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This evening's music features blues harmonica player Hammie Nixon. Enjoy!

"They’ll jail you for stealing from your employer but not from your employees. They’ll jail you for whistleblowing on civilian-killing drone strikes but not for killing civilians with drones. They’ll jail you for insider trading unless you’re doing it openly in the US Congress."

-- Caitlin Johnstone

News and Opinion

US Hid True Toll of Air Wars; Thousands of Dead Civilians, Many of Them Children

Thousands of previously hidden Pentagon documents show that the US air wars in the Middle East have been marked by "deeply flawed intelligence" and have killed thousands of civilians, many of them children, according to a shocking new report in the New York Times Saturday afternoon.

The 5-year Times investigation received more than 1,300 reports examining airstrikes in Iraq and Syria from September 2014 to January 2018, more than 5,400 pages in all. None of these records show any findings of wrongdoing on the actions of the US military.

The Times reporting confirms many of the previous reports by whistleblowers Daniel Hale, Chelsea Manning and others. On July 27, 2021, whistleblower Hale was sentenced to 45 months in federal prison for exposing the true civilian toll of the US drone program. “I am here because I stole something that was never mine to take — precious human life,” Hale said at his sentencing.

From the Times report:

The trove of documents — the military’s own confidential assessments of more than 1,300 reports of civilian casualties, obtained by The New York Times — lays bare how the air war has been marked by deeply flawed intelligence, rushed and often imprecise targeting and the deaths of thousands of civilians, many of them children, a sharp contrast to the American government’s image of war waged by all-seeing drones and precision bombs.

The documents show, too, that despite the Pentagon’s highly codified system for examining civilian casualties, pledges of transparency and accountability have given way to opacity and impunity. In only a handful of cases were the assessments made public. Not a single record provided includes a finding of wrongdoing or disciplinary action. Fewer than a dozen condolence payments were made, even though many survivors were left with disabilities requiring expensive medical care. Documented efforts to identify root causes or lessons learned are rare.

The air campaign represents a fundamental transformation of warfare that took shape in the final years of the Obama administration, amid the deepening unpopularity of the forever wars that had claimed more than 6,000 American service members. The United States traded many of its boots on the ground for an arsenal of aircraft directed by controllers sitting at computers, often thousands of miles away. President Barack Obama called it “the most precise air campaign in history.”

Dr. Assal Rad, Senior Research Fellow at the National Iranian American Council reacted via Twitter:

"Daniel Hale, Julian Assange, Chelsea Manning have all been jailed for trying to reveal the same thing. We’ve known US airstrikes have been killing civilians all this time, but the war crimes go on bc we jail the whistleblowers instead of the war criminals."

Threatening War With Iran Won't Save the Nuclear Deal

Jeremy Scahill of The Intercept has a good piece responding to a letter published today by Michèle Flournoy, Leon Panetta, General David Petraeus, Dennis Ross and a few others, urging Joe Biden to break the nuclear deadlock with Iran by issuing military threats. 

I am quoted extensively in the piece. I am including my quotes below, while also adding a few additional thoughts. Here's what I told Jeremy:

The exaggerated faith in the miracles that U.S. military threats can deliver is not limited to any one party in the United States but is intrinsic to the establishment religion that American security is achieved through global military hegemony.

Rather than being the solution to the crisis, the military threat the U.S. poses to Iran is a key reason why the Iranian nuclear program has expanded. The more a country is faced with military threats, the more it will demand a nuclear deterrence.

Donald Trump's military threats and broad economic sanctions are precisely why we are in this mess right now. To believe that more Trumpian conduct by the United States will break the nuclear deadlock bewilders the mind.

Trump's exit from the deal and the lack of confidence that the United States will stay in the deal beyond 2024 has profoundly undermined the value of American promises of sanctions relief. The Iranians are hesitating largely because they do not believe that the economic benefits the U.S. promises will be forthcoming. No amount of military threats will change that fundamental weakness in the U.S. negotiating position.

Having said that, I do believe—as I hinted at in my recent piece for MSNBC—that the fear of war was an important factor for the parties getting serious about diplomacy in 2013. Both the United States and Iran believed that war would be the outcome if talks failed. This helped sharpen the choices of both sides and helped muster political will—again, on both sides—that enabled the compromises manifested in the JCPOA.

But here's the difference from what Petraeus et al are calling for: Obama didn't issue any military threats. Rather, the structure of the situation was such that it was clear to all that war was the likely alternative to a deal.

Today, as I explain for MSNBC, the structure is different. Issuing (empty) threats will not change that. It will only make diplomacy more difficult.

So, shouldn't the situation be changed so that the parties once again have no choice but to muster the necessary political will?

No, it should not for a very simple reason: We got lucky last time. It could just as easily have ended in a disastrous war.

Neither side can control the situation. De-escalatory options are imprecise and unpredictable, to the extent that they even exist. The idea that we can dial things up and down at will without the other side having a say, without factoring in the risk of the other side miscalculating, is simply irresponsible.

We should not constantly lower our expectations of leaders and diplomats. It is fundamentally reasonable to expect that leaders on both sides can and should muster the courage to strike a reasonable compromise without a disastrous war hanging over the heads of the American people and the peoples of the Middle East.

Matt Taibbi: The Deep State Exists, And LIBERALS Are Doing Its Bidding

When Your Government Ends A War But Increases The Military Budget, You’re Being Scammed

The US Senate has passed its National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) military spending bill for the fiscal year of 2022, setting the budget at an astronomical $778 billion by a vote of 89 to 10. The bill has already been passed by the House, now requiring only the president’s signature. An amendment to cease facilitating Saudi Arabia’s atrocities in Yemen was stripped from the bill.

“The most controversial parts of the 2,100-page military spending bill were negotiated behind closed doors and passed the House mere hours after it was made public, meaning members of Congress couldn’t possibly have read the whole thing before casting their votes,” reads a Politico article on the bill’s passage by Lindsay Koshgarian, William Barber II and Liz Theoharis.

The US military had a budget of $14 billion for its scaled-down Afghanistan operations in the fiscal year of 2021, down from $17 billion in 2020. If the US military budget behaved normally, you’d expect it to come down by at least $14 billion in 2022 following the withdrawal of US troops and official end of the war in Afghanistan. Instead, this new $778 billion total budget is a five percent increase from the previous year.

“Months after US President Joe Biden’s administration pulled the last American troops out of Afghanistan as part of his promise to end the country’s ‘forever wars’, the United States Congress approved a $777.7bn defence budget, a five percent increase from last year,” Al Jazeera reports.

“For the last 20 years, we heard that the terrorist threat justified an ever-expanding budget for the Pentagon,” Win Without War executive director Stephen Miles told Al Jazeera. “As the war in Afghanistan has ended and attention has shifted towards China, we’re now hearing that that threat justifies it.”

Upon the removal of US troops from Afghanistan, President Biden said the following in August:

“After more than $2 trillion spent in Afghanistan — a cost that researchers at Brown University estimated would be over $300 million a day for 20 years in Afghanistan — for two decades — yes, the American people should hear this: $300 million a day for two decades. If you take the number of $1 trillion, as many say, that’s still $150 million a day for two decades. And what have we lost as a consequence in terms of opportunities? I refused to continue in a war that was no longer in the service of the vital national interest of our people.”

You would think a government so grieved over the loss of “opportunities” for the American people due to Afghanistan war spending would be eager to begin allocating that wealth toward providing opportunities to Americans at the end of that war. Instead, more wealth has been diverted to the US war machine.

Antiwar’s Dave DeCamp reports:

The NDAA passage comes amid heightened tensions between the US and Russia, and the bill includes $300 million for military aid to Ukraine, $50 million more than what the Pentagon requested. According to The Wall Street Journal, at least $75 million of the Ukraine aid will be “lethal,” meaning it will be spent on offensive weapons, such as Javelin anti-tank missiles the US has already provided to Kyiv.

With the Pentagon focused on countering China, the NDAA includes $7.1 billion for the Pacific Deterrence Initiative (PDI). The PDI is meant to build up US forces in the Asia Pacific to better confront China. Part of the plan is to establish a network of long-range missiles near China’s coast.

Americans are being scammed.

A sane military (if there is such a thing) would be bolstered in times when a nation needs to defend itself and scaled down during peacetime. With the US military it’s completely backwards: it’s taken as a given that the budget must keep expanding, and then reasons are made up to justify doing so by making “peacetime” nonexistent. The military budget isn’t set to serve existing conditions, conditions are set to serve the military budget.

Before it was the Russians and the Chinese it was terrorists, and before it was terrorists it was the Soviets. After the fall of the USSR, there emerged a popular notion of a “peace dividend” in which defense spending could be reduced in the absence of America’s sole rival and the abundant excess funds used to take care of the American people instead. The only problem was that a lot of people had gotten very rich and powerful as a result of that cold war defense spending, and that money and power was used at some key points of influence. Less than three months after the dissolution of the Soviet Union we learned of the Wolfowitz Doctrine from The New York Times saying the US had resolved to prevent the rise of another superpower at all cost, and a few years later the neocons found their way into the George W Bush administration to usher in an unprecedented new era of military expansionism and wars of aggression.

The military-industrial complex Eisenhower warned about in his farewell address as president became inevitable as soon as the US government espoused imperialist ambitions. War profiteering is what you get when you mix capitalism with a globe-spanning power structure that must labor continuously to maintain unipolar planetary domination, which can only be done with ceaseless violence and the threat thereof. It was inevitable that an industry would not only arise to meet that demand, but begin using the wealth it generates to push for more warmongering. The war industry surfs on the war-fueled empire like dolphins on the wake of a freight ship, except in this case the dolphins are also able to help propel and steer the ship.

And meanwhile that insane, mindless juggernaut is hurtling toward a direct confrontation with Russia and China, who are growing increasingly intimate and unified against their common enemy. These are forming the head of a rapidly coalescing group of powers who have refused to be absorbed into the folds of the US-centralized power alliance, and you don’t have to be a historian to understand that world powers splitting into two increasingly hostile alliance groups can lead some very ugly places. Especially now in the age of nuclear weapons.

The human species has some very daunting tests ahead of it. I hope we pass.

Chile presidential election: Gabriel Boric seals leftist revival with election win

'We did it!' Chile's Boric seals leftist revival with election win

Chilean leftist Gabriel Boric won the country's presidential runoff election on Sunday, capping a major revival for the country's progressive left that has been on the rise since widespread protests roiled the Andean country two years ago.

In downtown Santiago, supporters cheered, embraced and waved flags with Boric's image, as well as rainbow flags of LGBT groups that have backed his socially inclusive policies as well as plans to overhaul Chile's market-orientated economic model. ...

With over 99% of ballots counted, Boric, 35, who leads a broad leftist coalition, had 55.86% of the vote, compared with 44.14% for far-right rival Jose Antonio Kast, who conceded defeat. ...

Miguel Angel Lopez, a professor at the University of Chile, said Boric faced a complex period ahead and would have to negotiate with the opposition due to a split Congress where neither side has a majority.

“Unacceptable”: Rep. Jamaal Bowman Slams Manchin After Senator Says No to Build Back Better Plan

Manchin slams door on Biden's $1.75 trillion bill

U.S. Senator Joe Manchin on Sunday slammed the door on President Joe Biden’s $1.75 trillion domestic spending bill, saying he would not support the package. “I cannot vote to continue with this piece of legislation. I just can't. I have tried everything humanly possible." Manchin’s comments came in an interview on “Fox News Sunday.”

In response, White House press secretary Jen Psaki issued a pointed statement saying Manchin’s remarks were “at odds” with what he told the President and (quote), “represent a sudden and inexplicable reversal in his position, and a breach of his commitments to the President and the Senator’s colleagues in the House and Senate.”

His comments also drew outrage from liberal Democrats and Senator Bernie Sanders - who helped shape the bill and called for a vote on the measure despite Manchin's opposition.

Manchin HUMILIATES BIDEN, Kills BBB As WH Cries Betrayal

White House rebukes Manchin after ‘no’ to Biden spending plan deals huge blow

Adding to angry accusations of betrayal from leading progressives including Senator Bernie Sanders, Jen Psaki, the press secretary, said: “Weeks ago, Senator Manchin committed to the president, at his home in Wilmington, to support the Build Back Better framework that the president then announced. Senator Manchin pledged repeatedly to negotiate on finalising that framework ‘in good faith’. Citing work by Manchin on the proposed bill this week, Psaki said: “Senator Manchin promised to continue conversations in the days ahead, and to work with us to reach that common ground. ...

Biden and Democrats said this week they would delay the bill until next year but the president vowed it would pass and said he would continue talking to Manchin. ...

On CNN’s State of the Union, Sanders listed Build Back Better provisions including investment to combat the climate crisis and improve health and social care. “I’ve been to West Virginia,” he said. “And it’s a great state, beautiful, but it is a state that is struggling. [Manchin] is going to have to tell the people of West Virginia why he’s rejecting what the scientists, the world is telling us, that we have to act boldly and transform our energy system to protect future generations from the devastation of climate change.

“… I hope that we will bring a strong bill to the floor of the Senate and that Joe Manchin should explain to the people of West Virginia why he doesn’t have the guts to stand up to the powerful special interests. … If he doesn’t have the courage to do the right thing for the working families of West Virginia in America, let him stand up and tell the whole world.”

Sanders, a self-identified democratic socialist, promised to make Manchin’s stance an election issue, saying: “I think … that right up to the 2022 election [we ask]: ‘Which party is prepared to do the right thing for the elderly, for the children?’ By the way, we talk about kids, I want everybody out there to know if Manchin votes no, those $300 tax credits that have gone a long way to reducing childhood poverty in America? They’re gone. That’s all. We cut childhood poverty by 40%, an extraordinary accomplishment. Manchin doesn’t want to do that.

“Tell that to the struggling families of West Virginia.”

US Senate Recesses for the Year Without Build Back Better, Voting Rights

The US Senate adjourned for the year at 4:02am Saturday morning after Democrats failed to reach agreement on their top legislative priorities: the Build Back Better Bill and voting rights legislation.

But, at 1:30am, with one of the last few votes of the year, former Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel was confirmed ambassador to Japan

The Senate is now scheduled to return to Washington on Jan. 3.

Senate Majority Leader Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) had promised for weeks that the Senate would pass Biden's Build Back Better legislation by Christmas. But Schumer acknowledged on Friday that the Senate had failed to meet that timeline.

Joe Manchin reacts to White House statement denouncing him for opposing Build Back Better: 'Basically, they retaliated. I figured they would come back strong.'

Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia responded on Monday to a strongly-worded White House statement that denounced him for declaring his opposition to the Democrats' Build Back Better social spending and climate bill.

"Basically, they retaliated. I figured they would come back strong," said Manchin on Talkline with Hoppy Kercheval. ...

Manchin reportedly informed the White House of his decision just 30 minutes before his Fox News spot, refusing a call from them as they sought to talk Manchin down from his position. And CNN reported that President Joe Biden, who has sought to persuade the conservative Democrat to support the bill in recent months, personally signed off on the subsequent White House statement. ...

Manchin, for his part, seemed mostly unperturbed when Kercheval asked about the White House statement and Democratic anger towards him.

"They figured, surely to God, we can move one person, surely we can badger and beat one person, that's — surely we can get enough protesters to make that person uncomfortable enough," said Manchin, referring to the waves of protest that he's encountered from progressive activists in recent months. "Well, guess what? I'm from West Virginia," he said. "I'm not from where they're from, and they can just beat the living crap out of people and think they'll be submissive. Period."

Charlmagne CONFRONTS Kamala: 'Who Is The REAL President'

Worth a click:

The Democrats Are Trying To Lose

Cognitive dissonance is one of the defining traits of American politics, but with this weekend’s blow against the Build Back Better bill, we’ve now reached an inflection point: Americans are being simultaneously asked to believe that Democrats are mounting a valiant last-ditch defense of democracy against insurrectionists and election deniers, and yet we’re also watching Democrats proudly surrender the midterm elections to those same fascists, knowingly creating Weimar-esque conditions for an authoritarian takeover. Taken together, this is far more than hypocrisy: In JFK lingo, this is an admission that the ruling party wants the bear-any-burden brand of democracy defenders, but without the pay-any-price actions that might assure the survival and success of liberty.

In the last week, the contradictions have been too blatant to miss, even if corporate news outlets continue doing their best to ignore, omit, downplay, and distract from them. On the one hand, we see congressional Democrats casting themselves as the heroes of a West Wing episode, rightly screaming about all the web of connections between the January 6th rioters, right-wing news outlets, and top Trump officials, who appear to have been entertaining plans for an actual coup.

On the other hand, we see Democrats fully leaning into a likely 2022 disaster. They are going far beyond merely refusing to give Americans an affirmative reason to vote for them; in sabotaging their own purported agenda, they seem to be deliberately trying to lose to the very fascists they claim to oppose, going out of their way to insult and harm as many voters as possible before their likely collapse. ...

The pass-the-blame game isn’t working. As in the 2009-2010 period, Americans were promised specific economic benefits, the ruling party has made a show of refusing to deliver those things, and is now making an even bigger, bolder spectacle of betrayal. Naturally, voters don’t appreciate being given the middle finger, especially when they are engulfed in multiple crises. ... While Biden fans have spent months pretending the president somehow has no power to fight his own party members like Manchin, Biden’s White House has also been proving the opposite as it helps the fossil fuel industry stomp on Michigan’s Democratic governor and make the climate cataclysm even worse. ...

For decades, the basic formula in Democratic politics involved three steps: 1) You get elected on promises, 2) you deliver on said promises, and 3) you then make it as easy as possible for people to vote for you in the next election. But since Obama won in 2008, modern-era Democrats seem intent on skipping the second step and maybe even the third, as if governing and delivering aren’t important to electoral success — and as if serving the donor class is the only thing that matters. Back then it was enriching Wall Street donors while millions were foreclosed on, today it is demanding an infrastructure bill that oil lobbyists want while killing social programs that everyone else needs. The details change, but the story remains the same. The presumption seems to be that come election time, voters owe the Democrats their support, rather than Democrats owing voters the promised policies that improve people’s lives.

NASCAR driver Brandon Brown of 'Let's Go Brandon' fame says he doesn't want to lead a 'political fight'

NASCAR driver Brandon Brown is speaking out about his unexpected role in an anti-Biden meme. ... Brown told The New York Times he has "zero desire to be involved in politics" and just wants to "focus on racing," adding he doesn't "know enough about politics to really form a true opinion." He also said he hoped to figure out a way to make "Let's Go Brandon" a positive thing, as "if they're going to use my name, I'd like for it to be productive."

Brown also penned an essay for Newsweek, in which he writes he was afraid of being "canceled by my sponsors, or by the media, for being caught up in something that has little to do with me" when the chant emerged. But he goes on to say he's been trying to "understand why millions of people are chanting my name" and now believes he does.

"I understand that millions of people are struggling right now and are frustrated," Brown wrote. "Struggling to get by and struggling to build a solid life for themselves and their families, and wondering why their government only seems to make it worse. People have a right to frustration — even anger." While writing that he has "no interest in leading some political fight," Brown also said he's "no longer going to be silent about the situation I find myself in, and why millions of Americans are chanting my name," adding, "I hear them, even if Washington does not."

Amazon is on its way to becoming as well loved as the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory management.

Amid Deadly Tornado, Texts Show Amazon Threatened to Fire Driver If Packages Not Delivered

More damning information about last week's deadly workplace disaster at an Amazon building in Illinois emerged on Friday when a delivery driver shared records of a conversation she had with her boss, which revealed that the e-commerce giant threatened to fire her if she didn't keep delivering packages even as tornado sirens blared.

"Radio's been going off," the driver told her supervisor—less than an hour and a half before a twister hit one of Amazon's warehouses in Edwardsville—in a text message obtained by Bloomberg News.

"Keep delivering," her boss replied. "We can't just call people back for a warning unless Amazon tells us to."

Amazon was already in hot water for forcing employees to attend their shifts last Friday despite the impending storm and refusing to let them leave before catastrophe struck. Six workers were crushed to death when a warehouse that is being investigated for possible building code violations collapsed—exemplifying the company's long track record of prioritizing profits over occupational safety, critics say.

New evidence that Amazon also pressured delivery drivers to work through a tornado instead of immediately helping them obtain safe shelter has only increased the amount of contempt that many people have for one of the world's most powerful corporations.

"More details emerge about lives put in danger by Amazon's dehumanization of workers and its gigantic, chaotic bureaucracy," tweeted Athena Coalition, a nonprofit group made up of more than 50 organizations that are "building democratic power to stand up to Amazon's abuse of our communities."

The exchange shows that roughly 30 minutes after the driver informed her boss about the radio warnings, she said that "tornado alarms are going off over here."

"Just keep delivering for now," her supervisor responded again. "We have to wait for word from Amazon if we need to bring people back, the decision is ultimately up to them. I will let you know if the situation changes at all. I'm talking with them now about it."

"Shelter in place for now," the boss instructed the driver minutes later. "Give it about 15-20 minutes and then continue as normal. I will let everyone know if that changes."

At this point, the driver indicated that she wanted to return to the warehouse for her own safety. "Having alarms going off next to me and nothing but locked building[s] around me isn't sheltering in place," she said. "That's waiting to turn this van into my casket."

The driver pointed out that her delivery shift ended in just an hour. "And if you look at the radar the worst of the storm is gonna be right on top of me in 30 minutes," she added.

To which the boss replied: "If you decide to come back, that choice is yours. But I can tell you it won't be viewed as for your own safety. The safest practice is to stay exactly where you are. If you decide to return with your packages it will be viewed as you refusing your route, which will ultimately end with you not having a job come tomorrow morning. The sirens are just a warning."

"I'm literally stuck in this damn van without a safe place to go with a tornado on the ground!" the driver said.
Bloomberg, which reviewed text messages from contract drivers and interviewed current and former workers, reported that Amazon employees "said they received instructions on what do in fires or tornadoes, but never did the kind of drills that could help avoid confusion in an emergency. Training for new hires entails merely pointing out emergency exits and assembly points, they said."

Earlier this week, The Daily Poster reported that prior to last week's tornado disaster—which also killed eight workers at a candle factory in Mayfield, Kentucky—corporate lobbyists, including groups linked to Amazon, obstructed a bill designed to protect the jobs of employees who leave an unsafe workplace.

"In the months before workers were reportedly barred from abandoning their job site or threatened with termination if they fled this weekend's deadly tornadoes, corporate lobbying groups were fighting legislation to prohibit retribution against employees who seek to leave work out of fear for their safety," the news outlet reported. "Amazon—which owns a warehouse where several workers were killed—and its staffing firm have links to corporate lobbying groups that have been opposing the legislation, which remains stalled."

Big Business Defeated as Socialist Kshama Sawant's Victory Certified in Seattle

Progressive cheers went up far and wide Friday after Seattle City Councilmember Kshama Sawant officially defeated a right-wing recall effort, which the Socialist Alternative lawmaker called "part of the nationwide backlash" by billionaires and Big Business targeting lawmakers and others fighting for social justice and working people.

Elections officials in King County, Washington certified the anti-recall effort, with a final tally of 20,656 ballots against recalling Sawant and 20,346 in favor—a victory margin of 310 votes.

"We have won three elections and now we have defeated this recall," Sawant said during a Thursday interview for Jordan Chariton's Status Coup News podcast. "We have defeated Big Business and the right wing in their attempt to use... trumped-up charges against me personally in order to push back against the success of working-class movements in Seattle."

Turnout was around 53%, an unusually high figure for a special election that nearly matched the 55% level of last year's general election. Sawant supporters utilized an array of get-out-the-vote tactics, including pop-up tents where ballots were printed, to reach voters.

Sawant, the longest-tenured Seattle council member and the first ever to face a recall, was accused of "misfeasance, malfeasance, and violation of the oath of office."

Her supporters, however, argued that Sawant's successful record of fighting for working-class people and against billionaires and Big Business made her a target of "a cabal of tech corporations, real estate interests, and business lobbyists."

Sawant was instrumental in making Seattle the first major U.S. city to enact a $15 hourly minimum wage. She also helped spearhead the successful push for the so-called "Amazon tax" on large corporations and the fight for robust tenant protections including free legal aid for people facing eviction and a Renters' Bill of Rights.

"The ruling class in the United States is afraid of these kinds of movements," Sawant told Chariton, "and so we should not be surprised by the reaction, and the recall against us was at least part of that reaction."

The socialist councilmember also said that "it's no coincidence" that two of the three reasons given for the recall "were related to my participation in and solidarity with the Black Lives Matter movement."

"The recall against my office is part of the nationwide backlash... against this incredible movement that happened last year with 26 million American people, especially young people, marching in the streets in multi-racial working-class solidarity against police repression, against racism, and against oppression," she said.

Krystal Ball: Biden BETRAYS Gen Z As They ABANDON Dems

Warmer winters can wreak as much havoc as hotter summers, say scientists

While the popular imagination might associate the climate crisis with scorching summers and their attendant droughts, wildfires, hurricanes and heat waves, milder winters can also be drivers of catastrophic weather events and profound changes. They range from shifts in agricultural use, triggering changing weather patterns to boosting the likelihood of violent events, like the swarm of tornadoes that wreaked havoc in the American midwest and south over last weekend.

“One of the truisms in climate science is that cold places and cold times of year warm faster than the warmer places and warmer times of year,” says Daniel Swain, a climate scientist at UCLA studying how extreme events are changing on a warming Earth. “Not only is the actual rate of warming faster in colder seasons and places – like the Arctic, which is warming three times faster than other places – but also a lot of impacts that are associated with warming are amplified.”

Swain points to one specific threshold where temperature has a huge impact: whether precipitation falls as liquid rain or frozen snow depends on just a single degree difference. And in the west of America, where there was a gigantic snow drought until just a few days ago, that has huge impacts. “There was wildfire risk up until last week, even at 8-9,000ft in elevation,” says Swain. “That has directly to do with the lack of snowpack.”

When precipitation falls as snow, it sticks around for longer, creating runoff moisture for the spring season – it’s often referred to as the bank of future water for moisture-strapped places. But when it falls as rain, it runs off immediately. “Winter warming affects the frozenness – or not – of things, which is ecologically important for the accumulation of snowpack and the water supply,” explains Swain. Warm spells in winter can create extreme heat waves later in summer. Unseasonal warmth can lead to a premature snow melt and vegetation growth, which lowers soil moisture and amplifies the likelihood of extreme and persistent heat waves throughout the summer, says climate scientist Kai Kornhuber.

Also of Interest

Here are some articles of interest, some which defied fair-use abstraction.

“Chinese Aggression” Is Just China Responding To US Aggression

China Is Not A Problem That Westerners Need To Solve: Notes From The Edge Of The Narrative Matrix

European Powers Warn Iran Nuclear Deal Talks Nearing ‘End of Road’

The State of Israel vs The Jews review: fierce indictment of a rightward lurch

The Infrastructure Bill’s Hydrogen Funding Is a Big Win for the Oil and Gas Industry

'Bullshit': Manchin Called Out for Killing Biden's Build Back Better

How a Group of Starbucks Workers Emerged Victorious in Their Union Fight

CIA Caught Protecting Pedophiles Inside CIA

A Little Night Music

Hammie Nixon & Sleepy John Estes - Drop Down (I Don't Feel Welcome Here)

Hammie Nixon & Sleepy John Estes - Someday Baby Blues

Hammie Nixon - Viola Lee Blues

Hammie Nixon & Sleepy John Estes - I'm Going Home

Hammie Nixon - Brownsville Blues

Hammie Nixon & Sleepy John Estes - Sugar Mama

Hammie Nixon - My Baby

Hammie Nixon & Sleepy John Estes - Drop Down Mama

Hammie Nixon - I'll be glad when you dead (You Rascal You)