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Minneapolis Star Tribune
Federal report lays out historic effort to dismantle Indian families and culture
For more than 150 years, the U.S. government pursued an explicit policy of destroying Indian families and culture as the nation took over lands once occupied by Indigenous people.
A primary weapon in that effort was a system of hundreds of Indian boarding schools — 21 in Minnesota — that separated children from their parents and sought to assimilate them into the predominantly white, European-oriented U.S. culture of the 19th and 20th centuries.
Those findings are contained in a report released Wednesday by the U.S. Department of the Interior, the first step in an effort to repair the damage longstanding government policies caused to native Indian, Hawaiian and Alaskan people.
Reuters
Burial sites found at 53 Native American boarding schools, U.S. government says
A U.S. government investigation into the dark history of Native American boarding schools has found "marked or unmarked burial sites" at 53 of them, Interior Secretary Deb Haaland said on Wednesday.
Haaland, the first Native American cabinet member, announced the investigation last year. In releasing preliminary findings during a press conference in Washington, she spoke through tears and in a choked-up voice.
"The federal policies that attempted to wipe out Native identity, language and culture continue to manifest in the pain tribal communities face today," Haaland said. "We must shed light on the unspoken traumas of the past."
The New York Times
Report Catalogs Abuse of Native American Children at Former Government Schools
An initial investigation commissioned by Interior Secretary Deb Haaland cataloged some of the brutal conditions that Native American children endured at more than 400 boarding schools that the federal government forced them to attend between 1819 and 1969. The inquiry was an initial step, Ms. Haaland said, toward addressing the “intergenerational trauma” that the policy left behind.
An Interior Department report released on Wednesday highlighted the abuse of many of the children at the government-run schools, with instances of beatings, withholding of food and solitary confinement. It also identified burial sites at more than 50 of the former schools, and said that “approximately 19 federal Indian boarding schools accounted for over 500 American Indian, Alaska Native and Native Hawaiian child deaths.” The number of recorded deaths is expected to grow, the report said.
The report is the first step in a comprehensive review that Ms. Haaland, the first Native American cabinet secretary, announced in June after the discovery of hundreds of unmarked graves of children who attended similar schools in Canada provoked a national reckoning there.
Beginning in 1869 and until the 1960s, hundreds of thousands of Native American children were taken from their homes and families and placed in the boarding schools, which were operated by the government and churches.
Al Jazeera
Israeli forces kill Al Jazeera reporter Shireen Abu Akleh
Israeli forces have shot dead Al Jazeera journalist Shireen Abu Akleh in the occupied West Bank, according to the Palestinian health ministry.
She was hit by a live bullet on Wednesday while covering Israeli raids in the city of Jenin, according to the ministry and Al Jazeera journalists.
In video footage of the incident, Abu Akleh can be seen wearing a blue flak jacket clearly marked with the word “PRESS”.
Abu Akleh, 51, was born in Jerusalem. She began working for Al Jazeera in 1997 and regularly reported from across the occupied Palestinian territory.
BBC News
Russia pushed back from Kharkiv - report from front line
The village of Ruska Lozova stands at the centre of the turn in Ukraine's response to Russian aggression.
It was recently liberated in a co-ordinated effort led by senior military commanders. Ukrainian troops from territorial defence, the national guard, and the regular army are seeking to push the Russians back along a 32km (20 mile) front line. In the Russian city of Belgorod, just across the border, troops have amassed for a likely counter-offensive.
We drove north from the city of Kharkhiv with Ukrainian forces. Russian shells continued to hit the village.
With no power or water, little food, and neither phone or internet, its residents had been isolated from Ukraine's second-largest city - just 8km (5 miles) south. From the woods and hills nearby, Russian mortars and artillery shelled Kharkiv relentlessly.
The Guardian
Ukraine prosecutors ready to launch first war crimes trials of Russia conflict
Three Russian prisoners of war accused of targeting or murdering civilians, and a soldier who allegedly killed a man before raping his wife, are set to be in the dock in the first war crimes trials of the Ukraine conflict, the Ukrainian prosecutor general has revealed.
More than 10,700 crimes have been registered since the war began by the office of Ukraine’s prosecutor general, led by Iryna Venediktova, and a handful of cases have now been filed or are ready to be submitted in what marks a watershed moment two months into the war.
Vadim Shysimarin, a 21-year-old commander of the Kantemirovskaya Tank Division, who is currently in Ukrainian custody, is expected to be the first to face trial over his alleged murder of a 68-year-old man.
Deutsche Welle
Wartime stress in Ukraine: more babies born prematurely
Extreme stress has been part of life for many people in Ukraine since the beginning of the war. In pregnant women, anxiety and stress often cause health problems. […]
Since the outbreak of the war, there has been a steep rise in medical complications in pregnancies. The number of premature births has skyrocketed in particular, health experts report a threefold increase in some of the cities that are targeted by attacks more than others. According to local doctors in the embattled city of Kharkiv in the northeast, as many as one in two deliveries was premature in the first weeks of the war. In many hospitals, that resulted in a shortage of incubators, which can be vital for the survival of premature babies.
The Kyiv Independent
With mined beaches, extended curfew, Ukraine’s main tourist hub Odesa is ready to fight
Anti-tank hedgehogs, military patrols and an extended curfew aren’t what one expects to see in Ukraine’s main sea resort.
In May, Odesa, a Ukrainian port city on the Black Sea, usually rolls into the tourist season, which generates a substantial part of the city’s earnings. Now the beaches are mined, tourism is dead and the city of 1 million people is gearing up for war.
“We’re ready,” Mayor Hennadiy Trukhanov told the Kyiv Independent.
Two months into Russia’s war against Ukraine, the attacks on the city intensified. In the past few weeks, Odesa has been attacked with missiles and artillery, which killed at least nine residents, including children.
EuroNews
Russia led major cyberattack on European broadband network just before Ukraine invasion, says West
Russia was behind a cyberattack that disrupted satellite Internet connections across Europe just before the invasion of Ukraine began on February 24, the United Kingdom, United States and European Union have said.
In a statement, the UK's Foreign Office said the attack, launched about an hour before Russian forces began their assault on Ukraine, was likely aimed at the country's military.
"This unacceptable cyberattack is yet another example of Russia’s continued pattern of irresponsible behaviour in cyberspace, which also formed an integral part of its illegal and unjustified invasion of Ukraine," the Council of the European Union said in a statement.
In March, Ukrainian cybersecurity expert Victor Zhora told reporters the attack led to "a really huge loss in communications in the very beginning of war".
The Telegraph
UK ‘would help Nordic nations fight the Russians’
British soldiers would be sent to defend Sweden and Finland from Russian invasion, Boris Johnson said on Wednesday as he sealed mutual defence pacts with the Nordic nations to strengthen opposition to Vladimir Putin.
The Prime Minister suggested troops could be sent even if the two countries did not join Nato as he gave his public support for expanding the military alliance to further contain Russia.
The defence pacts, signed during Mr Johnson's visit to both countries on Wednesday, are a warning shot to Moscow in case it is tempted to invade Sweden and Finland before they are expected to join Nato.
CBC News
U.S. debate could 'normalize' anti-abortion ideas in Canada, warns Ontario expert
Advocates in an Ontario region where there's a vocal anti-abortion elected official say the U.S. Supreme Court's Roe v. Wade controversy is a reminder to fight harder for better access to abortions in Canada.
"When major shifts like this happen in our southern neighbour, it always has an impact here," said Margot Francis, associate professor of women's and gender studies at Brock University in St. Catharines, Ont. […]
"It normalizes the idea that women should not have autonomous decision-making over their bodies," Francis said, "and that women's suffering, in relation to making those choices, is actually OK."
UPI
Senate votes against codifying Roe vs. Wade in federal law
The Senate on Wednesday voted against a largely symbolic proposal to safeguard legalized abortion nationwide by enshrining the practice in federal law -- a steep uphill battle that had been aimed at heading off a conservative-majority Supreme Court that appears poised to strike down Roe vs. Wade in the near future.
Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., voted with Republicans to block the legislation in a 49-51 vote. Democrats would've needed a supermajority of 60 votes for it to pass without a filibuster
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
Democratic U.S. Sen. candidate Sarah Godlewski was in Washington, D.C., last week when news broke of a leaked draft U.S. Supreme Court opinion that would overturn the landmark Roe v. Wade decision that legalized abortion nationwide.
Godlewski rushed to the steps of the Supreme Court, posted a photo and video to Twitter and then returned two days later to cut a commercial, taking on the abortion issue and slamming Republican U.S. Sen. Ron Johnson. […]
"If he actually had conversations with women, if he had conversations with families, he would understand these are things they are facing," she said. "What do Wisconsinites not want, politicians making health care choices for them. And Ron Johnson is saying, let's just throw liberty out the window, let's have politicians make those kinds of health care choices for women."
Los Angeles Times
California would subsidize abortion services for uninsured, out-of-state patients under Newsom plan
California would set aside $40 million for abortion service providers to help cover uninsured residents and an expected influx of women from other states seeking care if the U.S. Supreme Court overturns the landmark ruling in Roe vs. Wade, under a plan unveiled Wednesday by Gov. Gavin Newsom.
The subsidies are included in a $125-million plan Newsom will send to legislators on Friday as part of his revised state budget, money earmarked to expand access to abortions and prepare for more women seeking care in California if other states ban or severely limit abortion services. That amount includes an increase of $57 million beyond what was included in his January budget proposal.
El País
El Salvador expected to default as bitcoin plummets
The Salvadoran experiment to make bitcoin legal currency has hit a wall. As a result of the fall in global markets caused by the uncertainty of the war in Ukraine, rising inflation and the US Federal Reserve’s decision to raise interest rates, the price of the most popular cryptocurrency in the world has plummeted more than 50% from its all-time highs. And with it, so too have the bonds of the government of El Salvador, which are trading at 40% of their original value, as investors start to doubt whether the country can meet its next debt payment.
Business Insider
The polls have closed for the 2022 presidential elections in the Philippines…
With around 98.27% of precincts accounted for as of 4.30 p.m. Thursday in Manila, an unofficial tally points to a landslide victory for Ferdinand "Bong Bong" Marcos Jr., the son of a toppled dictator who was president from 1965 to 1986. […]
Marcos Jr.'s staggering lead could come as a surprise to outsiders, given his track record and family history. He's also been running against Robredo, a 57-year-old human rights lawyer and economist who spearheaded bills on spending disclosure and tax transparency in the corruption-weary country. […]
Political scientists who spoke to Insider explained some of the critical factors of his success: his powerful disinformation campaign, his allies among the political elite, and the reshaping of his family's image that began decades ago.
The Denver Post
For the second year in a row, a judge has ruled that GOP Mesa County Clerk and Recorder Tina Peters and Deputy Clerk Belinda Knisley are barred from overseeing an election — this time, the June primaries and November general election.
Peters, an election denier who is seeking the Republican nomination for secretary of state, is also facing multiple investigations surrounding allegations of an election equipment security breach and campaign finance violations, including 10 criminal counts from a grand jury indictment. Knisley was also indicted by the grand jury, and was suspended from her role at the county on Aug. 23, 2021, for a workplace investigation.
On Monday, a third ethics complaint was filed against Peters with the Colorado Independent Ethics Commission. The embattled clerk, however, received the most votes among GOP secretary of state candidates at the Republican assembly and convention.
BuzzFeed News
The Far-Right Troll Known As “Baked Alaska” Just Blew Up His Own Jan. 6 Plea Hearing
Anthime “Tim” Gionet, a far-right internet troll known as “Baked Alaska” who livestreamed inside the US Capitol during the Jan. 6 insurrection, torched his own plea hearing almost immediately after it began, proclaiming his innocence and prompting the judge to set a trial date instead.
Gionet had been set to plead guilty to one of the lowest-level charges brought in connection with Jan. 6 — parading, demonstrating, or picketing in the Capitol, a misdemeanor with a maximum sentence of six months in prison. Nearly 200 rioters have pleaded guilty to the same charge, and the sentences handed down in these cases so far have featured far less time behind bars than the maximum, or periods of probation and home detention instead.
But when US District Judge Emmet Sullivan kicked off the hearing by asking Gionet, “Why do you wish to plead guilty,” Gionet paused. He then said that he’d wanted to go to trial, but that the prosecutor had told him that he’d face felony charges if he did — a claim the government disputed — so he believed that taking the plea deal was the “better route.”
“I believe I’m innocent,” Gionet said.
CNN
January 6 committee finalizing witness list and topics ahead of high-stakes hearings in June
A month before it kicks off a series of high-profile public hearings, the House select committee investigating January 6 is still finalizing its witness list and preparing to reach out to people it wants to testify publicly.
The first hearing, set for June 9, will be a broad overview of the panel’s 10-month investigation and set the stage for subsequent hearings, which are expected to cover certain topics or themes including what … Donald Trump was doing as the riot unfolded, the pushing of baseless election fraud claims that motivated rioters, how law enforcement responded to the attack, and the organizing and financing behind the January 6 rallies, sources tell CNN.
While the setup of the hearings is still a work in progress and evolving, sources note, the presentations will likely feature video clips from January 6, as well as some of the nearly 1,000 interviews the committee has conducted behind closed doors. That could help the committee share more testimony, as well as deal with potentially recalcitrant witnesses.
The Washington Post
Biden waives executive privilege for new set of Trump records
President Biden has authorized the National Archives and Records Administration to hand over an eighth tranche of presidential records from the Trump White House to the House committee investigating the deadly Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol.
In a letter released Wednesday by the National Archives, Biden again declined to assert executive privilege over the records — the latest batch sought by the committee after the Supreme Court rejected former president Donald Trump’s bid to block such releases.
The new letter is in line with the Biden administration’s decision to err on the side of disclosure, given the gravity of the events in the Jan. 6 attack by a pro-Trump mob. The National Archives has already turned over hundreds of pages of documents to the committee, and the latest set contains approximately 23,000 emails and attachments. […]
Those documents are set to be delivered to the committee by May 26…
Yahoo! News
House committee refers former Trump Interior Secretary David Bernhardt for criminal prosecution
The House Natural Resources Committee announced its first-ever criminal referral to the Department of Justice on Wednesday, asking it to investigate whether Mike Ingram, an Arizona real estate developer and a campaign donor to Donald Trump, bribed public officials during Trump’s tenure as president, including then-Deputy Secretary of the Interior David Bernhardt.
Since 2019, the House committee has investigated a decision by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) in October 2017 to reverse its previous opposition to a proposed housing development in Benson, Ariz., called Villages at Vigneto. That decision was reversed again in July 2021, after Joe Biden took office as president. […]
“Evidence strongly suggests the decision was the result of a quid pro quo between Vigneto’s developer, Michael Ingram, and senior level officials in the Trump administration, potentially including then-DOI Deputy Secretary David Bernhardt,” the committee report concluded.
Vanity Fair
Trump Lawyer John Eastman Literally Told a Lawmaker To Toss Absentee Votes, Unseat Biden Electors
Before he urged Vice President Mike Pence to unilaterally hand the 2020 election to Donald Trump, right-wing lawyer John Eastman, who represented Trump after the election, floated a somewhat subtler, but no less extreme plan to undermine Joe Biden’s victory: Throw out absentee ballots, recount the votes, and use the new totals to “provide some cover” for Republican legislatures to appoint their own electors. “Having done that math,” Eastman wrote in a December 2020 email to a Pennsylvania state lawmaker, “you’d be left with a significant Trump lead that would bolster the argument for the Legislature adopting a slate of Trump electors.”
“Perfectly within your authority to do anyway,” Eastman added, “but now bolstered by the untainted popular vote.”
The Pennsylvania plan, which Eastman proposed from his email account at University of Colorado, where he was a visiting professor, provides yet another glimpse into the Trump team’s relentless efforts to subvert democracy in 2020.
Bloomberg
US Budget Deficit Shrinks $1.6 Trillion on Record Tax Surge
The US federal government’s budget deficit has shrunk by some $1.57 trillion so far this fiscal year, driven by record receipts from a strong economy and a slowdown in spending as pandemic-era programs fade.
The deficit dropped to $360 billion over the seven months from October through April 2022, according to Treasury Department data released Wednesday.
Receipts were $2.99 trillion in the fiscal year-to-date, up from $2.14 trillion a year ago, boosted by strong growth in employment and wages, a Treasury official said during a call with reporters. Receipts just for April -- the month individual tax returns are due -- amounted to $864 billion, the highest for any month on record.
AP News
Biden calls Trump ‘MAGA king,’ vows to push GOP contrasts
President Joe Biden on Wednesday labeled his predecessor, Donald Trump, “the great MAGA king” and continued sharp criticism against Republicans ahead of midterm elections that could be bruising for Democrats.
“I think it’s important that, as we go forward, you’re gonna hear me talking more about not only what we’ve done, but what they’re trying to do,” the president told an evening Democratic fundraiser crowd of about 40 at a Chicago hotel.
The party that controls the presidency usually loses seats during the next election and, with inflation reaching its highest levels in 40 years, Biden’s party could see its control of Congress wiped out in November. To try to counter that, Biden has in recent days begun decrying “ultra-MAGA” Republicans — a reference to Trump’s “Make America Great Again” campaign slogan. […]
“Under my predecessor — the great MAGA king — the deficit increased every single year he was president,” he told the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers conference, which was also being held in Chicago. “The first year of my presidency, the first year, I reduced the deficit.”
The Atlantic
The Democrats’ Midterm Identity Crisis
President Joe Biden arrived in office with a throwback theory of how to expand his party’s support. He sought to focus his presidency on delivering kitchen-table benefits to low- and middle-income families—for example, with stimulus checks and an expansive child tax credit—while downplaying his involvement in high-profile cultural disputes and emphasizing bipartisanship. Harry Truman or Hubert Humphrey would have recognized this approach: It was an updated version of the economics-first political formula that allowed the New Deal–era Democrats of Biden’s youth to dominate blue-collar communities, like his hometown of Scranton, Pennsylvania, from the Depression through the 1960s.
But nearly 16 months into his presidency, Biden’s plan has been battered on both ends. Republicans in Washington, D.C., have dashed his hopes of cooperation (apart from a deal on a bipartisan infrastructure package), and his desire to de-emphasize the culture wars has been undermined by a red-state blitzkrieg on social issues and the draft Supreme Court opinion overturning Roe v. Wade that exploded into public view last week. Simultaneously, opposition from Democratic Senators Joe Manchin of West Virginia and Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona—combined with moments of intransigence from the party’s left—have blocked Biden from delivering the full suite of material benefits he hoped would move more working-class families, of all races, back toward the Democrats. […]
Both parties generally agree on the two main reasons for Biden’s low approval ratings. First, with the country facing its highest inflation levels in four decades, Americans are expressing in polls towering levels of economic dissatisfaction and assigning a big share of the blame to Biden’s policies. Second, the persistence of COVID disruptions with the emergence of the Delta and Omicron variants, as well as the chaotic U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan, severely dented Biden’s attempt to project competence, one of his core campaign promises.
CNBC
Inflation barreled ahead at 8.3% in April from a year ago, remaining near 40-year highs
Inflation rose again in April, continuing a climb that has pushed consumers to the brink and is threatening the economic expansion, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported Wednesday.
The consumer price index, a broad-based measure of prices for goods and services, increased 8.3% from a year ago, higher than the Dow Jones estimate for an 8.1% gain. That represented a slight ease from March’s peak but was still close to the highest level since the summer of 1982. […]
The price gains also meant that workers continued to lose ground. Real wages adjusted for inflation decreased 0.1% on the month despite a nominal increase of 0.3% in average hourly earnings. Over the past year, real earnings have dropped 2.6% even though average hourly earnings are up 5.5%.
NBC News
Biden announces steps to aid farmers, lower food costs on Illinois trip
President Joe Biden visited a family farm in Illinois on Wednesday where he announced steps his administration is taking to lower the costs of farming and food.
The president announced that his administration will expand insurance for double cropping, which allows farmers to plant a second crop on the same land in the same year. He also announced the government would increase technical assistance to farmers and double the funding to produce fertilizer domestically. […]
“Right now, Americans are fighting on two fronts. At home, it’s inflation and rising prices. Abroad, it’s helping Ukrainians defend their democracy and feeding those who were left hungry around the world because Russian atrocities exist," he said.
NPR
The Biden administration is working to ease the ongoing shortage of baby formula
Stores across the U.S. are continuing to run low on baby formula, with the Biden administration saying it is working to ease the problem for American families and caregivers.
During the first week of May, the average out-of-stock rate for baby formula at retailers across the country was 43%, according to data from the firm Datasembly, which collected information from more than 11,000 sellers. […]
Part of the reason the formula supply is so low is because, in February, the company Abbott issued a recall of some of its baby formula products. The voluntary recall included certain lots of Similac, Alimentum and EleCare formula products.
Houston Chronicle
Sen. Ted Cruz pushes bill giving honorable discharge to troops that refuse COVID vaccine
U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz is championing new legislation to honorably discharge members of the military who decline to get the COVID-19 vaccine.
The bill, introduced on Tuesday, is the latest GOP effort to counteract the Biden administration’s vaccine requirement for service members. The administration announced the mandate last August, and all branches are now disciplining or dismissing soldiers who are not inoculated.
Cruz’s bill, co-sponsored by 13 other Republican senators, would require the secretary of defense to try to retain unvaccinated soldiers. It would also force federal officials to report denied religious exemption requests and create a new exception for those who have already had COVID.
Variety
Sen. Josh Hawley’s Move to Strip Disney’s Copyrights Called ‘Blatantly Unconstitutional’
Sen. Josh Hawley introduced a bill on Tuesday that aims to revoke Disney’s copyrights, as Republicans are seeking to outdo each other in attacking the “woke” corporation.
Hawley’s bill would dramatically rewrite U.S. copyright law, shortening the total term available to all copyright holders going forward by several decades. It would also seek to retroactively limit Disney’s copyrights, effectively stripping the company of much of its intellectual property, in a move that would face several legal obstacles.
“That is a blatantly unconstitutional taking of property without compensation,” said Prof. Paul Goldstein, an intellectual property expert at Stanford Law School.
The Hill
Crenshaw, Greene clash on Twitter: ‘Still going after that slot on Russia Today’
Republican Reps. Marjorie Taylor Greene (Ga.) and Dan Crenshaw (Texas) feuded on Twitter on Wednesday over the passage of an Ukrainian aid bill that cost $40 billion.
In a 368-57 vote, with only Republicans voting against the measure, the House passed a bill that gave ample support to Ukraine — from military to humanitarian assistance. […]
Greene chimed in, saying Crenshaw is funding a “proxy war with Russia.” […]
“Still going after that slot on Russia Today huh?” Crenshaw fired back.
The exchange shows the small but impactful divide in the Republican Party, where a minority of lawmakers have stood in opposition to multiple bills targeting Russia and supporting Ukraine.
Orlando Sentinel
State judge calls DeSantis’ Congress map unconstitutional, restores Black district
A state judge said Gov. Ron DeSantis’ congressional map that eliminated a Black district in North Florida was unconstitutional and ordered the old boundaries largely restored.
Leon Circuit Judge Layne Smith, whom DeSantis appointed in 2020, said from the bench Wednesday that while he couldn’t rule on whether the map violated the federal Voting Rights Act, he had determined it did violate the Florida Constitution’s Fair District amendment approved by the voters.
“I am finding that the enacted map is unconstitutional under the Fair Districts amendment ... because it diminishes African Americans’ ability to elect the representative of their choice,” Smith said during a virtual hearing.
The Sydney Morning Herald
‘Shocking’ coral bleaching report quietly released after accusations of political interference
A scientific report on a mass coral bleaching event on the Great Barrier Reef has been quietly released after the government department and a Commonwealth agency were accused of covering up the findings to shield the Coalition from criticism during the federal election campaign.
The Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority published its Reef Snapshot: Summer 2020-21 report on its website late on Tuesday night, with aerial survey results showing 91 per cent of the system’s reefs showed signs of bleaching.
The Age and The Sydney Morning Herald revealed last week that the Authority had delayed the release of the report until after the election.
Space.com
NASA's James Webb Space Telescope is almost ready for science. Here's what's next.
The days are ticking away before NASA's massive new observatory shows us the cosmos as we've never seen it before.
The James Webb Space Telescope is powering through a complicated six-month commissioning period. With just a few more weeks of work to go, NASA and its partners released an update Monday (May 9) previewing what comes next for Webb as it prepares to look at the early universe.
The good news is that so far, the $10 billion observatory is blowing expectations away as it enters a stretch of long-anticipated science work that mission personnel hope could last as long as 20 years.
Ars Technica
Why our continued use of fossil fuels is creating a financial time bomb
[…] To reach our climate goals, we'll need to leave a third of the oil, half of the natural gas, and nearly all the coal we're aware of sitting in the ground, unused.
Yet we have—and are still building—infrastructure that is predicated on burning far more than that: mines, oil and gas wells, refineries, and the distribution networks that get all those products to market; power plants, cars, trains, boats, and airplanes that use the fuels. If we're to reach our climate goals, some of those things will have to be intentionally shut down and left to sit idle before they can deliver a return on the money they cost to produce.
But it's not just physical capital that will cause problems if we decide to get serious about addressing climate change. We have workers who are trained to use all of the idled hardware, companies that treat the fuel reserves and hardware as an asset on their balance sheets, and various contracts that dictate that the reserves can be exploited.
Collectively, you can think of all of these things as assets—assets that, if we were to get serious about climate change, would see their value drop to zero. At that point, they'd be termed "stranded assets," and their stranding has the potential to unleash economic chaos on the world.