What We Know About the Youth Vote So Far: In 11 Key States, Early Data Suggest a Turnout Surge Among Young Americans

By MARK KEIERLEBER | November 4, 2020

Voter turnout among young Americans has long been lackluster, but early data suggest a substantial uptick in civic participation this time around as the pandemic pushed an unprecedented wave of early voting.

Even before Election Day, some 10 million people 18 to 29 years old cast early or absentee ballots, according to data from Tuft University’s Center for Information and Research on Civic Learning and Engagement. To be clear, the data are part of a larger trend: More than 100 million people across all age groups made their voices heard before Election Day, putting the 2020 election on track to shatter voter turnout records.

What’s that mean for the outcome of the presidential race, once we know it? In several key states, youth turnout, which favors Democrats, could be a major boon for Joe Biden.

One early-voting standout was Texas. Two days before Election Day, more than 1.3 million Texans 18 to 29 cast early or absentee ballots. Why’s that such a huge deal? Well, just 1.2 million Texans in that age group voted in 2016, according to CIRCLE. That includes early, absentee and Election Day votes combined.

Youth voters also make up a bigger share of the total ballots cast this time around. Four years ago, young people cast just 6 percent of early and absentee ballots in Texas. But this year, that percentage more than doubled to 13 percent.

It’s not just Texas. In 13 states, young people comprised a larger share of early voters than they did ahead of Election Day in 2016, according to an Oct. 29 data analysis by CIRCLE.

By Wednesday, data further bolstered predictions that youth turnout could be a major player in deciding the still too-close-call election between Biden and President Donald Trump. CIRCLE’s estimates suggested that the aggregate youth voter turnout in 11 key battleground states fell somewhere between 47 and 49 percent. The states include Arizona, Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Iowa, Montana, North Carolina, Ohio, South Carolina, Texas and Wisconsin. As election officials continue to count ballots in some of those crucial states, CIRCLE predicts that youth turnout could jump to between 51 and 53 percent.

That’d be a major change from just four years ago. In 2016, CIRCLE estimates that between 42 and 44 percent of young people made their voices heard in the equally close race between Trump and Hillary Clinton, suggesting a 10 percentage-point jump in turnout this year among voters 18 to 29.

EDlection 2020: See our complete coverage of 50 key education votes right here.

SpaceX Starship as a trash collector in Earth orbit?
Posted by Lia Rovira in HUMAN WORLD | SPACE | November 4, 2020 EARTH SKY


SpaceX Starship’s many tasks may include launching humans into space, carrying satellites into orbit and — perhaps — removing troublesome pieces of space debris.

A comment by SpaceX president and COO Gwynne Shotwell has sparked interest in whether SpaceX’s Starship spacecraft might be useful in helping to clean up space debris orbiting Earth … when it’s not busy taking humans to the moon and Mars. Shotwell inserted a comment about Starship’s role as a potential space-age garbage collector during an online interview with Time magazine (Time 100 Talks) released on October 22, 2020.

In the video above, Shotwell’s comment about Starship’s possible part-time job as a space-age garbage truck begins at about the 8-minute mark. Shotwell was giving a nod to Starship’s planned reusability, which will allow the entire spacecraft to launch back and forth from Earth orbit to Mars repeatedly, when she said:

I do want to put in a plug for Starship here … Starship also has the capability of taking cargo and crew at the same time. And so it’s quite possible that we could leverage Starship to go to some of some of these dead rocket bodies – other people’s rockets, of course – basically, go pick up some of this junk in outer space.

It’s not going to be easy, but I do believe that Starship offers the possibility of going and doing that. And I’m really excited about it.


The SpaceX Starship MK1. Image by SpaceX.

Starship is at the heart of SpaceX founder and CEO Elon Musk‘s longtime Mars-colonization goal, which he has said may likely be the private company’s primary vehicle for future space travel. If all goes according to plan, Starship’s many tasks will include launching people to the moon, Mars and beyond, as well as superfast travels here on Earth, carrying satellites into orbit and – perhaps – collecting and de-orbiting particularly big and troublesome pieces of space junk.

Many experts believe that space junk poses a serious threat to humanity’s use and exploration of the final frontier going forward. About 34,000 objects greater than 4 inches (10 cm) in diameter are thought to be circling Earth at this very moment, according to the European Space Agency (ESA). And it’s much harder to get an idea about the smaller stuff, but the ESA estimates are frightening: they call for about 900,000 or so orbital objects in the 0.4-inch to 4-inch (1 to 10-cm) range and 128 million shards between 0.04 inches and 0.4 inches wide (1 mm to 1 cm).

All of this material poses a serious threat to rockets and spacecraft passing by, risking major damage to hardware and flight directories because of the velocities involved.

The costs of building and launching satellites are dropping, meaning more of them are getting flung into space and creating traffic within Earth’s orbital space lanes. The fear is that a collision or two could spawn a space junk cascade – with collisions creating more debris, which create more collisions, and so on – generating clouds of accident-causing debris. This scenario, known as the Kessler Syndrome, has the potential to make space operations in Earth orbit increasingly difficult. This dread is what fuels the idea that the spaceflight community should therefore start taking mitigation measures now.

And, of course, there have been many orbital collisions already. For example, in February 2009, the defunct Russian military satellite Kosmos 2251 barreled into the operational communications satellite Iridium 33, spawning 1,800 pieces of trackable debris (and many others too small to spot) by the following October. Additionally, China and India have generated debris clouds on purpose, during destructive anti-satellite tests in 2007 and 2019, respectively.

Artist’s rendition of space junk in Earth’s orbit. Image via Getty.

SpaceX in particular is one major driver for a growing population; the company has already launched nearly 900 of its Starlink internet satellites to low Earth orbit, and has permission to launch thousands more. However, this may be the reason the company is taking proactive action on the matter. In addition to space junk sweeping, the company has also decided to lower the megaconstellation’s operational altitude, Shotwell says. SpaceX’s original plans called for first-generation Starlink satellites to fly between 684 and 823 miles high (1,100 to 1,325 km), but the shift in thinking brought them down to an altitude of 340 miles (550 km).

SpaceX’s standard operating procedure for Starlink involved de-orbiting each satellite before it dies, but flying at just 340 miles up provides a sort of failsafe: atmospheric drag will bring a defunct satellite down from that altitude, to burn up in the atmosphere, in just one to five years. Starlink satellites can also perform collision-avoiding maneuvers autonomously, using information from the U.S. Department of Defense’s debris-tracking system, according to the SpaceX Starlink page.

At the same time, researchers are developing a cleanup cubesat called OSCaR – an acronym for Obsolete Spacecraft Capture and Removal – which would hunt down and de-orbit debris on the cheap using onboard nets and tethers. OSCaR would do so relatively autonomously, with little guidance from controllers on the ground. The spacecraft is a 3U cubesat, meaning that it will be very capable for its small size, featuring onboard navigation and communication gear; power, propulsion and thermal-control systems; and four net-launching gun barrels. Each OSCaR iteration will be capable of capturing and removing four pieces of debris, and when that work is done, the cleanup cubesat will de-orbit itself within five years.

Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute aims to test OSCaR on the ground sometime this year, and a test in space will follow at some point if all goes according to plan.

Artist’s rendition of OSCaR cubesat. Image via Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute.

SpaceX is working toward the final Starship design via a series of increasingly ambitious prototypes.

The final Starship will have six of the company’s new Raptor engines, while the Super Heavy rocket will sport about 30 Raptors. With that said, SpaceX plans to have the rocket-spaceship duo up and running relatively soon. Starship is in the running, for instance, to land astronauts on the moon for NASA’s Artemis program, which is targeting 2024 for the first of those touchdowns; Japanese art-enthusiast Yusaku Maezawa has booked a Starship trip around the moon, with a targeted launch date of 2023.

And then of course, there’s the red planet – Mars – the ultimate destination for Starship. Shotwell predicted in the video above:

If the Starship program goes as planned, I do think people will be able to travel to Mars in 10 years.

Bottom line: SpaceX Starship’s many tasks may include launching humans into space, carrying satellites into orbit and — perhaps — removing troublesome pieces of space debris. The fear is that a collision or two could spawn a space junk cascade, generating clouds of debris that cause further accidents.

Read more from Space.com: SpaceX’s Starship may help clean up space junk

Read more from Spaceflight Now: SpaceX executive pitches Starship for space debris cleanup

NASA Makes a Surprise Statement, Calling Out Private Space Start-up for Big Risks

By Sissi Cao • 11/03/20


ESA’s Aeolus satellite was recently maneuvered to avoid collision with a SpaceX Starlink satellite. ESA/ATG medialab

Inspired by the ambitions of SpaceX and its rivals to move our internet infrastructure from ground cell towers and underground optic fibers to satellites orbiting from above, a Texas-based space startup called AST & Science has an even bolder idea: it wants to deploy cell towers-sized satellites in low Earth orbit to provide 4G and 5G connection to smartphones on Earth.

The company plans to build a constellation of 243 such satellites and has raised $110 million to fund the project, codenamed “SpaceMobile.” However, NASA is gravely worried about the risk of these satellites colliding with other objects in Earth’s orbit and voiced its objection to the project in an unprecedented open letter.

“With the increase in large constellation proposals to the FCC, NASA has concerns over the possibility of a significant increase in frequency of conjunction events,” the space agency wrote in a letter dated October 30. The letter was submitted during the public comment period of the company’s Federal Communications Commission petition to acquire radio spectrum permits.

See Also: Will Starlink Satellites Become Space Junk One Day? SpaceX Has an (Imperfect) Plan.


It’s the first time NASA has publicly opposed a private company’s plan to build a satellite constellation, because AST’s proposed altitude, 466 miles (720 kilometers) above Earth, lies near NASA’s “A-Train” satellites, a group of 10 Earth-observing satellites operated by the space agency and the U.S. Geological Survey.

SpaceX’s Starlink satellites orbit at a similar altitude (341 miles, or 550 kilometers), but AST’s satellites are significantly larger, which NASA said pose an “unacceptably high risk” of collision in space and would require a great deal of work on a daily basis to prevent it.

In order to provide service, each AST satellite will need large phased-array antennae that span an area of 900 square meters.

“Historical experience with the A-Train constellation has shown that this particular region of space tends to produce a large number of conjunctions between space objects,” the NASA letter said. “For the completed constellation of 243 satellites, one can expect 1,500 mitigation actions per year and perhaps 15,000 planning activities. This would equate to four maneuvers and 40 active planning activities on any given day.”

See Also: SpaceX Starlink’s Bankrupt Rival, OneWeb, To Resume Satellite Launch

Also concerned with AST’s lack of experience in building such projects, NASA estimates that up to 10 percent of the satellites may end up failing, which would make them even more difficult to maneuver around.

AST said it plans to work with NASA to address its concerns, “including providing clarification of AST’s constellation design that robustly manages orbital debris, keeping NASA and other orbital assets safe,” Raymond Sedwick, chief scientist for space systems at AST, said in a statement to Ars Technica on Monday.

Potential space collision is a growing concern among space agencies as commercial space missions crowd up low Earth orbit at an unprecedented rate.

SpaceX, the busiest satellite launcher right now, addresses this problem by installing ion engines on its Starlink satellites so that they can maneuver themselves around to avoid collisions. And when those engines die off, the satellites should naturally de-orbit and burn up in Earth’s atmosphere.

It’s not a perfect solution, though, because about 3 percent of Starlink satellites fail to function after deployment, making them de facto space debris.

Coalition Led By SpaceX, Blue Origin Want to Rewrite FCC Rules On Space Use
By Sissi Cao • 11/04/20 



In his second venture, Blue Origin, Amazon founder Jeff Bezos doesn’t have the luxury to use an existing infrastructure like the USPS for Amazon. Mark Wilson/Getty Images

As the commercial space industry takes off amid a boom of billionaire-backed rocket and satellite startups, the industry’s leading players are urging the Federal Communications Commission, which manages traffic in the increasingly busy low Earth orbit (altitudes between 160 kilometers and 1,000 kilometers), to rewrite rules about how companies use space.

On Monday, an industry coalition representing Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin, Elon Musk’s SpaceX, Virgin Orbit, Relativity Space and Sierra Nevada submitted a letter to the FCC, urging the agency to “undertake appropriate reforms of its launch and reentry licensing processes consistent with the direction outlined in Space Policy Directive 2 (SPD-2),” a White House memo issued in 2018 to push agencies like the FCC to streamline regulations regarding space use.

The letter was first reported by CNBC’s Michael Sheetz on Twitter. Noting that the number of commercial rocket launches have grown significantly since 2013, “timely Commission action can help facilitate a rapidly growing commercial space industry that supports the public interest, streamlines outdated regulatory procedures, and protects spectrum use for both government and commercial users,” wrote representatives of the coalition.


Space activities in the U.S. are regulated by multiple federal agencies. The FCC is responsible for responsible for coordinating the use of radio spectrums at which satellites transmit signals from one another in order to prevent signal interference. The agency is historically known for being highly generous in granting spectrum access to commercial missions.

“I’m not aware of any example of the FCC denying such a license,” Brian Weeden, a satellite expert at the Secure World Foundation, recently told Ars Technica. “They’re trying to be business-friendly and encourage companies to be doing business in the US.”

Apparently that’s not enough to satisfy the rapidly growing business of space companies. In Monday’s letter, the industry coalition recommended a list of principles for any potential FCC rule change, with a focus on improving spectrum access for commercial launches, coordinating spectrum use by multiple companies, and automating the application and review process.

The coalition is notably missing a number of major industry players, including longtime NASA contractor United Launch Alliance, a joint venture of Lockheed Martin and Boeing, and small satellite startup Rocket Lab.

Unifor extends contract talks with General Motors past strike deadline

TORONTO — The union representing Canadian workers at General Motors says its bargaining committee has decided to continue its contract talks with the company past the strike deadline.

© Provided by The Canadian Press

Unifor had set a deadline of 11:59 p.m. on Wednesday to reach a new, three-year labour deal and encouraged members to be prepared to strike if needed.

But the union said just before the deadline that its master bargaining committee was ready to negotiate all night to avoid a work stoppage.

Any proposed deal to come out of the negotiations would need to be approved by GM's 4,100 union members, who are scheduled to vote on Sunday.

The union said Wednesday afternoon that executives from the Detroit automaker came to Canada this week for face-to-face discussions as bargaining heated up.

Unifor national president Jerry Dias is expected to give more information about negotiations at a news conference at 10 a.m. ET.

Ahead of its deadline, the union said the company had not offered concrete commitments on future product plans, and was falling short of earlier agreements struck by Ford Motor and Fiat Chrysler Automobiles.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 5, 2020

 

Harry Reid Confirms US Federal Government Covered Up UFOs For Years

"There's more than one up there," the former Senate majority leader says in the new UFO documentary "The Phenomenon."

• By Ed Mazza, HuffPost 

Former Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) said the U.S. government has been hiding key details about UFOs for years. 

“Why the federal government all these years has covered up, put brake pads on everything, stopped it, I think it’s very, very bad for our country,” Reid said in the new documentary “The Phenomenon” from director James Fox. 

“Are you saying that there’s some evidence that still hasn’t seen the light of day?” asked Fox. 

“I’m saying most of it hasn’t seen the light of day,” Reid replied. 

The film examines the history of UFO sightings in the United States and abroad, including new details about the military-confirmed encounters off the coast involving U.S. Navy pilots. It also details a 1967 report in which an object appeared over a U.S. missile base at the same time 10 of the missiles became inoperative. 

“If they had been called upon by the president to launch, they couldn’t have done it,” Reid said in the film. 

Reid, who was among the lawmakers behind a classified but since-closed U.S. government UFO program, has become increasingly outspoken about the phenomena since leaving office. However, he stopped short of confirming evidence of other-worldly activity, writing in August on Twitter that he wants the issue studied and that “we must stick to science, not fairy tales about little green men.”

He repeated that point of view in the new film. 

“Nobody has to agree why it’s there. But should we at least be spending some money to study all these phenomenon?” he asked. “The answer is ‘yes.’” 

UFO expert Lee Speigel, a former HuffPost reporter, served as a co-writer and co-producer on the film, which he said took seven years to come to fruition. 

HUFFPOST IS THE RT OF NORTH AMERICA

“Whether you’re a UFO ‘believer’ or debunker, those in-between or still undecided, it’s important to present accurate information that potentially affects the national security of all nations and the safety of all citizens of our planet,” Spiegel said. 

“The Phenomenon” is currently available via VOD.

Calgary-Nosehill Conservative MP Michelle Rempel-Garner gave a tribute to women and witches in the House of Commons.

                                        FRIDAY OCTOBER 30, HOUSE OF COMMONS

"ON THE OCCASSION OF THIS RARE BLUE MOON SAMHAIN, ALL YOU WITCHES OUT THERE KEEP ON ROCKING"

AND BLESSED BE TO YOU TOO 

Uber, Lyft keep contractor status for drivers
Joel Rosenblatt, Robert Wilkens-Iafolla
Bloomberg News

In one fell swoop, Uber Technologies Inc. and Lyft Inc. on Tuesday fended off labor protections that were decades in the making, allowing the companies to keep compensating their drivers as independent contractors.

(BACK TO THE SIXTIES WITH PROVISIONS IN EMPLOYMENT LAW THAT CAN EXCLUDE TRAVELING SALESMEN AND CAB DRIVERS THAT ALBERTA USED TO HAVE)

By design, very little will change under the ballot measure approved by California voters that was underwritten by the ride-hailing companies, along with Instacart Inc., DoorDash Inc. and Postmates Inc.

While Proposition 22 requires these app-based transportation services to offer some modest new perks for drivers, it protects them from having to provide much costlier benefits that full-time employees get

.


For the companies, that makes the more than $200 million they and their supporters spent on the ballot measure campaign — a record for the most populous state — worth every penny, according to William Gould, a professor at Stanford Law School.

“Two hundred million plus is much cheaper from their perspective than paying the employees these benefits that the legislature has established for them,” said Gould, a former chairman of the National Labor Relations Board under President Bill Clinton.

Shares of Uber and Lyft surged the most in several months on the election outcome. Lyft’s stock advanced 12% by 11:40 a.m. in New York trading, while Uber was up 13%. The reaction from investors Wednesday reflects not just the stakes in California but also expectations of what will happen elsewhere.

By establishing a template for a hybrid classification of worker that breaks from the traditional employee-or-contractor mold, Proposition 22 may have broader ramifications. If the rule works out well for both the workers and companies it could influence a push for legislation in other states or on the federal level, legal experts said.

“Legal pushback may continue, but Proposition 22 sets the tone for other states to follow in recognizing gig workers as a central part of today’s economy and the future of work,” said Jesse Jauregui, partner with Alston & Bird. “Proposition 22 is pointing to a new third way’ of structuring the nature of work and may become the model for other gig workforces to follow.”

Uber and Lyft have long pushed federal and state lawmakers to adopt a “third classification.”

Some federal lawmakers have also pushed “portable benefits” that would give some benefits to drivers, but not give them the full employment entitlements or put the companies on the hook for liability.

By no stretch is Tuesday’s vote a global panacea for the ride-hailing industry, which has been ravaged by the coronavirus pandemic.

Uber and Lyft will continue to face court challenges to their labor model elsewhere in the U.S. and abroad.

What the US withdrawal from the Paris Agreement means for the global fight against climate change

New Atlanticist by Margaret Jackson and Jorge Gastelumendi

Related Experts: Margaret Jackson, Jorge Gastelumendi


COP25 High Level Climate Champion Gonzalo Munoz holds the copy of The Paris Agreement as he poses with Britain's former Minister of State for Energy and Clean Growth and newly appointed COP26 President, Claire Perry, Italian Environment Minister Sergio Costa and Spanish State Secretary of Environment Hugo Moran (not pictured) during the U.N. Climate Change Conference (COP25) in Madrid, Spain December 13, 2019. REUTERS/Susana Ver


The United States finalized its formal withdrawal from the Paris Agreement on climate change on November 4, exactly one year after it began the process. Today, with the presidential election outcome still undetermined, the United States is the first country to step away from the historic climate accord.

US President Donald J. Trump first announced his intent to withdraw on June 1, 2017. Article 28 of the Paris Agreement stipulates that a country must wait three years after the agreement went into force on November 4, 2016, to withdraw, at which point the country may do so by submitting written notification to the Secretariat, and then wait one year until the withdrawal takes effect.

When former US President Barack Obama spoke about the success of the Paris Agreement in December 2015, he said, “Together, we’ve shown what’s possible when the world stands as one.” The Parties of the Paris Agreement—then 195 nations—agreed on a bottom-up approach to combat climate change and hold the global average temperature below two degrees Celsius, with best efforts to keep it below 1.5 degrees. The climate accord presents a framework for transparent reporting and monitoring of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, a pathway towards a climate-resilient development, as well as a mechanism to increase climate ambition on mitigation and adaptation every five years through the resubmission of Nationally Determined Contributions (NDC).

The urgency to address climate change-induced impacts keeps increasing. While immediately stopping GHG emissions is essential, legacy emissions mean that a heated planet, now at 1.0 degrees Celsius (~1.8 degrees Fahrenheit) warmer is currently subject to stronger and more frequent and devastating storms, floods, and fires. Communities, especially cities, are forced to adapt and withstand these climate-fueled disasters.

Climate change affects every country around the world and can only be solved through a coordinated, multilateral effort. The Paris Agreement has been the most effective platform to bring countries together around this issue. Despite its shortcomings, the countries involved are willing to come to the table year after year to make collective progress during the annual Conference of the Parties (COP).

The United Kingdom will host COP26 in Glasgow in 2021 after postponing a year due to the coronavirus pandemic. The UK is using this year to increase pressure on countries, businesses, cities, and regions to aim for net-zero carbon emissions by 2050 and to make the commitment before the next COP, as well as mobilizing an adaptation and resilience global action agenda jointly with Egypt. In addition to the frequency and severity of extreme weather and extreme heat events around the world that raised awareness of the risk of climate change, this kind of geopolitical pressure led to unprecedented momentum across the public and private sectors in a race to net-zero carbon emissions by mid-century.

The European Union launched the Green Deal with a promise to make Europe the first climate-neutral continent by 2050, and the recent carbon neutrality statements of China, Japan, and South Korea indicate that the world is moving ahead in the fight against climate change, with or without US leadership. Last week, two US allies—Japan and the Republic of Korea—announced carbon neutrality commitments by 2050, one week before the US presidential election, and two weeks after Chinese President Xi Jinping announced China’s 2060 carbon neutrality target. President Trump’s “America First” agenda and the US absence in climate and the global COVID-19 response have left the door wide open for China to step in as a leader in international climate governance.

The US withdrawal from the climate accord could be short-lived if former Vice President Joe Biden is elected. Biden stated he intends to rejoin the Paris Agreement and implement an ambitious climate agenda under his “Build Back Better” campaign, including a target of 100 percent clean electricity by 2035, a commitment to net-zero emissions by 2050, and the promotion of green infrastructure and climate resilience as components of a global economic recovery.

However, a Republican-led Senate could hinder his progress and present obstacles to reinstating the environmental and climate regulations that the Trump administration rolled back over the last four years. The work to regain confidence in the United States as a climate leader will start at home with more ambitious policy action, a commitment to clean energy innovation and deployment, and improved resilience measures.

Another four years of a Trump presidency would hinder international efforts to fight the causes and impacts posed by climate change and make the goal of peaking global carbon emissions by 2030, as recommended by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, nearly impossible. The United States is the second-highest greenhouse gas emitter after China and the highest emitter in per-capita emissions. The Climate Action Tracker labels US climate policies as “critically insufficient” and attributes most of the reductions in emissions over the next few years to the economic slowdown from the pandemic.

However, the momentum to decrease emissions will not wane at the US subnational level, whatever the outcome of the election. Coalitions like We Are Still In are leading the charge for climate ambition in statehouses, city halls, tribal governments, and campuses across the country. Together, they aim to reduce US GHG emissions by 37 percent from 2005 levels, though decisive federal government action could accomplish much more. The United Nations and other countries are committed to working with US stakeholders who share the determination to meet the objectives of the Paris Agreement, regardless of the position of US federal leadership.

The pandemic illustrated the critical role for strong national leadership in combating a crisis and what happens when countries—including the United States—fail to cooperate on a multilateral level to find a solution. The global influence of the United States will decline if the next president does not commit to a 2050 net-zero target, bolster worldwide adaptation and resilience efforts, and rejoin the Paris Agreement. Climate change is emerging as a central pillar of key multilateral forums such as the Group of Seven (G7) and the Group of Twenty (G20) and will be an integral part of foreign policy from trade to health to security. The pressure to act will not abate.

Margaret Jackson is deputy director for climate and advanced energy at the Atlantic Council’s Global Energy Center.

Jorge Gastelumendi is director of global policy for the Atlantic Council’s Adrienne Arsht-Rockefeller Foundation Resilience Center.

Either way, this election is a major turning point for our climate future

Elections 2020 by Kathy Baughman McLeod

View on Thursday April 23 2020 not far from Fienstorf, Germany. (REUTERS)

As the nation braces for the presidential election next week, there’s arguably no issue beyond the COVID-19 crisis for which the stakes are higher than climate change policy. The increasingly alarming and measurable impact of global warming in the United States alone—as evidenced by the four hurricanes that have smacked the state of Louisiana since August and the recent devastation wrought by the California wildfires, which have scorched more acreage than in any year since CalFire began keeping records in 1932—means that the outcome on November 3 will mark a true make-or-break moment for climate change policy in the United States.

This hot-button topic is one on which the two candidates couldn’t be further apart—and also one that’s front and center in the minds of the American public. According to a survey conducted this summer by Pew Research Center, 68 percent of voters feel that climate change is an important issue in their voting decision. So, what can we expect on this issue from a second Trump term or a Biden administration?

The current administration’s view of the impact of climate change is reflected in its record and messaging over the last four years, during which the US environmental policy has been characterized by a denial of science and a steady dismantling of environmental policies governing clean air, water, wildlife, and toxic chemicals. The administration has rolled back seventy-two regulations—including limits on planet-warming carbon dioxide emissions—with twenty-seven more in progress.

These rollbacks include weakening fuel economy and greenhouse gas standards for cars and light trucks, lifting a freeze on new coal leases on public lands, and changing how the Endangered Species Act is applied, thus making it more difficult to protect wildlife from the long-term threats posed by climate change (like significant changes in habitat).

Conversely, the Trump administration issued an executive order to support the One Trillion Trees Initiative, which aims to promote and build resilient forests by restoring and conserving a trillion trees around the world by the end of the decade. Some ecologists estimate that this initiative would significantly lessen heat-related impacts by sequestering about 25 percent of the carbon that is currently in the atmosphere.

On the other hand, many of the Trump administration’s actions have positioned climate action as a threat to the US economy, while championing and facilitating the growth of the coal, oil, and gas industries (despite the fact that renewable energy presently represents the greatest area of job growth in the energy sector), and repeatedly labeling climate activists as alarmists. There is little reason to expect a change in this stance should President Trump be reelected.

Former Vice President Biden, meanwhile, has proclaimed climate change to be a national priority, promising unprecedented executive action out of the gate to both mitigate the impact of a warming planet and position the US as the global leader in pioneering environmental policy. He has vowed not only to immediately recommit to the Paris Agreement, but also to rally the rest of the world to ramp up their own domestic climate targets.

A man rides a bike on a flooded street following Hurricane Irma in North Miami, Florida, US, September 11, 2017. REUTERS/Carlo Allegri


His overarching goal stateside is to ensure the United States achieves a 100 percent clean energy economy and reaches net-zero emissions no later than 2050. To set the country on the right track, he plans to advance legislation during his first year in office that establishes an enforcement mechanism that includes milestone targets by his first term’s end in 2025; makes a historic investment in clean energy and climate research and innovation; and incentivizes the rapid deployment of clean energy innovations across the country. Such innovations will focus especially on areas most vulnerable to climate change, including the coastal communities suffering from the effects of sea level rise, salt water intrusion and sunny day flooding, as well as the storms that increasingly hammer vulnerable areas, where 40 percent of Americans make their home.

To address the nation’s crumbling infrastructure—underfunded for decades and further strained by the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic as new work-from-home patterns test utility systems and underscore the need for widely accessible broadband internet and reliable transportation—Biden has also vowed to take action. In July he announced a plan to spend $2 trillion over four years on clean energy and climate resilient initiatives to rejuvenate the transportation, electricity, and building sectors, which he believes will create millions of new jobs—including one million jobs developing and manufacturing electric cars—for what he hopes is a foundation for sustainable growth and improved public health.

Former Vice President Biden’s goals include achieving a carbon pollution-free power sector by 2035, upgrading four million buildings over four years to meet the highest energy-efficiency standards, and providing every American city with more than 100,000 residents with high-quality, zero-emissions public transportation options. Furthermore, it promises to make communities that have suffered disproportionately from pollution—including low-income rural and urban communities and communities of color—the first to benefit from these far-reaching initiatives.

Predictably, there are factions of the climate change movement that believe Biden’s strategy to mitigate global warming isn’t aggressive enough. Climate advocacy groups have argued that the former vice president’s plan doesn’t provide a sufficiently clear and short path for the United States to decrease its dependency on fossil fuels. However, it stands to reason that in order to go further, he must first cross the election finish line—which depends in part on winning over undecided and moderate voters in swing states. And to do so, he needs to walk a careful line, especially in regard to energy policy in crucial states like Pennsylvania, where the fate of fossil fuel-based fracking weighs heavily on many voters’ minds.

As we move forward into the next presidential administration, the science and data are clear: the United States needs new policies and investments to avoid the worst human and economic impacts of climate change to our country. Next week’s election is arguably the most important in our history in regard to climate change and its increasingly traumatic—and expensive—ramifications, for both our country and our world.

Kathy Baughman McLeod is senior vice president and director of the Adrienne Arsht Rockefeller Foundation Resilience Center at the Atlantic Council.

https://www.atlanticcouncil.org/blogs/new-atlanticist

NDP Steps Up Push For New Tax On Wealthy, Companies ‘Profiteering’ From Pandemic
Jagmeet Singh is taking his pitch for a super-wealth tax 

into the House of Commons.

By Ryan Maloney

11/04/2020 

ADRIAN WYLD/CP

NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh speaks during a news conference

 on Parliament Hill in Ottawa on Nov. 4, 2020.


Federal New Democrats are renewing a push for Canada’s wealthiest people and the corporations thriving amid the COVID-19 pandemic to pay more to ease the country’s crisis recovery.

NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh announced Wednesday his party will introduce a motion in the House of Commons calling for a so-called super-wealth tax and an excess-profits tax on “big corporations profiteering from the pandemic.” The party says the estimated billions of dollars in new revenue raised by such moves should then be spent on health care and social programs.

Though non-binding on the government, the motion, set to be introduced Thursday, could put pressure on the Liberals, whose emergency spending during the crisis has resulted in a massive deficit. The Parliamentary Budget Office (PBO) said in September that Canada is on track for a $330-billion deficit this fiscal year.

At an Ottawa press conference, Singh said ordinary Canadians are becoming “more and more worried” about shouldering the burden of slaying the deficit, warning it could mean eventual government cuts to health care and social programs.

“To pay for the programs, the help that people need, it should not be you that has to pay for it,” Singh said. “It should not be families and people and workers and small businesses who have struggled. It should be those who have profited off the pandemic, it should be the ultra-wealthy that contribute their fair share.”

The motion notes that since the pandemic’s start in March, Canadian billionaires are $37 billion richer, a figure that comes from a recent study by the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives. It asks the House to call on the government to legislate a “one per cent tax on wealth over $20 million,” an NDP platform pledge in the last federal election.

The proposal for an excess-profits tax is also something Singh has raised before. He said last month that large companies benefiting during the pandemic, such as grocery chains and Amazon.com Inc., should see profits that are higher than averages before the crisis taxed at double the corporate rate, The Globe and Mail reported.

According to New Democrats, the money raised by both moves should be re directed to:

Ensure all Canadian residents can have a guaranteed livable basic income;

“Expand health care” with a national dental care program and a “universal, single-payer, public pharmacare program”;

Implement a right to housing and fund a “For Indigenous, By Indigenous” housing strategy to be delivered by Indigenous housing providers.

The PBO reported in July the NDP’s proposed super-wealth tax could net $5.6 billion in the current fiscal year and estimated it would apply to 13,800 Canadian families. However, the office warned “the magnitude of this response is highly uncertain and dependent on the level of enforcement and the asset valuation techniques prescribed by the legislation.”

Asked how far a wealth tax would really go to paying for new programs, Singh said it would generate “massive new revenue that we could get from people who could afford to do so.”

The excess-profit tax also “has the potential to have massive revenue implications, which is also not something to be ignored,” he said, adding the NDP will likewise keep pushing the government to target the use of tax havens by corporations.

The NDP leader, who on Tuesday called for the defeat of U.S. President Donald Trump, said the tight election results in that country reflect that many ordinary people are feeling let down, frustrated, and angry.

The resiliency of Trump’s vote, despite his many controversies and what the NDP leader has called a failure to manage the pandemic, “just makes me want to work harder,” Singh said.

The government’s September throne speech, which passed with NDP support, identified pharmacare as a priority, but did not pledge to bring in a guaranteed basic income. It also stated the government would “identify additional ways to tax extreme wealth inequality.”
‘No blank cheques,’ Freeland says

In a virtual speech to the Toronto Global Forum last week, Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland made the case for more deficit spending amid the ongoing health emergency.

“It is just not practically possible, never mind fair, to ask workers to stay home, or businesses to shut their doors, without providing the financial support they need to compensate for lost income,” she said.

Yet she also said she is not among those who believe deficits “don’t matter” to governments and signalled federal aid programs can’t go on forever.

“Whether on Bay Street or Main Street, there are no blank cheques, and there are no free lunches,” she said. “Our fiscally expansive approach to fighting the coronavirus cannot and will not be infinite.”

With a file from The Canadian Press