What is it about pies?
November 21, 2022 - The Nett Report
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). Please share, comment, and use the like button!
Poll Results. Last week we asked readers to predict the outcome of the midterms, and you nailed it!
Which party will control the Senate?
57% - Democrats
43% - Republicans
Which party will control the House?
56% Republicans
44% Democrats
Thanks for the responses! See this week’s poll at the end of this issue.
What is it about pies?
Thanksgiving is this week, and for many of us our thoughts turn to pies.
“Yes, this shall be our party. And we must have a pie. Stress cannot exist in the presence of a pie.” – from David Mamet’s comedy “Boston Marriage.”
Wishing all our readers a stress-free and happy Thanksgiving!
OpenOceans Global updates
I hope readers will forgive my occasional updates on the nonprofit I founded.
11/9/2022 – “Ocean plastic waste is a problem with a GIS solution,” presented at the Esri Ocean, Weather & Climate GIS Forum
11/19/2022 - The Transition monthly newsletter was published, focused on people and progress on the ocean plastic crisis.
12/6/2022 – “Ocean Plastic Pollution and Politics - An International Perspective,” open to the public at the San Diego World Affairs Council. I hope to see you there.
Fall 2022 - "A Global Approach to Preventing Plastic from Reaching the Ocean," published in Esri’s ArcNews magazine, which reaches more than one million readers in print and online versions combined.
Climate Change
“Maybe that’s just the nature of us, ever wishing for things that were and could be rather than things that are and will be.”- Morning Star by Pierce Brown
“Success is not final; failure is not fatal; it is the courage to continue that counts.” - Winston S. Churchill
United Nations climate talks end with mixed results
The United Nations climate change conference ended on Sunday, November 20, 2022, in Sharm el Sheikh, Egypt, with mixed results. The official press release from the U.N. provided these highlights:
A breakthrough agreement to provide “loss and damage” funding for vulnerable countries hit hard by climate disasters.
Countries delivered a package of decisions that reaffirmed their commitment to limit global temperature rise to 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels.
Significant progress on adaptation, with governments agreeing on the way to move forward on the Global Goal on Adaptation.
Concern that the goal of developed countries to mobilize jointly USD 100 billion per year by 2020 has not yet been met.
Transformation to a low-carbon economy is expected to require investments of at least USD 4-6 trillion a year, requiring a swift and comprehensive transformation of the financial system and its structures and processes, engaging governments, central banks, commercial banks, institutional investors, and other financial actors.
A story in the New York Times on November 20, 2022, also reported on the loss and damage agreement, but said, ”the agreements did far less to address the greenhouse gas emissions that are the root cause of the crisis.” The Times also reported that “the deal did not go much beyond what countries agreed to last year at U.N. climate talks in Glasgow.” India and 80 other countries wanted language “that would have called for a ‘phase-down’ of all fossil fuels, not just coal, but also oil and gas.“ That effort was blocked by major oil producers like Canada and Saudi Arabia, as well as by China.
The Political Divide
“It's a semi-true story. Believe it or not. I made up a few things, and there's some I forgot. But the life and the tellin' are both real to me, and they all run together and turn out to be a semi-true story.” – Jimmy Buffet, A Semi-True Story
The Firehose of Falsehood: The Russian style of propaganda for an age of information abundance
New York University Professor of Journalism Jay Rosen on November 1, 2022, synthesized and reposted on Twitter the basic elements of a 2016 Rand Corporation study of Russian propaganda.
High volume and multi-channel approach
Shameless in its willingness to broadcast lies
·No commitment to or requirement for consistency
Rapid, continuous, and repetitive messaging
The point is not to persuade but to confuse and overwhelm
Assumes a low trust environment and lowers it further
The number of arguments matters more than their quality
Drown out competing messages by the sheer volume
The back story of “Make America Great Again”
I missed this one on January 18, 2017, in the Washington Post - the back story of how the “Make America Great Again” slogan came to be. The most telling part is this: “The slogan itself was not entirely original. Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush had used “Let’s Make America Great Again” in their 1980 campaign.”
Is resentment the most powerful political force?
This longish but fascinating article in The Atlantic Daily newsletter on November 7, 2022, hypothesizes that “resentment is perhaps the most powerful political force in the modern world.” Using Elon Musk, Donald Trump, Peter Thiel, and Steve Bannon as case studies, the article says these and other “prominent and wealthy Americans … are at war not so much with the American political system, whose institutions they are trying to capture, but with a dominant culture that they seem to believe is withholding its respect from them. Politics is merely the instrument of revenge.”
Future of Work / The Economy
“These are the moments when CEOs’ actions really matter. And companies that have acted with intentionality and courage have really used moments like this to pull ahead of their competition,” -Asutosh Padhi, North America managing partner, McKinsey
CEOs remain moderately optimistic about their company outlook
The Fall 2022 Fortune/Deloitte CEO Survey found that ”CEOs’ outlook on the broader economy worsened significantly, but by and large, they remain cautiously optimistic that their own organizations can continue to perform well in the midst of uncertainty and change. CEOs remain committed to prioritizing investments in key strategic areas, including talent and digital transformation.”
Taylor Swift's response to ticket debacle shows how to own your brand
Pop singer and businesswoman Taylor Swift had a public relations nightmare on her hands when Ticketmaster canceled ticket sales to her upcoming tour due to “historically unprecedented demand.” Swift’s response on Instagram and republished in a November 19. 2022, Inc. story was what the magazine called a “masterclass in owning your own brand.” Worth reading as she reframes her concerts as “opportunities for us to all get together and sing these songs.”
What is Mastodon, and can it replace Twitter?
With all the turmoil around Elon Musk’s purchase of Twitter, a November 4, 2022, article in Science reports that “many of the thousands of medical and scientific experts on the platform have started to look for alternatives or are considering giving up on social media altogether. Some of those researchers are moving to Mastodon, “a much smaller Twitter rival.” This November 14, 2022, article in ZDNET says “Mastodon isn’t Twitter, but it’s glorious,” and describes how this relatively new open-source platform works.
Covid-19
“Nature has given us all the pieces required to achieve exceptional wellness and health, but has left it to us to put these pieces together.” – Diane McLaren, natural health practitioner and wellness coach
A triple-threat pandemic might not be the viral perfect storm
Concerns have been growing and reported in numerous news outlets that the U.S. could undergo a triple threat pandemic of Covid-19, influenza, and respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) when these three respiratory viruses surge at the same time. Now “a growing body of epidemiological and laboratory evidence offers some reassurance” that these and other respiratory viruses “often interfere with each other,” according to a November 18, 2022, article in Science. “Although waves of each virus may stress emergency rooms and intensive care units, the small clique of researchers who study these viral collisions say there is little chance the trio will peak together and collectively crash hospital systems the way Covid-19 did at the pandemic’s start.”
The pandemic saw 51% increase in teen girls attempting suicide
Mental health is increasingly on the minds of CEOs because of its impact on workplace engagement, presenteeism, productivity, and turnover. According to a November 15, 2022, story in Fortune’s CEO Daily, some of this concern “is clearly a direct effect of Covid.” While comprehensive data is hard to come by, “the data that does exist is shocking.” One example during the pandemic was “a 51% increase of young ladies in their teens presenting in emergency rooms for attempted suicide.”
The Nett Light-Side
NRDC’s 10 tips for a waste-free holiday
On November 20, 2022, the environmental group NRDC published 10 tips for “hosting a wonderful and waste-free holiday.” The tips address food waste, water use, choice of dinnerware, lighting, the Christmas tree, and more.
The sea wolves of Vancouver Island
Having once had the privilege of sharing our home with a German shepherd/wolf hybrid, wolves continue to fascinate me. The Netflix series Island of the Sea Wolves did not disappoint.
Bird maps go in-depth at eBird
If you like maps and you like birds, then the eBird Status and Trends page is for you. A project of The Cornell Lab of Ornithology, eBird’s maps explore and visualize “migration, abundance patterns, range boundaries, and much more.”
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