Trump verdict, D-Day and plastic, Milky Way photos, Covid and cancer, plunging birth rates, natural gas demand, copper shortage and EVs, what your car knows
June 10, 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).
The Nett Light-Side
”To live is the rarest thing in the world. Most people just exist.” - Oscar Wilde
Massive public art installation uses light to make interstellar village
An art installation in Paso Robles, California, celebrates Los Angeles-based art duo HYBYCOZO’s 10th anniversary by creating an interstellar village using luminous polyhedral shapes according to a story in My Modern Met on May 22, 2024. HYBYCOZO is the collaborative studio of artists Serge Beaulieu and Yelena Filipchuk.
Contest reveals the best Milky Way photographs
A story in Colossal on May 21, 2024, reveals the winners of the Milky Way Photographer of the Year competition by Capture the Atlas. The winners were chosen from more than 5,000 entries.
An early version of flexible plastic covering rifles during D-Day landing
The annual recognition of D-Day has just passed, but the timing is still right for a story about pliofilm, a plastic material used to cover rifles the soldiers carried as they moved ashore. According to a June 6, 2024, story in Plastics News, “pliofilm was an early version of flexible plastic placed on guns to protect the firing systems from seawater and sand.”
Political Divide
On the Trump hush money verdict, which view is an illusion?
How do we rectify the following views about the Donald Trump hush money verdict from two political perspectives, like two trains passing in America’s age of political darkness?
“The historic felony conviction of former President Donald Trump marks a meaningful victory for the beleaguered American legal system and a win for truth over falsehood.” - Noah Feldman, Bloomberg Opinion Columnist, May 31, 2024
“It does mark the end of the fairest justice system in the world. Anyone who defends this verdict is a danger to you and your family.” - Tucker Carlson, Tucker on X , May 30, 2024
According to an IPSOS poll, on May 31, 2024:
52% of Americans say that New York's prosecution of Donald Trump on charges of criminally covering up a hush money payment … was mainly about enforcing laws fairly and upholding the rule of law.
45% say the prosecution was mainly a politically motivated attempt to prevent Trump from returning to the White House.
Perceptions of this are driven almost entirely by partisanship, with Democrats believing it was about upholding the rule of law (89%) and Republicans believing it was politically motivated (87%).
Maybe all we have left is our instincts about which is true.
“Red is grey and yellow white, you decide which is right and which is an illusion.” – The Moody Blues, Late Lament, Nights in White Satin.
Your car and apps are analyzing your driving habits and patterns
I recall a meeting I had with the deputy assistant secretary for the U.S. Department of Transportation during the Bush administration. I met with him to discuss the possibility of developing a joint funding mechanism for supporting a unified transportation center in conjunction with San Diego’s airport expansion. The conversation turned to highway taxes, which are based on fuel consumption, and how they were declining as cars and trucks achieved better miles per gallon and electric vehicles were becoming viable. He said the ultimate funding answer was to base transportation taxes on road use – essentially a tax on miles driven. We both agreed that privacy issues would make that a likely non-starter as people would feel they were being tracked. Fast forward to today, and maybe privacy has secretly become a non-issue. According to the New York Times The Morning newsletter on June 9, 2024, information on your driving can now “be collected by your car or by apps on your smartphone” without you knowing about it. Insurers are getting driving data directly from people’s cars, and apps like Gas Buddy, Life360, and My Radar “have opt-in driving analysis features that offer insight into things like safety and fuel usage.”
Climate Change
Spring of 2024 most severe weather season since 2011
“This spring marked the most intense severe weather season since 2011! As of yesterday, there have been 1,172 tornado reports. And with around 950 confirmed tornadoes and counting — 2024 is currently on pace to be a top 5 most active year of tornadoes on record. April and May confirmed tornadoes were nearly double the monthly average. May is typically the peak of tornado season, but June is usually the second most active month. See the chart above depicting tornado reports through June 8, 2024.” From Monarch Weather Weekly, June 9, 2024.
Copper shortage might impact renewable energy goals
A May 28, 2024, story in TheStreet reports on a study by Cornell and the University of Michigan professors that says “copper cannot be mined quickly enough to make the wires and other components needed to fulfill the current goals toward renewable energy.“ The story quotes on of the authors as saying, ““A normal Honda Accord needs about 40 pounds of copper. The same battery electric Honda Accord needs almost 200 pounds of copper. Onshore wind turbines require about 10 tons of copper, and in offshore wind turbines, that amount can more than double … the amount of copper needed is essentially impossible for mining companies to produce.”
Vermont legislation to require fossil fuel companies to pay for damages from GHG emissions
The Associated Press reported on May 31, 2024, that “Vermont has become the first state to enact a law requiring fossil fuel companies to pay a share of the damage caused by climate change.” The legislation requires the state treasurer and the Agency of Natural Resources to “provide a report by January 15, 2026, on the total cost to Vermonters and the state from the emission of greenhouse gases from January 1, 1995, to December 31, 2024. The assessment would look at the effects on public health, natural resources, agriculture, economic development, housing, and other areas.”
Virginia to end use of California electric vehicle mandate and revert to federal emissions standards
Contrary to Vermont’s hard position on climate change, Virginia has determined it will no longer follow California’s Advanced Clean Cars mandate that Virginia adopted in 2021. According to a press release by Virginia’s Office of the Attorney General on June 4, 2024, the California Air Resources Board (CARB) recently adopted regulations that would require 100% of new cars sold in Model Year 2035 to be electric vehicles. Virginia Governor Glenn Youngkin said,“ The idea that government should tell people what kind of car they can or can’t purchase is fundamentally wrong. Virginians deserve the freedom to choose which vehicles best fit the needs of their families and businesses.” Attorney General Jason Miyares concurred saying, “Mandates like California’s are unworkable and out of touch with reality, and thankfully the law does not bind us to their regulations.”
Future of Work / The Economy
Oil demand is declining but natural gas investment to grow by 50%
According to a May 30, 2024, Goldman Sachs Intelligence Report, investment in the global natural gas market is expected to grow 50% by 2029. This is in the face of declining oil investments which “shows signs of peaking in non-OPEC countries.” Goldman Sachs is “projecting an 80% increase in global LNG supply by 2030, which will be driven by new projects in North America and Qatar.” Based on what’s already under construction, “the U.S. will double energy capacity” and is going to “bring an end to the energy crises that began a couple of years ago, following European sanctions on Russian gas after the invasion of Ukraine, and work to lower natural gas prices in Europe and Asia."
Birth rates are falling in the six most populous countries
According to a story posted on the Visual Capitalist, the six most populous countries in the world all have significantly declining birth rates. Fertility rates are falling, too. “According to the UN, in 1990, the average number of births per woman globally was 3.2. By 2019, this had fallen to 2.5 births per woman; by 2050, it is expected to decline further to 2.2 births.”
Could working longer help America dodge a retirement crisis?
A May 31, 2024, Moneywise article took an in-depth look at whether encouraging people to work longer would decrease pressure on the U.S. retirement system. BlackRock CEO Larry Fink suggested it would, but labor economist Teresa Ghilarducci said “If you think … that people working longer - maybe just one year or two years longer - will mean that people won’t go into their old age without being downwardly mobile into poverty after being a middle-class worker, or you think working longer will maintain people’s living standards, you’ll be wrong.” Ghilarducci “claims this ‘inequality’ in society makes this common ‘live longer, work longer’ argument impossible for a large portion of Americans.”
Health
Lack of studies to determine if Covid causes unusual cancers
An unusual uptick in the number of patients with “unusual cancers” has doctors wondering if the Covid pandemic played a role in triggering these cases. A Washington Post story on June 6, 2024, highlights the differing opinions on the matter with one doctor saying “We are completely under-investigating this virus.” However, “There is “no real-world data linking the virus to cancer, and some scientists remain skeptical.” The story says it will likely be years before answers emerge.
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.