Author: telegraph

What Can I Do About Climate Change?

Posted on August 22, 2018

People ask me all the time: ‘what can I do to fight climate change?’ And it’s a great question, because the problem seems so big, and we seem so small, that it’s hard to imagine there’s anything we could do.

For years, environmental groups focused on individual actions: new light bulbs, different kinds of cars. Those sort of changes are useful: the roof of my house is covered with solar panels, and I can plug my car into them.

I’m glad about that–it’s environmentally sound, and it saves me money. But I try not to fool myself into thinking that’s really how we’ll solve global warming. Because by this point, with the ice caps melting, we can’t make the math of climate change work one person at a time.

Instead, the biggest thing an individual can do is become…a little less of an individual.  

Join together with others to form the kind of movements that can push for changes big enough to matter. Those changes fall into three broad categories.

100% Renewable Energy

One is to push for 100% renewable energy in every town and city–and it’s a push that’s really working. Diverse cities from Atlanta to San Diego, from Salt Lake City to Portland, have all announced that they’re going to go fully renewable. In fact, when the president pulled America out of the Paris climate accords, he said it was because he’d been ‘elected to govern Pittsburgh, not Paris.’ That afternoon the mayor of Pittsburgh announced that his city was going 100% renewable.

Keep Carbon In The Ground

Second, is to keep carbon in the ground. Scientists have made it clear that at least 80% of known reserves of coal, oil, and gas have to stay underground if we’re to have any hope of meeting the climate goals the world has agreed on. That’s why we fought so hard against things like the Keystone and Dakota Access pipelines, or for a moratorium on new coal mines on public land. We win a lot of these fights around the world–and every time we put up a fight we slow down the fossil fuel industry, giving the engineers another year or two to drop the price of clean energy even further.

Divestment

And third, we work to staunch the flow of money to the fossil fuel industry. Our biggest tool is called divestment: convincing cities, states, universities, foundations, and corporations to sell the stock they hold in fossil fuel companies. This tactic–pioneered in the fight against apartheid–really works: new studies show it has focused attention on climate change and robbed companies of some of the money they need for further exploration. New York City was the latest convert, divesting its $200 billion pension funds from fossil fuels–and taking the total global commitment to nearly $7 trillion.

These are big goals–we can only accomplish them through movements. That’s why we join together, all around the country and all across the planet.

While the best thing that we can do to fight the climate crisis is to join together, we can also pair these group actions with the individual ones that climate organizations have been pushing for years.

Reducing our Carbon Footprint / Be More Energy Efficient 

The Environmental Protection Agency has reported that being more energy efficient helps the environment, as well as the checkbook. To increase your energy efficiency and reduce your carbon footprint, you can do the following:

  • Do not heat or cool your house as much as you would usually.There are two ways to do this: 1) when you are going out of the house, try setting the thermostat to 5 degrees or 10 degrees closer to the outside temperature. 2) Slightly change the temperature consistently. If you usually have it at 70 degrees in the winter, set it at 68. Heating and cooling use a significant amount of energy.
  • Unplug electric appliances and chargers when not in use. Energy.gov states that “mobile phone chargers that are left plugged in after your phone is disconnected consume .26 watts of energy — and 2.24 watts when your phone is fully charged and still connected.”
  • Use cold or warm water to wash your clothes. 90 percent of the total energy used by a typical washing machine is used to heat the water, while only 10 percent is used to power the motor. By simply setting your washing machine to “cold” you will be saving money on your electricity bill and reducing your carbon footprint.
  • Replace old incandescent lightbulbs with energy efficient LED lightbulbs. LED lightbulbs last longer and use much less energy. LED light bulbs use only 2-17 watts of electricity (on third to one thirtieth the amount of electricity used by older lightbulbs.)
  • Seal drafty windows and doors. Both cold and warm air can escape from your home though drafty openings which cause your heating or air-conditioning to work harder to keep your home at the right temperature and therefore consume more electricity. Weatherstripping and using caulk on cracks and gaps can go a long way to helping you save on your electricity bill and reduce your carbon footprint

*Note: this is not an exhaustive list of activities to increase your energy efficiency. 

As shown in many of the examples above reducing your carbon footprint and being more energy efficient also saves money on your energy bill. It’s a win, win situation. 

Choose Renewable Power (if possible)

According to the Union of Concerned Scientists, “electricity generation is the largest industrial polluter in the country.” Reducing this dependence is critical to slowing global warming. Switching to renewables will significantly reduce your carbon footprint.

There are a number of ways that you can use renewable energy in your home. The most independent and involved way to do this is to invest in personal renewable energy generation on your own property. Department of Energy lists a number of different renewable energy solutions and the steps that you would need to take to install them.

However, installing renewable energy like solar panels on your home can be expensive and a daunting task. Luckily, there are other, less involved, options available in many states.

According to the Institute for Energy Research (IER), 12 states currently mandate green pricing programs for utilities while many others have voluntary green pricing options. These work by allowing individuals and households to buy green energy rather than energy produced by fossil fuels. These green pricing programs work by “charging participating customers a prescribed cost per kWh of green energy purchased.” The IER states that it results in “nominal bill increases.” A couple minute phone call or email communication with your utility company can let you know if they participate in green pricing.

Eat Foods With Lower Carbon Footprints

Different foods contribute differently to your carbon footprint. The video below from Vox outlines how changing your diet can reduce your carbon footprint. Some of the elements they suggest are: reducing the portion size of the meat you eat, choosing meat that has less of a carbon footprint (e.g. choosing fish or chicken instead of beef and lamb), and even cutting out meat and eating a vegetarian, vegan diet.

 

 

In addition to adjusting your diet to eat less meat, planning meals and reducing food waste is another great way to reduce your carbon footprint. According to the National Resource Defense Council, “Approximately 10 percent of U.S. energy use goes into growing, processing, packaging, and shipping food—about 40 percent of which just winds up in the landfill.” Through decomposition in landfills, wasted food also produces greenhouse gasses and contributes to climate change. Therefore, we are not only contributing to climate change through demand for the creation of the food products, wasting the produce that we buy contributes as well.

The simplest way to address this is to waste less food. Savethefood.com has put together a simple and clear website describing some of the ways to do this, through shopping techniques (a menu plan helps!), information about what due dates mean, as well as recipes for the most commonly thrown out ingredients.

Ultimately, eating local, in season produce and cutting back on the food groups that produce higher emissions will lower your carbon footprint.

Make Green Travel Choices

Private vehicles produce more C02emissions than any other form of ground transportation. For instance, a private car produces on average 0.96 pounds of CO2 per passenger mile compared to 0.64 from a bus, and 0.33 for commuter rail

The more that you can commute or travel by foot, bike, or public transportation, the lower your carbon footprint. Similarly, reducing air travel will also reduce your carbon footprint.  

However, in many areas around the country or because of a number of factors, personal vehicles may be the only option. Luckily, there are some minor change that you can implement in your own vehicle to reduce the CO2emissions including:

  • Accelerate more slowly. While flooring the gas gets more immediate results, it also wastes gas.
  • Speed less and use cruise control. Cars operate at peak efficiency at around 50 to 60 miles per hour. Staying within the speed limit on highways will not only make you a safer driver, it will help you save at the gas station and reduce your carbon footprint.
  • Ensure your tires are inflated to the recommended levels and your engine is tuned. Simply put, the easier it is for the engine to move the car forward, the better your gas mileage will be.
  • Avoid idling in traffic, if possible. Many cars continue to burn gas while sitting at a stoplight or in traffic. However, none of the energy produced is being used to move the car anywhere.
  • Remove excess weight from your car. Simply put: it takes more energy and therefore more gas to move a heavier car.

These and other pieces of advice to make your car more efficient and contribute less to your carbon footprint can be found at Cotap.org.

Recycle

While this is the most commonly cited way to “help the environment” that does not make it any less important. Many people do not realize the impact that creating so much wast has on the environment. Some quick facts to put this int perspective: Almost 80% of plastics end up in landfill or dumps or is littered into the environment and almost half (47%) of plastic waste is made up of plastic packaging.

A clear example of this waste can be found in our use of plastic bags. Americans use 100 billion plastic bags each year. That breaks down to 1,500 plastic shopping bags that are taken home by the average American family. In addition, these bags are only used for about 12 minutes. They are also very unlikely to be recycled: only 1% of bags are returned for recycling. This must change, not only for plastic bags but for many different single-use plastics.

Landfill produces significant amounts of greenhouse gasses and therefore reducing the amount of trash we produce would greatly reduce those emissions.

Recycling also reduces the demand for new products and therefore slows the use of limited natural resources. The organization LessIsMore.org lists some of the way that recycling helps conserve the environment:

  • “One ton of paper recycle saves 17 trees.”
  • “One ton of plastic saves 16.3 barrels of oil.”
  • “One ton of aluminum saves 4 tons of Bauxite Ore.”
  • “One ton of glass saves one ton of mixed limestone, soda ash and sand.”

Taking a couple extra moments every day to recycle can have a significant impact on the environment.

10 Steps To Finding Common Ground

Posted on August 12, 2018

Most Americans aren’t passionate conservatives or liberals, Republicans or Democrats. But they have become impassioned for or against Trump. As a result, people with different political views have stopped talking with each other. This is a huge problem because democracy depends on our capacity to deliberate together.

So what can we do–all of us–to begin talking across the great divide? Here are 10 suggestions:

1. Don’t avoid political conversations with people who are likely to disagree with you, even in your own family. To the contrary, seek them out and have those discussions.

2. Don’t start by talking about Trump. Start instead with “kitchen table” issues like stagnant wages, shrinking benefits, the escalating costs of health care, college, pharmaceuticals, housing.

3. Make it personal. Ask them about their own experiences and stories. Share yours. Try to find common ground.

4. Ask them why they think all this has happened. Listen carefully and let them know you’ve heard them.

5. If they start blaming immigrants or African-Americans, or elites, or Democrats, or even Obama – stay cool. Don’t tune out. Ask them about why they think these people are responsible.

6. Gradually turn the conversation into one about power – who has it, who doesn’t. Ask about their own experiences at work, what’s happened to their jobs, how others among their families and friends are treated.

7. Ask them about the roles of big corporations and Wall Street. For example:

  • Why is it that when corporations and Wall Street firms violate the law, no executive goes to jail?
  • Why did Wall Street get bailed out during the financial crisis but homeowners caught in the downdraft didn’t get help?
  • Why do big oil, big agriculture, big Pharma, and Wall Street hedge-fund managers get special subsidies and tax loopholes?

8. Get a discussion going about how the system is organized, for whom, and how it’s been changing. For example:

  • Why is it that only 4 major airlines fly today when a few years ago there were 12? Why are there only 4 Internet service providers?
  • How is this increasing concentration of economic power across the entire economy driving up prices?
  • Why are pharmaceutical companies and health insurers able to charge more and more?
  • Why can corporations and their top executives declare bankruptcy and have their debts forgiven, when bankruptcy isn’t available to people laden with student debt or to homeowners who can’t meet their payments?
  • Why are the biggest benefits from the tax cut going to billionaires?

9. Then get to the core issue: Do they think any of this has to do with big money in politics?

  • Is the system rigged? And if so, who’s doing the rigging, and why?
  • How can average people be heard when there’s so much big money in politics? Should we try to get big money out of politics?
  • And if so, how do we do it?

Notice, you’re not using labels. You’re not talking about Democrats or Republicans, left or right, capitalism or socialism, government or free market. You’re not even talking about Trump.

You’re starting with the everyday experiences of most people–with their wages and living expenses and experiences on the job– and from there moving to economic and political power.

10. Oh, and don’t forget to use humor. Humor is the great disinfectant. For example, the Supreme Court says corporations are people. Well, you’ll believe they’re people when Texas executes a corporation.

Remember, the point isn’t to convince them you’re right and they’re wrong. It’s to get us thinking about what’s really happening to America. It’s exposing the abuses of power all around us.

If we can join together around these fundamental issues, we will all win.

The Biggest Threat To Our Democracy That You Haven’t Heard Of

Posted on August 5, 2018

The biggest threat to our democracy that nobody is talking about is the real possibility of a rogue Constitutional convention – empowering extremists to radically reshape the Constitution, our laws, and our country. 

If just a few more states sign on to what’s called an “Article V convention” for a balanced budget amendment, there’s no limit to the damage they might do.

Let me explain.

There are 2 ways to amend the United States Constitution: One way – the way we’ve passed every amendment since the Bill of Rights – is for two-thirds of the House and two-thirds of the Senate to vote for a proposed amendment, and then have it ratified by at least three quarters of the states – now 38 in number.

But there’s a second way to amend the Constitution. Two thirds of the states may demand that Congress form a constitutional convention to propose amendments.

Once such a constitutional convention is convened, there are no rules to limit or constrain what comes next.

Amendments proposed by an Article V convention are supposed to be ratified by 38 states. But convention delegates could hijack the process and change the ratification process itself, tossing out the 38 state requirement.

A balanced budget amendment would be crazy enough. But nothing would be safe. A woman’s right to choose. Marriage equality. First Amendment protections for free speech and a free press. Equal protection of the laws. Checks and balances.

An Article V convention would allow delegates to write their own agenda into our Constitution.

Already 28 states have called for a constitutional convention. They only need 6 more to succeed.

Unlimited money in politics and partisan gerrymandering have already given Republicans control of a majority of state legislatures. Big money interests like the Koch Brothers and ALEC are investing heavily in the push for a constitutional convention – which means that they’d be calling the shots if one takes place.

You’re probably already overwhelmed with political actions you need to take. But, believe me, this is important. With just a few states to go, your voice is needed. Please tell your state lawmakers to reject calls for an Article V convention.

Medicare For All Makes A Lot Of Sense

Posted on August 4, 2018

The economics of Medicare for All championed by Sen. Bernie Sanders are actually quite straightforward. Under what advocates call “M4A,” health care coverage would expand while total spending on health care — by companies, individuals and the government – would decline because of lower costs. More would be paid through the government and less through private insurers. 

M4A would reduce health care costs for three reasons. First, Medicare pays hospital and doctors at lower rates than private insurers. Second, drug prices would be lower. And third, there would be administrative savings. These conclusions are robust.

Recently, the libertarian-leaning Mercatus Center published a study with data that bear out these conclusions. Indeed, these sensible conclusions jump out of any straightforward analysis.

M4A would seem to be an unbeatable approach. And indeed it is — almost. It’s basically the solution adopted by Canada, the countries of Western Europe, Japan, Australia and New Zealand.

Yet one high-income country does it differently: the United States, which still relies heavily — far too heavily — on private health insurers.

A broken system 

The main reason why the United States continues with a broken system is straightforward. The US private health care industry is enormously profitable and powerful. M4A would help the nation but hurt the owners, top managers and highest-paid health providers of the private health care industry.

Thus, the health care lobby blocks M4A — though it would greatly benefit the nation. (Free-market ideologues, including the Mercatus Center, oppose M4A because it would enlarge government, even though it would both expand health coverage and reduce costs. More government, in the free-market view, is bad even if it is more cost-effective.)

The challenge in adopting M4A is not really about whether it would be a better system. Yes it would be. It is about political muscle. The health care lobby is the biggest one in the country, with lobbying outlays of a whopping $557 million in 2017, including $280 million by pharmaceutical and health products companies, $103 million by hospitals and nursing homes, $92 million by health professionals and $82 million by health services and HMOs, according to the Center for Responsive Politics. Those princely sums add up to a lot of votes in Congress.

The lobbyists get a very good return on their political investments, to the detriment of almost all Americans. Americans spent an average of $10,300 per person on health care in 2017, about twice the average of comparable countries. Those excessive outlays pay for the ridiculously high earnings in the health care system. According to recently published data, 17 CEOs of not-for-profit hospitals, for example, were paid more than $5 million each in 2014. And that’s just the not-for-profit sector.

Americans know well the dismaying case of a medicine like sofosbuvir (trade name Sovaldi), a cure for Hepatitis C, that cost about $1 to produce yet was originally sold for $1,000 per pill, with the monopoly power of patents and the protection of an absurd law that blocks the government from negotiating prices with the private pharmaceutical industry.

The current system is an outrage, and Americans express less satisfaction with the healthcare system than do their counterparts abroad. And yet it doesn’t change. The health care lobby has been too strong, successfully playing on the public’s fear of change and the fear of too many incumbent politicians of crossing a powerful lobby.

The missing facts

Vital facts are routinely obscured from the public. Consider the recent Mercatus study. On the one hand, it rightfully and straightforwardly concludes that M4A would provide more health care coverage at lower cost than the status quo, projecting a net reduction in national health expenditures of roughly $2 trillion over a 10-year period (2022-2031), while also enabling increased health care coverage.

Yet the study actually portrays this outcome in frightening terms, as simply a great expansion in the size of government and taxes: “Doubling all currently projected federal individual and corporate income tax collections would be insufficient to finance the added federal costs of the plan.”

The simple retort, of course, is that the reduction of private-insurance premiums would more than offset the rise in the public sector costs (hence the overall net saving). Yet this fundamental point is buried in the report’s rhetoric. It would not be hard to design the new taxes, perhaps as payroll taxes rather than income taxes, so that almost all workers would see a net reduction of their health care costs (with the elimination of private-insurance premiums more than offsetting the rise in taxes).

The Mercatus report fails to emphasize three crucial facts:

First, US health care is not a competitive marketplace. It is rife with monopoly power, enabling the extraordinary markups of drug prices, the extravagant salaries of the top-paid health care providers and the rampant price discrimination exercised by health providers, which charge different prices to different clients depending on the provider’s market power vis-à-vis different clienteles. M4A would limit this monopoly power by putting a powerful government payer up against the monopolists.

Second, US health care prices are sky-high compared with the prices paid in other high-income countries, while US health outcomes are worse. Life expectancy in the United States is not only around five years lower than in the leading countries but has actually been declining in the past two years, in part because of epidemics of depression, suicide and substance abuse.

Third, M4A wouldn’t require the United States to plunge into an unknown health care model. Medicare already ensures lower costs than private health care and is popular among the elderly. The health systems of every other high-income country offer other proven models. Par for the course, the Mercatus study doesn’t even mention the overwhelming evidence from abroad.

By looking more carefully abroad we would learn that M4A can save far more than $2 trillion over 10 years. The savings could actually approach $1 trillion per year, given that the United States would save even more than that amount per year were it to pay the same share of gross domestic product on health care as does Canada with its single-payer system (10.4% of GDP in Canada, compared with 17.1% in the United States, for 2017). Even with that lower rate of spending, Canada achieves a higher proportion of health care coverage and a longer life expectancy (81.9 years, compared with 78.6 years in the United States, for 2017).

Sanders nearly won the Democratic nomination in 2016 by taking M4A to the people despite the naysaying of the Democratic Party establishment and newspaper pundits. With health care premiums continuing to soar, and with Donald Trump and the Republican Congress aiming to cut back even further on health care coverage, the public backing for M4A is sure to surge by the presidential election in 2020.

The Roadblock To Common Sense Pension Reform

Posted on August 2, 2018

55 million Americans — about half of the entire private-sector workforce — have no employer-sponsored retirement plan at all. Many work for small businesses in the low-wage service and hospitality sectors. If they don’t save money independently, they will have nothing when they stop working.

This is very different from four decades ago when most workers retired with a company pension.

The good news is that several states – including Oregon, California, Illinois, Connecticut, and Maryland — now let such workers put money away in state-sponsored retirement plans that allow them to withdraw their accumulated savings, tax free, when they hit retirement.

The bad news is that the investment industry is aggressively seeking to block these plans, fearing the competition.

That’s because the fees charged by most state retirement plans are capped at around 1 percent – much lower than the fees of similar plans operated by banks and investment companies. And state fees are expected to drop even lower as more workers enroll.

If each of America’s 40 million retirees saved on average $50,000 in the state program, they’d have an additional $20 billion in the first year. That’s $20 billion more in the pockets of retirees, not financial institutions.

Right now, the industry’s efforts appear to be winning.

Republicans in Congress – backed by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and a coalition of Wall Street investment firms – are seeking to block states from implementing these plans at all.

Investment and insurance companies are also spending like mad on election campaigns of friendly state legislators and threatening lawsuits. Which is why many proposed state-run retirement plans are languishing in statehouses around the country.

Folks, the anger and frustration that led to Trump continues to simmer. If we allow the moneyed interests to block common-sense reforms like this, in future years, America could face an even worse fate than Trump.

When you vote in November, vote for legislators who want to allow workers to save for retirement and against legislators who are shills for the financial sector.

We Are All Climate Refugees Now

Posted on August 2, 2018

This summer’s fires, droughts, and record-high temperatures should serve as a wake-up call. The longer a narrow and ignorant elite condemns Americans and the rest of humanity to wander aimlessly in the political desert, the more likely it is that we will all end up in a wasteland.

Modern humans, born into one climate era, called the Holocene, have crossed the border into another, the Anthropocene. But instead of a Moses guiding humanity in this new and dangerous wilderness, a gang of science deniers and polluters currently misguides humanity to ever-greater danger. We are all climate refugees now and must chart a path to safety.

The Holocene was the geological age that started more than 10,000 years ago, with favorable climate conditions that supported human civilization as we know it. The Anthropocene is a new geological era with environmental conditions that humanity has never before experienced. Ominously, the Earth’s temperature is now higher than during the Holocene, owing to the carbon dioxide that humanity has emitted into the atmosphere by burning coal, oil, and gas, and by indiscriminately turning the world’s forests and grasslands into farms and pastures.

People are suffering and dying in the new environment, with much worse to come. Hurricane Maria is estimated to have taken more than 4,000 lives in Puerto Rico last September. High-intensity hurricanes are becoming more frequent, and major storms are causing more flooding, because of the increased heat transfer from the warming waters of the oceans, the greater moisture in warmer air, and the rise in sea levels – all made more extreme by human-induced climate change.

Just last month, more than 90 people perished in the suburbs of Athens from a devastating forest fire stoked by drought and high temperatures. Huge forest fires are similarly raging this summer in other hot and newly dry locales, including California, Sweden, Britain, and Australia. Last year, Portugal was devastated. Many record-high temperatures are being reached around the world this summer.

How utterly reckless of humanity to have rushed past the Holocene boundary, ignoring – like a character in a horror movie – all of the obvious warning signs. In 1972, the world’s governments assembled in Stockholm to address the growing environmental threats. In the lead-up to the conference, the Club of Rome published The Limits to Growth, which first introduced the idea of a “sustainable” growth trajectory and the risks of environmental overshooting. Twenty years later, the warning signs flashed brightly in Rio de Janeiro, where United Nations member states assembled at the Earth Summit to adopt the concept of “sustainable development” and to sign three major environmental treaties to halt human-induced global warming, protect biological diversity, and stop land degradation and desertification.

After 1992, the United States, the world’s most powerful country, ostentatiously ignored the three new treaties, signaling to other countries that they could slacken their efforts as well. The US Senate ratified the climate and desertification treaties but did nothing to implement them. And it refused even to ratify the treaty to protect biological diversity, in part because western-state Republicans insisted that landowners have the right to do what they want with their property without international meddling.

More recently, the world adopted the Sustainable Development Goals in September 2015 and the Paris climate agreement in December 2015. Yet, once again, the US government has willfully ignored the SDGs, ranking last among the G20 countries in terms of government implementation efforts. And President Donald Trump has declared his intention to pull the US out of the Paris climate agreement at the earliest possible moment, 2020, four years after the accord entered into force.

Worse is to come. The human-caused rise in CO2 hasn’t yet reached its full warming effect, owing to the considerable lag in its impact on ocean temperatures. There is still another 0.5º Celsius or so of warming to occur over the coming decades based on the current concentration of CO2 (408 parts per million) in the atmosphere, and far more warming beyond that if CO2 concentrations continue to soar with the business-as-usual burning of fossil fuels. To achieve the Paris agreement’s goal of limiting warming to “well below 2ºC” relative to the pre-industrial level, the world needs to shift decisively from coal, oil, and gas to renewable energy by around 2050, and from deforestation to reforestation and restoration of degraded lands.

So why does humanity keep plunging dumbly ahead, toward certain tragedy?

The main reason is that our political institutions and giant corporations willfully ignore the rising dangers and damage. Politics is about obtaining and holding power and the perks of office, not about solving problems, even life-and-death environmental problems. Managing a major company is about maximizing shareholder value, not about telling the truth or avoiding great harm to the planet. Profit-seeking investors own the major media, or at least influence it through their advertising purchases. Thus, a small yet very powerful group maintains the fossil-fuel-based energy system at growing peril to the rest of humanity today and in the future.

Trump is the latest useful fool doing the polluters’ bidding, abetted by congressional Republicans who finance their election campaigns with contributions from environmental culprits such as Koch Industries. Trump has filled the US government with industry lobbyists who are systematically dismantling every environmental regulation they can reach. Most recently, Trump has nominated a former lawyer for mega-polluter Dow Chemical to lead the Environmental Protection Agency’s Superfund toxic cleanup program. You can’t make this stuff up.

We need a new kind of politics that starts with a clear global goal: environmental safety for the planet’s people, by fulfilling the Paris climate agreement, protecting biodiversity, and cutting pollution, which kills millions each year. The new politics will listen to scientific and technological experts, not self-interested business leaders and narcissistic politicians. Climatologists enable us to gauge the rising dangers. Engineers inform us how to make the rapid transition, by 2050, to zero-carbon energy. Ecologists and agronomists show us how to grow more and better crops on less land while ending deforestation and restoring previously degraded land.

Such a politics is possible. In fact, the public yearns for it. A large majority of the American people, for example, want to fight global warming, stay in the Paris climate agreement, and embrace renewable energy. Yet, as long as a narrow and ignorant elite condemn Americans and the rest of humanity to wander aimlessly in the political desert, the more likely it is that we will all end up in a wasteland from which there will be no escape.

Almost 80% Of U.S. Workers Live From Paycheck To Paycheck

Posted on July 29, 2018

The official rate of unemployment in America has plunged to a remarkably low 3.8%. The Federal Reserve forecasts that the unemployment rate will reach 3.5% by the end of the year.

But the official rate hides more troubling realities: legions of college grads overqualified for their jobs, a growing number of contract workers with no job security, and an army of part-time workers desperate for full-time jobs. Almost 80% of Americans say they live from paycheck to paycheck, many not knowing how big their next one will be.

Blanketing all of this are stagnant wages and vanishing job benefits. The typical American worker now earns around $44,500 a year, not much more than what the typical worker earned in 40 years ago, adjusted for inflation. Although the US economy continues to grow, most of the gains have been going to a relatively few top executives of large companies, financiers, and inventors and owners of digital devices.

America doesn’t have a jobs crisis. It has a good jobs crisis.

When Republicans delivered their $1.5tn tax cut last December they predicted a big wage boost for American workers. Forget it. Wages actually dropped in the second quarter of this year.

Not even the current low rate of unemployment is forcing employers to raise wages. Contrast this with the late 1990s, the last time unemployment dipped close to where it is today, when the portion of national income going into wages was 3% points higher than it is today.

What’s going on? Simply put, the vast majority of American workers have lost just about all their bargaining power. The erosion of that bargaining power is one of the biggest economic stories of the past four decades, yet it’s less about supply and demand than about institutions and politics.

Two fundamental forces have changed the structure of the US economy, directly altering the balance of power between business and labor. The first is the increasing difficulty for workers of joining together in trade unions. The second is the growing ease by which corporations can join together in oligopolies or to form monopolies.

What happened to unions

By the mid-1950s more than a third of all private-sector workers in the United States were unionized. In subsequent decades public employees became organized, too. Employers were required by law not just to permit unions but to negotiate in good faith with them. This gave workers significant power to demand better wages, hours, benefits, and working conditions. (Agreements in unionized industries set the benchmarks for the non-unionized).

Yet starting in the 1980s and with increasing ferocity since then, private-sector employers have fought against unions. Ronald Reagan’s decision to fire the nation’s air-traffic controllers, who went on an illegal strike, signaled to private-sector employers that fighting unions was legitimate. A wave of hostile takeovers pushed employers to do whatever was necessary to maximize shareholder returns. Together, they ushered in an era of union-busting.

Employers have been firing workers who attempt to organize, threatening to relocate to more “business friendly” states if companies unionize, mounting campaigns against union votes, and summoning replacement workers when unionized workers strike. Employer groups have lobbied states to enact more so-called “right-to-work” laws that bar unions from requiring dues from workers they represent. A recent Supreme Court opinion delivered by the court’s five Republican appointees has extended the principle of “right-to-work” to public employees.

Today, fewer than 7% of private-sector workers are unionized, and public-employee unions are in grave jeopardy, not least because of the Supreme Court ruling. The declining share of total US income going to the middle since the late 1960s – defined as 50% above and 50% below the median – correlates directly with that decline in unionization. (See chart below).

Perhaps even more significantly, the share of total income going to the richest 10 percent of Americans over the last century is almost exactly inversely related to the share of the nation’s workers who are unionized. (See chart below). When it comes to dividing up the pie, most American workers today have little or no say. The pie is growing but they’re getting only the crumbs.

What happened to antitrust

Over the same period time, antitrust enforcement has gone into remission. The US government has essentially given a green light to companies seeking to gain monopoly power over digital platforms and networks (Google, Apple, Amazon, Facebook); wanting to merge into giant oligopolies (pharmaceuticals, health insurers, airlines, seed producers, food processors, military contractors, Wall Street banks, internet service providers); or intent on creating local monopolies (food distributors, waste disposal companies, hospitals).

This means workers are spending more on such goods and services than they would were these markets more competitive. It’s exactly as if their paychecks were cut. Concentrated economic power has also given corporations more ability to hold down wages, because workers have less choice of whom to work for. And it has let companies impose on workers provisions that further weaken their bargaining power, such as anti-poaching and mandatory arbitration agreements.

This great shift in bargaining power, from workers to corporations, has pushed a larger portion of national income into profits and a lower portion into wages than at any time since the second world war. In recent years, most of those profits have gone into higher executive pay and higher share prices rather than into new investment or worker pay. Add to this the fact that the richest 10% of Americans own about 80% of all shares of stock (the top 1% owns about 40%), and you get a broader picture of how and why inequality has widened so dramatically.

What happened to politics

Another consequence: corporations and wealthy individuals have had more money to pour into political campaigns and lobbying, while labor unions have had far less. In 1978, for example, congressional campaign contributions by labor Political Action Committees were on par with corporate PAC contributions. But since 1980, corporate PAC giving has grown at a much faster clip, and today the gulf is huge.

It is no coincidence that all three branches of the federal government, as well as most state governments, have become more “business-friendly” and less “worker-friendly” than at any time since the 1920s. As I’ve noted, Congress recently slashed the corporate tax rate from 35% to 21%.

Meanwhile, John Roberts’ supreme court has more often sided with business interests in cases involving labor, the environment, or consumers than has any Supreme Court since the mid-1930s. Over the past year it not only ruled against public employee unions but also decided that workers cannot join together in class action suits when their employment contract calls for mandatory arbitration.

The federal minimum wage has not been increased since 2009, and is now about where it was in 1950 when adjusted for inflation. Trump’s labor department is busily repealing many rules and regulations designed to protect workers.

The combination of high corporate profits and growing corporate political power has created a vicious cycle: higher profits have generated more political influence, which has altered the rules of the game through legislative, congressional, and judicial action – enabling corporations to extract even more profit. The biggest losers, from whom most profits have been extracted, have been average workers.

America’s shift from farm to factory was accompanied by decades of bloody labor conflict.The shift from factory to office and other sedentary jobs created other social upheaval.

The more recent shift in bargaining power from workers to large corporations – and consequentially, the dramatic widening of inequalities of income, wealth, and political power – has had a more unfortunate and, I fear, more lasting consequence: an angry working class vulnerable to demagogues peddling authoritarianism, racism, and xenophobia.

The Renewable Energy Jobs Myth

Posted on July 18, 2018

One of the largest myths about addressing climate change is that transitioning to renewable energy from fossil fuels (especially coal) will create a net loss of American jobs.

However, renewable energy is doing the opposite of putting Americans out of work. The New York Times reported that in 2016 coal was responsible for 160,119 jobs. In contrast solar employed more than double that amount (373,807 Americans).

The number of renewable jobs is also expected to grow significantly in the coming years. Last year, Business Insider reported that “solar and wind jobs are growing at a rate 12 times as fast as the rest of the US economy and… 46% of large firms have hired additional workers to address issues of sustainability over the past two years.”

In addition to renewables’ contribution to overall employment in the United States, there are a number of other economic benefits to American workers when we encourage growth in the renewable energy industry:

Geographic Distribution

While fossil fuel jobs tend to be concentrated in a few states (the vast majority of jobs in coal exist in West Virginia or Wyoming.), renewable energy jobs are spread out around the country. Program Director Liz Delaney at the Environmental Defense Fund points out that “These jobs [in the renewable energy sector] are widely geographically distributed, they’re high paying, they apply to both manufacturing and professional workers, and there are a lot of them.”

Supporting and encouraging the renewable energy industry will help hundreds of thousands of Americans find jobs all across the country. These are not simply installation jobs either, maintenance is a large part of the renewable energy industry.

Small Businesses

Environmental Defense Fund Program Director Delaney also mentions that “70% of the 2.2 million Americans who work in jobs related to energy efficiency are employed by companies with 10 employees or fewer.” These are small businesses, hiring American workers, in one of the fastest growing sectors of the economy. In addition, according to Delaney these jobs are also more difficult to outsource because “many sustainability jobs involve installation, maintenance, and construction.” The renewable energy sector is encouraging small business development in America.

Ultimately, encouraging the development of the renewable energy sector is the best path forward for America. Concerns about lost jobs in the fossil fuel and coal industries are legitimate and important to recognize, but those lost jobs should not hinder progress towards a renewable future. This is why training programs should be encouraged to support fossil fuel workers move to other sectors or be trained in budding renewable technology. The New York Times reports that “In Wyoming, home to the nation’s most productive coal region by far, the American subsidiary of a Chinese maker of wind turbines is putting together a training program for technicians in anticipation of a large power plant it expects to supply. And in West Virginia, a nonprofit outfit called Solar Holler… is working with another group, Coalfield Development, to train solar panel installers and seed an entire industry.” These successful test cases demonstrate that America can work towards renewable energy while also supporting and training workers to transition from fossil fuels to renewables in the same way that America is transitioning.

The claim that renewable energy is a job killer or a drain on our economy is a myth, perpetrated by the fossil-fuel business and the politicians who do their bidding. Don’t fall for it. Renewable energy is the path forward for American jobs and the future of our planet.

The Private Sector & Climate Change: Holding Corporations Accountable

Posted on July 16, 2018

The future or our planet depends on us taking action against climate change. The United States of America needs to take a closer look at the economic policies that encourage and allow companies to contribute to climate change and global warming.

There are a number of actions that our country could be taking to reduce our carbon footprint and lessen the progress of climate change, however, there are significant barriers in place that hinder these efforts.

Many of these barriers stem from corporate action. Companies that benefit from the continued use of energy sources that contribute to climate change have a vested interest in hindering the progress of solutions that will move us away from the status quo. Below are a few examples of how corporations have done this:

In the six years prior to 2017, rooftop solar panel installations grew by as much as 900% in the United States. Each year, more and more Americans were taking steps to install solar panels on their roofs, lessen their carbon footprint, and contribute excess energy back into the grid to further diminish the carbon footprint of others who could not afford solar panels. The New York Times reports that in 2017, growth in solar panel installations came “to a shuttering stop.” This was largely because of “a concerted and well-funded lobbying campaign by traditional utilities, which have been working in state capitals across the country to reverse incentives for homeowners to install solar panels.”

In addition, Instead of cutting residents a break for helping solve the climate crisis, the utility companies —led by the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) and the Edison Electric Institute (whose lobbying efforts ratepayers actually underwrite)—are lobbying for the end of “net-metering” laws that let customers sell excess power they generate back to the grid.

Moreover, lobbying is frequently combined with political contributions to, and coordination with politicians.  Arizona, whose capital lies in the “Valley of the Sun,” has incredible potential for solar power. However, according to Tuscon.com last year in May, “A federal grand jury has indicted a former state utility regulator and his wife for taking bribes.” The former regulator took those bribes for approving a rate hike for the areas utility company. Despite this indictment, coordination between politicians and utilities in Arizona has not stopped. For instance, environmental groups in Arizona have proposed a constitutional amendment to the Arizona ballot that would require that 50% of Arizona’s energy needs be met with renewable energy sources by 2030. Inside Climate News reports that “a senate committee passed a separate bill—which an APS spokeswoman said the utility had proposed—that would add a second ballot initiative with a nearly identical title” The most recent bill has similar language to the one proposed by environmentalists but includes a “safety valve” that would not allow full implementation of the bill. This approach is designed to confuse and halt progress toward renewable energy.

Arizona is not the only state that has experienced corporate lobbying against climate change solutions, nor is net metering the only issue where corporations have succeeded in moving forward with policies and activities that demonstratively harm the environment. For instance, fracking continues despite numerous studies that show significant damage to the environment and public health.

There are a number of ways that we can hold corporations accountable and stop actions that negatively affect the environment.

Get Money Out of Politics

Too frequently, our politicians are able to be swayed by campaign contributions that lead to decisions that harm the American people, and put the future of our planet in jeopardy.  It is all too easy to find the enormous contributions made by companies that contribute to our carbon footprint:

According to Open Secrets: Oil and gas companies have so far contributed over $14 million to all candidates in the 2018 election cycle, electric utilities have contributed over $11 million, natural gas pipeline companies have contributed almost $2 million, and coal mining companies have contributed over $800 thousand.

If we get money out of politics legislators might be more likely to vote for policies and ideas that benefit their constituents, the environment, and the world.

Taxes That Reflect The True Cost of Pollution 

A “Carbon Tax” is traditionally considered an “economist’s solution” to fighting climate change. In short, the Carbon Tax Center describes that “A carbon tax is a fee imposed on the burning of carbon-based fuels.” There are two strong arguments for why a carbon tax is both necessary and would work.

  • It holds carbon producers and consumers accountable for the damage that their actions have on the environment. To put that damage in perspective, National Geographic reports that “Extreme weather, made worse by climate change, along with the health impacts of burning fossil fuels, has cost the U.S. economy at least $240 billion a year over the past ten years.” Economics Help describes that “The idea of a tax is to make consumers and producers pay the full social cost of producing pollution.” Money raised by the government from this tax could be used to finance initiatives that will further reduce carbon emissions (e.g. subsidizing renewable energy or carbon capture.)
  • It creates incentives to for both consumers and producers to act in ways that will reduce their carbon footprint. Producers may invest in ideas that will reduce their carbon emissions to avoid paying as much in taxes. Price increases on items or utilities that include this carbon tax may result in consumers looking to alternative energy sources, or consuming less.

Economics Help describes that “the social marginal cost (SMC) of producing the good is greater than the private marginal cost (PMC) The difference is the external cost of the pollution. The tax shifts the supply curve to S2 and therefore, consumers are forced to pay the full social marginal cost. This reduces the quantity consumed to Q2, which is the socially efficient outcome (because the SMC=SMB)”  Therefore, the tax adjusts the price of good to take into account the harm that it is doing.

Carbon Taxes are also proven to have worked elsewhere in the world. British Columbia imposed a carbon tax of 10 Canadian dollars per ton of carbon dioxide in 2008 and then raised that tax to 30 Canadian dollars per ton by 2012. The New York Times reports that the tax “reduced emissions by 5 to 15 percent with ‘negligible effects on aggregate economic performance… It encouraged people to drive somewhat less and be more careful about heating and cooling their homes. Businesses invested in energy efficiency measures and switched to less polluting fuels.”

Get the Incentives Right

Each year, the U.S. government subsidizes a range of economic activities. It is important that those subsidies encourage economic activity that will help reduce our carbon footprint and climate change.

Unfortunately, many subsidies support industries that are contributing to climate change. Researchers at Oil Change International recently found that “Government giveaways in the form of permanent tax breaks to the fossil fuel industry – one of which is over a century old – are seven times larger than those to the renewable energy sector.” These fossil fuel subsidies, including both federal subsidies and state subsidies, total to $20 billion annually.

That said, the renewable energy industry has also received a number of subsidies through the years (varying though different administrations and not to the level of those for the fossil fuel industry). These subsidies have contributed to substantial growth in the renewable energy sector. Eighteen percent of the United States energy needs are now provided by renewable energy. The Environmental and Energy Study Institute states that the U.S. has reduced its emissions “by about 760 million metric tons since 2005.” The increase in renewable energy usage has contributed significantly to that reduction.

These subsidies for renewable energy There are also other benefits to renewable energy subsidies. Quartz Media reported that “the fossil fuels not burnt because of wind and solar energy helped avoid between 3,000 and 12,700 premature deaths in the US between 2007 and 2015” and that “the US saved between $35 billion and $220 billion in that period because of avoided deaths, fewer sick days, and climate-change mitigation.” 

Incentives need to reflect economic activities that will help the environment, Americans, and the world, not harm them.

Get the Penalties Right

While incentives are important for companies that are working to help the environment, it is equally important to include penalties for companies that are harming the environment.

Most Americans are familiar with the largest oil spills in the United States like the BP oil spill, also called the Deepwater Horizon oil spill, in 2010. However, large spills that get covered in the news are only a portion of the problem. According to the latest data from the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, excluding the BP oil spill, 287,416 barrels of oil (or 12 million gallons of oil) were spilled in the U.S. between 1964 and 2015. That equals over two hundred thousand gallons of oil a year. The BP oil spill added another 4.9 million barrels of oil spilled, totaling over two hundred million gallons of oil. (There are 42 gallons of oil in a barrel.)

A number of news organizations reported in 2015 that BP would pay more than $20 billion in settlement claims as punishment for the Deepwater Horizon oil spill. The Justice Department called the settlement historic and quoted Attorney General Loretta Lynch in saying “Building on prior actions against BP and its subsidiaries by the Department of Justice, this historic resolution is a strong and fitting response to the worst environmental disaster in American history…BP is receiving the punishment it deserves, while also providing critical compensation for the injuries it caused to the environment and the economy of the Gulf region.”

However, when you dig deeper into that settlement, that “historic” amount of money isn’t so large when you take into account U.S. tax laws that allow corporations to write off natural resource damage payments, restoration, and reimbursement of government costs. Forbes reports that ultimately “BP should be able to deduct the vast majority, a whopping $15.3 billion, on its U.S. tax return. That means American taxpayers are contributing quite a lot to this settlement, whether they know it or not.”

In other cases, companies are given penalties that can be considered negligible when their annual earnings are taken into account. The Real News reports that “In the last 12 years, Marathon Petroleum Corporation, who manage one of the largest petroleum pipeline networks in the U.S., has had 61 incidents… including recent spill of 42,000 gallons of diesel. In the same week they had to pay A fine of three hundred thousand dollars for another spill last year.” In reference to this three hundred thousand dollar fine, Sierra Club’s Jodi Perras pointed out that Marathon is “a 13.8 billion dollar company…. they will expect to have a 330 million dollar profit this year. And so they are paying $335,000 for that spill in 2016. That’s pennies to a company like that.” Ultimately, Marathon Petroleum Corporation is being fined 0.1% of their annual profits.

Penalties should be large enough to encourage constructive steps towards reducing future accidents and harm to the environment, and when they are large enough, the burden to pay them should be placed on the company, not taxpayers.