Tag Archives: united-states

China’s Green Energy Surge Has Caused CO2 Emissions to Fall for the First Time

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China just surpassed a new green energy milestone, crushing the west in the process.

As countries like the United States, Australia, and the United Kingdom appear to be backpedaling on climate pledges, China is showing some massive results on its quest to reverse carbon emissions.

The latest analysis of China's annual carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions found that they slid by 1.6 percent nationwide compared to the same quarter last year. Year-to-date emissions were down one percent compared to the same date in 2024.

Analysis by Carbon Brief, a UK-based climate publication, attributed the decline in CO2 output to green energy sources like wind, solar, and nuclear infrastructure, cutting the need for coal-powered energy. It notes that the drop in CO2 output came despite a nationwide surge in energy demand.

While previous drops in China's noxious exhaust coincided with lower energy use overall, this is the first time the country could directly credit its green energy strategy for a fall in CO2 output — a huge win.

The report further found that China's clean power generation has grown faster than the current and long-term growth in electricity demand, as power-sector emissions — separate from the rest of the nation — fell two percent from March 2024 to 2025. While that's a positive sign in the short term, it could be the start of the massive structural change in China's emission trends that Carbon Brief predicted back in 2023.

That said, the publication noted the current CO2 emissions were only one percent lower than China's latest peak, which may imply that a short-term increase in energy use could offset the decline. Even if that happens, it won't erase the fact that green energy is starting to have a noticeable impact on the fast-growing nation.

China has invested gobs of cash into green energy in recent years, as part of its 14th five-year national plan, which kicked off in 2021. By 2024, green energy infrastructure made up over 10 percent of China's total GDP, surpassing even the country's real estate market.

Now nearing the end of the five-year plan, sustainability forecasting indicates that China could command more than half of all renewable energy in the world by 2030.

Though The People's Republic of China as we know it today still has a ways to go on breaking its massive dependence on coal, it's come remarkably far on energy since its inception in 1949 — growing from a semi-feudal collection of fiefdoms to a world-leader in a fraction of the time it's taken countries like the United States.

China is already the global frontrunner in electric cars, solar infrastructure, and robotics production. They're working on a world-first Thorium-powered nuclear reactor, which, when up and running, would all but eliminate the threat of a nuclear meltdown.

All this while Chinese citizens are set to become the largest consumer base on the planet — throwing a bit of a wrench into the Western stereotype of sweatshops and poverty.

More on China: All AI-Generated Material Must Be Labeled Online, China Announces

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China Attacks Trump With Sassy AI-Generated Music Video

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As the economy roils and tensions escalate, China has dealt a devastating blow to Donald Trump in the form of an AI music video.

As the world economy reels from President Donald Trump's so-called "reciprocal tariffs," the trade war between China and the US is escalating to new heights.

Nowhere is that more evident than in China's wild clapback in the form of an AI-generated music video blasting the United States, which came hours after Trump announced a 34 percent tax on Chinese imports.

The English-language China Global Television Network (CGTN) released the song, called "Look What You Taxed Us Through" ahead of Wall Street's worst single-day performance since 2020, during the throes of the pandemic. The song's lyrics are written from the point of view of an American consumer, blasting Trump's economic policy and daily life in the US more broadly. While the music video is AI-generated — a fact the CGTN advertises, unlike some American slopaganda — it also makes use of clips and audio from real sources like Trump rallies, Tesla protests, and American social media.

For many Americans, "Liberation Day," hailed by Trump's administration, means shrinking paychecks and rising costs. Tariffs hit, wallets quit: low-income families take the hardest blow. As the market holds its breath, the toll is already undeniable. #LiberationDay #CGTNOpinion pic.twitter.com/RzXFFVHoFg

— CGTN (@CGTNOfficial) April 3, 2025

 

"Groceries cost a kidney, gas a lung. Your 'deals'? Just hot air from your tongue," the song opens, overlaid with B-roll from Tesla protests and audio from inflation-wary Americans. It continues: "Elon's satellites crash, Bezos' wealth sinks, the GDP's limping, the Fed's out of tricks, your 'patriot tax' made Wall Street sick."

While harsh remarks from US officials and mainstream media about China are nothing new, China rarely hits back with this much vinegar. Its appeal to US citizens to question their economy is clear: "CEOs buy yachts, we can't afford a stew!"

But Beijing's retaliatory strategy goes far beyond campy propaganda. China has matched the US' tariffs with 34 percent tariffs on its own, sharply escalating a seven-year trade war. It also announced controls on rare earth exports, which could be a major blow for American manufacturing, as China produces about 90 percent of the world's refined rare earth metal.

Unfortunately for people in the US, the CGTN's depiction isn't far off. Responding to the terrible rotten stock market dive, Federal Reserve chair Jerome Powell noted that Trump's tariffs are "larger than expected," adding that increased inflation, lost jobs, and stagnant economic growth are likely.

"We face a highly uncertain outlook with elevated risks of both higher unemployment and higher inflation," Powell fretted.

US business leaders were a little less restrained.

"There will be blood," was the message from JP Morgan's Bruce Kasman, whose team released an analysis of the tariffs on Thursday. They warned that the risk of a recession has skyrocketed from an already uncomfortable 40 percent to a whopping 60. "At a basic level," Kasman's team calls the tariffs a functional tax increase on US citizens and businesses.

So far, Trump's tariffs have wiped $2.5 trillion in US stock market value, and it's anyone's guess when we might hit the bottom. At least we'll get some crafty Chinese propaganda when we do.

More on China: Tesla Forced to Change Name of "Full Self-Driving" in China, Since Its Cars Can't Fully Drive Themselves

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Trump Admin Announces Plans to Build Database of Migrant DNA

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A DNA helix is trapped behind a barbed wire fence.

Trump is ringing in his second term with a barrage of executive orders — and many are laying the groundwork for a massive genetic surveillance campaign targeting migrants.

That's according to analysis by award-winning National Security journalist Spencer Ackerman, who writes that "along with the attorney general, the secretary of homeland security will 'fulfill the requirements of the DNA Fingerprint Act of 2005,' according to the 'Securing Our Borders' executive order," referencing one of the numerous presidential actions targeting migrants signed by Trump on his first day back.

"In other words," Ackerman continues, "[the] DHS and the Justice Department will create and manage a migrant DNA database."

Many crucial questions remain: how that database will look, who will have access to it, what data will be collected, and from whom. After all, many actual American citizens lack documentation of their legal status, like the poor and homeless — will their DNA be swept up in wanton collection efforts that trample the privacy rights of citizens and non-citizens alike?

With tech moguls lining up to pitch Trump on dystopian border tech, we can be sure the surveillance effort won't come cheap for American taxpayers.

It'll also almost certainly come with new cruelty. In addition to inevitable family separations, a rise in lost children, heightened processing time due to missed court hearings, documented and undocumented residents alike are going to be contending with aggressive new efforts at domestic surveillance.

"[The] DHS is empowered to use 'any available technologies and procedures' to adjudicate migrants' 'claimed familiar relationships' with people in the United States," Ackerman's analysis warns. "So this is designed to be not only vastly intrusive beyond the border, but a windfall opportunity for, say, artificial intelligence and biometrics firms."

Ackerman — who was among the Guardian team to win the 2014 Pulitzer for public service journalism for reporting on the NSA spying debacle — has noticed the rhetoric used in Trump's orders mirrors vague national security directives from the days of the War on Terror.

For example, the "Protecting the American People Against Invasion" order claims that "many of these aliens unlawfully within the United States present significant threats to national security and public safety, committing vile and heinous acts against innocent Americans."

"Others are engaged in hostile activities," the mandate continues, "including espionage, economic espionage, and preparations for terror-related activities."

To Ackerman, that last bit is striking, because in this context, "terror-related activities" have not been defined. Vaguely worded presidential decrees like this are crucial in that they allow agencies like the NSA or the DHS to operate with impunity — building the American surveillance state between the ink.

Though their power is increasing under Trump, these surveillance mechanisms are nothing new. Ackerman notes that the measure to harvest migrant DNA seems "reminiscent of the biometrics database created under the Bush administration for Muslim travelers known as NSEERS," a similarly troubling moment in American history which some of Trump's executive orders are predicated on.

More recently, Biden's approach to the immigration crisis was also a decidedly invasive one, thanks in part to the Customs and Border Patrol's CBP One app which rolled out in October of 2020. In 2023, that app got a controversial update: a Visa-lottery system for hopeful migrants to schedule meetings for processing into the United States.

That app came with a host of privacy concerns, not least of which was the harvesting of applicant biometric and geolocation data for case processing.

Rather than delete that data after an individual has been processed, as the TSA claims it does, the DHS collects it into two federal databases — the Traveler Verification System and Automated Targeting System. CBP One has since been shut down by Trump, canceling thousands of applicant's appointments and stranding them at the border, but the personal data its collected is likely still being held by the federal government.

It's likewise been reported that, as of 2020, the DHS has already captured data from over 1.5 million immigrants crossing the border in its Combined DNA Index System. That DNA harvesting program is laundered as a law enforcement index — though the collection includes hundreds of thousands of migrants who have only ever been administratively detained, and have never been charged with a crime.

Many immigrants report not being informed of the DNA collection, believing DNA swabs to be medical procedures, despite the DHS' internal guidelines mandating disclosure.

While Trump isn't the only electected official pushing to harvest the DNA of every incoming immigrant, his influence will certainly have the most impact as his nominees shape their agencies to his dystopian image.

More on mass surveillance: Billionaire Drools That "Citizens Will Be on Their Best Behavior" Under Constant AI Surveillance

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Trump, Who Called for Death Penalty for Drug Dealers, Pardons Most Influential Drug Dealer in Human History

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Trump appears to have reversed on his position that drug dealers should get the death penalty by pardoning Ross Ulbricht this week.

During his announcement in late 2022 that he would be once again running for president of the United States, now-reelected president Donald Trump issued an outrageous threat: that he'd seek to punish drug dealers with the death penalty.

"We're going to be asking everyone who sells drugs, gets caught selling drugs, to receive the death penalty for their heinous acts," Trump told an audience during his speech at his Mar-a-Lago estate at the time. "Because it's the only way."

Just over two years later, Trump appears to have completely reversed that position by unconditionally pardoning Ross "Dread Pirate Roberts" Ulbricht this week. Ulbricht ran Silk Road, the now infamous site that made history as the first dark web marketplace, offering a cornucopia of banned drugs in exchange for the then-nascent cryptocurrency Bitcoin.

Ulbricht was sentenced to life in federal person in 2015 after he was busted by the FBI — and after Silk Road had facilitated the sale of over $200 million in illegal drugs and other illicit goods.

"Make no mistake: Ulbricht was a drug dealer and criminal profiteer who exploited people’s addictions and contributed to the deaths of at least six young people," Preet Bharara, then US Attorney for the Southern District of New York, said in a statement at the time.

During his 2015 sentencing, district judge Katherine Forrest described Ulbricht as "no better a person than any other drug dealer."

Forrest had a point. Ulbricht didn't just sell drugs; he disrupted the entire industry. He wasn't your neighborhood dealer; he was the Uber of plugs, singlehandedly creating an entire new model that directly connected drug buyers with drug sellers — and taking a handsome cut in the process. In terms of long term impact, Ubricht probably had more of an impact on the global drug trade than Pablo Escobar.

It's not that drug crimes actually deserve draconian punishments, but Trump's pardon serves as a painstakingly obvious attempt to curry favor with the crypto industry — which he also once reviled, before gaining its financial support — as well as contradicting his earlier promise to literally punish drug dealers with death.

The pardon highlights Trump's fragile moral compass and well-documented willingness to abandon his stance on a given matter when presented with an opportunity to cash in.

Ulbricht's life sentence has long been the subject of libertarian outrage, as Al Jazeera reports, with the crypto community arguing he was unfairly prosecuted as an example to others.

"I was doing life without parole, and I was locked up for more than 11 years but he let me out," he said in a video message posted on X-formerly-Twitter. "I’m a free man now. So let it be known that Donald Trump is a man of his word."

Trump's decision to pardon him, however, had plenty of critics.

"Pardoning drug trafficking kingpins is a slap in the face to the families who’ve lost loved ones to his crimes," Democratic senator Catherine Cortez Masto wrote in a tweet. "Donald Trump should have to explain to them how any of this makes America safer. It's an outrage."

Meanwhile, Trump signed an executive order earlier this week, looking to reinstate the death penalty. Whether the Supreme Court will green-light the decision remains to be seen.

During a campaign speech in September, Trump reiterated his desire to expand the death penalty to those who were convicted of drug trafficking.

"These are terrible, terrible, horrible people who are responsible for death, carnage and crime all over the country,"  he said at the time. "We’re going to be asking everyone who sells drugs, gets caught, to receive the death penalty for their heinous acts."

Yet somehow Ulbricht, who created an entire marketplace and new business model for the sale of drugs, has been set free.

More on Silk Road: Silk Road Mastermind Ross Ulbricht Seen Leaving Prison Holding a Small Plant

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There’s Apparently a Huge Financial Problem With Trump’s Massive AI Project

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President Donald Trump's behemoth $500 billion AI infrastructure project, dubbed Stargate, may be doomed from the start.

Trump made the sweeping announcement earlier this week, revealing that the ChatGPT maker, investment company SoftBank, tech giant Oracle, and Abu Dhabi state-run AI fund MGX would initially spend a total of $100 billion on the project, with the eventual goal of reaching half a trillion dollars in just a few years.

But in reality, according to the Financial Times' sources, Stargate may be facing insurmountable financial challenges as it attempts to get off the ground.

"They haven’t figured out the structure, they haven’t figured out the financing, they don’t have the money committed," an unnamed source told the newspaper.

Did Trump put the cart before the horse by making a splashy announcement before the pieces were in place? Critics of the project think it's entirely possible.

The FT's reporting is especially interesting considering this is exactly what multi-hyphenate Elon Musk, a personal enemy of Altman's, accused OpenAI of earlier this week.

"They don’t actually have the money," the mercurial CEO  tweeted just hours after the project was announced.

"SoftBank has well under $10B secured," Musk wrote in a followup an hour later. "I have that on good authority."

It's difficult to gauge the legitimacy of either Musk's or the FT's claims. Could Stargate actually collapse under its own weight, stumbling at the starting line without the necessary funds to build out data centers in the United States?

It's true that SoftBank has had a troubled history with past investments, posting a record $32 billion loss for its Vision Fund in 2023. Many companies the lender has backed have shuttered or filed for bankruptcy, with WeWork being a particularly notable example.

Musk certainly has plenty to gain from voicing his doubts, having founded his own AI company that was passed over by the Stargate program. He's has had an extremely strained relationship with Altman for years.

OpenAI and SoftBank are each expected to commit $19 billion to fund Stargate, as The Information reported on Wednesday. Effectively, each company will hold a 40 percent interest in the project.

The companies behind Stargate claim that work has already begun. Construction began for an Oracle-funded data center in Abilene, Texas, in June 2023, well over a year before Stargate was announced.

But other than that, details about Stargate are notably thin.

"There’s a real intent to do this, but the details haven’t been fleshed out," an unnamed source told the FT. "People want to do splashy things in the first week of Trump being in office."

More on Stargate: Trump's $500 Billion AI Deal Includes Funding by UAE Royal Family Linked to Astonishing Number of Scandals, Including Human Torture

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RFK Jr., Who Hates Adderall, Says Heroin Was Great for Treating His ADHD

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RFK Jr. admitted that using heroin helped him become a better student — but when it comes to actual ADHD meds, he's not having it.

The man Donald Trump has chosen to lead the United States' health system claimed that doing heroin helped him become a better student — the same month he said that people on Adderall should be sent to "wellness farms."

"I was at the bottom of my class, I started doing heroin, and I went to the top of my class," Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. told podcaster Shawn Ryan in a newly-resurfaced clip from July. "Suddenly I could sit still, and I could read and I could concentrate. I could listen to what people were saying."

The political scion went on to acknowledge that he would "probably today be diagnosed with ADHD" and that using heroin and other drugs like cocaine were a form of self-medication.

When it comes to actual prescription medications, however, the 70-year-old anti-vaxxer sings a different tune.

The same month that the Ryan interview was posted, Kennedy told another podcaster that he would like to see what he calls "wellness farms" where people on medications including Adderall can go and get clean — while remaining pointedly vague on whether these stays would be voluntary.

"I’m going to create these wellness farms where they can go to get off of illegal drugs, off of opiates, but also illegal drugs, other psychiatric drugs, if they want to," he told the "Latino Capitalist" podcast, "to get off of SSRIs, to get off of benzos, to get off of Adderall, and to spend time as much time as they need — three or four years if they need it — to learn to get reparented, to reconnect with communities."

And a few months prior, he made similar comments, sans the ominous mention of labor camps, in yet another podcast interview.

"Our kids are all on Adderall. They’re all on [anti-depressant] SSRIs. Why?" Kennedy told Todd Ault. "Doctors didn’t just start prescribing these for no reason. We have damaged this entire generation. We have poisoned them."

Taken together, these three remarks make it seem that in the mind of the man tapped to be our next Health and Human Services secretary, a powerful opioid is less severe a drug than Adderall — and to our minds, there's nothing healthy about that.

More on RFK Jr.: Trump's Raw Milk Zealot Accused of Inappropriately Touching Babysitter

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RFK Jr., Who Hates Adderall, Says Heroin Was Great for Treating His ADHD