Items From the March/April Sierra Magazine

#Some unemployed coal miners refuse job-retraining programs in the belief that President Trump will revive their industry.

#House Speaker Paul Ryan calls for women to bear more children.

#The World Bank says it will no longer finance oil and gas projects after 2019.

#A study in the "Lancet" finds that pollution is responsible for 9 million premature deaths each year  -- more than the combined total from war and hunger.

#Syria agrees to sign the Paris climate accord, leaving the United States as the only country in the world opposed to the agreement.

#Rio Tinto, the world's second-largest mining company, seeks to sell off its remaining coal mines in Australia and exit the coal business altogether.

#More than half of all coal plants have now closed or committed to retiring.

#Cars and trucks surpass electricity production as the largest source of U.S. carbon dioxide emissions.

#After three flat years,  global emissions are expected to have risen by 2 percent in 2017.

#U.S. natural disasters consistent with climate change cost $306 billion in 2017.

ADDENDUMS:
*"The  stock prices of gun manufacturers usually rise after mass shootings. One explanation: Shareholders know that gun owners, fearing stricter gun-control laws, will purchase more weapons in the following weeks, even though such restrictions are unlikely to be imposed." (Source: Joseph Hogan, "Making a Killing," The Nation, March 19/16, 2018).

*A Center on Budget and Policy Priorities analysis found that the combined effect of Trump's infrastructure and budget plans will actually be "large and growing annual cuts in infrastructure spending."  In other words, Trump 's spending cuts in ongoing infrastructure spending exceeds his total planned spending on infrastructure, which is $200 billion in federal spending, a far cry from the $1 trillion he had once promised to spend.

*The Congressional Progressive Caucus has proposed $2 trillion in new infrastructure spending, with renewable energy, safe water, and 21st-century transportation, including public transit, as top priorities.