Tag: Policy

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Environmental Charlie Browns by Jerome Berglund

children’s ambitious
chalk drawings smudged by elements
December morning

By Jerome Berglund

After Democrats, during campaigning, vocally aligning themselves with Green New Deal initiatives, the imperatives of climate science and crucial regulatory, environmental and energy reforms, Joe Biden’s energy policy has been supportive of fracking, retains $20 billion in annual subsidies to the fossil fuel industry, continues to focus on expansion of nuclear infrastructure that (beyond being potentially catastrophic) are as much as three times as costly as wind or solar alternatives.

Progressive supporters begin to feel increasingly like betrayed Charlie Browns, as one supposedly leftist representative after another double-crosses their constituents, reneges on clear promises and continues supporting the very detrimental agendas and structures they purported their stances on were the meaningful thing which separated them from science-denying or ignoring conservative opponents.

The most perfunctory analysis of who is buttering bread of politicians on both sides of the aisle gives a telling indication of which interests they are representing, and what their terms of office’s legacies in policy will look like.

Further reading: Biden’s climate agenda stalls, and progressives fume

Author bio:

Jerome Berglund, recently nominated for the 2022 Touchstone awards, graduated from USC’s film program, worked in the entertainment industry before returning to the midwest where he has been employed as everything from dishwasher to paralegal, night watchman to assembler of heart valves.  Jerome has exhibited many haiku, senryu and haiga online and in print, most recently in the Asahi Shimbun, Bear Creek Haiku, Bamboo Hut, Cold Moon Journal, Daily Haiga, Failed Haiku, Haiku Dialogue, Scarlet Dragonfly, Under the Basho, and the Zen Space. You can follow him on Twitter @BerglundJerome and find more of his poetry here:  https://flowersunmedia.wixsite.com/jbphotography/post/haiku-senryu-and-haiga-publications

Check out Jerome’s other sciku here: ‘Illusion‘, ‘Civil Disobedience’, ‘Vested Interests‘ and ‘Exploitation in Micro and Macro’.

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Plastic, Pollution, Policy

Accumulating.
Reject virgin, manage waste
before it’s too late.

Global annual emissions of plastic pollution are estimated to be between 22 and 48 million metric tons. If current trends continue then these 2016 estimates will double by 2025, and even current proposals for plastic management still predict emissions increasing annually.

Plastic can take anywhere between decades and centuries for it to be removed from the environment naturally through decomposition. When pollution exceeds removal plastic accumulates in the environment. Active removal of plastic from the environment is often very difficult, meaning that plastic is a “poorly reversible pollutant”.

Yet the damage that plastic can cause to the environment and to humans is vast, from plastics accumulating in food chains to the impact plastic pollution can have on the carbon cycle, and a whole range of other negative effects.

All of this is known. Much has been known for decades.

Yet our reliance on virgin plastic materials and our poor waste management strategies are doing little to stem the problem. Indeed, rich countries frequently send their plastic waste to poorer countries that have worse facilities for recycling plastics.

In a review of research into plastic pollution MacLeod et al. (2021) suggest that it may soon be too late to stop or reverse some of the catastrophic damage that plastic pollution causes. The researchers identify areas that are particularly threatened and demonstrate the complex process that plastic goes through as it degrades and just how far reaching and impactful plastic pollution can be.

Their analysis of the research concludes that plastic pollution is a “planetary boundary threat” and that the only “rational policy response” is to take rapid action to curb plastic emissions and improve global and national waste management.

Original research: http://dx.doi.org/10.1126/science.abg5433

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Consequences

Curb carbon outputs

or face the consequences:

Falling stock prices.

 

We often hear about the environmental benefits of companies reducing their carbon outputs. Generally, however, little happens in business without consideration of the subsequent monetary impacts, and many companies have been slow to change their ways for little apparent financial incentive.

New research by Fang et al (2018) explores the impacts of companies not acting within the emission-intensive sector in North America. The researchers examined the risk factors of climate change on investment portfolios, both directly (e.g. physical risk to properties) and indirectly (e.g. as a result of stricter environmental regulations). They found that companies that don’t take steps to reduce their carbon output could be affected by stock price depreciation and asset devaluation within a decade. Such findings will hopefully prompt more action on curbing carbon emissions.

Original research: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/20430795.2018.1522583

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Affordable care

Affordable care:

Act for the vulnerable.

Will you endure yet?

 

New research reveals the broadly positive impact of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (otherwise known as Obamacare).

McKenna et al (2018) used data from 2011 to 2016 and found that, whilst not perfect, the Affordable Care Act reduced the financial strain of healthcare and increased access and utilisation to healthcare for low- and middle-income adults. In particular, those that benefit most are those making an income of twice the poverty-line designation or below.

Original research: https://doi.org/10.1177/0046958018790164