Writing the Roundup today felt almost like a cruel joke. But I could not allow myself to plunge into despair; I must keep fighting rather than give up. I reminded myself that every large mechanism comprises many smaller parts, and each part has its function. And a part of my function is to bring good news to sustain all the other small parts of our country and world, and to dole out small snippets of hope, so that we may know we are making progress, and that each of us is bending that moral arc, however slightly, towards justice.
And then I ran across this, quite by accident.
Hope—Hope in the face of difficulty. Hope in the face of uncertainty. The audacity of hope! In the end, that is God’s greatest gift to us . . . A belief in things not seen. A belief that there are better days ahead.
— President Barack Obama
And, indeed, there is reason to hope. I choose to believe there are better days ahead.
Trump
Making a federal case:
The Trump International Hotel & Tower in Chicago is one of the largest users of water from the Chicago River, but records show it has never followed state rules governing the protection of the river's fish.
[…]
The records show that of the nearly one dozen high-rise buildings using the river for cooling water, Trump Tower is the only one that has failed to document that it followed the requirements. Officials at the decade-old building also failed to study fish killed by the complex.
The Illinois chapter of the Sierra Club, Friends of the Chicago River and the Abrams Environmental Law Clinic at the University of Chicago notified building managers last week that they're planning a federal lawsuit alleging the building has repeatedly violated the Clean Water Act.
Politics
Miami Rs condemn family separation:
Republicans from Miami-Dade on Monday condemned the Trump administration's decision to separate families crossing the southern border, with adults being sent to detention centers while their children are housed in cages and cry for their parents.
"It is totally unacceptable, for any reason, to purposely separate minor children from their parents," said Rep. Mario Diaz-Balart, R-Miami, who, along with Miami Republican Rep. Carlos Curbelo is leading negotiations on a compromise all-Republican immigration bill in Congress. "Any and every other option should be implemented in order to not separate minors from their parents, which I believe is unconscionable. We cannot allow for this to continue happening, and it must stop. I continue to work with my colleagues to ensure that the provision included in this week's immigration bill puts an end to this cruel practice.”
Zeid Ra’ad al-Hussein cited an observation by the president of the American Association of Pediatrics that locking the children up separately from their parents constituted “government-sanctioned child abuse,” The New York Times reported.
“The thought that any state would seek to deter parents by inflicting such abuse on children is unconscionable,” al-Hussein, a Jordanian prince, said.
He spoke at Monday’s opening of a regular Human Rights Council session, his last before his term ends in August.
The greater U.N. also expressed similar sentiments.
Cuomo to sue:
New York Governor Andrew Cuomo, a political opponent of U.S. President Donald Trump, said on Tuesday that the state would sue the Trump administration for separating children of immigrants from their parents when apprehended illegally crossing the U.S. border.
Mother sues:
As the Trump administration grapples with pressure to change its "zero tolerance" immigration policy that separates migrant families at the border, a Guatemalan mother has filed a lawsuit to get her 7-year-old son back.
Beata Mariana de Jesus Mejia-Mejia said she and her son had sought asylum in the United States and crossed the border in Arizona last month. They were detained by Border Patrol, and separated two days later.
Mejia, 39, was released from custody June 15 after posting bond, but she says her son has not been returned.
A tea party group backed by billionaire conservatives plans to sit out the U.S. Senate race in Virginia.
News outlets report that Americans for Prosperity will not support Republican nominee Corey Stewart as he tries to unseat incumbent Democratic Sen. Tim Kaine.
Ross lied to government:
Secretary of Commerce Wilbur Ross told federal ethics officials last November that he had gotten rid of all assets that he promised to divest as a member of President Trump's cabinet. But he admitted that was not true in a new filing released Monday, after Forbes reported that Ross made a false statement to ethics officials.
In the new filing, the commerce secretary said he had made a mistake. Knowingly making false or misleading statements to ethics officials is against the law.
On the filing, the secretary of commerce said he still held stock in investment firm Invesco until last December – more than a month after he claimed to have divested the assets. “Unfortunately, I mistakenly believed that all of my previously held Invesco stock was sold,” Ross said in the filing, adding, “In December 2017, I discovered that the previously held stock had not been sold. I then promptly sold these shares.”
In addition, he admitted that he took out a short position in Sun Bancorp, another company he had promised to divest, the day before he told officials that he had divested his assets. Ross said he mistakenly believed he had not previously sold a stake in the bank. “To remedy this, I executed a short sale of Sun Bancorp shares, then closed the position when I understood it was not necessary because my holdings in Sun Bancorp had been sold.”
Well, that was predictable:
About a dozen protesters heckled Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen about the Trump administration's immigration policy as she ate dinner at a Mexican restaurant in Washington.
Crime
Theranos CEO charged:
Federal prosecutors indicted Elizabeth Holmes on criminal fraud charges for allegedly defrauding investors, doctors and the public as the head of the once-heralded blood-testing startup Theranos. Federal prosecutors also brought charges against the company's former second-in-command.
Social Change
Charleston apologizes:
The city where 40% of African slaves in the U.S. arrived is considering an apology for its role in regulating, supporting, and fostering slavery.
On Tuesday, the Charleston City Council is expected to consider and approve a resolution that recognizes and apologizes for the city’s role in slavery and the Jim Crow era. It has been in the works since August. Tuesday also marks Juneteenth, a celebration of the end of slavery.
Because of my white privilege, I don’t feel qualified to comment on the apology as to whether it goes far enough, so I’d like comments. The apology is detailed in the article.
Tulsa renames schools:
The names of Columbus and Chouteau elementaries were changed to Dolores Huerta Elementary and Wayman Tisdale Fine Arts Academy respectively, and the changes will take effect on July 1.
Local daily Tulsa World reported that the name Tisdale Fine Arts Academy garnered a standing ovation from the audience when the school board members voted to rename the schools.
Huerta is one of the most influential labor activists of the 20th century and was the co-founder of the United Farm Workers Association. Tisdale, on the other hand, is an American basketball player and an alumnus of Booker T. Washington High School, Tulsa.
Another school name changes:
The Richmond School Board voted Monday to rename a Virginia school that used the moniker of a Confederate leader to the Barack Obama Elementary School.
The vote was 6-1 to change the name of J.E.B. Stuart Elementary School, the last remaining school in Richmond named for a Confederate leader.“
It would be pretty awesome to have an elementary school in Richmond named after Barack Obama,” Liz Doerr, a member of the school board, told the Richmond Times-Dispatch.
The school's student body is more than 90% black.
World’s biggest advertiser hiring women:
Procter & Gamble (pg, -2.00%), which owns everything from Tide to Pampers, announced Monday that it is working toward a 2023 goal of women directing at least half of its product commercials. Only about 10% of its commercials are currently directed by women.
While P&G does not create its own commercials, it spends nearly $7 billion a year advertising its products. With just 30% of top marketing and creative roles in advertising agencies filled by women today, P&G’s pledge will likely force a shift in the industry.
P&G will also sign the “Free the Bid” pledge, which requires that at least one female director be included in any group of final candidates to produce a commercial. To encourage this change, P&G announced two new partnerships: one with Queen Latifah’s Queen Collective to create two 12-minute films produced by women, and another with Katie Couric, to support her new media company’s short-form online video series.
CBD oil advances:
Legislation that includes a measure to legalize hemp, rich in the compound used to produce numerous CBD oil products, made significant progress last week. The U.S. Senate Agriculture Committee overwhelmingly endorsed the Farm Bill, known also as the Agriculture Improvement Act of 2018, by a vote of 20 to 1 on June 13.
[…]
Jonathan Miller, general counsel for the U.S. Hemp Roundtable, an industry group, says the Farm Bill includes the Hemp Farming Act, sponsored by Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) and endorsed by 25 other senators, including Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY).
“It would permanently remove hemp from the Controlled Substances Act, making it an agricultural commodity” rather than a Schedule 1 substance, Miller says. “And it defines hemp as all parts of the plant under 3% THC, including extracts, derivatives and cannabinoids (such as CBD) from the cannabis plant.”
Marijuana legal in Canada:
Canada's Senate gave final passage Tuesday to the federal government's bill to legalize cannabis, though Canadians will have to wait at least a couple of months to legally buy marijuana as their country becomes the second in the world to make pot legal nationwide.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's government had hoped to make pot legal by July 1, but the government has said provincial and territorial governments will need eight to 12 weeks following Senate passage and royal assent to prepare for retail sales. Trudeau's government is expected to decide a date that would legalize it in early or mid-September.
Honorary degree revoked:
Northwestern University has revoked the honorary degree it awarded Bill Cosby two decades ago — the first time the school has taken such a step in its 167-year history.
In a Monday news release, the school in the Chicago suburb of Evanston announced its board of trustees discussed revoking the honorary degree it awarded to the comedian in 1997 during his trial on sex assault charges. The board decided to wait until the end of the trial before making a decision.
Gay pride march protected:
Ukrainian police said they had detained 56 members of far-right radical groups in Kiev on Sunday after scuffles before the capital's gay pride march.
Otherwise, the annual rally of several thousand supporters of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender rights took place without serious incident.
Afghans march for peace:
Their 400-mile trek began in the southern province of Helmand. A blast on March 23 that killed at least 14 people and wounded dozens sparked the march.
They were welcomed along the way by villagers carrying the holy Quran, men singing and dancing or offering bread and yogurt, some in tears.
[…]
"We received support from the people in Kabul as we had expected," participant Badshah Khan said. "Now we will have sit-ins in tents and continue walking to other provinces to get more support."
Research quantifies the obvious:
People at the lowest rungs of society are experiencing an increasing sense of despair, according to a new study that suggests a connection between growing inequality and rising drug abuse and suicide.
In a study published this month in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, researchers from Princeton and Georgetown universities discovered significant deterioration in measures of psychological distress between 1995 and 2014 among white Americans in the lowest bracket of a socioeconomic measure based on education, occupation, income and wealth. At the same time, those in the top 10 percent saw little change in levels of psychological distress.
[…]
For those in the bottom 10th percentile, the experience of positive emotions decreased while life satisfaction dropped. At the same time, those at the top of the socioeconomic scale saw their predicted life satisfaction measures increase along with their social well-being.
Health
Smoking at low point:
About 14 percent of U.S adults were smokers last year, down from about 16 percent the year before, government figures show.
[…]
“Everything is pointed in the right direction,” including falling cigarette sales and other indicators, Cummings said.
[…]
Teens are also shunning cigarettes. Survey results out last week showed smoking among high school students was down to 9 percent, also a new low.
Environment
Finland says, dump nuclear, go wind:
Wärtsilä believes the Finnish energy system should be developed by increasing wind power generation substantially and discontinuing the nuclear power plant projects in Loviisa and Pyhäjoki, reports Helsingin Sanomat.
The Finnish provider of technology and life-cycle solutions for the marine and energy industries has calculated that an energy system with an emphasis on wind power would reduce the costs of electricity generation by 27 per cent when compared to a system with an emphasis on nuclear power.
“We’re talking about hundreds of millions, if not billions of euros,” Matti Rautkivi, the head of energy solutions at Wärtsilä, was quoted as saying yesterday by Helsingin Sanomat.
Solar in Ukraine:
"Norwegian company Scatec Solar, which has installed 322 MW of solar power plants in the Czech Republic, South Africa and other countries and has more than 1,092 MW in the pipeline, intends to enter the Ukrainian market," the press service of the State Agency on Energy Efficiency and Energy Saving of Ukraine reports.
It is noted that the company plans to install two solar power plants with a capacity of 33 MW and 50 MW, respectively, in Cherkasy region. The plant will produce about 106 million kWh per year.
Double perovskites:
Solar energy is clean and abundant. But when the sun isn't shining, you must store the energy in batteries or through a process called photocatalysis—in which solar energy is used to make fuels. In photocatalytic water splitting, sunlight separates water into hydrogen and oxygen. The hydrogen and oxygen can then be recombined in a fuel cell to release energy.
Now, a new class of
materials—halide double perovskites—may have just the right properties to split water, according to a newly published paper in
Applied Physics Letters.
[…]
In 2016, using computer simulations to identify alternative materials, the researchers found a new type of lead-free
perovskite with potential for high-efficiency solar cells. The present paper shows these new materials may also split water. "These new double perovskites are not only promising as a complementary material for tandem solar
cells, but they can also be promising in areas like photocatalysis," Volonakis said.
The deal signed on Friday stipulates that Innogy and Birdseye are jointly developing a solar PV portfolio. Currently, the portfolio consists of 13 individual projects in the southeastern United States, which the companies cite as an attractive region for solar PV development. The companies cite high solar irradiance, a competitive cost environment and a positive macroeconomic outlook as reasons for the increased growth of renewable energy and solar PV in particular.
Morocco and Burkina Faso signed a framework agreement to cooperate on renewable energy projects notably through the exchange of expertise and know-how.
The agreement was signed recently in Rabat by head of Morocco’s renewable energy agency (MASEN) Mustapha Bakkoury and Burkina Faso’s energy Minister Bachir Ismael Ouedraogo.
This cooperation agreement fits into Burkina Faso’s endeavor to follow the example of Morocco in promoting the contribution of renewable energies in its energy mix.
Falling battery costs:
Wind and solar could provide half of the world’s energy generation by 2050 on the back of continually declining technology costs, particularly in battery energy storage, according to a new report from Bloomberg New Energy Finance (BNEF).
The 150-page New Energy Outlook (NEO) 2018 report predicts that the future of the global electricity system will be dominated by tumbling lithium-ion battery prices. These have already fallen 80% per MWh since 2010 and will continue to decline as electric vehicle manufacturing builds up through the 2020s.
Turning CO2 into gasoline:
On June 7th, a team of Harvard researchers announced that they figured out a way to pull carbon dioxide from the atmosphere in a different way than ever before. Not only can this new technology effectively remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, but it also comes with a pretty giant bonus: they can turn that carbon into fuel. Yeah, like for your car. Think of it as a form of carbon recycling.
“The implications of CE’s proven DAC technology on climate strategy are twofold,” explains Carbon Engineering, the company responsible for the breakthrough. “It allows the removal of existing CO₂ from the air to counteract emissions too challenging or costly to eliminate at the source and enables the production of clean fuels that can significantly reduce transportation emissions. These outcomes accelerate the shift to a “net zero” world that avoids the risks of climate change while affordably delivering clean energy.”
Ammonia to the rescue:
In a world first, Siemens is opening a £1.5m pilot project in Oxfordshire employing ammonia as a new form of energy storage.
The German industrial firm hopes to prove that ammonia can be as useful as more established storage technologies, such as lithium-ion batteries, when it comes to managing the variable output of wind and solar power.
[…]
The proof-of-concept facility at Harwell will turn electricity, water and air into ammonia without releasing carbon emissions. The ammonia is stored in a tank and later either burned to generate electricity, sold as a fuel for vehicles or for industrial purposes, such as refrigeration.
Sustainable clothing:
Don’t throw it out — throw it on. The Agraloop Bio-Refinery, a new technology developed by materials science company Circular Systems S.P.C., is capable of turning food waste such as banana peels, pineapple leaves and hemp stalks into natural fiber that can be woven into clothing. “We want to enable food crops to become our primary fibers,” Circular Systems CEO and co-founder Isaac Nichelson told Fast Company. The waste materials mentioned, plus sugar cane and flax stalk, could generate up to 250 million tons of fiber each year if processed through the Agraloop, meeting the global demand for fiber two and a half times over. Farmers are encouraged to acquire their own Agraloop systems, so that they may earn extra income from creating natural, sustainable fiber from materials they would otherwise compost.
Volvo on board:
At least 25 percent of the plastics used in new Volvo car models from 2025 will be from recycled materials, the Chinese-owned company said on Monday in an anti-pollution plan praised by the United Nations.
Recycled plastics - such as from fishing nets or old bottles in car dashboards or carpets, would not affect safety or quality, Stuart Templar, director for sustainability at Volvo Cars, told Reuters.
"We think this makes business sense," he said.
Coal is done:
Analyzing the plans of the largest electricity producers paints a pretty bleak picture for the future of coal-fired power plants in the United States. So does some oversimplified math: Most coal-fired power plants were built before 1990 (representing 88% of all operating coal capacity), and most have a lifespan of about 50 years. Considering that coal facilities will likely never be built again in the U.S., the power source could be nearly extinct in the United States by 2040 barring some extraordinary interventions.
While there's some chance that such an intervention could come in the form of the U.S. Department of Energy freezing coal (and nuclear) plant retirements for a two-year period, it's not likely to occur. That's because the industry argues that retiring older assets is a normal and healthy process, state regulators have already rejected similar heavy-handed proposals, and the legality of using during peacetime a power that was granted to the federal government specifically for times of war is not exactly airtight.
Rather, the suggestion that the government intervening in markets to keep coal alive was made by FirstEnergy as it was desperately attempting to stave off bankruptcy for its subsidiaries, which was ironically caused by the fact they have collectively remained one of the last major nonregulated utilities in the country. In other words, the company lost out to competitive markets -- just like coal.