers inside the Oval Office and the White House Situation Room, and to Moscow, Cairo, Beijing, and points beyond.

We are privy to his thoughts as he assembles his cabinet, wrestles with a global financial crisis, takes the measure of Vladimir Putin, overcomes seemingly insurmountable odds to secure passage of the Affordable Care Act, clashes with generals about U.S. strategy in Afghanistan, tackles Wall Street reform, responds to the devastating Deepwater Horizon blowout, and authorizes Operation Neptune’s Spear, which leads to the death of Osama bin Laden.

This beautifully written and powerful book captures Barack Obama’s conviction that democracy is not a gift from on high but something founded on empathy and common understanding and built together, day by day.

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