How Coronavirus Could Set Back the Fight Against Climate Change
Oregon Takes Sweeping Action to Cut Global Warming ; Debtors of the World, Unite! ; and More Picks
Trump Prevented DNI From Reporting on Threat of Pandemic (Reader Pat)
From Time: “The final draft of the report remains classified but … two officials who have read it say it contains warnings similar to those in the last installment, which was published on January 29, 2019. The 2019 report warns on page 29 that, ‘The United States will remain vulnerable to the next flu pandemic or large-scale outbreak of a contagious disease that could lead to massive rates of death and disability, severely affect the world economy, strain international resources, and increase calls on the United States for support.’”
Life on the Grand Princess as ‘Pariahs’ of the Pacific (Reader Steve)
The author writes, “[The] 15-day cruise to Kauai, Oahu, Maui and Hawaii aboard the Grand Princess left San Francisco Feb. 21 and was wonderful — for the first 13 days.”
Oregon Takes Sweeping Action to Cut Global Warming (Reader Steve)
The author writes: “In an end run around Republican legislators, Oregon’s Democratic governor ordered the state on Tuesday to lower greenhouse gas emissions, directing a state agency to set and enforce caps on pollution from industry and transportation fuels. Gov. Kate Brown’s sweeping executive order, one of the boldest in the nation, aims to reduce carbon emissions to at least 45% below 1990 levels by 2035 and 80% from 1990 levels by 2050.”
Debtors of the World, Unite! (Chris)
From the Boston Review: “Debtors’ unions … offer borrowers the power of contract negotiation which, to date, lenders alone have held. Are the terms fair? What is the interest rate? The repayment term? The fees and penalties? Are contract terms discriminatory? Will this income stream be securitized and if so, to what potential effect for borrowers? In addition to negotiations before the contract is signed, debtors’ unions’ ability to threaten or enact mass refusal to pay also enables the renegotiation or write-down of existing contracts.”
What Happens When You Take a Mind-Boggling Amount of LSD (Chris)
The author writes, “The Journal of Studies on Alcohol and Drugs published three case reports of women who recreationally took mind-boggling amounts of LSD, and say their acid trips changed their lives for the better. A recent report by CNN detailed two of the cases: a 46-year-old woman who believed she was snorting cocaine, but instead took 550 times the normal recreational dose of LSD in 2015, and a 15-year-old girl who accidentally drank ten times the normal dose of liquid LSD at a Summer Solstice party in 2000.”
