New Record for Arctic Sea Ice

The area of the Arctic Ocean covered by ice shrank to a record low of 4.21 million square kilometers breaking the 2007 record of 4.25 million square kilometers.  Melting should continue for a few more weeks.

Update (August 27):  Further confirmation reporting the extent as 4.10 million square kilometers compared to 4.17 million square kilometers in 2007.  Also, why the loss of sea ice matters.

Update (December 10, 2013):  A study indicates a possible link between melting sea ice and summer heat waves and drought.  Warming in the arctic and antarctic reduces the temperature difference between the poles and equator which pushes the jet stream toward the poles.

The Shrinking Middle

Pew Research Center published a report titled The Lost Decade of the Middle Class and the subtitle sums it up:  fewer, poorer, gloomier.

It seems part of gloom would be the fact that more and more workers are "contingent".  An estimated 30 percent of the workforce doesn't have permanent jobs.  That generally means lower pay and less security.

Update (December 3, 2013):  Harold Meyerson recounts how the middle-class have been in a 40 year slump.

Update (January 5, 2014):  David Wessel was surprised by the fact that most of the growth in the past 25 years went to the top and didn't trickle down to the middle class.

Update (April 27, 2014):  Lynn Stuart Parramore reports that the average after-tax income of the Canadian middle class has now surpassed that of the United States.  Poorer income groups in most European countries to better than those in the U.S.  The analysis is based on data from the Cross National Data Center in Luxembourg and conducted by The Upshot at The New York Times.

Update (June 1, 2014):  Edward McClelland describes Canada as a land of averaging out, while the United States is a land of extremes.

Romney's Choice Revealing

And so we have yet another "bold" choice for the Republican vice presidential nominee.  Paul Ryan is the very author of a callous budget passed by the Republican controlled House of Representatives.

Back in April, the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops condemned the Ryan budget as failing to meet basic moral criteria such as promoting the common good and protecting "the least of these."

Mitt Romney's campaign is floundering.  He doesn't trust the American people to make an informed choice by disclosing his tax returns.

He can't admit that his health care law in Massachusetts is a good idea.

All he offers is more tax cuts for the wealthy.

As Mr. Romney slides in the polls, his selection of an extremist like Mr. Ryan reveals a concern that he still hasn't won over his conservative Republican base.

By the way, Mr. Ryan is a big fan of author Ayn Rand.  I'm sure we'll be learning more about "the virtue of selfishness."  But I doubt most sensible people will like what they see.

The College Advantage

The Center on Education and the Workforce reports that workers with a high school education or less were hit hardest by the Great Recession and have yet to recover.

While recent college graduates have a higher unemployment rate than graduates overall, they still do better than those with high school diplomas.

But with decreasing government support for higher education, student loan debt is growing quickly and now exceeds one trillion dollars--more than credit card debt.  College graduates in 2010 averaged $24,962 in outstanding loans.

So college pays--eventually--but choose wisely.  For-profit schools get up to 90% of their revenue from student financial aid and less than half of those students earn a degree.

Update (May 17, 2013):  Joseph Stiglitz writes about the crisis of student debt.

Update (June 30, 2013):  Tim Donovan suggests that additional earnings from a college degree are overstated.  Increasingly, prospective students are faced with a choice of taking on enormous debt for a degree where the prospects for cognitive work are diminishing or foregoing college to compete with recent graduates for the available low skill jobs.

Update (July 17, 2013):  Despite rising costs and massive debt, there is a relationship between education and employment.

Update (July 26, 2013):  College enrollments declined by two percent last year and are expected to continue to decline.

Update (August 22, 2013):  Matt Taibbi writes about the college loan scandal and the high cost of higher education.  Also, David Sirota calls for free post-secondary education.  From Taibbi:

So, yes, a college education is a great thing, and you probably need one now more than ever--the problem is that it may very well be mandatory, may have less of a chance of ever getting you a job, and you may still be paying for it on your deathbed no matter what.

Update (August 23, 2013):  President Obama has a proposal to rank colleges in ways to try to reduce costs.

Update (August 30, 2013):  David Sirota describes higher education as a lifetime sentence of debt.

Update (September 6, 2013):  Mike Konczal offers some thoughts about the cost containment proposals in Obama's plan.

Update (September 8, 2013):  Banks are pulling out of the student loan market.

Update (September 16, 2013):  David Sirota explains the Pay It Forward plan in Oregon.

Update (December 5, 2013):  Seventy-one percent of college graduates have student loans and the average debt is now nearly $30,000.

Update (February 22, 2014):  Matthew Saccaro argues that massive debt and poor quality make attending college the worst decision a young person can make.

Update (March 19, 2014):  Hannah Gold reports that the average student loan for an American 25-year-old has risen 91 percent in the past ten years.  She also reviews Creditocracy And The Case For Debt Refusal by Andrew Ross.

Update (March 25, 2014):  The increasing cost of graduate school is driving up student debt.

Update (April 8, 2014):  Parents struggle to repay college loans.

Update (June 9, 2014):  President Obama announces executive action on student loans including capping loan payments at 10 percent of income.

Update (June 16, 2014):  A discussion about making higher education free.

Update (June 20, 2014):  David Dayen calls for eliminating student loan servicer middlemen.

Update (September 17, 2014):  Strike Debt is using the Rolling Jubilee fund to buy delinquent student debt and cancel it.  $3.9 million of debt was bought for $107,000.

Update (October 19, 2014):  Kyle Schmidlin calls for debt refusal.

Update (December 15, 2014):  A Brookings Institution report shows that 51 percent of first year college students underestimate the amount of debt they are taking on.

Update (January 10, 2015):  President Obama has a proposal to make attending community colleges free.

Update (December 12, 2015):  Joseph Pomianowski says students need a bailout.

Update (June 1, 2016):  A study published by the National Bureau of Economic Research finds that for-profit universities are a bad investment if you don't graduate. And most students at those schools don't.

[O]n average associate’s and bachelor’s degree students experience a decline in earnings after attendance, relative to their own earnings in years prior to attendance. Master’s degree students and students who complete their degrees appear to experience better outcomes, with positive earnings effects.

Update (June 24, 2019):  Senator Bernie Sanders proposes cancelling all student debt.

Update (September 16, 2020):  Mary Green Swig, Steven L. Swig, David A. Bergeron and Richard J. Eskow give a history of student loan debt.

It is time to recognize that the cruel experiment in financing higher education through student loans has failed. It has captured 46 million people and their families in a student loan trap.

It’s time to restore funds for higher education and cancel student debt for the victims of this failed experiment.

Another Record

Cumulative melting of the Greenland ice sheet has already exceeded the record from two years ago with four more weeks left in the melt season.

July Was Hottest Month

Last month broke the record from July 1936 as the hottest month recorded since 1895 in the continental United States.

Climate Change Causes Extreme Weather

Particular events such as recent heat waves or droughts were always discussed with the caveat that no single incident can be attributed to climate change, only that such events are more likely. James Hansen says that's no longer true.  A new analysis shows that the probability that recent extreme weather is due to natural variability is nearly zero.  It is caused by climate change.

Update (August 6):  Hansen's full paper.

House Republicans Fail to Help Farmers

Climate change makes droughts like the one gripping much of the country more likely.  But modern Republicans are no longer the party of Lincoln:

The legitimate object of government, is to do for a community of people, whatever they need to have done, but can not do, at all, or can not, so well do, for themselves -- in their separate, and individual capacities.

Congress cannot get its act together to help farmers because organizations like Heritage Action believe that when disaster programs expire then we all need to be prepared on our own for events like severe drought.