California is not really American, political discussions in the workplace, how Covid changed the economy, bird flu rising
March 18, 2024 - The Nett Report
Every other week, the award-winning Nett Report provides readers with thoughtful perspectives helpful to navigating life in a changing world. Past issues can be found here (recent) and here (past four years).
Political Divide
Factoid: A national survey for the Los Angeles Times this year found that almost half of Republicans believe that California is “not really American.”
U.S. debt – a contributor to the divide
The U.S. Debt Clock is a dynamic tool that is constantly updating the status of U.S. debt. Government spending is historically one of the generators of the political divide, and this tool provides a factual basis for citizens to assess the current status of debt and dozens of other statistics.
Congressional committees cite different studies based on party
A first-of-its-kind study of 49,000 reports and hearing documents published by committees in the Senate and House of Representatives from 1995 to 2021 revealed that parties rarely cite the same studies. As reported in Science on March 11, 2024, “Committees under Democratic control were almost twice as likely to cite technical papers as panels led by Republicans. And Democrat- and Republican-led committees overwhelmingly cited different papers, with only about 5% of cited papers drawing a reference from both sides at least once during the study period.”
2013 Supreme Court Decision accelerated restrictive voting laws
According to a March 6, 2024, article by historian Heather Cox Richardson in Letters from an American, a 2013 decision by the U.S. Supreme Court known as Shelby County v. Holder “got rid of the part of the Voting Rights Act that required jurisdictions with a history of racial discrimination in voting to get approval from the federal government before changing their voting rules … Since then, states have made it harder to vote; in 2023, at least 14 states enacted 17 restrictive voting laws. A recent study by the Brennan Center of nearly a billion vote records over 14 years shows that the racial voting gap is growing almost twice as fast in places that used to be covered by the preclearance requirement.”
How to handle political discussions in the workplace
Most of us have experienced divisive conversations about politics, whether during family gatherings or social events. They aren’t always comfortable. But what about having those discussions in the workplace? A March 4, 2024, article in Fortune addresses the complexity of handling workplace political discussions.
Future of Work / The Economy
“I defend your right to smoke a cigarette, [and] I’ll defend your right to buy a Bitcoin. I will personally never buy Bitcoin, and I do think it’s a risk if you are a buyer. When governments look at all this stuff, why do they put up with it?” – Jamie Dimon, JP Morgan Chase CEO, as reported in Fortune on March 12, 2024
“Many of you are still having difficulty finding qualified workers, and all of you are experiencing rapidly rising labor costs. This comes at a time when you have no ability to pass these higher costs along. In other words, you cannot afford to lose good workers, but it is becoming so expensive that you cannot afford to keep them either.” – Bill Wood, Economics Editor, Plastics News, on March 13, 2024
The three jobs most being replaced by AI
An analysis of 5 million jobs listed on the freelancing site Upwork from a month before ChatGPT was released in November 2022 to just last month provides some insights into how artificial intelligence is affecting the job market. As reported in Inc. on March 13, 2024, writing, translation and customer service jobs showed the most decline. "The number of writing jobs declined 33%, translation jobs declined 19%, and customer service jobs declined 16%." Jobs that increased in the same time period included video editing/production (up 39%), graphic design (up 8%), and Web design (up 10%).
11 charts – how Covid changed the economy
The Washington Post, on March 16, 2024, provided a series of interactive charts showing how 11 economic indicators changed in the four years since the onset of Covid. The indicators include wages, gasoline prices, home prices, air travel, consumer sentiment, and more.
Boeing airplane troubles could lead to canceled flights
Boeing has had a series of problems with airplanes that have resulted in a slowdown in deliveries of new airplanes. According to a March 14, 2024, story in Airline Business, this is a multi-year issue. “Southwest Airlines chief executive Bob Jordan cited Boeing 737 Max delivery delays as he described the carrier’s highly constrained 2024 growth plan. MarketWatch on March 12, 2024, reported that Southwest Airlines plans to reduce capacity and re-optimize schedules “as a result of Boeing’s continued challenges.”
Health
One billion of the world’s 8 billion people are obese
A special report by The Economist on March 1, 2024, identifies the obesity capitals of the world and finds that “that waistlines are widening almost everywhere.” The story reported these details:
There are higher obesity rates in low- and middle-income countries than in many high-income ones.
More than 60% of adults in Polynesia and Micronesia were living with obesity in 2022—the highest rate in the world.
Countries in Africa and the Middle East, historically associated with undernourishment, are now also struggling with weight gain.
Turkey was the obesity capital of Europe for women, with a rate of 43%. For men it was Romania, at 38%.
French women and men were the most slender in the region—only 10% were considered obese.
In America, 44% of women and 42% of men had a BMI over 30.
South American wildlife deaths from bird flu are raising alarms
Reuters is reporting that an increase in deaths of South American birds and marine mammals from bird flu is raising alarms about the possibility of transmission to humans. A March 13, 2024, story reports that since 2022, a new strain of the H5N1 bird flu “has already killed a handful of dolphins in Chile and Peru, some 50,000 seals and sea lions along the coasts, and at least half a million birds regionwide … Since the virus was first detected in Colombia in October 2022, there have been two known cases in humans on the continent, one each in Ecuador and Chile … H5N1 bird flu is deadly to humans in roughly 60% of cases worldwide.” The 35 countries in the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO) plan to launch the world's first regional commission to oversee bird flu monitoring and response efforts.
Climate Change
“Utilities support clean energy only insofar as they can own and profit from it. Under all other scenarios, they oppose it.” - David Pomerantz, executive director of the Energy and Policy Institute, a utility industry watchdog group, from the Boiling Point newsletter, March 7, 2024
California solar industry devastated by new net metering rates
A story in PV Magazine on March 12, 2024, reports that “a drastic revision in California’s net metering program has ruptured the industry overnight and is affecting everyone from installers to financiers to makers of power electronics.” The new net metering rules took effect on April 15, 2023, and reduced payments made to solar customers by 75%. “By late 2023, rooftop solar installations had fallen 80%, driving more than 17,000 layoffs – 22% of the industry.” Solar installation firm Sunrun reported losing more than $1 billion in its most recent quarter.
A regulatory loophole drove sales of SUVs
Why did SUV’s become so popular? According to a March 11, 2024, story in The Economist, a loophole in the 1975 government-imposed fuel standards exempted light trucks, including SUVs. “Because making light trucks held to lower environmental standards was more profitable than building small clean cars, automakers marketed big models, including SUVs, enthusiastically.” The USEPA is expected to cut the emissions gap between automobiles and light trucks to 22% by 2032, “forcing manufacturers to use more efficient engines in their big models, which will raise the price of big cars relative to smaller ones.”
The Nett Light-Side
"You define your own life. Don't let other people write your script.” – Oprah Winfrey
Sony 2024 photo awards produces stunning images
More than 400,000 entries in the 2024 Sony World Photography Awards resulted in some stunning winning images, according to a March 12, 2024 story in Peta Pixel. Winners included Caiman Crunch (above) by Ian Ford of the United Kingdom in the Natural World & Wildlife category.
Rome’s Trevi Fountain collects coins for charity
For hundreds of years, the world-famous Trevi Fountain in Rome has drawn tourists, many who toss coins into the fountain and make a wish. According to a March 6, 2024, photo essay in Reuters, the coins are “taken to the Rome division of the worldwide Catholic charity Caritas, which counts the bucketfuls of change and uses them to fund a food bank, soup kitchen, and welfare projects.” In 2022, Caritas collected $1.52 million) from the fountain’s coins.
About Carl Nettleton
Carl Nettleton is an award-winning writer, speaker, thought partner, facilitator, and subject-matter expert regarding water, climate, sustainability, the ocean, and binational U.S.-Mexico border affairs. Nettleton Strategies, the consultancy he founded in 2007, is a trusted source of analysis and advice on issues at the forefront of public policy, business, and the environment. He helps people and organizations to think strategically about their options for change. He is also the founder of OpenOceans Global, a nonprofit addressing ocean plastic in a new way.