For the cotton farmers in Bachu, Xinjiang, the soil is as precious as life itself. In recent years, under China’s policy to “vitalize the countryside,” cotton farming experienced an upgrade. Many of the laborious process involved in growing and picking cotton are now done by machines.
This is one of many stories in CGTN’s exclusive documentary “Beyond the Mountains: Life in Xinjiang.” Watch the full documentary here: https://youtu.be/oWyT3CLu3do
Posted in Uncategorized
Jen Psaki expertly shut down this reporter who asked if Ambassador Thomas-Greenfield would be fired after she said that racism exists.
Posted in Uncategorized
The list of 30 close relatives who will attend Prince Philip’s funeral has been confirmed along with specific details about the dress code.
The Duke’s children and grandchildren will be represented in the procession to the chapel led by the Prince of Wales and Princess Anne.
The Queen will be accompanied by a lady-in-waiting as she is driven behind the coffin, members of the Royal family will not wear military uniform and the congregation will be socially distanced, will wear facemasks and will not sing.
Posted in Uncategorized
The sex trafficking probe involving Republican Rep. Matt Gaetz is dividing House Republicans and putting pressure on Gaetz’s once-tight relationship with Trump. While Gaetz denies the allegations, new evidence reported by the Washington Post indicates Gaetz moved $85,000 intended for campaigning into his own legal defense fund. MSNBC’s Chief Legal Correspondent Ari Melber discusses what this reveals about Gaetz’s mindset and the bizarre origins of the tangled case. (This interview is from MSNBC’s “The Beat with Ari Melber, a news show covering politics, law and culture airing nightly at 6pm ET on MSNBC.
Posted in Uncategorized
Thom and Rep Ro Khanna talk about what Germany did and if it could be done here in America. Germany figured out a way to use their existing banking and power systems to begin to shift from dependence on coal and nuclear power to solar.
Posted in Uncategorized
Central America is acutely vulnerable to climate change. The impacts of temperature increases, extreme weather events, flooding and drought are magnified by the continued degradation and loss of soil cover, the growing influence of criminal organizations, fiscal constraints, and a rights crisis reflected in forced displacement and the killings of indigenous, Afro-descendant, and other local populations. These phenomena are particularly evident in the Northern Triangle countries of El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras.
As the Biden administration looks to enhance climate resilience in Central America, understanding how climate change is interacting with the multiple drivers of migration in the region is critical to developing responses that reduce inequalities and build the capacity of communities on the ground.
Posted in Uncategorized
One of the obvious consequences of abrupt climate system change is the large increase we have experienced in the frequency, severity, and duration of extreme weather events. In addition, these events are happening in regions where they did not happen before, for example, we have had large, previously unheard of snowfalls in some of the driest deserts in the world.
The top down, elevator pitch that I have used for many years is based on the fundamental physics of why the Jet Stream exists in the first place, which is due to the cold Arctic – warmer lower latitudes temperature difference creating a pressure difference driving the high altitude winds (jet streams) along with the Coriolis force effects deflecting winds to the right in the Northern Hemisphere. As the Arctic warms at much greater rates than lower latitudes, the lower temperature gradient (thus pressure gradient) means the jet streams must slow, and thus they become much wavier in the North-South direction. Under the ridges of the Jet stream waves (Rossby Waves) there is high pressure and heat that has moved northward, while in the troughs of the waves cold dry air spills southward. If the wave locations are persistent (blocked) we can get long duration anomalously hot conditions under the ridges, and long duration storms, torrential rainfall, and flooding in the troughs.
This explains why the tremendously rapid Arctic warming is leading to increases in the frequency, severity, and duration of extreme weather events, from a top-down viewpoint.
Bottom-up is more difficult, and the devil is always in the details. In the latter section of my Part 1 video, and in all of my Part 2 video, I discuss a new peer reviewed scientific paper called “How do intermittency and simultaneous processes obfuscate the Arctic influence on midlatitude winter extreme weather events?”.
Since extreme weather events are presently affecting billions of people around the planet, getting at the details is vitally important, in fact it was mentioned that there were 146 recent papers looking into the details of these connections. There is a lot of complexity and confusion, and the connections vary critically depending on the season, for example late fall/early winter the lack of Arctic sea ice in the Barent-Kara Sea, the Chuckhi-Beaufort Sea, and Baffin Bay have been connected to extreme winter cold and snowfall in Eurasia, extreme weather conditions in North America, etc… In late winter, the Stratospheric Polar Vortex often radically undergoes Sudden Stratospheric Warming, leading to large outbreaks of cold Arctic air infiltrating into much lower latitudes in North America and Eurasia.
Clearly, we still have a lot to learn, but it seems impossible to me that rapid Arctic changes can occur without having profound effects on lower latitude weather extremes. I think these connections will become more obvious and resolved as we get closer and closer to complete loss of Arctic sea ice within the next few years.
Please donate to my blog http://paulbeckwith.net to support my research and videos as I bring you the latest science connecting the dots on abrupt climate system change and it’s consequences to humanity.
Posted in Uncategorized
The United States has imposed new sanctions on Russia and expelled 10 Russian diplomats after the Biden administration accused Moscow of being involved in major cyberattacks. The Treasury Department claimed Russia interfered in the 2020 election and was behind the SolarWinds hack, which compromised the computer systems of nine U.S. government agencies and scores of private companies. The sanctions target 32 Russian entities and individuals and bar U.S. banks from purchasing Russian government debt. Russia vowed to retaliate against the new sanctions and accused the Biden administration of degrading bilateral relations. “The most dangerous aspect of this is it introduces something new into international relations, because despite the way that it’s being described, this was not an attack on the U.S.,” says Anatol Lieven, senior fellow for Russia and Europe at the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft. “Never previously have sanctions been imposed in response to an espionage case, for the very good reason that every country, including the United States, engages in espionage.”
Posted in Uncategorized
Wall Street executives and their ilk invested $2.9 billion in candidates in recent elections. What has been the return on their investment? And as these corporations “take a stand” on voting rights, could there be a deeper motivation than signaling their virtue? Investigative journalist Ben Swann and author Austin Ruse join Scottie Nell Hughes to discuss.
But first, Pfizer has begun to say that recipients of their vaccine may need a third shot months after the anticipated second shot, or even an annual inoculation against COVID-19. Dr. Marilyn M. Singleton, MD, JD- anesthesiologist and former president of Association of American Physicians and Surgeons, joins News.Views.Hughes to share her expertise. Plus, the use of fentanyl and other illicit substances has risen drastically in the US during the course of the pandemic, as have overdose deaths, as a fearful populace struggles to cope with social isolation, stress, loneliness and anxiety over the future. RT America’s Natasha Sweatte reports on how the scourge of fentanyl has impacted San Francisco, Seattle, Las Vegas and Los Angeles.
Posted in Uncategorized
In our news wrap Friday, the U.S. Justice department rescinded a Trump-era curb on consent decrees, making it easier to investigate police departments and press for major changes in use of force. An Indiana man has become the first person to plead guilty to federal charges in the January assault on the U.S. Capitol. Russia responded to new U.S. sanctions today with penalties of its own.
Posted in Uncategorized
Transition Studies 