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Hello, everyone. I'm Kimberly Adams. Welcome back to Make Me Smart, where we make today make sense. And I'm Amy Scott in today for Kai Ristall. Thank you for joining us everybody. It is Monday, July 8th. And today we're going to do some news. We're going to get to some smiles starting, of course, with the news. Amy, what caught your attention over the holiday weekend?
Well, we're going to need some smiles, because this one is not super happy, but we will get there when we get there. New data from the European Union's Copernicus Climate Change Service shows that global warming has reached an alarming level. June, 2024 was not only the hottest June on record, but was also the 12th month in a row in which global average temperatures were at least one and a half degrees Celsius warmer than pre industrial times. That's 2.7 degrees Fahrenheit.
And of course, that number is significant because it's the threshold that global leaders agreed to try not to cross as part of the Paris Climate Agreement. In that agreement in 2015, leaders of almost 200 countries pledged to limit warming to no more than 2 degrees Celsius and quote, pursue efforts to limit warming to 1.5 degrees. I've been doing some reporting on where that came from, what it means. And it is a little bit arbitrary as a precise number.
But the science is pretty clear that beyond 1.5 degrees of warming, the effects of climate change get far more catastrophic and start triggering tipping points like the collapse of the ice sheets or thawing of permafrost or die off of coral reefs, things that become irreversible and in some cases self perpetuating.
Like an example, when permafrost thaws, it releases carbon and methane into the atmosphere and that causes more warming, which causes more problems, potentially triggers more tipping points. So to go back to the news today, you know, one year doesn't mean we've permanently crossed that threshold. Experts say it would take at least a decade before we can really make that call. And this year, of course, we had the El Nino climate pattern and the Pacific that contributed to warmer temperatures.
That's now ended for now, but experts, I've talked to you say that, you know, crossing that 1.5 see threshold seems all but inevitable at this point. Given that we keep emitting more greenhouse gases into the atmosphere when we should be moving in the other direction, and I'll leave you just with this quote the LA Times, where I first saw this story, quoted Brenda Equorzel. I hope I'm pronouncing that correctly.
A senior climate scientist with the Union of Concerns scientists, she said it is worth noting for humanity for all life on the planet that we have been hovering around what the Paris agreement set as a threshold. And this may be the first year of that 10 year average. It means that we have already logged one year in that logbook. You know, it's wild that the science has been so clear for so long. And yet there is still so much denialism like I was in.
And Uber on the way to meet with somebody when I was in Los Angeles last week and the half the ride the driver was trying to explain to me in great detail how climate change wasn't real, how this was a natural cycle of the earth and the normal. And you know, and he was citing all these conspiracy theories and a bunch of other stuff. And I was just like, where are you getting this information and how did you choose to believe it?
And inevitably it came from some not what I would view certainly as reliable sources. But he was quite convinced and he said, you know, everybody has to choose what to believe. And you know, on its face, that's, you know, the ideal right that everybody gets to have their own beliefs. But when those beliefs are actively harming the rest of us, that's when it becomes problematic.
And, you know, I really was at a loss for what to say because, you know, I gave the information that I know I said that that really runs against what the vast majority of scientists have said. And, you know, he was like, oh, don't you know, there used to be palm trees at the North Pole. And I was like, no, patent hard death. But, you know, nevertheless, this is, this is a problem.
And, you know, there are already people all over the world who are dealing with the life and death consequences of this. And it gets to this idea of like, oh, so unless it happens to you directly or unless you can see it directly, it doesn't matter.
And I feel like we have a lot of situations like that, you know, the narrative and a lot of the democratic circles about how much of a crisis this current situation with Trump and immunity and if Trump wins again, this whole narrative, there's been another narrative on like what remains of black Twitter saying that the horrible scenario that some people are describing a potential next Trump administration to be sounds a lot like existing as a black person in America.
Right. You can't be confident in the rule of law. You can't be confident that the system is going to be aligned fairly for you that it can't be confident that, you know, big money interest aren't just going to trample over your rights. Pick the marginalized group. There are a lot of people who live that life already. And so, you know, the freak out now by some groups is really reflective that up until this point.
Some people didn't feel that they were vulnerable to it. And now they are. And if we all had a bit more empathy and saw other people struggles as our own a bit earlier, we could probably get ahead a lot of the of a lot of the problems that I think people have. Yeah, but now I think it's it's just hard for anyone to ignore the reality of the climate crisis. Even if people had trouble seeing what was happening in front of them or maybe from afar, it's now it's just it's an everybody's backyard.
So yeah, I mean, that's the nice thing about it. That's how it's called. Right. Talk about solutions, right? Climate change solutions. How we survive. Check it out. And you know, just one last thought on that that conversation with with the Uber driver, it can be really hard to argue with with that kind of denial of facts.
I was talking to someone recently who talked about how powerful we really are as individuals. And if we convince one person to do something different, that's a huge impact. And so I'm trying to be more brave about really engaging with people about the facts because maybe it will change one person's mind. Yeah, I mean, if if maybe I've just made that person question their sources and be willing to consider other sources of information, that that's a win. Yeah, absolutely. So what you got today.
Two pieces of news, both from the Wall Street Journal, the first one is this really interesting investigation that they did an analysis of all of these Medicare records. And finding that Medicare Advantage programs are getting, you know, I'm just going to read the headline, insurers pocketed $50 billion from Medicare for diseases, no doctor treated questionable diagnoses of HIV and other malities triggered extra Medicare Advantage payments in a way that doctors say it's just impossible.
For example, so the Medicare Advantage program is sort of this like secondary program on top of Medicare where, you know, kind of routes through the private insurance industry. And the as the Wall Street Journal describes it Medicare Advantage, the $450 billion a year system in which private insurers overseen Medicare benefits grew out of the idea that the private sector could provide health care more economically.
And it's well over the last two decades to cover more than half of the 67 million seniors and disabled people on Medicare instead of saving taxpayers money Medicare Advantage has added tens of billion dollars in costs, researchers and some government officials have said one reason is that insurers can add their own diagnoses to ones that patients own doctor submit.
And it seems according to these records is that quote private insurers involved in the government's Medicare Advantage program made hundreds of thousands of questionable diagnoses that triggered extra taxpayer funded payments from 2018 to 2021, including, including outright wrong ones. And this was comes from a Wall Street Journal analysis of billions of Medicare records.
There's going to be a lot of discussion on the campaign trail and elsewhere about waste and the government debt and deficit spending and all these things. And there are the easy targets and then there are the hard targets and we've talked about some of the hard targets on the show show social security is one of them.
And there's a lot of care is another one because people like Medicare people when I keep the program, but there's a lot of extra in that program that could use some oversight. But you know with the steady dismantling of the administrative state who knows about that.
Right, that is really staggering. I wasn't able to get into this article. There's something wrong with my journal subscription. But I imagine it took a ton of reporting to do this analysis and I'm just thinking like, do the regulators have that kind of power. I've already turned it over to CMS, the centers for Medicaid Medicare and Medicaid services. And they said that they're looking at it and they're looking for, you know, more oversight and everything.
But we also link and we'll have this in the show notes. The Wall Street Journal has a totally separate article just about how they did this research, how they went through the data, where they got it and how they did their analysis, which I think is super helpful. And a lot of news organizations are trying to do this with their big projects now to sort of show their work to help boost trust in the process. And I really respect that the graphics are great. The story is great.
Highly recommend folks read it. And the second story that was in the journal that I just want to nod to briefly because I think this is a much bigger conversation that we all need to have, which is about sort of the generational wealth divide. We talk about the gender, wealth divide, the racial wealth gap and all these things.
The generational wealth divide is getting bigger. And I do think it's going to be causing more political problems down the road. So the story is we're not dead yet baby boomers good times drive the economy skydiving concerts, classic cars and influx of older Americans bolsters the nation's fastest growing city.
We have more fun than our daughter and the story is about this community of Georgetown, Texas that the fastest growing city in the United States, mainly because of baby boomers and some of these quotes in here are wild. So it's like their college except for they don't have to go to class and they have $3 million in the bank said, Trotor, who had a spy 47 is an eligible for Sun City, which is the retirement community they talk about.
It's almost like a cruise ship on land. And you know, there's this poll quote in here. It says today Americans 55 and older control nearly 70% of US household wealth according to the Federal Reserve in 1989, the first year of available data, they control just 50%. Their dollars amount to 45% of US personal spending according to Moody's analytics up from 29% three decades ago. So this matters so much when it comes to public policy, right?
Because as government shrinks because that is the outcome of the policy decisions that are being made right now. And as the debt increases and the battles over resources become more intense because these resources are finite.
Who is in Congress, who is in the position of authority, who are the people driving the economy, get to have more influence on the decisions that are made about the finite resources that we have. And because older generations control so much more of the wealth and so much more of the power see the two people running for president at the moment.
You know, the policies reflect their interests and their constituencies, right? And so you have younger people who can afford childcare, drowning in school debt, who can afford to buy homes and feel like they never will be. And then older generations kind of living it up and it's a very similar dynamic to the extreme wealth and folks at the lower brackets of the income level. The gap is this is very similar.
And I think it's going to become increasingly problematic, especially as we start running up against, you know, decisions on what to do about social security decisions about what programs are being cut. But we spend, you know, less on national debt, sorry, less on education in this country than we do financing the national debt. And this is going to continue to be an issue and I encourage folks to watch out for it.
Well, there's also going to be an enormous and unequal wealth transfer when those older people who are living it up, you know, eventually pass on and leave their wealth to you. And I think that's going to be a very important thing to do, because I know a lot of people who have less to pass on, they will have less to pass on. And I know a lot of boomers who are very open about the fact that they're saying, no, I want to spend my money while I'm alive.
I want to enjoy my life. And it's up to my kids to kind of do it on their own. And you know, I don't, I think at the sort of upper echelons, there's going to be a big wealth transfer. And I think that's more a lot of folks, there's not, because people are living longer, cares more expensive. There isn't enough care. And that money's going to get spent down real quick. Yeah, now we really need another one. I'm going to read as soon as I fix my subscription, thanks for making a smart.
I'll send you a gift. Okay, so let me go first on the smile because it relates to your climate change points earlier. It's in the Washington Post. And it is about researchers in Delaware who've come up with a new process to try to help recycle fabrics.
So researchers at the University of Delaware are proposing a new recycling technique that breaks down blended fabrics using chemicals and microwaves. They say the process takes 15 minutes and can dissolve any blend of cotton, polyester, nylon and spandex, into molecules that can be used to make new fabrics or products like dies electronics and tires. I don't have to tell you, because I know you cover this, but clothing waste and, you know, fabric waste is such a huge issue.
It's piling up in lots of different places when either clothes that we buy are not recyclable and it is a big toll on the climate. Fast fashion isn't problem. We've definitely covered that on the show. And I think while the first thing in the little triangle is reduce and reuse. The recycling part has been challenging on clothes and this is far away from commercial rollout, but it is, you know, source for optimism.
Yeah, science. Yeah, it's promising. It's really promising. I mean, you know, even recycling non fast fashion. I hate throwing things in the trash when they are just beyond, you know, you can't even give them away because of the holes or whatever. It would be nice to feel like you could put it somewhere that returns it to good use. Well, there are those bags you can order online for like 20 bucks that will take all of your fabric scraps and old clothes, the ones that you can't donate.
And they promise that they do legitimately recycle all of it. And then I think you have to pay for it though. It's like 20 bucks for the bag, but you fill it up and you send it back. And you get like credits for other things like that you can spend on different websites, but you know, that's one option.
Yeah, well, it's good that people are researching this. All right. So mine is a little bit related to your story in that it's a medical story. You saw today that Johns Hopkins University here in Baltimore announced it will offer free tuition to medical students starting this fall.
Thanks to a billion dollar grant from Bloomberg, philanthropy is that is of course the foundation run by Michael Bloomberg, the billionaire businessman and former New York City mayor who graduated from Hopkins himself and has been a huge financial supporter of the university over the years. So grants will cover tuition and living expenses for students who come from families that earn less than 300,000 a year, 300,000 dollars a year. So 95% of Americans will qualify for this.
And it's aimed at making medical school more accessible for low income students and non and underrepresented students in the medical fields and help alleviate shortages. There's money for people specializing in other areas of medicine and it follows a similar move earlier this year by the Albert Einstein College of Medicine and the Bronx, which announced that tuition would be free for all students after a billion dollar gift from a former professor at the college Ruth Gotsman.
And this is significant because medical debt averages about 200,000 dollars when students graduate and you know they many doctors obviously go on to make a lot of money and can pay that and then some but it's been shown to discourage graduates from working say in primary care or practicing and underserved areas where the salaries may be lower. And so I see this as a something to smile about for sure.
Yeah, I saw that story and it made me smile as well. It's like one of those stories that makes you smile because it is a you know universally a good thing, but it also says a bad thing about the existing system. Right. But you know what I'll take the smile today, especially on a Monday. Sounds good. We need it. All right. That's it for us today. Join us tomorrow for our weekly deep dive. Amy and I are going to be digging into the origin of the American 30 year mortgage.
Yeah, we're going to discuss how it's jamming up the housing market and what home ownership looks like in other countries with different kinds of mortgages. Make me smart is produced by Courtney Burke Seeker. Today's program was engineered by one Carlos Toronto Ellen Rolfus writes our newsletter. Marissa Cabrera is our senior producer Bridget Bodner is the director of podcasts and Francesca Levy is the executive director of digital.
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