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The Club PUBlication 06/24/2024

6/24/2024

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Debt plan could help credit fitness
By DAN DIAMOND and AARON GREGG
Washington Post

The Biden administration Tuesday announced rules to block medical debt from being used to evaluate borrowers' fitness for mortgages and other types of loans.

The proposed rules from the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau arrive less than five months before Election Day and are poised to be part of President Biden's closing argument that he is addressing pocketbook issues as voters rank the economy as their top concern. The White House has repeatedly focused on the issue of medical debt, saying it disproportionately harms low-income Americans and communities of color.

"Medical debt makes it more difficult for millions of Americans to apply for a car loan, a home loan or a smallbusiness loan, all of which makes it more difficult to just get by, much less get ahead," Vice President Kamala Harris said . "No one should be denied access to opportunity simply because they have experienced a medical emergency."

The rules would ban credit reporting agencies from incorporating medical debt when calculating credit scores. They would also bar lenders from using medical debt to determine loan eligibility.

The proposal will undergo public comment until Aug. 12 before officials begin drawing up a final version, meaning November's election will probably determine the rules' fate. Administration officials have said the rules would probably be finalized next year. Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump did not seek to remove medical debt from consumers' credit reports during his four years in the White House.

Adam Rust, an expert with the Consumer Federation of America, said the new rules would have significant impact because they would directly affect millions of people, many of whom took on involuntary or errant debts.

"When medical debt can affect credit scores, it leads to downstream harms in very important parts of our lives, like the ability to get housing or find a job," Rust said.

About 15 million Americans have medical bills on their credit reports, according to a study released in April by the CFPB. The figure used to be significantly higher — the agency in March 2022 found that medical bills appeared on about 43 million credit reports — but major credit bureaus voluntarily adopted limits on which medical bills were included in reports.

Those limitations removed medical collections under $500 and those that were less than a year past due; the proposed rules from the CFPB would cover all medical debts.

People affected by medical debt disproportionately live in the South or in low-income communities, according to the CFPB.

Experts have warned that medical debt is linked to numerous health and financial harms, such as worse mental health or delays in obtaining additional medical care.

Medical debt "can lead to other kinds of financial vulnerability," Cynthia Cox, vice president at KFF, a nonpartisan health care research organization that has analyzed medical debt, wrote in a text message. "It's a difficult cycle for people to pull themselves out of ."

In a September briefing about the administration's intent to focus on the issue, Harris and CFPB Director Rohit Chopra argued that unpaid medical bills and the related debts have little predictive power in determining whether a consumer will pay down an unrelated loan.

Harris and Chopra have chastised debt collectors, who they say are known to use credit reports as a cudgel to manipulate debtors into paying bills they know are incorrect.

The amount of debt consumers have, and their history of making timely payments, can significantly affect the interest rate offered by lenders, which in turn influences how much consumers must pay monthly to service the loan.

Democratic mayors in Washington, D.C., New York and other major cities in recent years have worked to relieve residents' medical debt by purchasing existing balances for pennies on the dollar and immediately canceling them.

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The Club PUBlication 06/17/2024

6/17/2024

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HEAT STREAK LIKELY TO REPEAT
Twelve months of record warmth have Earth nearing a dangerous threshold
By SCOTT DANCE • Washington Post

CAROLYN VAN HOUTEN - WASHINGTON POST - FLORIDA: Inspecting dead coral in Novemberat a reef off the coast of Key Largo.

A streak of record-setting heat that began last summer has now persisted for an entire year across the globe, researchers announced Wednesday, pushing Earth closer to a dangerous threshold that the world's nations have pledged not to cross.

The data released by European climate scientists showed May was the 12th consecutive month during which average global temperatures surpassed all observations since 1850, and probably any extended period for more than 100,000 years. Over the past year, according to the European Union's Copernicus Climate Change Service, global temperatures averaged 1.6 degrees Celsius (2.9 degrees Fahrenheit) above preindustrial levels.

Under the landmark 2015 Paris agreement, the world's leaders pledged to limit Earth's temperature rise to 1.5 degrees C (2.7 degrees F) over preindustrial levels, to avert some of the worst effects of global warming. The fact that the planet surpassed this mark for one year does not amount to a permanent shift, but it comes as scientists are warning that it is likely to happen again — within a few years.

The World Meteorological Organization said that it is highly likely that, for at least one calendar year in the next five, temperatures will exceed 1.5 degrees C above preindustrial levels once more.

This unprecedented stretch of warmth prompted an urgent call by the United Nations to ban fossil fuel companies from advertising and encourage the public to stop using their products.

"For the past year, every turn of the calendar has turned up the heat," U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said in a special address in New York. "Our planet is trying to tell us something. But we don't seem to be listening."

Researchers have linked the rise in temperatures to the El Nino climate pattern and decades of global heating from human emissions of greenhouse gases.

A decade ago, scientists had estimated that the chances of the planet warming 1.5 degrees C by 2020 were nearly zero. Now, the probability of that happening by 2028 is an estimated eight in 10.

A yearlong surge of record heat
Global temperature records have been broken by significant margins since last June, as a burgeoning El Nino began releasing vast stores of heat from the Pacific Ocean. During the periodic climate pattern, warmer-than-average waters pool along the equator in the central and eastern Pacific, transferring warmth and moisture into the atmosphere and triggering extreme heat waves, floods and droughts around the world.

In July, temperatures rose above the 1.5-degree C warming benchmark for a month, the first time that had happened.

That warming trend has continued largely unabated. In India and other parts of South Asia, temperatures have climbed well past 110 degrees F in recent weeks, pushing many people to the brink. Millions of Americans in California, Nevada and Arizona are experiencing their first intense heat wave of the season this week.

Recent flooding in Brazil caused widespread death and destruction, and could become the country's costliest disaster on record. The multiday rains that caused the deluges were made twice as likely by extra heat energy added to the atmosphere by human activity, scientists said this week.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration expects this year's Atlantic hurricane season to be exceptionally stormy, with 17 to 25 named tropical cyclones. Record ocean temperatures are a major factor.

Global surface-air temperatures last month averaged 1.5 degrees C higher than the 1850-1900 global average, according to Copernicus.
Carlo Buontempo, the Copernicus director, said that as remarkable as the trend is, "this string of hottest months will be remembered as comparatively cold" without action to reverse it.

Emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases from burning fossil fuels like coal, oil and gas act to trap heat within the atmosphere, preventing it from escaping into space.

A separate study published by a group of 57 scientists on Wednesday found that human activities were responsible for 92% of the warming observed in 2023, the planet's hottest calendar year on record.

It said the rate of warming in the past decade is "unprecedented in the instrumental record."

Data on global temperature records come from direct observations from ground sensors dating back nearly two centuries, satellite observations in more recent decades, and evidence from historical records and geologic analyses that go further back in time.

While this data may not allow scientists to determine how hot it was on a single day or over a period of months many thousands of years ago, it does give confidence that the planet has not experienced such rapid and sustained warming since the end of the last ice age about 125,000 years ago.

Accelerating predictions of warming
As warming has surged, projections of Earth's temperature trajectory have accelerated.

The latest version of a periodic report on near-term warming, also released Wednesday, shows it has become nearly a certainty that global temperatures will continue to cross into dangerous territory.

At a sustained average of 1.5 degrees C above preindustrial levels, the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has warned that weather will become so extreme, many people will struggle to adapt to it.

"The difference between 1.5 and 2 degrees could be the difference between extinction and survival for some small island states and coastal communities," Guterres said.

Scientists now estimate an 86% chance that at least one of the next five years also surpasses the record average annual temperature observed across the globe in 2023.

Guterres used the data to stress the urgency of climate action ahead of a June meeting in Italy of the Group of Seven — the world's wealthiest democracies — where matters of war and global trade are expected to take center stage.

Guterres is now demanding all countries ban advertising from fossil fuel companies, and media and tech companies stop taking those companies' ad dollars.

Last month, the city council of Edinburgh, Scotland, voted to ban advertisements for fossil fuels as well as ads for SUVs and aviation. Amsterdam similarly has prohibited advertisements of gas powered cars and airplane trips in the city's center and subway stations.

After French President Emmanuel Macron asked 150 citizens to help with climate policymaking, his nation banned advertisements for coal, petroleum and hydrogen made from fossil fuels in 2022. Fossil fuel companies can sponsor events.

"We are playing Russian roulette with our planet," Guterres said. "We need an exit ramp off the highway to climate hell."

This story contains material from the New York Times.

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The Club PUBlication 06/10/2024

6/10/2024

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126 degrees

New Delhi sweats through record heat Temperatures have been well over 110 for weeks.

By HARI KUMAR and MUJIB MASHAL •
New York Times
NEW DELHI

New Delhi recorded its highest temperature ever measured Wednesday — 126 degrees Fahrenheit, or 52.3 degrees Celsius — leaving residents of the Indian capital sweltering in a heat wave that has kept temperatures in several Indian states well above 110 degrees for weeks.

In New Delhi, where walking out of the house felt like walking into an oven, officials feared that the electricity grid was being overwhelmed and that the city's water supply might need rationing.

The past 12 months have been the planet's hottest ever recorded, and cities like Miami are experiencing extreme heat even before the arrival of summer. Scientists said this week that the average person on Earth had experienced 26 more days of abnormally high temperatures in the past year than would have been the case without human-induced climate change.

Extreme heat can cause serious health issues and can be fatal.
Although late-afternoon dust storms and light drizzle in New Delhi brought hope of some reprieve Wednesday, the weather station at Mungeshpur, northwest of the capital, reported a reading of 126 degrees about 2:30 p.m. Kuldeep Srivastava, a scientist at the regional meteorological center in Delhi, said it was the highest temperature ever recorded by the automatic weather monitoring system, which was installed in 2010.

In a statement later on Wednesday, India's meteorological department said the Mungeshpur station was "an outlier compared to other stations." It said it was assessing whether that station's recording of a higher temperature than other stations around Delhi was due to an error or a local mitigating factor.

The previous record for the highest temperature, about 48 degrees Celsius — about 118.5 Fahrenheit — was repeatedly crossed in recent days. Three of New Delhi's weather stations reported temperatures of 49.8 degrees Celsius — 121.8 degrees Fahrenheit — or higher Tuesday, setting a record even before the 52.3 degree reading Wednesday.

For weeks now, temperatures in several states in India's north have reached well over 110 degrees, and hospitals have been reporting an uptick in cases of heatstroke. In the Himalayan states, hundreds of forest fires have been reported.

Deadly fires in crowded buildings are regular occurrences in India, with many caused by short circuits. The temperatures have increased concerns about the risks.

The heat wave has coincided with campaigning for India's general election, with the last phase of voting set to take place June 1. Candidates, including Prime Minister Narendra Modi and opposition leaders, have continued holding large public rallies, despite the temperatures.

To help conserve water amid the extreme heat, Atishi Marlena, Delhi's water minister, announced the deployment of 200 teams to crack down on waste and misuse. Fines will be imposed for activities such as washing cars with hoses, "overflow of water tanks" and "use of domestic water for construction or commercial" purposes, she said.

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The Club PUBlication 06/24/2024

Debt plan could help credit fitnessBy DAN DIAMOND and AARON GREGG ​Washington Post

The Club PUBlication 06/17/2024

HEAT STREAK LIKELY TO REPEATTwelve months of record warmth have Earth nearing a dangerous thresholdBy SCOTT DANCE • Washington Post

The Club PUBlication 06/10/2024

126 degreesNew Delhi sweats through record heat Temperatures have been well over 110 for weeks.

By HARI KUMAR and MUJIB MASHAL •New York TimesNEW DELHI

Archives

Debt plan could help credit fitness
By DAN DIAMOND and AARON GREGG
Washington Post

HEAT STREAK LIKELY TO REPEAT
Twelve months of record warmth have Earth nearing a dangerous threshold
By SCOTT DANCE • Washington Post

126 degrees

New Delhi sweats through record heat Temperatures have been well over 110 for weeks.

By HARI KUMAR and MUJIB MASHAL •
New York Times
NEW DELHI