On January 15, 2015, Joel Achenbach posted an article with the above title on the Washington Post‘s website.

This article reports on an article published in Science by “18 researchers trying to gauge the breaking points in the natural world.” In the article, the authors contend “we have already crossed four ‘planetary boundaries.’ They are:

• the extinction rate
• deforestation
• the level of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, and
• the flow of nitrogen and phosphorous (used on land as fertilizer) into the ocean.”

The article goes on  to state, “No one knows what will happen to civilization if planetary conditions continue to change. But the authors of the Science paper write that the planet ‘is likely to be much less hospitable to the development of human societies.'”

You can read the full post here.

climate change · environment · science · Washington Post

On January 16, 2015, Alex DeMots wrote on the Center for American Progress website about “the dominance of unaccountable and often anonymous, big-money contributors in political campaigns” being an increasing problem.  He goes on to cite “the 2014 midterm elections were the most expensive in history with more than $3.6 billion in spending.  A significant amount of this spending was conducted by groups that are ostensibly independent of candidates, but many of these so-called ‘independent’ organizations’ — often referred to as ‘dark-money’ groups — do not disclose their donors.”

What’s needed is disclosure.  Voters deserve to know the interests paying for the political advertising they are inundated by. Unfortunately, a Republican-controlled Congress isn’t likely to want to do this as they benefit substantially from these activities.

It will be interesting to see what the Republican-controlled Minnesota House does this session. With the DFL-controlled Senate and Governor Dayton, we should be protected from the worst of things. What do people think Congressman Paulsen will do?

You can read Mr. DeMots’ post here.

Alex DeMots · dark money · money and politics · Washington Post