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• Massachusetts to phase out gasoline-fueled cars by 2035: It’s part of Republican Gov. Charlie Baker’s Clean Energy and Climate Plan for 2030, which is designed to reduce the state’s carbon emissions 45% below 1990 levels by 2030 on the way to net-zero emissions by 2050. This, like moves in a few other states, notably California, shows that even if congressional intransigence on climate matters continues because close margins may allow Republicans to thwart or dilute actions by the executive branch, state reforms can nevetheless pave the way to lower emissions. Morgan Folger, director of the Zero Carbon Campaign at Environment America, told ClimateWire, “I’m really excited to see Gov. Baker moving forward to address global warming pollution from cars and get more zero-emission vehicles on the road. Transportation is one of the largest sources of global warming pollution in Massachusetts, and, in particular, gas-powered cars are a big chunk. So phasing out gas-powered cars in the state could make a big dent.” But getting to net-zero in transportation won’t be easy given that, currently, fully electric vehicles make up only a little over 2% of total U.S. automobile sales.
• 100-year-old Tuskegee airman dies from COVID-19: Theodore Lumpkin Jr, one of the famed Tuskegee Airmen of World War II, has died from complications of the coronavirus. The Tuskegee Airmen were the first African American pilots in what was then still a segregated military. While ridiculed initially and consigned to minor sorties, they soon became highly respected by the white bomber pilots whom they escorted and protected from Nazi fighter planes in missions over North Africa, Italy, and Germany. Drafted in 1942, Lumpkin was commissioned a second lieutenant in 1943 and assigned to the 100th Fighter Squadron in Tuskegee, Alabama. Appropriately, the name of city is derived from the Muscogee (Creek Indian) word for “warrior.” Lumpkin, a Los Angeles native, died Dec. 26. He didn’t have the eyesight needed to be a pilot, so he became an intelligence officer who briefed pilots on missions. After the war, Lumpkin earned a sociology degree from the University of Southern California and became a social worker in Los Angeles County. After retiring, he became a real estate agent. Like so many veterans of World War II, he was reticent about his experiences with the airmen. “We were married for a number of years until I heard about them,” his wife Georgia told the Los Angeles Times. “When I realized who these guys were and what they’d done, I was just overcome at how much they persevered. They did not bow down. They achieved things that detractors said they couldn’t, weren’t capable of doing.”
• European climate scrutinizers say 2020 tied with 2016 for warmest year: The Copernicus Climate Change Service announced Friday that this made last year the sixth in a series of exceptionally warm years starting in 2015, and 2011-2020 the warmest decade recorded. In Europe, however, Copernicus said it was the warmest year, with the temperature 0.4°C warmer than in 2019, previously the warmest year. The Copernicus Atmosphere Monitoring Service reported that carbon dioxide concentrations in the atmosphere continued to rise about 2.3 ppm/year in 2020 reaching a maximum of 413 ppm during May 2020.
• Kim Jong-Un, whom Donald Trump boasted he would corral, announces plans for more and better nuclear weapons: North Korea’s 37-year-old supreme leader, who repeatedly snookered Donald Trump in arms talks, announced Jan. 5 at the first Congress of the Workers’ Party of Korea in five years that the nation will go for “subduing” the “war monster” United States with “autonomic development” of more advanced nuclear technologies and missiles. Those plans include both the miniaturizing of nuclear warheads as well as giving them greater explosive yield and fine-tuning the navigation capabilities of the regime’s missiles in order to be able to strike targets up to 9,320 miles away, which would mean anywhere in the United States. The effort would also include developing a solid-fuel rocket, which would be quicker to launch than the liquid-fueled weapons North Korea now has. Ankit Panda, a Stanton Senior Fellow in the Nuclear Policy Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, said, “It lights a fire under the Biden administration. Kim is making clear that if Biden decides not to prioritize North Korea policy, Pyongyang will resume testing and qualitatively advancing its nuclear capabilities in ways that would be seriously detrimental for Washington and Seoul.”
• Study says America’s rivers are changing color and that’s not good news: According to a study published in this week’s journal Geographical Research Letters, a third of the tens of thousands of mile-long river segments in the United States have shifted color in satellite images in the past 37 years. That includes 11,629 miles that became greener or went toward the violet end of the color spectrum. Only about 5% of U.S. rivers are blue, a color generally associated by the general public with pristine waters. About two-thirds of American rivers are yellow, meaning they are carrying lots of soil. About 28% of the rivers are green, which can be benign, but typically means they are thick with algae. Researchers found 2% of U.S. rivers have shifted from yellow to green. Study lead author John Gardner, a University of Pittsburgh geology and environmental sciences professor, told GreenWire, “If things are becoming more green, that’s a problem” because large algae blooms can cause oxygen loss and generate toxins. Among the causes for the color changes: farm fertilizer runoff; dams; efforts to fight soil erosion; and human-caused climate change. “We change our rivers a lot. A lot of that has to do with human activity,” said study co-author Tamlin Pavelsky, a professor of global hydrology at the University of North Carolina.
• Melania’s Ex-BFF: There’s Blood on Her Hands. The First Lady is complicit in the destruction of America.
• Ted Cruz tried to defend Trump’s coup. He then praised the white supremacist Compromise of 1877. Cruz praised the compromise that ended the 1876 election even though it involved imposing white supremacy.
• UAE’s F-35 contracts expected to be signed before end of Trump administration.“Everything is on that trajectory,” according to the assistant secretary of state for political-military affairs.
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