2019
May
03
Friday

Monitor Daily Podcast

May 03, 2019
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Peter Grier
Washington editor

Here’s big news you may have missed: In April, renewable sources of energy produced more electricity in the United States than coal. According to the business publication Quartz, it’s the first time windmills, solar panels, and other clean technologies have passed the old king of American power plants.

Coal will retake the lead in a few months, as cold weather increases demand for electric heating. But the march is inexorable. By 2021, renewable energy will beat coal even in winter. Can political efforts to prop up coal reverse this trend? That’s doubtful.

One lesson to take from this is that huge societal shifts don’t always get the most media attention (or understanding). Where were the stories in 1991 headlined “Network of Computer Networks Begins: New ‘Internet’ to Eat Newspapers, Retail, Pretty Much Everything”?

Visionary pieces like that may have existed, but they weren’t A1 ledes. Predicting the future is really hard. We’re still waiting for our Jetsons-style flying cars.

Another takeaway is that these big shifts can be more nuanced than they first appear.

Government data, for instance, shows that burning natural gas remains the number one source of US electricity, well ahead of coal and renewable sources. Cheap gas sources such as fracking have driven a power plant revolution as much or more than the advent of renewables.

So yes, wind and hydropower are on the upswing. They’re by far the biggest renewable energy sources, with solar third. But we’ve got a ways to go before they best all fossil fuels.

Now to our five stories for the day, which include a nuanced look at the changing attitudes within the Republican Party toward climate change solutions, and the struggle of states with the difficult issues around legalizing sports betting.


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Today’s stories

And why we wrote them

Conservatives have spent years bashing the notion of global warming. So why are several Republicans suddenly calling for a GOP policy aimed at mitigating it?

Steven Senne/AP
Massachusetts Institute of Technology facial recognition researcher Joy Buolamwini’s research has uncovered racial and gender bias in facial analysis tools sold by companies such as Amazon. She had to use a white mask to get software to detect her face.

Military uses of artificial intelligence have raised concerns about working with Chinese researchers. But some U.S. experts also feel a duty to consider AI’s potential role in human rights abuses, in a society less free than their own.

More states take a gamble on sports betting. Will it pay off?

With a majority of states this year debating legalizing sports betting, the focus has been on the potential to make money. Some states are seeing less reward than they expected, while the risks remain real.

SOURCE:

Analysis by the Associated Press and New Jersey Division of Gaming Enforcement

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Jacob Turcotte/Staff
Emilio Morenatti/AP
Women shout slogans as they march during the International Women's Day in Barcelona, Spain, on March 8.

Gender equality and women's rights are a topic of debate around the world today. In Barcelona, Spain, citizens have been trying a new tack on the issue: Does feminist government mean better government?

Jingnan Peng/The Christian Science Monitor
The Boston Lyric Opera rehearses its latest production, ‘The Handmaid's Tale,’ at Harvard University’s Lavietes Pavilion in Cambridge, Massachusetts, May 1. In recent years the BLO has also performed at a museum, a synagogue, and an ice-skating rink.

New audiences are coveted by the fine arts. For an opera company in Boston, a shift in thought about having a regular home has brought the group to places and people it hadn’t previously reached. Is this change – seen here in a time lapse video – a model?


The Monitor's View

Reuters
Katarina Barley, Germany's Justice Minister and a candidate for the European Parliament elections, poses with 15-year-old pupil Joshua Kezo-Masibu from Congo in Aachen, Germany, May 2.

In late May, voters in the 28-nation European Union will elect a new parliament for a continent with more than 500 million people. The last election in 2014 was a bit ho-hum and saw a low turnout. But that was before more than 1.3 million Arab and African migrants crossed the Mediterranean into Europe from 2015 to 2016, igniting political panic.

Now EU chieftains are worried that rising anti-immigrant sentiment – tinged by fear and hate – will give an election boost to right-wing populist parties and give them a strong voice in the 751-seat parliament.

The coming elections are not the only concern of EU leaders as they search for ways to quell feelings against migrants. On May 1, neo-Nazi groups marched in Germany and Sweden. And last Sunday, an anti-immigrant, anti-Muslim party entered Spain’s parliament for the first time since the fall of the Franco regime in 1975. The Vox party won 10% of the ballots.

Its rise comes after similar parties in France, Denmark, and Germany also saw electoral surges. In nine countries, far-right parties now either rule or share power in a coalition. While these groups reflect other issues such as anti-EU nationalism, they generally play on the fear of immigrants.

So far, the EU has yet to come up with an effective response to deal with either the refugee crisis or its aftereffect, the populist hate against migrants. The solution, however, may not be continental in scope. Rather it could be local, starting with proven programs that replace hate with inclusion, tolerance, and respect.

In March, top European officials met to explore ways to deal with the rise of neo-Nazi movements, the most virulent expression of anti-immigrant feelings. They focused on a successful program in the Swedish city of Kungälv, which has discovered a clever way to curb the recruitment of neo-Nazis. It is now being promoted as the “Kungälv model.”

After neo-Nazis in the city killed a 14-year-old in 1995, Kungälv began to study the rise of such groups and discovered many young people join racist gangs even before they are teenagers. Rather than deal with boys in the groups, the city started a project to teach tolerance to young girls who hung out with them. The training included visits to Holocaust sites in Poland.

“We reasoned that if the girls stopped supporting them, they wouldn’t have people around them,” one Kungälv official told The Guardian. The project, according to a study by Birmingham University, has led to “an increased sense of security, less vulnerability, and most important of all, less hatred.” Sweden has expanded the program across the country.

While still small in scale compared with the bigger problem in Europe, the project at least points to the need to change one heart at a time. The EU election will be a bellwether on the popularity of anti-immigrant parties. But the answer to them lies elsewhere.


A Christian Science Perspective

About this feature

Each weekday, the Monitor includes one clearly labeled religious article offering spiritual insight on contemporary issues, including the news. The publication – in its various forms – is produced for anyone who cares about the progress of the human endeavor around the world and seeks news reported with compassion, intelligence, and an essentially constructive lens. For many, that caring has religious roots. For many, it does not. The Monitor has always embraced both audiences. The Monitor is owned by a church – The First Church of Christ, Scientist, in Boston – whose founder was concerned with both the state of the world and the quality of available news.

When her daughter had the opportunity to participate in an acting conference, today’s contributor became increasingly unsettled by the pressures of the event. But the idea that God maintains a place for all of His children brought a sense of peace and harmony.


A message of love

Amit Dave/Reuters
Stranded passengers wait for train services to resume at a railway station after their trains were canceled following Cyclone Fani in Ahmedabad, India, on May 3. The storm slammed India's eastern coast on Friday morning, forcing millions to evacuate.
( The illustrations in today’s Monitor Daily are by Karen Norris. )

A look ahead

Come back Monday, when we’ll have a story on the effort of Democratic presidential candidates to speak in religious terms and frame issues in a spiritual way.

More issues

2019
May
03
Friday

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