Saskatchewan legislature members prepare for fight over pronouns, Charter rights

The Canadian Press
Mon, October 9, 2023 

REGINA — Saskatchewan politicians are heading back to legislature, preparing for a pronoun fight that some political observers say could alter the province's electoral landscape.

The legislative assembly is set to resume Tuesday, with the Saskatchewan Party government planning to introduce legislation that would require children under 16 to receive parental consent if they want to change their names or pronouns at school.

Premier Scott Moe has said he plans to invoke the notwithstanding clause, a provision that allows governments to override certain Charter rights for up to five years.

Opposition NDP Leader Carla Beck said her team is ready to debate.

"If they want to talk about education, we're prepared to talk about education," Beck said in a recent interview. "And we're prepared to debate their record, which frankly has failed the children of this province for over a decade."

A "Rally for our Rights" protest is scheduled outside the legislature the day politicians return.

In late September, a judge granted an injunction and paused the policy. Lawyers for UR Pride, a local LGBTQ group in Regina that applied for the injunction, argued the policy could cause teachers to out or misgender children, resulting in Charter violations.

Nathaniel Teed, an NDP legislature member, has said his party may filibuster.

He said on social media that he and other NDP members plan during the debate to read letters sent on behalf of people affected by the policy and the "attack on Charter rights."

Moe has said Saskatchewan Party members are ultimately making the decision to legislate the policy, as they represent various constituents who have raised concerns.

He said parents should be informed of their children's information at school.

“It is a discussion very much that is happening in my community. I was home last night and had three people approach me outside the grocery store,” Moe told reporters last week.

“And so there are people that are approaching not only myself as a local MLA, but approaching other MLAs as well and have been for a period of time. Most, if not all of them, are parents, have been parents or grandparents.”

As the debate unfolds in the legislature, political observers say they will be watching to see whether it moves the electorate.

Daniel Westlake, a political science professor at the University of Saskatchewan, said two outcomes are possible.

In one scenario, he said, the policy could work in the government's favour. If it resonates broadly, it could help shore up more right-wing voters into the government's base.

In the second scenario, however, Westlake said the issue could define the government as going too far right. This could make some moderate voters look at alternatives, such as the NDP.

"Something like the use of the notwithstanding clause can get people thinking about this as a Charter issue," he said.

"You could have moderate voters saying, 'I'm not so sure that I'm comfortable with a party that is willing to violate Charter rights, even if I don't have a firm opinion on the particular pronoun policy.'"

David Rayside, a retired politics professor at the University of Toronto, said centre-right parties sometimes become fearful they'll lose votes to the far-right.

In an August byelection, the conservative Saskatchewan United Party, which says it champions parental rights, received 23 per cent of the vote, appearing to take a bite out of the Saskatchewan Party's base. The Saskatchewan Party won the byelection with 54 per cent.

"That explains a lot," Rayside said.

He said it appears conservative governments in Canada are watching gender debates in the United States, where some Republicans have been introducing pronoun rules in schools and limiting sexual education.

New Brunswick's Progressive Conservative government has a similar pronoun policy to Saskatchewan's, though school guidance counsellors there can use children's chosen names.

Rayside said people are generally more ambivalent to pronouns and transgender rights and have general anxiety about parental roles in school.

"Right-wing politicians know that, or at least have been learning that, and are willing to run with them without any real, in my view, reflection on some of the broader issue of risks to kids," Rayside said.

Federal Conservative party delegates at a convention in September voted in favour of prohibiting “medicinal or surgical interventions” for gender-diverse and transgender children. Leader Pierre Poilievre has said he's not bound to include the policies in an eventual election platform.

Alberta Premier Danielle Smith has said her caucus is having discussions over pronouns in school but has not made a decision.

Rayside said he's unsure how the debate will play out electorally in Saskatchewan, noting voters tend to lean conservative. However, he said he expects the NDP to make a pitch to centrist voters.

Beck said people want leaders who are solving problems with solutions that they can get behind.

"It's one thing to have differences, but to see some politicians willingly stoke that division for their own political ends, I think, is more than disappointing for people," she said.

Beck said kids do better when parents are involved, but that the new pronoun policy is not going to make things better. She called the use of the notwithstanding clause "heavy handed."

"To be willing to make vulnerable kids more vulnerable, it's not the kind of leadership that a lot of people want to see from the government."

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Oct. 9, 2023.

Jeremy Simes, The Canadian Press

Fundamental issues brought us to the verge of fascism — and we’re ignoring them every day | Opinion

Story by Thom Hartmann • ALTERNET

Photo by Blake Cheek on Unsplash© provided by RawStory

“Saved at the last minute” is pretty much the story of our culture.

It’s built into our major salvationist religions, particularly Christianity and Islam. Even when killed or facing death, Jesus and Muhammed managed to ascend to heaven at the last minute and claim eternal life.

By this worldview, no matter how terrible a life you’ve lived, if you say a handful of magic words at the last minute before you die, you’re guaranteed a spot in paradise. There’s always the last minute.

It’s at the core of most all of our fiction, and a good chunk of our nonfiction. In the old Greek dramas it was deus ex machina — the god in the machine — when Our Hero was finally trapped in an impossible situation but then a platform is cranked down from the ceiling of the amphitheater with a god on it, who waves his hand and makes everything okay again.

In our modern movies and novels, it’s the last-minute discovery of the cure, a take-down of the bad guy, or the discovery of the fatal chink in the aliens’ armor. It’s the miraculous oil that keeps the menorah burning bright through the crisis or the earthquake that brought down Jericho’s walls.

Even in the field of nonfiction, nearly every book — no matter how dire its topic — wraps up with a section or chapter that essentially offers the “here’s what you can do” solutions to everything from acne to climate change to the fascist takeover of America.

This belief that something or someone will ultimately save us no matter how badly we screw things up is why we’re procrastinating with climate change and fossil fuels. It’s why we’re hooked on lotteries. It’s presumably why Merrick Garland put off doing anything about Trump for two years, apparently thinking Congress would rid him of that “meddlesome priest.” It’s why we celebrate Jack Smith, our savior.

There are fundamental issues that brought us to the verge of fascism and we’re ignoring them every day:

— Income inequality and the role of tax cuts in it.

— Worker insecurity and the role of the GOP war on unions.

— A climate-change-driven refugee crisis on our Southern Border.

— Political bribery by our Predator Class and the corrupt Citizens United decision.

— Billionaires and foreign governments buying politicians.

— Media consolidation under the control of rightwing billionaire families.

— Corporate monopolies.

— Racism, homophobia, and misogyny.

We ignore them all because we believe “somebody will eventually save us” so we don’t need to do the hard work of putting our nation, our working class, and our democracy back together.

For most of my life, religious salvationists have disparaged those of us who consider ourselves both spiritual and religious but don’t buy the salvationist aspects of our monotheistic religions. They mistakenly reverse the arrow of causation, arguing that without religion there can be no morality when in fact religion plagiarized morality from every human society that has ever existed.

Genuine morality is deeply buried in our collective psyche, and doesn’t require a savior figure or grand discovery to bring it to the surface.

As much as it pains me to say it (my personal urge toward salvationism is as strong as anybody else’s), nobody is coming to save us.

Salvationists take that as a statement of resignation, of surrender to crises bigger than we are. I take it as both a challenge and an opportunity. By abandoning reliance on others for our salvation from climate change, income inequality, political corruption, and all the other ills of our modern society, we can then shift responsibility for our future to the people most capable of doing something about these problems: ourselves and the governments we can influence.

Joe Biden is not going to save us, and neither are Bernie Sanders or Elizabeth Warren. Without entire movements of people like you and me behind them, politicians are relatively impotent: we are the ones who have to save our nation and the world.

Don’t despair. Moments of crisis are also moments when the possibility of transformation is at its greatest.

When the Founders of this nation signed their own death warrants by publicly taking on the most powerful army and navy on Earth in 1776, they were no doubt worried. But they also saw it as a chance to create something wholly new.

As the author of the Declaration of Independence wrote in a June 5, 1824 letter to Major John Cartwright:

“Our Revolution commenced on more favorable ground [than the foundation of English or Biblical law]. It presented us an album on which we were free to write what we pleased. We had no occasion to search into musty records, to hunt up royal parchments, or to investigate the laws and institutions of a semi-barbarous ancestry. We appealed to those of nature, and found them engraved on our hearts.”

Similarly, an optimistic Thomas Paine wrote:

“The cause of America is in a great measure the cause of all mankind. … We have it in our power to begin the world over again. The birth-day of a new world is at hand.”

When Abraham Lincoln faced fully half the nation in armed rebellion holding to a fascist notion of America as a permanent nation of slaveholders, he wrote to a friend:

“The probability that we may fall in the struggle ought not to deter us from the support of a cause we believe to be just; it shall not deter me.”

When Franklin D. Roosevelt was elected president in 1932, the Republican Great Depression was approaching its zenith; a third of Americans were out of work and hunger stalked the land. With just as much corrupt intent as we see today in Jim Jordan or Donald Trump, nakedly fascist politicians were preparing to carve the country up and split the spoils.

Which is why President Roosevelt told America in his first Inaugural Address:

“This is preeminently the time to speak the truth, the whole truth, frankly and boldly. Nor need we shrink from honestly facing conditions in our country today. This great Nation will endure as it has endured, will revive and will prosper. So, first of all, let me assert my firm belief that the only thing we have to fear is fear itself--nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror which paralyzes needed efforts to convert retreat into advance. … In such a spirit on my part and on yours we face our common difficulties.”

While Jefferson, Lincoln, and Roosevelt offered leadership during troubling times, in each case it was the people themselves to whom they reached and from whom they expected delivery from the nation’s enemies and crises.

And the American people didn’t let them down. We made it through the Revolution, the Civil War, and the Republican Great Depression, just like we will make it through this Trump- and Putin-fueled crisis of democracy.

In each of those three previous crises, American oligarchs stood up against democracy. They supported the British in the 1770s, the cotton barons in the 1860s, and even tried to kidnap and assassinate FDR in the 1930s.

Every time, they were held to account by the American people.

President Obama said it best, perhaps, in February 2008 when he was running for the Democratic nomination for president:

“Change will not come if we wait for some other person or if we wait for some other time. We are the ones we’ve been waiting for.

“We are the change that we seek. We are the hope of those boys who have so little, who’ve been told that they cannot have what they dream, that they cannot be what they imagine. Yes, they can.

“We are the hope of the father who goes to work before dawn and lies awake with doubt that tells him he cannot give his children the same opportunities that someone gave him. Yes, he can.

“We are the hope of the woman who hears that her city will not be rebuilt, that she cannot somehow claim the life that was swept away in a terrible storm. Yes, she can.

“We are the hope of the future, the answer to the cynics who tell us our house must stand divided, that we cannot come together, that we cannot remake this world as it should be.”

America has faced numerous challenges and difficulties on the way to becoming a multiracial pluralistic democratic republic. We’ve overcome most of them over time and moved forward, step by step, toward what the Preamble of our Constitution calls “a more perfect union.”

A washed up reality TV star and a handful of rightwing billionaires represent a current-day threat to our republic, but it’s not one we can’t overcome.

Trump and his lickspittles aren’t even a shadow of the power that the King of England held in 1776; can’t hold a candle to a brilliant tactician like Robert E. Lee (who we still defeated); and are hardly as powerful or convincing as Hitler or Mussolini.

That’s the marvelous and magical thing about democracy: it almost always finds a way to overcome obstacles and improve itself, even in the face of impossible odds and utter tyranny.

The only way we lose this country is if we give up. Which is why it’s now up to us — and we are not without passion or resources.

So let’s rededicate ourselves to the ideal expressed by Lincoln at Gettysburg:

“[T]hat this government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.”

Pass it on…

11,000-year-old human remains show evidence of cannibalism. Now experts know why

Moira Ritter
Tue, October 10, 2023 

The Trustee of the Natural History Museum, London

About 17,000 years ago, early humans in Europe began developing complex bone and stone industries, artistic abilities and ritualistic behaviors, according to a newly published study.

Experts have studied this period, known as the Magdalenian, identifying rituals and practices by examining the remains of settlements across the continent, but they have struggled with one aspect of the ancient populations: their funerary practices.

Many human remains that were identified at Magdalenian sites showed evidence of “post-mortem manipulation” indicative of cannibalism. Now, a new study says cannibalism was used as a funeral practice, not out of necessity.

The study, published Oct. 4 in Quaternary Science Reviews, analyzed 59 Magdalenian sites with human remains present. The sites were found across European countries including France, Germany, Spain, Poland and the United Kingdom.

Of the 59 sites, 13 had evidence of cannibalism and two had evidence of both burials and cannibalism, researchers said. Remains found at different geographical sites had similar cutmarks and modifications, indicating that the practice was widespread and an intentional behavior.

Bones studied from the sites showed evidence of marrow being removed, according to the study. Other remains appeared to have artistic designs on them.

At one site in France, researchers found incisions on a skull cap that were not consistent with scalping, instead appearing to be artistic. Another site in the UK held bones with a series of “zig-zagging incisions found on a human radius that lack any utilitarian purpose have been interpreted as an artistic representation.”

Thirteen of the 15 deposits of human remains with evidence of cannibalism date to the middle of the Magdalenian — which spanned from about 17,000 years ago until about 11,000 years ago, according to Britannica.

Researchers also noted that eight sites had enough evidence to extract genetic data that indicated the possibility of an ancestral link between groups that practiced cannibalism. They said more research is necessary to confirm this connection.

Gas prices surge after suspected Russian sabotage to Finland-Estonia pipeline

Joe Barnes
Tue, October 10, 2023 

Gas prices surged after Russia was suspected of sabotaging an undersea gas pipeline between Finland and Estonia.

On Tuesday, Sauli Niinistö, the president of Findland, said that the 48 mile-long Balticconnector link between the two Nato allies has been extensively damaged by “external activity”.

“It is likely that damage to both the gas pipeline and the communication cable is the result of external activity,” he said in a statement.

The pipe’s shutdown prompted international gas prices to surge to their highest level since June, as Israel also shut a key production field.

Wholesale UK gas prices jumped by as much as 14 per cent on Tuesday, to more than 125 pence per therm, after having dropped as low 88p on Friday.
Simple malfunction being ruled out

The damage fuelled speculation that Russia was behind an attack on the connector, with Moscow previously threatening repercussions for Finland’s decision to join the Nato military alliance.

Finnish representatives in Brussels told their allies that an investigation was underway but the cause of damage was not yet clear.

Helsinki informed a meeting of Nato’s North Atlantic Council that the pipeline had either been damaged in an act of deliberate sabotage or accidental damage.

Its officials ruled out a simple malfunction, sources told The Telegraph

But the Nato member state, which joined in April in response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, sought to calm nerves by pointing out that 90 per cent of undersea cables or pipelines are damaged by fishing vessels.

The Finnish gas system operator Gasgrid said the pipeline could take months or more to repair.

The pipeline between Inkoo in Finland and Paldiski in Estonia crosses the Gulf of Finland, an arm of the Baltic Sea that stretches eastwards into Russian waters as far as St Petersburg.

“It seems that the Finnish defence forces and senior figures in the government strongly suspect it was Russia,” Charly Salonius-Pasternak, a security and defence expert, told The Telegraph.‌

“Who would have an interest in sabotaging the pipeline? There are really not a lot of countries that have the capabilities and motivation to do this. There’s basically just one,” he said.

Jens Stoltenberg, the secretary-general of Nato, said he had spoken to Mr Niinistö about ”damage to undersea infrastructure”.

He used a post on X, formerly known as Twitter, to write:

The pipeline incident was likely to be put on the agenda for a Nato defence ministers meeting in Brussels on Wednesday and Thursday.

A Nato source said the Finns were unlikely to trigger Article 5, the alliance’s collective defence clause.

The potential sabotage attack will revive memories of the Nord Stream gas pipelines between Germany and Russia in the Baltic Sea, which in September last year were hit by underwater explosions in what appeared to be sabotage.

The attack on the Nord Stream 1 and Nord Stream 2 pipelines took place in international waters, with large amounts of gas rising up from the ocean floor.

The cause of the explosions remains unclear. The attack has variously been blamed on Russia, Ukraine and the US, but all have denied involvement.

The Balticconnector pipeline started commercial operations at the beginning of 2020.

Kai Mykkänen, Finland’s minister of climate and the environment, had earlier said that the state of the Nordic country’s gas supply remains stable despite the disruption of the pipeline that enables gas deliveries from Finland to the three Baltic states – Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania – and vice versa.

“The failure of the Balticconnector does not cause immediate problems for the security of energy supply. The causes of the pipe damage are being investigated and further actions will depend on them,” he said in a statement.

At the same time, escalating conflict in Israel following the terrorist attack by Hamas on Saturday has raised fears over the future of gas supply from the Middle East.

On Monday, Israel told Chevron to suspend production at its Tamar gas field, which is within range of Hamas rockets in Gaza. The Tamar field produces around 1.5 per cent of global liquified natural gas (LNG), according to Goldman Sachs.

There are also growing worries about the nearby Suez Canal, which is a major shipping route for LNG to Europe.

Gas remains far cheaper than it was last year, with wholesale prices peaking above 600p a therm last September. However, cold weather in the coming months could trigger a further jump in costs.

02:44 PM BST
Nato ready to support Finland and Estonia on damaged infrastructure

Nato is sharing its information over the damage to underwater infrastructure between Estonia and Finland and stands ready to support the allies concerned, Nato Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg has said.

Finland said a subsea gas pipeline connecting Finland and Estonia had sustained damage, and that a fault had also been found in a telecommunications cable between the two countries.

NATO Member Finland on Alert as Gas Pipe Sabotage Suspected

Alberto Nardelli, Ewa Krukowska, Ott Tammik and Kati Pohjanpalo
Tue, October 10, 2023



(Bloomberg) -- Finland is on alert as it suspects a gas pipeline leak in the Baltic Sea was caused by a deliberate act of destruction, fueling concerns about the safety of Europe’s energy infrastructure.

The gas pipeline connecting NATO members Finland and Estonia started leaking at the weekend, and people familiar with the matter said on Tuesday the investigation is proceeding on the basis that it was sabotage. Finnish Prime Minister Petteri Orpo said it was caused by an “external source” as he declined to speculate who may be responsible.

“It makes sense to increase our security of supply, secure critical infrastructure,” Orpo told reporters in Helsinki. “The wise prepare. If something like this, so far inexplicable, happens, then it can also happen again.”

European gas prices jumped, as the leak revived concerns about the vulnerability of energy infrastructure particularly in the context of the war in Ukraine. Following the explosions on the Nord Stream pipelines from Russia to Germany last year — for which responsibility has yet to be determined — European countries have stepped up defense of their key assets.

While the rupture of the pipeline is not significant for the wider European gas market, it raises questions about security of supply just as Europe goes into winter. Russia halted gas flows to Finland in May 2022, about a week after the Nordic country said it would apply for NATO membership in response to Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine.

The Most Vulnerable Sites

Finland’s President Sauli Niinisto spoke to NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg on Tuesday, and the group said it’s sharing information and “stands ready” to support its allies. The Estonian and Finnish ambassadors to NATO briefed allies. An undersea telecoms cable between the two countries has also been damaged.

NATO members have increased monitoring of energy assets using satellites, aircraft, ships and submarines, with sites in the North Sea and Baltic Sea seen as among the most sensitive. NATO also created an “undersea infrastructure coordination cell” earlier this year to deepen ties between governments, military and industry.

Read More: NATO Turns to Underwater Drones and AI in Bid to Deter Russia

Finland’s National Bureau of Investigation has opened a criminal case into the pipeline incident, and said the size of the damage points to it being intentional.

The pipeline lies about 60 meters (197 feet) deep, according to Estonian officials, and the leak was detected in the Gulf of Finland. It’s in Finland’s so-called exclusive economic zone that spans 200 nautical miles from the coast but outside its territorial waters — a distinction that may prove important as countries weigh their response.

The Balticconnector was put into use just over three years ago to link a new liquefied natural gas import terminal in Finland with Estonia. The region now increasingly brings liquefied natural gas from the US, even as gas accounts for just 3.5% of Finland’s energy mix.

Gasgrid Finland estimates that it will take months to repair.

--With assistance from Elena Mazneva, Leo Laikola and Anna Shiryaevskaya.

(Updates with further comments from Finland’s government from fourth paragraph.)

 Bloomberg Businessweek

Walgreens pharmacists stage walkout just weeks after similar action by CVS staffers

Emily Le Coz, USA TODAY
Updated Tue, October 10, 2023

The entrance to a Walgreens in Boston.

Just two weeks after dozens of CVS pharmacists protested unsafe working conditions by walking off the job in Kansas City, Walgreens pharmacists followed suit with their own walkout Monday that left stores shuttered or short-staffed across the nation’s second-largest retail pharmacy chain.

The organizer estimated that several hundred pharmacists and pharmacy technicians participated in the protest, which will last through Wednesday.

Walgreens spokesman Marty Maloney downplayed the impact of the walkout as “minimal"

A "small number of our pharmacies are experiencing disruptions, and we apologize for any inconvenience," Maloney said. "We are working to return these pharmacies to regular operations as quickly as possible. Nearly all of our 9,000 locations continue to serve our patients and customers."

USA TODAY interviewed several Walgreens pharmacists and pharmacy technicians participating in the walkout, all of whom requested anonymity for fear of retaliation. They echoed concerns shared by CVS pharmacists when they walked out in late September. Among them: the company places unreasonable demands on pharmacy workers without providing the staffing or resources to do their jobs safely or ethically.

In addition to filling and verifying prescriptions, Walgreens pharmacists also must manage a large volume of patient calls; perform rapid flu and COVID-19 testing; work with insurance companies on such issues as approvals, co-pays and reimbursements; and provide an increasing number of vaccinations, including COVID-19, flu, pneumonia and shingles.

Staff are pressured to hit targets and disciplined for falling short, they said. As a result, corners are cut and medication errors are on the rise, putting patients at risk.

“We want patients before profits,” said the walkout organizer, who has worked for Walgreens for more than a decade. “The company has cut hours drastically while continuing to pile more work and new programs on top of us. Customers are not being taken care of. Our patients are not being cared for. It is not safe.”

The fast pace, the organizer said, has led to an uptick in medication errors behind the pharmacy counter and an increase in accidental needle sticks during vaccinations.

In a statement to USA TODAY, Walgreens acknowledged that the last few years have been challenging for its staff and required an “unprecedented effort” to provide vaccines, fill prescriptions and perform health screenings amid the pandemic.

“We also understand the immense pressures felt across the U.S. in retail pharmacy right now,” Maloney said. “We are engaged and listening to the concerns raised by some of our team members. We are committed to ensuring that our entire pharmacy team has the support and resources necessary to continue to provide the best care to our patients while taking care of their own wellbeing. We are making significant investments in pharmacist wages and hiring bonuses to attract/retain talent in harder to staff locations.”

During the CVS walkout, corporate staff flew into Kansas City to meet with organizers and agreed to a series of changes to improve working conditions and patient safety, including additional staffing and paid overtime. Prem Shah, CVS' chief pharmacy officer and president of pharmacy and consumer wellness, also issued a memo to Kansas City staff apologizing for not responding sooner to their concerns.

More: CVS walkout ends; pharmacists cautiously optimistic amid promises of more staff and relief

Walgreens employees participating in the walkout said they seek three concessions from the company: transparency in how staff hours are allocated, dedicated training time for each new hire and a reconfiguration of quotas.

Currently, they told USA TODAY, Walgreens assigns each store a set of quotas based on how much staff they should have instead of how much staff they actually have. As a result, they said, short-staffed stores scramble to keep pace with unreasonable demands and are held accountable for falling short.

In essence, they said, they are set up to fail.

The Walgreens walkout reflects a rising tide of dissatisfaction among retail pharmacists nationwide who for years have complained about short staffing levels combined with the rising pressure of corporate performance metrics.

That pressure intensified during the pandemic, when pharmacists also were required to administer back-to-back COVID-19 tests and vaccinations.

“I was asked recently, ‘Why would you want to close the pharmacy for a few days; that’s not good for patients,” said one of the Walgreens pharmacists participating in the walkout. “I think a lot of pharmacists haven’t done it because we don’t want to cause harm. But are we going to cause harm all day every day? Or are we going to inconvenience people for a few days in a way that might evoke change?”

If you're a retail pharmacist who would like to share your story with USA TODAY, please email investigative reporter Emily Le Coz at elecoz@usatoday.com.

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Walgreens walkout shutters stores as pharmacists protest working woes

Deadly humid heat could hit billions, spread as far as US Midwest, study says


Mon, October 9, 2023 
By Gloria Dickie

LONDON, Oct 9 (Reuters) - Billions of people could struggle to survive in periods of deadly, humid heat within this century as temperatures rise, particularly in some of the world's largest cities, from Delhi to Shanghai, according to research published on Monday.

Towards the higher end of warming scenarios, potentially lethal combinations of heat and humidity could spread further including into areas such as the U.S. Midwest, the authors of the report said.

"It's very disturbing," study co-author Matthew Huber of Purdue University in the U.S. state of Indiana told Reuters. "It's going to send a lot of people to emergency medical care."

The study built on past research by Huber, George Mason University climatologist Daniel Vecellio and other scientists on the point at which heat and humidity combine to push the human body beyond its limits without shade or help from technologies such as air conditioning.

It found that around 750 million people could experience one week per year of potentially deadly humid heat if temperatures rise 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit) above preindustrial levels.

At 3C (5.4F) of warming, more than 1.5 billion people would face such a threat, according to the paper published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS).

The world is on track for 2.8C (5F) of warming by the year 2100 under current policies, according to the 2022 United Nations Emissions Gap report.

While India, Pakistan and the Gulf already have briefly touched dangerous humid heat in recent years, the study found it will afflict major cities from Lagos, Nigeria, to Chicago, Illinois if the world keeps heating up.

"It's coming up in places that we didn't think about before," said Vecellio, highlighting rising risk in South America and Australia.

At 4C of warming, Hodeidah, Yemen, would see around 300 days per year of potentially unsurvivable humid heat.

WET-BULB THRESHOLD

To track such moist heat, scientists use a measurement known as "wet-bulb" temperature. This is taken by covering a thermometer with a water-soaked cloth. The process of water evaporating from the cloth mirrors how the human body cools down with sweat.

In a landmark 2010 study, Huber proposed that a wet-bulb temperature of 35C (95F) persisting for six or more hours could be the conservative limit for the human body.

Beyond this, people were likely to succumb to heat stress if they could not find a way to cool down.

A decade later, a group of American scientists co-led by Vecellio put Huber's theory to the test by placing young, healthy adults in environmental chambers with high wet-bulb temperatures.

They found the limit was lower at between 30C (86F) and 31C (88F).

Huber and Vecellio joined forces for Monday's study to apply this lower limit to the world under various future climate warming scenarios, ranging between 1.5C and 4C (2.7F and 7.2F).

"This will be a critical benchmark for future studies," said atmospheric scientist Jane Baldwin of University of California Irvine who was not involved in the research.

"Unfortunately, it's a somewhat grimmer picture than you would have gotten with the 35C limit," she said.

Monday's research adds to a growing body of concern about dangerous wet-bulb temperatures.

Another study published last month in Sciences Advances used Vecellio's threshold alongside weather station data and climate models to reach a similar conclusion: that the geographic range and frequency of dangerous humid heat will increase rapidly under even moderate global warming.

 (Reporting by Gloria Dickie in London; Editing by Andrew Heavens)

Global warming may put billions of people in areas intolerable for human life

Cara Murez, HealthDay News
Tue, October 10, 2023 

A new study shows that if global temperatures grow by 2 degrees C, areas in Pakistan, India's Indus River Valley, eastern China and sub-Saharan Africa will have many hours of heat exceeding what humans can stand every year, affecting about 4 billion people. Photo by Bruno/Pixabay

The signs of climate change are everywhere, from raging wildfires to flash flooding to soaring temperatures.

Now, a new study warns that things could get worse, with scientists reporting that even small increases in global temperatures will make some parts of the Earth too hot for humans to endure.

"As long as we continue to put greenhouse gases emissions into the atmosphere, we're going to continue warming," said study author Daniel Vecellio, a postdoctoral research scholar at the George Mason University's Virginia Climate Center.

"The take-home message is that we want to keep global warming to as much of a minimum as we can," said Vecellio, who conducted the research while at Penn State University. "The easiest thing to say, but I guess as we see the hardest thing to do is to accelerate our reductions in greenhouse gas emissions as quickly as possible in order to stave off these worst effects."

In the study, scientists used lab-measured, physiologically-based temperature thresholds at a range of air temperatures and relative humidity.

The team modeled global temperature increases ranging from 1.5 degrees Celsius (C) to 4 degrees C (2.7 degrees F to 7.2 degrees F) above what temperatures were when the industrial revolution began. The Paris Agreement, signed by 196 nations from around the world in 2015, aims to limit those increases to 1.5 C.

The threshold for what can be endured needs to factor in such variables as humidity, wind speed, solar radiation and a person's exertion level at the time.

Earlier research by the same Penn State team offered new evidence showing the human body could only tolerate lower limits than what had been believed. And older adults experience these consequences at even lower heat and humidity levels.

This new study shows that if global temperatures grow by 2 degrees C, areas in Pakistan, India's Indus River Valley, eastern China and sub-Saharan Africa will have many hours of heat exceeding what humans can stand every year, affecting about 4 billion people. These areas are also home to lower-to-middle income nations, where many people may have no access to air conditioning during heat waves.

At an increase to 3 degrees C, parts of the United States would also be affected, including the Midwest and the Eastern Seaboard. Also affected would be South America and Australia.

Simply crossing this threshold does not make a place too hot for humans, Vecellio noted.

"It depends on the duration of these things as well," Vecellio added.

In the absence of measures like getting into the shade and drinking water, it would take about six or seven hours of continuous exposure for someone to reach core temperatures that are associated with heat stroke, Vecellio said.

"If that six hours is done over six days, for one hour a day, that does not make Chicago unlivable," Vecellio explained.

What it might mean is changing behaviors with an eye toward safety.

"We shouldn't rely on the results from this paper ... to start coming up with adaptation and mitigation strategies and how to build better resilience in our public health facilities and things of that sort, to make sure that we're keeping people safe in the heat," Vecellio said. "Way before we get to these thresholds that we talk about in our paper, people are already dying and falling ill to the heat in the United States and across the world."

Experts have said the world probably will be 3 degrees C warmer by 2100, Vecellio said.

Vecellio noted that Americans are sometimes unaware of what's happening with climate change in other parts of the worlds.

Those who will be hit the soonest and hardest are those who had little to do with creating the climate issues.

"I hope that it brings to mind what we're doing here has impacts all across the world. It's the ones that are most vulnerable that are going to suffer the most," Vecellio said.

The findings were published online Oct. 9 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Rachel Licker, a principal climate scientist for the Union of Concerned Scientists, said the research "underscores the urgency for society to get off of fossil fuels as quickly as possible."

Licker called for putting as much pressure as possible on policymakers to reduce heat-trapping emissions quickly and enact policy measures to get there.

That would include using electricity instead of fossil fuels and powering the grid system with renewable resources.

"We have really an outsized responsibility to lead the way with respect to climate action," Licker said, referring to the United States. "We need to be making sure that we're investing in the clean energy transition as quickly as possible."

People can think about this when they vote, Licker suggested, electing policymakers who are following the science.

While individuals can do their part, large corporations emit a high percentage of greenhouse gases, Vecellio said. It's up to leaders around the world to reduce greenhouse gas emissions quickly, adopt more renewable energy and tamp down the warming, he said.

More information

NASA has more on climate change.

Copyright © 2023 HealthDay. All rights reserved.

Glacial lake outburst floods in Alaska and the Himalayas show evolving hazards in a warming world

Brianna Rick, Postdoctoral Fellow, 

Alaska Climate Adaptation Science Center, 

University of Alaska Anchorage
Mon, October 9, 2023

THE CONVERSATION

Glacial lakes are common in the Himalayas, as this satellite view shows. Some are dammed by glaciers, other by moraines. NASA

In August 2023, residents of Juneau, Alaska, watched as the Mendenhall River swelled to historic levels in a matter of hours. The rushing water undercut the riverbank and swallowed whole stands of trees and multiple buildings.

The source for the flood was not heavy rainfall – it was a small glacial lake located in a side valley next to the Mendenhall Glacier.

Glacier-dammed lakes like this are abundant in Alaska. They form when a side valley loses its ice faster than the main valley, leaving an ice-free basin that can fill with water. These lakes may remain stable for years, but often they reach a tipping point, when high water pressure opens a channel underneath the glacier.

The rapid and catastrophic drainage of lake water that follows is called a glacial lake outburst flood, or GLOF for short. The flood waters race downstream over hours or days and often hit unexpectedly.

Glacial lake outburst floods have destroyed homes, infrastructure and human life around the world. They have killed hundreds of people in Europe and thousands of people in both South America and central Asia. Globally, an estimated 15 million people live downstream from these lakes, with those in Asia’s high mountains at greatest risk.

Flooding from a glacial lake in the Himalayas on Oct. 5, 2023, left dozens of people dead in India as water swept away bridges, damaged a hydropower station and flooded small towns. Satellite images showed that the lake level dropped markedly within hours.

I study Alaska’s glacial lakes and the hazards that glacier-dammed lakes in particular can create. Our latest research shows how these lakes are changing as global temperatures rise.

When glaciers hold back lakes

Some glacial lakes are dammed by moraines – mounds of rock and debris that are left behind as a glacier retreats. Too much pressure from extreme rainfall or an avalanche or landslide into the lake can burst these dams, triggering a devastating flood. Officials say that’s likely what happened when the Himalayas’ Lhonak Lake flooded towns in India in October 2023.

Glacier-dammed lakes, like Suicide Basin off of Mendenhall Glacier, are instead dammed by the glacier itself.

These glacial lakes tend to repeatedly fill and drain due to a cyclic opening and closing of a drainage path under the ice. The fill-and-drain cycles can create hazards every couple of years or multiple times a year.

Photos from 1893 and 2018 show how much Suicide Glacier has retreated and the glacier-dammed lake it left behind. NOAA/Alaska Climate Adaptation Science CenterMore
How glacier lake hazards are changing in Alaska

In a new study, we identified 120 glacier-dammed lakes in Alaska, 106 of which have drained at least once since 1985.

These lakes have collectively drained 1,150 times over 35 years. That is an average of 33 events every year where a lake drains its contents, sending a pulse of water downstream and creating potentially hazardous conditions.

Many of these lakes are in remote locations and often go undetected, while others are much closer to communities, such as Suicide Basin, which is within 5 miles of the state capital and has frequently drained over the past decade.



Our study found that, as a whole, glacier-dammed lakes in Alaska have decreased in volume since 1985, while the frequency of outbursts remains unchanged. This suggests a regional decline in the potential hazards from glacier-dammed lakes because less stored water is available, a trend that has been documented for glacier-dammed lakes worldwide.

To better understand this trend, imagine a bathtub. The higher the sides of the tub, the more water it can hold. For a glacier-dammed lake, the glacier acts as a side of the bathtub. Warming air temperatures are causing glaciers to melt and thin, lowering the tub walls and therefore accommodating less water. That reduces the total volume of water available for a potential glacial lake outburst flood.

Smaller lakes, however, have had less significant change in area over time. As the August 2023 event clearly illustrated, even small lakes can have significant effects downstream.

Alaskans witnessed a new record of destruction in Juneau from the flood. The water reached nearly 15 feet at the Mendenhall River gauge – 3 feet above its previous record.




In summer 2023 alone, Alaskans saw record or near-record flooding from multiple glacier-dammed lakes near populated areas or infrastructure, such as Suicide Basin, near Juneau; Skilak Glacier-Dammed Lake, which affects the Kenai River; and Snow Lake, which impacts the Snow River. These lakes have remained about the same volume but have produced some larger floods in recent years.

One possible explanation is that with a thinner and weaker ice dam, the water can drain much more quickly, though further research is needed to understand the mechanics. Regardless, it’s a reminder that these lakes and events are unpredictable.

How will rising temperatures affect these lakes?

Glacier loss in Alaska is accelerating as temperatures rise. Due to the large volume of glaciers and the many intersecting valleys filled with ice in Alaska, there is a high probability that new lakes will develop as side valleys deglaciate, introducing new potential hazards.

Many of these lakes are likely to develop in remote locations, and their presence may only be noticed in satellite images that reveal changes over time.

Given the abundance of glacial lakes and their potential threat to human lives, early warning and monitoring systems are worryingly sparse. Efforts are underway, such as those in the Himalayas and Chile, but further research is needed to develop reliable, low-cost monitoring systems and to improve our understanding of these evolving hazards.

This article is republished from The Conversation, an independent nonprofit news site dedicated to sharing ideas from academic experts.

It was written by: Brianna Rick, University of Alaska Anchorage.

Read more:

Threat from climate change to some of India’s sacred pilgrimage sites is reshaping religious beliefs

Mountain glaciers may hold less ice than previously thought – here’s what that means for 2 billion downstream water users and sea level rise

Brianna Rick received funding from The National Science Foundation.

Arctic puffins evolved into a new species 6 generations ago, but they might be less fit to survive, a new study shows

Maiya Focht
Updated Mon, October 9, 2023 

Puffins beak changes color depending on the time of year.

Annemarie Loof

Scientists analyzed Atlantic puffin genes and found they had been interbreeding in recent history.


They traced the first hybrid puffin back to 1910, after climate change had started to grip the globe.


That suggests that the interbreeding was caused by climate change.

They're small, they're cute, and they're evolving right before our eyes — a hybrid species of Atlantic puffins that formed in the last century was recently discovered by scientists.

The hybrid group formed when two of three subspecies of Atlantic puffins began mating six generations ago, around 1910, according to a study published in the journal Science Advances.

It probably began happening when climate change affected one of the subspecies' habitats, sending them to mingle with another group, the study detailed.
Different subspecies of Atlantic puffin look very similar.Annemarie LoofAtlantic puffins' evolution isn't necessarily for the better

The authors also found that all three subspecies of puffin that live around the Atlantic Ocean have been losing genetic diversity over the past century.

This could make them less fit to survive in the future, Oliver Kersten, an evolutionary biologist at the University of Oslo who led the research, told Insider.

Decreased genetic diversity can harm sperm quality across a population, decrease birth rates, and make the organisms within a group more susceptible to disease and parasites, according to multiple studies. All of these factors can make a group less resilient to climate change, and more likely to face extinction.

It's important to study the genetic changes happening in puffins right now so we can best plan for how to protect, "such an iconic species," Kersten said.
A pair of puffins in the Farne Islands near Northumberland, UK.Evie Easterbrook/Wildlife Photographer of the YearA genetic map for Atlantic puffins

Other species in the Arctic have hybridized, like the beluga whale and polar bear, but this is the first time that scientists have been able to track how an Arctic species' genes have changed over time because of hybridization, Kersten said.

Without genetics, researchers might never know how puffins are changing in response to their unique environment since the different subspecies look very similar, Kersten said.

But genes don't lie. When you compare the genetics of the two subspecies to their new offspring, you get a map of how the hybrid species formed, and how they're currently living.
The Atlantic puffin was broken up into three distinct subspecies nearly 40,000 years ago.Annemarie LoofFrom 40,000 years ago to the 20th century

What their analysis found is that the original three subspecies began diverging from one another roughly 40,000 years ago. That likely corresponds to the breakup of an ancient glacier over the Arctic, Kersten told Insider.

The break up of the glacier put the different puffin populations onto different islands around the Atlantic, where they could evolve independently.

One group settled the north of the Arctic (F. a. naumanni), one group landed on the coastlines of what would become the United Kingdom (F. a. grabae), and the other (F. a. arctica), picked the south of the Arctic.

Fast forward to 1910, more than 100 years after the start of the Industrial Revolution, when humans began releasing greenhouse gases into the air at a never-before-seen rate. The scientists found that this is when some of the northern Arctic colonies moved south, meeting at Bear Island (Bjørnøya) in Norway.

Kersten and his colleagues hypothesize that this happened because climate change made the northern habitat unsuitable for puffins. It could've been a disruption to the food chain from overfishing, a change in water temperature, or any number of human-related effects on the Arctic, that made them want to leave.

Studying these animals may help us understand how our actions may be affecting them, Kersten said. He hopes that his work makes people understand that their actions have effects for the Arctic in general, and for the puffin in specific.

Climate change could bring stronger, earlier hurricanes, study finds. 


Alex Harris
Tue, October 10, 2023 

The Earth’s atmosphere is hotter than it was just a few decades ago, and scientists are starting to grapple with how hurricanes and storms have already changed in the warmer world — and how they might continue to change in the future.

The latest research paper to tackle the issue suggests that climate change may be why stronger hurricanes are forming ”significantly” earlier in the season. It also finds, however, that the impact seems less apparent in the Atlantic Ocean basin, the breeding ground for hurricanes that threaten Florida and the rest of the United States coastline.

The study, published in the journal Nature, found a worldwide trend: Category 4 and 5 hurricanes are occurring about 15 days earlier across the planet than they were in the 1980s. In this case, “earlier” is defined as June through August, while the “late” end of the season is considered September through November.

That’s a big deal, the authors said, because the earlier part of storm seasons around the world usually coincide with rainy season, increasing the chances for big floods.

What we know — and don’t — about how climate change impacts hurricanes like Ian

Researchers also found that rapid intensification — the process where a storm gets significantly stronger over a short period of time — is now occurring about two weeks earlier in the season, said Fengfei Song, a co-author and researcher at the Ocean University of China in Qingdao.

“The seasonal advance of intense tropical cyclones made us wonder if the rapid intensification events may also experience a similar change, which was proved to be the case,” he wrote in an email.

The paper didn’t find a similar pattern for storms of all strength, just the most powerful ones. And although researchers found evidence of this trend around the globe, there were differences in some basins.

This figure from the Nature study shows where the authors found a pattern of strong storms in the earlier half of the hurricane season. The pattern is strongest in the western North Pacific, but the Atlantic basin also shows a milder version of the trend.

The pattern was strongest in the western North Pacific. But the Atlantic basin, where all of the storms that hit the Caribbean, and U.S. East and Gulf coast originate, showed less evidence of the trend.

That didn’t surprise Bryan Norcross, Fox Weather’s hurricane specialist. While he agreed overall with the study’s findings, he said he’s skeptical of the conclusions drawn about the Atlantic basin.

“The factors that they’re talking about might have some contribution to storms developing a little sooner, but we have all these other things going on,” he said. “The Atlantic is a unique basin because it’s so small, so there’s always many factors that affect the season.”

For one, Norcross said, the authors only reviewed storms from 1981 to 2017. During that period, the world dramatically cut down on air pollution, which made the world a safer and healthier place for many.

North America has cut air pollution, seen more storms. NOAA study suggests a connection

But, scientists found out years later, that air pollution clouded the skies above places like the Atlantic Ocean, cooling the water below and suppressing storm activity. Now, with less pollution in the air, the Atlantic is experiencing more storms than it did with dirtier air.

“We know the atmosphere over the Atlantic from 1981 to 1995 was different from what it is now, so comparing across that time period where half of that time period was in this suppressed situation, doesn’t work,” he said.

The complexities of the Atlantic basin, and the many factors that weigh into how, where and whether a hurricane forms, make it tough for scientists to untangle the effects of climate change specifically.

READ MORE: Hurricane season heats up earlier and earlier. New study suggests climate change is why

However, a growing body of research suggests that the warmer world is already changing hurricanes and hurricane season. Last summer, a team of researchers found climate change was warming sea surface temperatures and pushing the start of hurricane season two weeks earlier than the official start date on June 1.

Even before the study came out, the National Hurricane Center shifted its team of forecasters to begin daily operations in mid-May instead of June.

Other studies have also linked global warming to more storm surge, rainier hurricanes and more frequent rapid intensification, although research also suggests that climate change could produce fewer — but stronger — hurricanes in the future.

Climate change drove deadly winter heat wave in South America, study says

Jake Spring
Tue, October 10, 2023 

Heat wave hits Brazil during last week of winter in Sao Paulo

SAO PAULO (Reuters) - Global warming was the main driver of the heat wave that scorched South America for most of August and September and raised temperatures by as much as 4.3 degrees Celsius, according to a study published on Tuesday.

Temperatures soared above 40 C (104 Fahrenheit) across large parts of Brazil, Paraguay, Bolivia and Argentina in late winter and lingering into the Southern Hemisphere's spring, with climate change making the event 100 times more likely, said the study by the scientific group World Weather Attribution.

At least four heat-related deaths were reported in Sao Paulo, South America's largest city, but the true death toll is likely to take months to determine by analyzing death certificates, the study said.

"Heat kills, particularly in spring, before people are acclimatized to it. Temperatures above 40 C in early spring are incredibly extreme," said Julie Arrighi, a co-author of the study and director at the nonprofit Red Cross Red Crescent Climate Centre.

A dozen researchers from universities and meteorological agencies around the world produced the study.

This year is on track to be the world's hottest ever recorded, the European Union's Copernicus Climate Change Service said last week.

Summer heat waves recorded in the Northern Hemisphere - including the United States, Europe and China - will be major contributors to that record.

But it's more striking that South America hit such extreme temperatures in the winter, said Gareth Redmond-King, a climate expert at the Energy and Climate Intelligence Unit in London. Redmond-King was not involved in the study.

The onset of the climate phenomenon El Nino this year also helped push temperatures higher, but was a minor factor compared to climate change, the study said.

The study warned that if global warming reaches 2 C hotter than the pre-industrial average, similar heat waves in the region are predicted to happen every five or six years.

The United Nations warned last month that the countries were not doing enough to tackle climate change and current national climate targets have the world on track to warm by 2.5 C.

(Reporting by Jake Spring; editing by Jonathan Oatis)

AUSTERITY CAUSED BY TAX CUTS

Why all these proposed Republican spending cuts barely make a dent in the national debt

David Lightman
Mon, October 9, 2023 

Robert Mittendorf/The Bellingham Herald


The relentless conservative drive to dramatically cut federal spending — a campaign that nearly caused a government shutdown and helped topple House Speaker Kevin McCarthy — wouldn’t do much to significantly reduce the national debt anytime soon.

The push for drastic reductions in federal spending is expected to come up again once House Republicans pick a new speaker. They plan to start considering their choice this week, with no firm timetable for a final decision..

Whoever takes the gavel is expected to keep pushing for deep cuts. The Democratic-run Senate is unlikely to go along but the GOP effort matters as a message to constituents about what Republicans are seeking. That becomes particularly important if the party wins the presidency, retains a House majority and captures control of the Senate next year.

The GOP initiative is also a reminder of why Congress is so stuck on adopting a budget. When McCarthy, R-Bakersfield, agreed last month to a bipartisan plan to continue current spending for 45 days, angry conservatives plotted his successful removal.

The GOP budget plans range from sweeping to symbolic. For instance, aid that 702,000 Californians receive to buy healthy produce (through the Women’s, Infant and Children’s program WIC) would be dramatically cut. So would the federal tax credit for electric vehicle charge equipment.

On the more performative side, Republicans want to chop Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin’s $221,000 annual salary to $1.

While such reductions collectively would save billions, nonpartisan budget analysts maintain that the cuts barely address the broader question of how to significantly reduce the nation’s $33 trillion debt.

“They’re playing in much too small a sandbox’’ said former Senate Budget Committee Chairman Kent Conrad, a North Dakota Democrat known for working with Republicans on fiscal matters.

The domestic spending cuts, he said, “aren’t where the problem is.”

Republican budget-cutters counter that their changes are a vital first step toward making the federal government more efficient and starting on a useful path to reducing the debt.

“Stop bleeding money, stop racking up debt, defend the United States, stop social engineering, and just do your damn job as Congress. I think that ought to be a pretty simple goal and a bipartisan goal,” said Rep. Chip Roy, R-Texas.
Struggling with debt

The federal budget had annual surpluses from fiscal 1998 to 2001, as a booming economy, a 1995 budget deal and a 1993 tax increase helped revenue pour into the Treasury. .

Since then, there have been nothing but annual deficits—$1.35 trillion in fiscal 2022—and the national debt has grown to $33 trillion. The deficit began climbing as Washington responded to the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, pumping an estimated $2 trillion into wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. It spent to combat the Great Recession in 2009, delivered big tax cuts in 2017 and passed huge COVID aid packages in 2020 to 2022.

In fiscal 2022, the 12-month period that ended last September, the federal government spent $6.2 trillion. About two-thirds is called “mandatory spending,” meaning Congress does not have to vote on it. This includes Social Security benefits and Medicare payments.

That leaves only about one-third that Congress can really control annually. Roughly half is defense and the other half is domestic programs like education, transportation, energy and others

Most independent budget analysts agree that meaningful debt reduction has to involve costly entitlement spending. Social Security is estimated to be 11 years from insolvency. Medicare also faces financial problems in a few years.

Those programs’ benefits are automatically funded and adjusted annually for inflation. Social Security benefits this year are up 8.7%, and next year are expected to climb about 3%.

The House’s GOP-run budget committee released a budget blueprint this summer that, while it proposes deep spending cuts, would not change Social Security. It does propose billions in Medicare savings through reforms.

“Our budget protects and strengthens Medicare through policies that drive down out-of-pocket costs for seniors, stop overpayments, and enhance our health care workforce,” the budget says.

It also urges the creation of a bipartisan commission to tackle the programs’ future. The commission would devise ways to get the programs on a sustainable financial path and help modernize the systems.

This sort of commission was arguably successful in the 1980s, when Social Security faced financial uncertainty. It proposed what at the time were politically shaky reforms, including tax increases to fund the program and an increase in the age of eligibility.

Cuts and more cuts

At the moment, the political focus is on spending cuts and taking incremental steps that are unlikely to get final approval. Once the House gets down to business again, those cuts will be the main topic of debate for some time.

The House Budget Committee said in its blueprint that its plan can deliver a surplus by fiscal 2033. In addition to cuts, it assumes 3% economic growth per year, above what the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office forecasts. More growth usually means more revenue and less spending.

The budget also reverses some of the plans Democrats recently approved. Outlays for green energy and technology “should have been targeted towards traditional roads and bridges, not wasteful initiatives,” the committee said, listing several programs it found excessive.

Among them: $7.5 billion for electric vehicle charging stations, $5 billion for electric and low emissions buses and ferries and $10 million for career skills training to install energy efficient building technologies.

When the budget has come up on the House floor, Republicans were eager to offer a wide range of cuts.

Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Georgia, proposed the reduction in Pentagon Secretary Austin’s salary, arguing “he is destroying our military.” She cited the chaotic American withdrawal from Afghanistan, saying Austin “failed America.”

Rep. Betty McCollum, D-Minnesota, lauded Austin for his long military career. But the $1 plan passed by a voice vote.

The spending cut spree continued for days as the Sept. 30 shutdown deadline neared.

“To get the (Defense) department focused on its warfighting mission and away from culture wars, the bill includes a number of new general provisions to send a clear message to the department,” said Rep. Ken Calvert, R-Corona, chairman of the Senate defense appropriations subcommittee.

Some analysts warn that such cuts have the potential to harm the people who need help the most. Cutting Women, Infants and Children program funds to buy healthy produce would leave recipients with roughly $11 to $15 monthly to spend, the left-learning Center on Budget and Policy Priorities estimates.

It said the cuts would affect an estimated 702,000 toddlers, preschoolers and pregnant, postpartum, and breastfeeding California participants in the program.

Republicans have argued that strengthening work requirements in assistance programs will help motivate people to work, reducing the programs’ cost and helping the economy as people pay more taxes and increase their spending.

But it wouldn’t do much to get the country on a smooth, sustainable path to a balanced budget, Democrats countered. And such proposals are likely doomed in the Senate.

“Why are we going through this exercise again when we know it is going to end the same way?” asked House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries of New York.

McCarthy backed continuing current spending levels for 45 days. With Democratic help, it passed, and four days later conservative Republicans led his ouster as speaker.

Legislation with all the cuts is likely to be back in the House soon.