The Hollywood Liberal

Chris Christie Preaches a Foreign Policy of American Exceptionalism
From: The Christie Watch

Not quite a neoconservative, Christie is still sounding a lot like, well, Hillary Clinton when it comes to world affairs.

Renewable Energy Foes Poised to Return Ohio to ‘the Dark Ages’
From: Zoë Carpenter

A bill to block renewable energy standards is the product of an aggressive campaign by conservative groups to undermine laws that encourage the development of clean energy.

Can New York City’s Welfare System Be Saved?
From: Michelle Chen

By forcing people on welfare to trade personal dignity for social entitlements, the system seeks to shrink public spending at an unconscionable moral cost.

Teaching the Clean Air Act New Tricks
Jody Freeman, New York Times
The Environmental Protection Agency’s authority to regulate the nation’s approximately 550 existing power plants comes from a little-known section of the Clean Air Act known as 111(d). This section requires states to adopt performance standards for existing sources of pollution. The E.P.A. sets benchmarks that the states must meet and can improve upon.Some critics argue that the E.P.A. lacks the authority to regulate power plant pollution under this provision, but that argument is weak.

When Bushies Blew a CIA Cover, It Was “Treason”
Byron York, Examiner
Valerie Plame doesn’t deny that blowing the cover of the CIA station chief in Afghanistan is a serious matter. It’s just that, discussing the issue at a Wednesday evening forum sponsored by The Atlantic, Plame seemed to view the outing of the CIA’s top spy on the front lines in the Afghan war as more of an embarrassment than an outrage

Obama’s Bid For U.N. Secretary-General Has Begun

Democrats Won’t Run on Obamacare
Ezra Klein, Vox
The big will-they-or-won’t-they of 2014 is whether the Democrats will run on Obamacare.The case for is clear: the law overcame a rocky start to blow past expectations and sign up 8 million people in its insurance exchanges and another 3 million plus in its Medicaid expansion. It’s the Democratic Party’s most significant social policy achievement since the Great Society. It’s the Obama administration’s signature piece of legislation. And whether Democrats like it or not, they own it — so they might as well run on it.

Nigerian Girls Found, But No Rescue Attempt
Nigeria’s military knows where the more than 200 girls abducted by Boko Haram are but has ruled out using force to rescue them, the state news agency quoted chief of defence staff Air Marshal Alex Badeh as saying on Monday. “The good news for the parents of the girls is that we know where they are, but we cannot tell you,” Badeh said. “But where they are held, can we go there with force? We can’t kill our girls in the name of trying to get them back.” Most officials think any raid to rescue them would be fraught with danger and probably not worth the risk that the girls would be killed by their captors — an Islamist group that has shown a degree of ruthlessness in killing civilians. Since the girls were captured, at least 470 civilians have been killed by Boko Haram, which says it is fighting to establish an Islamic state in religiously mixed Nigeria, in various locations, according to a Reuters count.

France’s Le Pen still searching for EU allies
BRUSSELS (AP) — French National Front leader Marine Le Pen struggled on Wednesday to get enough international support for a full-fledged parliamentary group in the European Parliament, despite unprecedented victories gained by the far right in last week’s European Union elections.

America “stronger when we lead by example,” Obama says
From climate change to maritime law disputes, President Obama says America cannot cannot exampe itself “from the rules that apply to everyone else.”

The tea party may be down, but is it out?
Is the movement really losing, or has the fight just gotten more expensive?

The up-and-down relationship between Maya Angelou and Obama
Not always allies, Angelou and the president did forge a bond, however

Fox Callously Dismisses Value Of 4.3 Million Lives Lost To Pollution

Fox News brushed aside the value of Environmental Protection Agency research grants for clean cooking and heating technologies, saying that the dangerous indoor pollution from dirty stoves is only “a mere contribution” to 4.3 million deaths, and fearmongered that the EPA would soon come after American stoves. However, even Fox News’ “favorite” environmental pundit has said that the fact that millions are dying from dirty cooking stoves — more deaths than from AIDS and malaria combined — is an “immediate problem.”

EPA To Give Grants For Research Into Clean Stove Technology

EPA Awarded Grants To Universities To Research Clean Cookstove Technology. On May 27, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced it would distribute nearly $9 million in research grants to six universities across the country to research clean cookstove technology. From the EPA’s blog:

Nearly three billion people worldwide rely on burning fuels such as wood, plant matter, coal, and animal waste. And because most of that occurs indoors, it’s a health hazard, too. The World Health Organization estimates that exposure to smoke from traditional cookstoves leads to 4.3 million premature deaths per year.

[…]

What’s more, it’s not just a local problem. The smoke from traditional cookstoves is a major source of black carbon, an air pollutant linked to a range of impacts associated with our changing climate, including increased temperatures, accelerated ice and snow melt, and changes in the pattern and intensity of precipitation.

[…]

Funded through our Science to Achieve Results (STAR) program, the research will focus on measuring and communicating the benefits of adopting cleaner cooking, heating, and lighting practices. The impact of the work will improve air quality and protect the health of billions of people, as well as slow climate change–a benefit for everyone, and the global environment, too. [EPA blog, 5/28/14]

Pollution From Dirty Stoves Kills More People Than AIDS And Malaria Combined

World Health Organization: Nearly 3 Billion Use Dirty Technology To Cook And Heat Homes. The World Health Organization (WHO), an agency of the United Nations, states that currently about 3 billion people — nearly half of the global population — cook and heat their homes using inefficient and dirty technologies, including open fires and “simple stoves burning biomass (wood, animal dung and crop waste) and coal.” The WHO calls this phenomenon “the forgotten 3 billion.” [World Health Organization, accessed 5/28/14]

WHO: 4.3 Million Deaths Are “Attributable To” Pollution Caused By Clean Stoves. The WHO determined that the pollutants from inefficient stoves lead to 4.3 million premature deaths each year, and are particularly harmful towards women and children:

More than 50% of premature deaths among children under 5 are due to pneumonia caused by particulate matter (soot) inhaled from household air pollution.

[…]

In poorly ventilated dwellings, indoor smoke can be 100 times higher than acceptable levels for small particles. Exposure is particularly high among women and young children, who spend the most time near the domestic hearth.

[…]

4.3 million people a year die prematurely from illness attributable to the household air pollution caused by the inefficient use of solid fuels (2012 data). Among these deaths:

• 12% are due to pneumonia
• 34% from stroke
• 26% from ischaemic heart disease
• 22% from chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), and
• 6% from lung cancer. [World Health Organization, accessed 5/28/14]

Pollution From Dirty Stoves Kills More People Than AIDS And Malaria Combined. Reuters reported that “there were about 1.7 million AIDS-related deaths in 2011 and malaria killed about 660,000 people in 2010,” while 3.5 million die early each year from indoor air pollution from dirty stoves, according to earlier 2012 data from the WHO (the number has since increased to 4.3 million per year):

Air pollution is an underestimated scourge that kills far more people than AIDS and malaria and a shift to cleaner energy could easily halve the toll by 2030, U.N. officials said on Tuesday.

[…]

A 2012 World Health Organization (WHO) study found that 3.5 million people die early annually from indoor air pollution and 3.3 million from outdoor air pollution. 

[…]

By comparison, U.N. reports show there were about 1.7 million AIDS-related deaths in 2011 and malaria killed about 660,000 people in 2010. [Reuters, 4/9/13]

Fox News Heartlessly Dismisses Need For Clean Cookstoves

Fox’s Varney: Dirty Stoves Are “A Mere Contribution To Those [4.3 Million] Deaths.” Fox News contributor Stuart Varney dismissed the WHO statistics on the May 28 edition of Fox & Friends, saying that dirty stoves were only “a mere contribution” to 4.3 million deaths, not a cause:

VARNEY: The World Health Organization says that cooking stoves, smoky fires contribute to 4.3 million premature deaths per year. What does contribute mean? Does it mean that cooking fires create 4.3 million premature deaths? No. A mere contribution to those deaths. [Fox News, Fox & Friends, 5/28/14]

Fox News Fearmongers: “Obama’s EPA Targets Your Stove.” Fox Nation promoted a Washington Times article with the headline “Obama’s EPA Targets Your Stove Now …” However, the Washington Times article actually disparaged the research because “most of the problem lives far from the shores of the U.S.,” suggesting that “an agency charged with protecting Americans from pollution” should not be “focused on a problem that is far more prevalent off U.S. shores.” [Washington Times, 5/26/14; Fox Nation, 5/27/14]

Even Fox’s “Favorite” Environmental Pundit Agrees: Clean Cookstoves Are Important Global Issue

Fox’s “Favorite” Bjorn Lomborg: Dirty Stoves Are An “Immediate Problem.” Fox’s Stuart Varney once called Bjorn Lomborg, who frequently uses his media platform to deride large-scale action on climate change, “our favorite rational environmentalist.” Lomborg recently argued that dirty heating and cooking technology is a “more immediate problem” than climate change in a New York Times op-ed:

There’s a lot of hand-wringing about our warming planet, but billions of people face a more immediate problem: They are desperately poor, and many cook and heat their homes using open fires or leaky stoves that burn dirty fuels like wood, dung, crop waste and coal.

About 3.5 million of them die prematurely each year as a result of breathing the polluted air inside their homes — about 200,000 more than the number who die prematurely each year from breathing polluted air outside, according to a [2012] study by the World Health Organization.

[…]

Even more people — an estimated three billion — still cook and heat their homes using open fires and leaky stoves, according to the energy agency. More efficient stoves could help. And solar panels could provide LED lights and power to charge cellphones. [Media Matters, 7/12/11; New York Times, 12/3/13]

Cookstoves Are Part Of A Global Issue That Will Impact U.S.

Dirty Cookstoves Are A Major Contributor To Manmade Climate Change. The WHO detailed that inefficient stove combustion emits “black carbon (sooty particles) and methane,” both of which are “powerful climate change pollutants.” The New York Times expanded on the contribution of dirty stoves to global climate change, reporting they are “perhaps the second biggest contributor to global warming”:

The stoves also contribute to global warming as a result of the millions of tons of soot they spew into the atmosphere and the deforestation caused by cutting down trees to fuel them.

[…]

Although the toxic smoke from the primitive stoves is one of the leading environmental causes of death and disease, and perhaps the second biggest contributor to global warming, after the industrial use of fossil fuels, it has long been neglected by governments and private aid organizations. [World Health Organization, accessed 5/28/14; New York Times, 9/20/10]

Without Change In Policy Or Technology, Reliance On Dirty Cookstoves Will Prevent Sustainable Development. According to the World Bank, a substantial shift in policy is necessary to decrease the total number of people relying on dirty fuels by 2030, and that “the use of polluting fuels also poses a major burden on sustainable development.” [World Bank, 2010, via World Health Organization]

Climate Change Already Impacts The United States. A recent federal report from the U.S. Global Change Research Program detailed the current and future impacts of climate change across the country, stating that climate change “has moved firmly into the present.”

Climate change, once considered an issue for a distant future, has moved firmly into the present. Corn producers in Iowa, oyster growers in Washington State, and maple syrup producers in Vermont are all observing climate-related changes that are outside of recent experience. So, too, are coastal planners in Florida, water managers in the arid Southwest, city dwellers from Phoenix to New York, and Native Peoples on tribal lands from Louisiana to Alaska. This National Climate Assessment concludes that the evidence of human-induced climate change continues to strengthen and that impacts are increasing across the country. [U.S. Global Change Research Program, 5/6/14]

Why Restraint Makes Us Stronger
E.J. Dionne, RealClearPolitics
WASHINGTON — By laying out a long-term foreign policy vision in a speech at West Point on Wednesday, President Obama challenged his critics, at home and abroad, not to speak in vague terms about American “decline” or “weakness” but to answer the question: Exactly what would you do differently? This is as close as we have gotten to an Obama Doctrine, and here it is: The United States “will use military force, unilaterally if necessary, when our core interests demand it — when our people are threatened; when our livelihoods are at stake; when the security of our allies is in danger.” But in…

Clegg and Cable facing questions
Nick Clegg and Vince Cable are facing questions over the Liberal Democrats’ future leadership, after Lord Oakeshott quit the party he said was “heading for disaster”.

Analysis: Clegg stronger for now
Where Oakeshott’s broadside leaves Clegg and Cable

Obama taking on foreign policy critics
The White House is mounting a concerted defense of President Obama’s foreign policy.

The Extremist Organizations ‘on the Front Lines’
Islamic extremism has decentralized over the past decade. Some groups have links to Al Qaeda, but most of them focus more on waging local battles than on attacking the West.

Storming a Spanish Border in North Africa
More than 1,000 would-be immigrants tried to forced their way over razor-wire barriers into Spain’s North African enclave of Melilla on Wednesday.

Leader of French Far-Right Hopes to Fix Europe From the Inside
Marine Le Pen, the leader of France’s National Front, outlined ambitions to reshape Europe’s direction during her visit to Brussels.