The Issues of Our Time

October 24, 2022 - The Nett Report

Oct 24, 2022

Every other week The Nett Report provides readers with thoughtful perspectives useful to navigating life in a changing world. Links to past issues can be found here (recent) and here (past two years).

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The Issues of Our Time

"The writer’s role is to menace the public’s conscience. He must have a position, a point of view. He must see the arts as a vehicle of social criticism, and he must focus on the issues of his time."- Rod Serling

On the topics we write about. Some time ago, in a survey, our readers wisely advised us to write on four topics:

The political divide,
Climate change,
The future of work / the economy, and
Covid-19

At the time, the relationship between those topics were unclear. But as time goes by it is more apparent how climate affects the political divide and the economy, how Covid affects the economy, and how the economy affects the political divide. This makes me think that these four topics, above all others, are the issues of our time. What do you think? Thank you for your insight and for reading The Nett Report!

Quote - the writer’s role

"The writer’s role is to menace the public’s conscience. He must have a position, a point of view. He must see the arts as a vehicle of social criticism and he must focus on the issues of his time." - Rod Serling, from As I Knew Him

The Political Divide

“In the real world, you must go along. You must cooperate and compromise. You cannot bend the worlds to your morals.” — from Golden Son by Pierce Brown

Interactive map shows safest and most dangerous countries to visit

A map published by Global Guardian, a firm specializing in travel risk, shows the risk ratings and geopolitical conflict zones of countries around the world. The map indicates the likelihood of escalation and the potential impact of the conflict.

Ukraine and Russia: the world will not be the same as it was before

An insightful interview with Fiona Hill, former senior director for European and Russian affairs on the National Security Council, in the October 17, 2022, issue of Politico, revealed her belief that “what Putin was trying to do was not only seize Ukraine but destroy the current world order. And she recognized from the start that Putin would use the threat of nuclear conflict to try to get his way.” She says Putin always doubles down and “gives himself no way out except to pursue the original goals he had when he went in, which is the dismemberment of Ukraine and Russia annexing its territory. And he’s still trying to adapt his responses to setbacks on the battlefield.” She believes that the Ukrainian war is the “the third great power conflict in the European space in a little over a century. It’s the end of the existing world order. Our world is not going to be the same as it was before.”

What is Putin’s escape hatch? JFK on nuclear war

Given Putin’s need to avoid humiliation and Fiona Hill’s explanation of his behavior, what is his escape hatch? And, with his talk of nuclear war becoming more frequent in regard to the Ukrainian conflict, it might be useful to reflect on the words of President John F. Kennedy. “Above all, while defending our own vital interests, nuclear powers must avert those confrontations which bring an adversary to a choice of either a humiliating retreat or a nuclear war. To adopt that kind of course in the nuclear age would be evidence only of the bankruptcy of our policy--or of a collective death-wish for the world.”

Conservatives asked to become radicals and counter-revolutionaries

The Federalist, a conservative publication with the catch phrase “be lovers of freedom and anxious for the fray,” published an article on October 20, 2022, calling on conservatives to “forge a new political identity that reflects our revolutionary moment.” The article says conservatives have historically wanted “to preserve the rich traditions and civilizational achievements of the past, pass them on to the next generation, and defend them from the left.” Now the article says “conservatives and classical liberals alike rightly believe an ascendent left wants to dismantle our constitutional system and transform America into a woke dystopia.” It says western civilization is dying and the traditions and practices that conservatives champion “are being trampled in the dust.” To address these concerns politically, conservatives “should stop thinking of themselves as conservatives (much less as Republicans) and start thinking of themselves as radicals, restorationists, and counterrevolutionaries.”

Climate Change

“We cannot solve problems with the kind of thinking we employed when we came up with them.” - Albert Einstein

How can we accelerate the inevitable?

James Fallows, long an Atlantic Magazine writer I have admired, now writes regularly on Substack in a series called Breaking the News. In an October 4, 2022, story regarding his community battle to ban gas-powered leaf blowers, he says ”sooner or later, we’ll make these changes. So let’s do it sooner.” One of his community’s watchwords about this issue has been “accelerating the inevitable.” He says previous issues such as limits on smoking or eliminating dangerous pesticides like DDT were obviously issues that needed to be addressed well in advance of regulation. Leaf blowers are not only noisy, but they are what Fallows says are “the dirtiest pieces of machinery still in legal use.” It has been apparent that banning leaf blowers, like many elements of climate change, needed to be addressed for a long time. Why don’t we accelerate needed changes so we can more quickly address the climate crisis?

A new graphic for the water cycle includes us

With drought on our minds in the west, the U.S. Geological Survey has created a new graphic of the water cycle that includes human elements. The previous, much simpler graphic, has been used for decades and showed the relationship between the ocean, the atmosphere, precipitation, and runoff back to the sea. As described in an October 13, 2022, story in EOS, the new diagram features “grazing, urban runoff, domestic and industrial water use, and other human activities.”

E2 - Climate change is costing the economy trillions

Even while discussion swirls about how to afford the cost of implementing actions and adaptions to climate change, a new study from Environmental Entreprenuers (E2) released on October 19, 2022, reports that weather and climate disasters in the form of hurricanes, severe storms, drought, flooding, wildfires, winter storms, and freezing that caused more than $1 billion in damage have totaled more $2.2 trillion in losses since 1980. Annual losses from billion-dollar disasters from 2017 to totaled $765 billion—nearly eight times higher than in the 1980s, and caused more than 4,500 deaths. “Smaller disasters, heat waves, and ongoing business disruptions that are not captured mean the overall economic turmoil is even greater than this analysis details.” The report appropriately notes that “climate change is not the sole driver of natural disasters, but it contributes to their frequency and severity.” Disclaimer: I serve on the state and national advisory committees for E2.

The Transition - people and progress in solving the ocean plastic crisis

OpenOceans Global, the nonprofit I founded in 2007, publishes a monthly newsletter called The Transition. The October issue focuses on how ocean plastic contributes to climate change.

Future of Work / The Economy

Deloitte CEO - ESG in business models will be more successful at driving returns

“The businesses that are looking at where society is going, that are headed toward a decarbonized future, that are headed toward a fundamental prioritization of ESG (environmental, social, and governance) and humanity and the type of society that we all want to live in…those who find a way to put that into their business models will actually be more successful at driving returns for their shareholders in the long term.” - Joe Ucuzoglu, Deloitte CEO

Home prices continue to decline the most in the west

An October 10, 2022, story in Fortune provides an interactive map of the risk in declining home prices across the U.S. in various housing markets. Provided by CoreLogic, the map shows “the biggest declines are occurring in the West Coast, Southwest, and Mountain West markets.”

IMF report shows weakening global economy

An October 2022 International Monetary Fund publication, the Global Financial Stability Report: Navigating the High-Inflation Environment, says “the global economic outlook has deteriorated materially since the April 2022 report Global Financial Stability Report (GFSR).” As a result, “the slowdown of the global economy has intensified.” The report provides a number of downside risks as the reasons, including:

· Higher-than-anticipated inflationary pressures,

· A worse-than-expected slowdown in China,

· Covid-19 outbreaks and lockdowns, and

· Additional spillovers from Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

An October 16, 2022, Wall Street Journal article is similarly pessimistic, adding rising borrowing costs and constrained energy supplies to the list of issues which will heighten chances for recession next year.

Saudis warn of incredibly tight oil supplies

Yahoo News reported in an October 12, 2022, article that Saudi Aramco, the world’s largest oil producer has “issued a dire warning that spare capacity is extremely low.” It further warned that “if China opens up, [the] economy starts improving or the aviation industry starts asking for more jet fuel, you will erode this spare capacity.” This could lead to more spikes in the price of oil. “When you erode that spare capacity the world should be worried. There will be no space for any hiccup — any interruption, any unforeseen events anywhere around the world.” Ironically, this follows the announcement on October 5, 2022, by OPEC that it intends to cut oil supplies by two billion gallons per day, as reported in multiple global outlets.

Covid-19

In recent weeks there has been little new to report about Covid. This issue it came in a flood.

Don’t get Covid – one writer’s experience

Writer James Fallows, in the October 13, 2022, issue of his newsletter Breaking the News, provides his usual insightful perspective on a new issue - what happened to him when he got Covid. With a title, “Don’t get Covid,” he chronicles how the lingering symptoms led him to vitamin B-12 and thoughts on how bits and pieces of evidence can help us to navigate the after-effects of the pandemic.

Government likely to drop payments for Covid-19 testing and treatment in 2023

The Kaiser Family Foundation (KFF) reported on October 18, 2022, that the government will end “purchase and distribution of Covid supplies as government funding is depleted … the public health emergency was recently extended for 90 additional days but is widely expected to end next year. These developments signal a shift in the United States’ response to the pandemic and a transition from government-supplied countermeasures to the commercial market for manufacturing, procurement, and pricing … This transition to the commercial market could curtail access to vaccines (including boosters), treatments, and tests.”

Having food allergies reduces Covid risk by half

An October 17, 2022, story in BestLife, reported on a National Institutes of Health study, “Human Epidemiology and Response to SARS-CoV-2,” that found “individuals who had physician-diagnosed food allergies … developed Covid half as often as those without food allergies.” The study theorizes that people with food allergies have higher rates of type 2 inflammation which “may reduce levels of ACE2 receptors, a protein found on the surface of airway cells. Covid uses the ACE2 receptor to enter cells, so “having fewer of these receptors could limit the virus's entry opportunities.”

Who is more likely to die from Covid? Republicans and whites

Two new studies have uncovered some interesting new data about who is likely to die from Covid. An October 21, 2022, study by the Harvard School of Public Health found “the Covid death rate among Black Americans—which was the highest in the U.S. for many months during the pandemic, due to health disparities, is now lower than that of white Americans.” Another report, a September 2022 working paper by the National Bureau of Economic Research, found that “the excess death rate for Republicans was 5.4 percentage points, or 76%, higher than the excess death rate for Democrats … The gap in excess death rates between Republicans and Democrats is concentrated in counties with low vaccination rates and only materialized after vaccines became widely available.”

New study suggests pandemic started from nature, not a lab

A study reported in Science on October 10, 2022, concludes that the pandemic started in nature (zoonosis). Although the study “recognizes that there are different possible origins … the analysis that found “the peer-reviewed literature overwhelmingly supports the zoonotic hypotheses.” The study appeared in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

The Nett Light-Side

“We are not our station in life. We are us—the sum of what we’ve done, what we want to do, and the people who we keep close.” — from Golden Son by Pierce Brown

What is sound? An interactive explanation

“Invisible and relentless, sound is seemingly just there, traveling through our surroundings to carry beautiful music or annoying noises.” This October 18, 2022, article by Bartosz Ciechanowksi explains what sound is, and how it’s created and propagated using interactive tools.

Tuna rub against sharks to take care of that itch

ScienceAlert on October 20, 2022, reported that tuna and other fish use the rough, sandpaper-like surface of sharks to rub against. “The scratching is likely to remove parasites, dead skin, and other irritants.”

Dodgers upset worst in their history

Los Angeles Times sportswriter Bill Plaschke on October 15, 2022, registered his thoughts on the collapse of the Los Angeles Dodgers when they were upset by the underdog San Diego Padres in the playoffs. Disclaimer: as a Padres fan, I am not neutral on this issue!

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 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.

Nettleton Strategies
www.nettstrategies.com