In October, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (I.P.C.C.) released a sobering report, stating that the threshold temperature (2 degrees Celsius) at which we must keep the planet’s climate below by 2040 might still be too high. Researchers originally believed that we had to keep temperatures below 2 degrees Celsius by 2040 to be somewhat safe. Now, they’re saying we must keep temperatures below 1.5 degrees Celsius by 2040, a conclusion that is harrowing in its implications if it wasn’t already.

What our species needs to do next is clear: we must move faster to a zero emissions society or face food shortages, more intense wildfires, and an exacerbated refugee crisis, just to name a few.

We’ve read the myriad of articles spelling out our impending doom, but what about the solutions? As journalists, editors, and media makers, what are we to make of all this? What can our role be, besides participating in the occasional march?

We can start by changing the ways we’ve defined progress, via the metric of GDP growth. As over 200 scientists stated in an open letter to the EU back in September, economic growth as we currently measure it is environmental unsustainable. We need to reduce our rates of production and consumption, which means we must have different measures for progress and wealth.

This might trigger anxiety for many, including myself, who’ve been raised under the belief that more growth means greater wellbeing. But it shouldn’t. A 2016 study by the Social Progress Initiative concluded that traditional measures such as GDP fail to capture the overall progress of societies.

For instance, countries like Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, and the United Arab Emirates have extremely high GDP per capita rates but lag heavily in social progress indicators like personal freedom and choice, access to advanced education, and tolerance and inclusion.

Contrarily, countries like Uruguay, Chile, and Estonia have much lower GDP per capita rates but rank much higher in social progress indicators like access to healthcare and opportunity.

As Jason Hickel from the Guardian put it so eloquently, an alternative growth model would entail “easing the intensity of our economy, cutting the excesses of the very richest, sharing what we have instead of plundering the Earth more” and, of course, liberating ourselves from ramped consumerism (which makes us more miserable anyway). This does not entail a Ludditian regression into pre-industrial society. It means reevaluating the language we use to define growth.

Hence, there’s another way of looking at it. First off it, GDP growth doesn’t matter as much as we think it does. Media outlets and politicians alike love to use GDP as a buzzword for calculated progress and often employ absurdly hyperbolic language to suggest that something monumental is happening. Prime example: pundits praising the Trump economy’s “uuge” growth rates, how it’s just on fire (“on fire” for whom and for what is never addressed). Yet, economic pundits fail to mention how, for instance, this will directly address wealth inequality or the political disenfranchisement of communities of color and the poor.

Take another case: Nigeria. Traditionally, the rapid growth of Nigeria (now the largest economy in Africa) would elicit ecstatic responses. And indeed, some level of growth in Nigeria is positive. But what’s not in the equation is the fact that millions of Nigerians face hunger and hundreds millions more live below the poverty line. Meanwhile, the top five billionaires in Nigeria have a shared net-worth of about $30 Billion, about $5 Billion more than how much it would take to eradicate extreme poverty at the national level.

The point here is not to say we should stop talking about GDP growth. That’s impossible and undesirable. But we should place less emphasis on it politically. The actual mechanics of what this would mean on the ground via political policy is of course another matter.

As media disseminators, our primary job should be to allow for more open discussions on the alternative ways we can measure and subsequently construct a more environmentally sustainable vision for society. When have you seen a CNN panel discussion on the merits (or de-merits) of “de-growth” policies or the “steady-state economy”; or discussions on the differences between absolute and relative “decoupling”(the rate which economic output uses less energy and raw materials due to increased efficiency.)?

There’s no clear-cut rubric right now and the debate is mostly held in obscure environmental and social science circles. Instead, we should encourage these admittedly uncomfortable and controversial questions to be debated openly in mainstream outlets everywhere and the socio-economic urgency of mitigating climate change to be taken a tad bit more seriously.

 

In the aftermath of the disappearance and murder of Saudi-Arabian journalist Jamal Khashoggi, President Donald Trump said that he “really wants” to give Saudi Prince Mohammed bin Salman the benefit of the doubt.

Despite the Trump administration’s condemnation to whoever was behind the killing, Trump, in an interview with Fox Business, said that Saudi Arabia has “always been a very good ally” and that the cost of severing ties with the oil-based state could cost “500,000 jobs.” In a separate interview with the Wall Street Journal, however, Trump upped the number of job losses to the “millions.”

Trump is alluding here to the arms deal with Saudi Arabia back in 2017, in which $110 billion in arms contracts were signed in a meeting with Prince Salman and his cabinet. The press release stated that the deal would support “tens of thousands of new jobs in the United States,” not quite a million.

Saudi Arabia is currently the biggest purchaser of U.S arms exports, far ahead of the United States’ next biggest clients—Iraq, Australia, the United Arab Emirates, and Qatar. However, a labor market study by the Aerospace Industry Association showed that total A&D exports accounted for about 1.42 million jobs as of 2016, about 0.9% of the total U.S labor force. Private sector defense workers made up even less, at about 0.5%.

Even still, it’s hard to believe that by cancelling the arms deal, pulling back from our longstanding support of the Saudi monarch, or even embargoing them would cost “tens of thousands” of jobs. Plus, if those jobs are in the public sector, why not put tha labor to use in less mass-murderous activities? It is the aerospace industry after-all. Plenty of profitable investments besides weapons can be made there.

But what about the oil? Over the past few years, the United States has become less reliant on foreign oil. We now produce most of our oil in house, exporting far more than we are importing. From 2005 to 2015 alone, U.S reliance on petroleum imports fell from 60% to 25% while exports increased by over 300%.

And even of those imports, Saudi Arabia makes up about 9% of them. Almost half of current imports come from our neighbors Canada and Mexico. Combined with the fact that the U.S is slowly increasing investment in clean energy, one has to ask ‘what the hell does Saudi Arabia have on us’? There is no reason why we shouldn’t be sanctioning the Saudi business community, at the very least for their near-genocidal war against the Yemeni people using our tax dollars. Nor should we play dumb and look the other way with a thug like Salman. The fact that Saudi Arabia’s got dollars invested in AMC, Uber, and Magic Leap shouldn’t prevent us from taking a very elementary moral stance

Back in early September, Governor Jerry Brown signed one of the most ambitious clean energy bills in the country. The bill, entitled SB 100, plans to move California to 100% clean electricity by 2045.

Currently, the state generates about 33 percent of its energy from renewables.

The plan is to hit 50 percent by 2025 (five years earlier than targets set by previous bills), then 60 percent by 2030. Eventually, it should hit 100 percent “zero carbon” by 2045. This would include nuclear power, which is not renewable.

SB100 is not a mandate, but a target goal that would require state agencies, like the Air Resources Board and the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC), to use the 100 percent target as a measurement for long-term planning. It would also further expand existing clean energy technologies.

One major project that’s been underway involves the electrification of transportation, which is the largest contributor to emissions. According to a press release by the CPUC back in May, $738 million have been allocated on furthering already-existing transportation electrification projects and other incentives. Some of these include funds to install 870 infrastructure sites to support the electrification of medium and heavy-duty vehicles.

But the task is still extraordinary. Can the world’s fifth largest economy de-carbonize its entire electric grid in less than 30 years? And what will be the cost?

For instance, renewable energy tends to be extremely intermittent. Solar power can only generate energy when it’s, well, sunny. This is particularly challenging since energy use is greatest at dark. Hence, natural gas is still used to compensate during those intermediary periods.

The use of battery storage units that would capture solar energy for later use is one way to get around this. But, as some critics note, this could be expensive and inefficient compared to the use of natural gas.

In addition, the closure of gas-emitting industries and diesel-fueled transportation could destroy many jobs.

For example, back in 2017, Garcetti offered to bring zero-emission trucks to the port of Los Angeles. The costs of these cleaner trucks were much greater than their diesel-fueled counterparts. The financial burdens subsequently fell on the truck drivers, whom had already been facing cost burdens since the passage of the Clean Trucks Program a decade ago.

As the LA Times editorial noted, clean air goals should be implemented whilst taking into account those it leaves behind.

And the cost of not pursuing more aggressive climate policies is simply all too clear. After all, it is our planet that is at stake.

Fortunately, plenty of studies have shown that the switch to full renewables doesn’t just have to be an emergency measure to save the planet, but an extraordinary progressive model that could be a boon to economies, both locally and globally.

In certain regions in California, the results have proven, thus far, to be quite positive.

A comprehensive study commissioned by the non-profit group Next 10 showed that between 2010 and 2016, Riverside and San Bernardino counties experienced a net benefit of $9.1 billion in direct economic activity and gained 41,000 jobs through the construction of renewable power plants.

When taking into account spillover effects, climate policies resulted in $14.2 billion in economic activity as well as the creation of more than 73,000 jobs in the region over the seven years.

Lead researcher Betony Jones stated in the report that even if we were to take into account construction for a “business-as-usual scenario”, the construction of renewable power plants still created the largest number of jobs in the Inland area.

In addition, the more we continue to invest in clean air technologies, the more costs will go down. Solar panel prices, for instance, have dropped precipitously over the decades.

Furthermore, as the world market moves to cleaner technologies, the more economies will be incentivized to pour their resources into it.

Colleen Kredell, director of research at Next10, said that the issue isn’t only about climate change but about global competitiveness.

“You have companies in China, UK, Germany, and India fazing out internal combustion vehicles,” she said. “You got some of the world’s most populous nations, most developed economies, saying ‘we are no longer using gas powered vehicles’. That means there will no longer be a market for those cars.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

It is almost truism to say that when you’re young, you are, as rapper Whiz Khalifa once noted, “wild and free.” Youthful exuberance, in popular Western imagination, is epitomized by reckless. But youth, as advertised, isn’t always just about the freedom to be irresponsible. It is also true that when you’re young, you’re most free to explore and inquire in ways that you can’t really do so when you have, say, a mortgage to pay off and kids to feed. Thus, your 20s are potentially your most experimental years. That is, if you are not burdened by debt.

 

Today, students at a four-year public institution pay 213% more for tuition than they would have thirty years ago. For private schools, students pay 130% more Roughly 70 percent of graduates leave college with student debt. Total student loan debt is now at about $1.5 trillion (two-thirds of which are held by woman.).

According to data from the Census Bureau compiled and aggregated by Forbes, annual cost of college, which includes room and board, tuition, and fees, has greatly outpaced median income. Even incomes for males with bachelor degrees are starting to feel the burn.

In a new survey by the Kogog School of Business, about 60 percent of millenials earning less than $50,000 a year are living “paycheck to paycheck”. Even more astonishing, about 60 percent of those earning between $50,000 to $99,000 say it’s still hard to make ends meat.

In another study, conducted by the NBC News/GenForward survey, about 62% of millenials owe more in debt than what they have saved up, with about 30% of millenials having less than $1000 dollars in their savings account and about 24% having no savings at all. Credit card debt and student loans make up the majority of the debt.

And before one jumps prematurely to the “millenials are just lazy, have bad work ethics, buy too much avocado toast etc.” argument, keep in mind, millenials tend to be workaholics, using less of their vacation time than previous age groups.

None of this is to say that these are problems unique to the young. Americans across all age groups face mounting debt. But the fact that the largest generation since the boomers must simultaneously balance debt payments while entering into an increasingly precarious labor market with few options for cheap affordable housing is cause for alarm. This isn’t just a spiritual and cultural travesty but an economic one too.

For example, in a study by the Health Science Journal on “economic growth and the harmful effects of student loan debt on biomedical research”, empirical evidence is found that supports the hypothesis that “indebtedness among young medical graduates affects speciality career choices. This means that, in the future, ceteris paribus, prospective students in biomedical sciences will be strongly incentivised, firstly, to choose the more remunerative career of medical practitioner instead of that of medical (pure or applied) researcher, and secondly to further sub-specialize in those fields that promise higher earnings to offset their higher loan repayments.”

I think this finding could be applied across most creative, professional, and specialized fields. To take just one example, there is a huge shortage (as well as underfunding) of public defenders. It’s highly possible that many attending law schools, even those with deep interests in public defense, go instead into corporate law for reasons similar to those cited in the above study: that is, to offset loan repayments or reduce precariousness in living standards—which is becoming more precarious as wealth inequality continues to widen. What are the consequences of this? A large reserve of lawyers in defense of the most privileged and a shortage of lawyers for the most marginalized, thus furthering racial and class disparity.

So what can be done? A study by the Levy Economics Institute at Bard College proposed a radical idea back in February: cancel the nation’s $1.4 trillion student debt.

The researchers looked at what would happen if the government cancelled all federal loans as a one-time policy. According to their models, this would lead to an $86 billion to $108 billion boost in GDP over the next ten years as well as reduce unemployment by .3%. What about deficit and inflation? The report indicates only “modest” effects.

Although there are many legitimate concerns to this seemingly simple solution, it may be something worth considering—a radical solution for a radical problem.

 

 

 

 

A significant part of the justification behind Donald Trump’s recent trade war with China lies in his supposed rapport with the American White working class, specifically those who come from the manufacturing, farming, and mining sector. He repeatedly makes the claim that the outsourcing of jobs and the stealing of U.S intellectual property by countries like China has taken away “millions and millions” of jobs, costing us “billions”. Hence, taxing foreign imports would encourage American industries to “buy and invest local.” The U.S trade deficit plays a huge role in this. China is screwing us, Trump claims, and stealing “500 billion dollars” from our economy.

But if it were really the case that massive trade imbalance harms the economy, then it would follow that at the very least an increase or decrease in the trade deficit would correlate with an increase or decrease in unemployment rates.

The unemployment rate measures individuals who are willing and available to work or are actively seeking work. Those working part-time are considered employed. The trade deficit measures the difference between a country’s net exports (goods leaving the country) and net imports (goods coming into the country).

Compare and contrast, then, U.S trade balance and the unemployment rate since 1980, according to the U.S Bureau of Labor Statistics:

 

 

The above graphs of course paint a very complicated picture of the effects of trade balances on employment rate. While the periods between 1981 and 1986-86, and 1988 and 1992-3, saw a slight correlation between rising unemployment and an increasing trade deficit, the period between 1995 and 2000 saw the opposite: there was a huge decrease in unemployment despite a massive widening of the trade deficit. In fact, sometimes it is even the case that decreasing trade deficits correlate with rising unemployment, as is demonstrated by the 2008-2010 period.

So if Trump wants to cause a trade war, he’d best provide another justification, as job losses don’t seem to have much to do with trade imbalances. It also weakens his NAFTA argument—that NAFTA is one of the main culprits in the massive outsourcing of jobs to Mexico. Since the act’s passing in 1993 until the Dot-Com Bubble, employment had actually decreased from about 7% to 4%. So there you have it: “they”—those malevolent, rapacious, cheating foreigners—are not taking away our jobs. The question then remains as to why Trump continues to wage this ridiculous trade war with China, even when it actually hurts American workers.