Night Owls, a themed open thread, appears at Daily Kos seven days a week
Dr. Janis Petzel, a psychiatrist from Islesboro, Maine, is a climate ambassador for Physicians for Social Responsibility. At Common Dreams, she writes—Let’s Pay Attention to What COVID-19 Is Trying to Tell Us About Climate Change:
[...] As a physician, I believe in the health benefits of treating the underlying cause of a health problem. COVID-19 demonstrates that there is a direct connection between the environment and our health. What we’ve learned through this pandemic experience is we cannot ignore warnings from scientists and public health officials. Prevention is more crucial than ever before.
Take air pollution, for instance. We know that burning petrochemicals creates the particulate matter and noxious fumes that lead to ground level ozone or smog, all of which greatly harm human health. In fact, a recent report from the American Lung Association found that nearly 5 in 10 people in the US live in counties with unhealthy ozone or particulate pollution. Particulate matter is linked to inflammation and many chronic diseases, which make a person more likely to die from COVID-19. Yet, instead of strengthening public health protections during the current public health crisis, the Trump administration is attacking safeguards that reduce pollution in our communities.
Look at before- and during-COVID-19 pictures of the air above virus hot spots. How quickly Mother Nature heals as millions of individuals stop driving gasoline-powered cars! The lower levels of smog are a stark reminder of how "normal" activity causes pollution and threatens our health. Look at what we could achieve if only we make smart decisions now to accelerate the transition to cleaner sources of energy and transportation.
I hope this knowledge motivates each of us to do what we can to conserve energy, invest in solar panels for our homes, trade in our gas guzzlers for electric vehicles, use heat pumps instead of oil or gas to heat our homes and bath water, and find other ways to get fossil fuels out of our lives in order to keep our skies that gorgeous shade of healthy blue. [...]
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“Science fiction films are not about science. They are about disaster, which is one of the oldest subjects of art.”
~~Susan Sontag, “The Imagination of Disaster” (1965)
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At Daily Kos on this date in 2008—Senator, VA Secretary Disrespect Troops on Memorial Day:
On Memorial Day weekend, Senator Ted Stevens (R-AK) and VA Secretary James Peake stood side-by-side in Fairbanks, Alaska to showcase their opposition to--and lack of respect for--today’s newest veterans.
Speaking at the Disabled American Veterans’ 19th Annual Department Convention, Senator Stevens told the majority of America’s most recent war veterans that they had not yet sacrificed enough to have earned a GI Bill that would cover the full cost of their educations.
Sen. Ted Stevens warned of a "mass exodus" from the military Saturday if the so-called 21st Century GI Bill goes into law without major changes.
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"There are worries that people who are already in for two years will serve one more and leave, and there’s really no incentive to stay," Stevens said.
What Stevens is really saying is that today's troops are unpatriotic—that they're only in it for the money and the college. And while Stevens’ "mass exodus" theory has been thoroughly discredited by the Congressional Budget Office, the true irony of the situation lies in the fact that Stevens earned his own college degree after World War Two by using the same GI Bill he’s aiming to prevent today’s veterans from receiving.
On today’s Kagro in the Morning show: Joan McCarter calls attention to nursing home COVID crises & where Dems should be helping. Latest "lib owning" craze: guns in groins. Seven states fudging virus numbers. Meat packers have more cases than half the states. Weekend’s viral video outrages.
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