RUTHFULLY YOURS

A Harvard student penned an op-ed for the school’s newspaper explaining that if you’ve ever said, “Don’t make this about race,” you were automatically wrong — because “everything is about race.”

“Of course it’s about race — everything is,” Ted G. Waechter writes in a piece in the Harvard Crimson. “Our country was built on oppression, and race is everywhere, at every moment on my standard trip back to Harvard.”

That’s right. Not just most of the moments, but “every moment.” Every. Single. One.

“The view from my airplane window is about race,” Waechter writes. “Colonizers killed Indigenous people for those tidy plots of farmland.”

“It is impossible to separate the wealth that paid for my plane ticket from structural oppression,” he continues. “When I land at Logan, it’s about race.”

Other things that Waechter insists are “about race” include the Central Artery (a section of freeway in Massachusetts), “luxury high-rise developments,” Boston’s Silver Line bus system, and the benches at Jamaica Pond and Trinity Church.

“In a country built on oppression, everything is about race,” Waechter writes. “Including the benches.”

Now, to be honest, I have not once looked at a bench and thought it might be about race — but Waechter has an explanation for that, too:

An Oregon judge ruled in favor of a group of children last week. Twenty-one kids between the ages of 8 and 19 sued the federal government and the fossil fuel industry for violating their rights and those of “future generations.” The judge, rather than dismissing these petulant children, found that they have a substantive complaint on legal grounds, and dismissed the government’s call to drop the case.

No, this is not The Onion. Taking climate alarmism to an absurd conclusion, the 21 kids — along with Dr. James Hansen, who participated as a guardian for the plaintiff “future generations” — said that the gridlock in the federal government which has stopped massive economic regulations against the allegedly disastrous effects of carbon emissions was a direct assault on their rights to life and liberty, and a substantial breach of their due process rights when compared with prior generations. It is as convoluted as it sounds.

Yes, this judge accepted the argument that the federal government is harming future generations by not acting against a huge chunk of the energy sector.

“This is purely political — a liberal judge putting his personal opinions on climate change above the law he is supposed to uphold and defend,” H. Sterling Burnett, a Ph.D in environmental ethics and research fellow at the Heartland Institute, told PJ Media in an email statement. “The Obama administration has gone around our elected representatives to enact draconian restrictions on greenhouse gas emissions, yet for these kids that’s not enough.”

Burnett conceded that it is almost impossible to halt the use of fossil fuels across the world. “It is true that the actions taken by the administration and by world leaders in the Paris climate agreements will not stem the rise in greenhouse gas emissions, but nothing they can realistically do would.” He estimated that “you would have to shut down all of industrial civilization to stop rising greenhouse gas emissions, condemning [both present and future generations] to poverty and early death.”

The Heartland scholar argued that this case “should have been thrown out of court based on lack of standing,” since the children “can’t show they have or are or will be harmed by human caused climate change, and because burning fossil fuels does not violate any portion of the Constitution or the bill of rights,” as they claim it does (emphasis added). Rather, burning oil and gas “contributes greatly to life, the pursuit of happiness, and the general welfare.”

EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy warned that climate change is affecting the physical and “mental health status” of humans, “probably impacting how happy you are every day.”

“Frankly, it is a wake-up call because there are a number of impacts we are seeing here that we are already feeling, and a number of impacts so that you can virtually see that every human being in every part of the United States is impacted now by climate and will get increasingly impacted if we do not take action now to try to reduce those impacts,” McCarthy said at the White House during an event announcing the Obama administration’s latest climate change report, “The Impacts of Climate Change on Human Health in the United States: A Scientific Assessment.”

“So we are talking about everything from impacting our food, our water, our air and our weather and if that’s not enough it’s probably impacting how happy you are every day and what your mental health status is,” she added.

McCarthy said it is time to reduce carbon emissions resulting from human activity right away for the sake of public health.

“You’re seeing an actual increase in deaths and illnesses resulting from increasing challenges to meet our ozone standards, because as the weather gets warmer we see significant challenges in meeting the health-based standards we have set for ourselves,” she said, adding that wildfires have also become more of a challenge due to climate change.

John Holdren, President Obama’s science and technology advisor, said global climate change is causing longer and “more intense” allergy seasons as well as increased heat-related illnesses and deaths.

Boycott efforts did not deter 250 British researchers from 33 institutions across England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland from attending BIRAX Conference with their Israeli counterparts.Some 350 leading British and Israeli medical researchers are currently meeting in Oxford for the third annual BIRAX Conference organized by the UK-Israel Science Council. The large event is taking place as bilateral science cooperation thrives despite calls to boycott Israel.

BIRAX, a joint UK-Israel research initiative tackling some of the world’s most debilitating diseases, has invested over £7 million in bilateral research since it was founded in 2011. The 15 joint research projects funded by BIRAX so far include the use of heart cells to restore damaged heart muscle; and the use of breath tests for the diagnosis of Parkinson’s Disease. BIRAX was initiated by the British Council and the British Embassy in Israel, the Pears Foundation and UJIA.

The conference will showcase the latest developments in regenerative medicine, including joint research by UK and Israeli researchers to fight diabetes, Alzheimer’s disease, heart conditions, and other global health challenges. The conference is also aimed at creating more opportunities for scientists from both countries to collaborate.

The Arab Inter-Parliamentary Union on Monday voted to move to expel the Knesset from the international IPU due to the “racist laws”’ it allegedly legislates.

The IPU is an international organization for parliaments from all over the world, which works in collaboration with the UN.

The Arab Inter-Parliamentary Union is a regional organization composed of Arab lawmakers as well as members of Shura councils in the Arab world. It was established in June 1974 to promote Arab collaboration through political institutions.

The anti-Israel resolution, submitted by Kuwait’s National Assembly speaker Marzouq al-Ghanim, was adopted during the 23rd conference of the Arab Inter-Parliamentary Union in Cairo on Monday, with the participation of lawmakers from all over the Arab world.

The closing statement of the conference included Ghanim’s proposal as well as a recommendation to form a parliamentary committee chaired by Ghanim to support the steadfastness of the Palestinian people.

The conference, attended by 15 delegations of Arab parliaments, called on all Arab parliaments to support Palestinian efforts to hold an international peace conference to end the “Israeli occupation.”