Tag Archives: environment

Some Encouraging News

Despite my constant negative rants, I have always considered myself an optimist.  That optimism, struggling though it is, leads me to believe that the current cycle of racist backlash and the frantic efforts to turn back the clock by Christian Nationalists is beginning to abate.

Granted, those efforts still pose a considerable threat, but there are signs that the war on modernity is slowly losing ground, and we need to acknowledge them.

What was once a political party with a reasonably cohesive agenda is coming apart. For example, the GOP climate change deniers trying to keep companies from investing or otherwise doing business with environmentally and socially “woke” enterprises are angering longtime Republicans whose businesses are responding to reality–not to mention the demands of  environmentally and socially responsible customers.

Other indicators:

Polls of the electorate show that a majority of young voters identify as Democrats, and that the crazed antics of Congressional Republicans have begun to turn off older voters.

Calls for higher taxes on the obscenely undertaxed wealthy are growing.

The ubiquity of cell-phone cameras has brought increasing urgency–and potency– to the longstanding calls to reform policing and address racism.

Foundations, not-for-profits and others have recognized the danger to democracy posed by local “news deserts” and have been sponsoring new efforts at local journalism intended to remedy the dangerous dearth of information that has resulted.

And in the wider society, we may be seeing less resentment of “elites”– defined as educated Americans. I was particularly relieved to come across this article in Axios about an increase in the number of students studying the humanities.

The pro-STEM movement has gutted high school and college humanities programs — but there’s some evidence of a post-pandemic revival afoot, Jennifer A. Kingson reports.

Why it matters: In academic circles, humanities’ decades-long decline is blamed for the proliferation of falsehoods on social media, crass political discourse, the rise in racism and the parlous state of democracy (not to mention our etiolated vocabularies).

Driving the news: When the University of California, Berkeley, reported an uptick in humanities majors this academic year, there was elation — and shock — at the prospect of a trend reversal.

The number of first-year Berkeley students declaring majors in the arts and humanities — which includes English, history, languages, philosophy and media studies — was up 121% over last year.

The number of high schoolers applying to Berkeley with the intention of studying humanities was up 43.2% from five years ago, and up 73% vs. 10 years ago.
Some other schools — such as Arizona State University and the University of Washington — have also seen a rise in students declaring humanities majors.
What they’re saying: “Students are turning to the arts and humanities as a way to make sense of our current moment,” Sara Guyer, dean of Berkeley’s division of arts and humanities and director of the World Humanities Report, told the university’s news service

Why do I believe that study of the humanities and liberal arts is so important?

“Paradigm” is one of our contemporary, and overused, buzzwords, but it is an appropriate word to use in connection with the importance of the liberal arts, because the liberal arts give us the paradigm we need if we are to function in an era of rapid change.

We inhabit a world that is increasingly global and–despised as some people find the term and the reality it describes–multicultural. A familiarity with human history, philosophy, literature, sociology and anthropology prepares us to encounter, appreciate and survive in that world.

The liberal arts teach us to be rational and analytic in an increasingly irrational age. They teach us to be respectful not just of results but of process–to understand that “how” and “why” are just as important as “what.”

Most important, from my perspective, the study of the liberal arts is based upon a profound respect for the importance of genuine human liberty. The life of the mind depends upon the freedom to consider any and all ideas, information, points of view. It cannot flower in a totalitarian environment. Technocrats can live with Big Brother, but poets and philosophers cannot.

It may be trite, but it is nevertheless true that learning how to communicate and learning how to learn are the essential survival skills. If all one learns is a trade–no matter how highly compensated the particular trade might be–he or she is lost when that trade is no longer in demand. But even if that never happens, lack of familiarity with the liberal arts makes it less likely that an individual’s non-work life will be full and rich.

There is a difference between learning a trade and acquiring an education. That difference is the liberal arts.

So–modest as they may be–harbingers of positive change….

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Some Positive Harbingers

These days, there is so much to complain about, to worry about–and thanks to the Internet, so many voices (including mine) pointing to our social deficits and failures. But there is also good news “out there,” and anyone who isn’t fixated on what’s going wrong can’t help but acknowledge positive harbingers as well as dire predictions.

I receive a number of publications that focus on science and the environment, for example, and reports of breakthroughs are a consistent–for that matter, a daily– feature. Let me just share a few examples of the sort of positive news that rarely makes the front pages of The New York Times or The Washington Post. These are from just one source: Euronews:

A Belgian NGO is using human hair clippings to absorb environmental pollutants.The hair is turned into matted squares, which can be used to absorb oil and other hydrocarbons. The mats can be placed in drains to soak up pollution in water before it reaches a river. They can also be used to deal with pollution problems due to flooding and to clean up oil spills.

In the EU, solar power soared by almost 50 per cent this year (2022).

The IEA reported that the world is set to add as much renewable power in the next five years as it did in the past 20.

London-based start-up Notpla believes it has an answer to our plastic waste problem: a plastic alternative made from seaweed and plants. It’s totally natural, completely biodegradable and can be used to make a range of packaging from bubbles to hold liquid to linings for food containers.

Here in the U.S., despite GOP resistance, President Biden signed the Inflation Reduction Act–a  historic bill that makes the single largest investment in climate and energy in America’s history.

There are many, many more stories of progress, including the important breakthrough on nuclear fusion, which may eventually provide humanity with unlimited–and non-globe-warming–power.

It isn’t just science, or medical science (where equally impressive progress continues to be made). Even in our fraught politics, there are bright spots. The election of Lula to replace climate denier Bolsonaro in Brazil may save the rest of the  critically-important Amazon rainforest from further destruction.

Fareed Zakaria argues that there are signs that the coming year will finally see a decline in the global populism that threatens democracies worldwide.

Zakaria begins by describing the current travails of the GOP, which are likely to prevent the party from doing anything substantive, including damage. He then writes:

The Republican Party’s troubles are severe. Newt Gingrich told Axios that the party is in its worst shape in almost six decades. But it is not alone. In many countries around the world, populists are flailing.

Look at Britain, where Brexit — perhaps the ultimate 21st-century populist cause — has caused havoc within the Conservative Party, which used to be described as the world’s oldest and most successful political party. Britain has had five prime ministers in the six years since 2016; the prior five prime ministers spanned more than 30 years. The self-defeating decision to exit its largest market, the European Union, continues to depress the country’s economic prospects, and it remains the weakest of the Group of Seven economies. In the Group of 20, only Russia is projected to do worse than Britain in the near future…

In the recent elections, Australia’s conservatives suffered their worst loss ever, and the even more extreme United Australia and One Nation Parties did poorly as well. The new Labor prime minister enjoys an extraordinarily high approval rating.

Even in Argentina– a hotbed of populism since Peron–the populist movement is at its lowest ebb.

Zakaria explains these setbacks for the movement by reminding readers that populism is essentially an opposition movement. Populist politicians denounce the “establishment” or the “elites,” encourage fear and promote conspiracy theories. Their  promises are emotional rather than practical–build a wall, ban immigration, stop trade.

But once in government, the shallowness of its policy proposals is exposed, and its leaders can’t blame others as easily. Meanwhile, if non-populist forces are sensible and actually get things done, they defang some of the populist right.

Look at the United States, where President Biden’s moderate style, serious demeanor and practical policymaking have given him large legislative accomplishments without triggering a massive electoral backlash. Now, he does benefit by being an old, White man. Had Barack Obama enacted the same policies, I have a feeling we would be hearing much more talk of Obama’s dangerous socialism and un-American policies, complete with racial innuendos.

As Zakaria notes, the world’s problems are complicated, and there will always be activists proposing solutions that are “simple, seductive and wrong.” But there are hopeful signs; 2023 could be the year the fever begins to break.

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Watch This!

A friend sent me a link to a short–only ten minute–TedTalk by Al Gore. (If only the Supreme Court hadn’t given us George W…)

This is so powerful, I’m using it for today’s post.Be sure to watch all the way to the end.

Watch this!

I’ll be back with one of my usual diatribes tomorrow. And don’t forget to register for Women4Change’s inaugural Civic Education Conference on October 6, 2022, in the Clowes Auditorium of the Indianapolis Public Library, 40 East St. Clair Street, Indianapolis, Indiana.

You can learn more about it and register here.

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There Really Is Good News Out There

One of my New Year’s resolutions (okay, my only New Year’s resolution–I’m old and I’ve learned from past failures…) is to scan the media-verse for positive news, for evidence that not everything in the world is swirling the porcelain bowl.

And guess what? If you look closely, it’s out there, hiding among the predictions of doom, gloom and civil war.

For example, I found “The World in Cheer: 192 Ways the World Got Better in 2021.”

Obviously, I’m not going to list all 192, but I do want to highlight some items from the list, many of them focused on ameliorating climate change. For example, a 5,000 mile line of trees is being planted across the African continent to prevent the spread of the Sahara desert. A California law giving cash to non-car commuters helped increase transit ridership by 50%. The French have enacted a ban on single use plastics for many fruits and vegetables that is projected to reduce plastic packaging by one billion units each year. 

And a company in Vancouver has “upcycled” 33 million chopsticks into everything from cutting boards and shelves to dominos and furniture. 

There are all sorts of other “good news” items that had escaped my notice (and probably the notice of most others in a year dominated by coverage of things like the pandemic and Manchin’s intransigence on the filibuster…). A smattering:

The total number of incarcerated people in the U.S. fell by 13% between 2010 and 2020.

Up to 400 Spanish companies will reduce their employees’ working week to 32 hours while keeping salaries the same. 

El Paso Community College used its pandemic relief aid to forgive $3 million in student debt.

Forty-one women topped the new Fortune 500 list, more than at any other time in the six decades that the list has been published.

A town in Arizona converted a juvenile detention center into a youth hangout, and juvenile arrests in the county dropped by 55%.

In the past eight years, the number of worker-owned co-ops in the U.S. has increased 36%. The business model offers employees, on average, more than $7 more per hour than standard businesses.

There are valuable policy lessons to be learned from most of the items on the list–and there are many more such items. I encourage you to visit the site and review the list when the daily headlines make you want to hide under the bed.

The encouraging economic news isn’t confined to such lists. One of the thorniest problems of the American economy has been the substitution of “gig work” for the steady jobs that offered past generations of workers predictability and benefits. Start-ups like Uber and Lyft seemed likely to accelerate the trend. 

But maybe not. Axios reports that

Startups like Alto, Revel and Kaptyn are positioning themselves as Rideshare 2.0. — alternatives to Uber and Lyft that use employees rather than gig workers as drivers and put fleets of company-owned cars on the road.

Why it matters: These companies’ vertically integrated business models mean they can roll out electric fleets more quickly than the current market leaders, whose pledges to go electric depend on persuading gig drivers to upgrade their personal cars to EVs.

These services will be good for the environment and fair to the drivers.

By employing their own drivers and maintaining their own fleets, these companies aim to provide more consistent, reliable, safe transportation, while ensuring that drivers can earn a decent living — and the companies can make a profit…

Drivers can earn from $15.50 to $18.75 per hour, depending on demand, plus company-paid health insurance.

That we are in an era of massive social and technological change is probably the one thing everyone agrees on. So much of the anger and nastiness we are seeing is a knee-jerk reaction from frightened people rejecting the reality and implications of those changes.

Humanity has been here before. 

My search for “good news” isn’t just an effort to keep me from experiencing suicidal episodes. It is a search for evidence supporting an alternative explanation of our tumultuous times–an explanation that history suggests is as likely as the social disintegration that too many members of the Chattering Classes are predicting. 

Yes, it’s possible that the sheer strength of denial–refusal to see “others” as fully human, rejection of science that calls into question some supposedly “eternal” verities, insistence on the superiority of one’s tribal identity–will plunge the world into another dark age. But  it is equally possible that we are experiencing “birth pangs”–that the millions of people doggedly pursuing social progress and environmental health will ultimately emerge triumphant. 

Our job is to facilitate the trip down the birth canal and help midwife that brave new world….

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Constitutions And The Future

One of the academic listservs in which I used to participate was devoted to law and courts-both in the U.S. and internationally. Discussions contained a healthy dose of constitutionalism. I say I “participated,” but I mostly lurked–reading the commentary posted by notable scholars in the field, and learning a lot.

One fascinating exchange a year or so ago was triggered by discussion of a case brought by a group of  American children who claimed that government’s inadequate measures to combat climate change deprived them of their implied constitutional right to a livable environment. The case was thrown out by the liberal Ninth Circuit in January of 2020, and someone posted a question to the listserv, asking whether there were any constitutions around the world that would have been more protective of what the questioner termed “inter-generational equity.”

It turned out that more than 50 constitutions have such “inter-generational equity” clauses. Responses also linked to several “protection of the environment” clauses among the 166 currently-in-force constitutions that say something about that topic. 

As if to emphasize the salience of the issue, it was during the listserv discussion that the German Federal Constitutional Court decided a case in which it rejected the then-current plans of the German government to meet climate targets. The decision obligated the German government to rework its plans, and commence planned measures sooner, if not immediately, so as to avoid putting the burden of meeting environmental targets on future generations.

The press release of the Court (in English) is here.

As one scholar opined:

The decision invoked the duty to protect positive rights as part of the obligation to protect negative rights. Or, less abstractly, the decision argues that the only way to protect a negative right (the right to life, toward which the state has the obligation to refrain from interference) is to also protect positive rights (the right to health and the positive side of the right to life, both of which oblige the state to engage in affirmative protection). Other courts have understood the protection of positive rights as necessary for the protection of negative rights like this – particularly courts in the global south like India, Colombia and South Africa – but it has not been so common for global North courts to make this link. This is a huge leap for Germany.
The decision explicitly engages in the intertemporal assessment of rights protection. It weighs the burden on the liberty of people in the future when tough climate goals will kick in against the liberty of those in the present who give themselves a break by putting hard decisions off. And the Court finds that the current government assesses this balance wrongly by not leveling out the burden across generations. The Court therefore defends the intertemporal protection of liberty. Again, a first.

Lest you think that the German Federal Constitutional Court has taken a great leap off into judicial activism in defending against climate change, however, it’s important to note the language of the Basic Law with which they are working. Article 20A of the constitution says the following:

“Mindful also of its responsibility toward future generations, the state shall protect the natural bases of life by legislation and, in accordance with law and justice, by executive and judicial action, all within the framework of the constitutional order.”

In short, the German constitution explicitly requires the state to engage in intertemporal assessment (“mindful of future generations”) and also that the state has an affirmative duty to protect the “natural bases of life.” The Federal Constitutional Court was giving life, so to speak, to this provision and not inventing a right to environmental justice out of thin air. That said, the reasoning of the Court is nonetheless remarkable, especially if the two principles I mentioned above are going to become basic principles of interpretation with regard to other rights as well.

How would American constitutional interpretation change if our courts were required to take intergenerational justice into consideration?

Somehow, I find it hard to believe that our so-called “right to life” Justices would recognize such measures as a necessary consequence of their piously declared “reverence for life,” a reverence that apparently terminates at birth. 

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