1 People must pay to slow climate change (Straits
Times) Are Americans worried about climate change? Do they want their
government to regulate greenhouse gases? A recent survey - by Stanford
University, The New York Times and Resources for the Future - has found strong
majorities saying "yes" to both questions.
But there is a big catch, which is not getting the
attention it deserves: A strong majority is also opposed to higher taxes on
petrol or electricity in order to fight climate change. The pattern of
responses is essentially the same as it was in the late 1990s, when the US was
debating whether to ratify the Kyoto Protocol to limit greenhouse gas emissions
worldwide.
In one poll at the time, 59 per cent of Americans
favoured ratification. At the same time, a majority would oppose the Kyoto
Protocol if it would cost them personally US$50 per month. When that
hypothetical monthly cost was raised to US$100, almost 90 per cent said they
would oppose it.
How can most Americans be unwilling to pay to reduce
a problem they believe will damage them personally? One answer is that many
people believe companies can reduce emissions on their own, and without
imposing costs on consumers. (Unfortunately, that is highly unrealistic.)
The recent survey does provide a clear lesson for
national political campaigns: Candidates will have trouble if they decline to
acknowledge climate change or say they don't want to address it. At the same
time, they have to be wary of favouring initiatives that would impose significant
costs on American consumers. Effective campaigning is one thing; adult
conversations are another, and they cannot avoid the question of cost.
2 In the Caribbean, women rise while men stagnate
(San Francisco Chronicle) According to data analyzed by the International Labor
Organization, nearly 60 percent of managers in Jamaica are women. That's the
globe's highest percentage and way ahead of developed countries. Colombia, at
53 percent, and St. Lucia, at 52 percent, are the only other nations in the
world where women are more likely than men to be the boss, according to the
ILO's global list. The highest ranking first world nation is the US, with
almost 43 percent, and the lowest is Japan, at 11 percent.
The Caribbean and Latin America have seen such big
improvements in the economic and social status of women that gender gaps in
education, labor force participation, access to health systems and political
engagement "have narrowed, closed and sometimes even reversed
direction," according to a World Bank study.
But while government officials and educators
celebrate that fact they also have serious worries about stagnating men, who
have lower levels of academic achievement and are at increased risk of falling
into criminality, trends that undermine the gains by females.
Wayne Campbell, a Jamaican high school teacher who
blogs about the problem of male underachievement, believes toxic notions about
masculinity permeate entire communities, reinforced by a popular music culture
that often celebrates law-breaking. Boys who display school smarts are often
ridiculed as effeminate by peers and even adults in areas where academic
excellence by males is typically devalued, he says."It's almost as if manhood and masculinity have
been hijacked by a thug culture far removed from education," he said.
With far more women pursuing higher education
compared to men, the gender gap could grow lopsided. For years, there's been a
steady 70-30 ratio in favor of women at the University of the West Indies, a
public university system serving 18 Caribbean countries and territories.
3 Any wonder religion is on the wane? (Benjamin
Jones in The Guardian) Every non-believer comes to atheism or agnosticism in
their own way. A lack of religion is a common feature of advanced societies,
and a new poll is the latest in a long line that show a marked decline in
religiosity, particularly among young people.
We live in an age where we seriously plan to send
human beings to Mars, where the life expectancy for westerners is
Methuselah-like, but where beheadings, crucifixion and rape are commonly used
weapons of war. For some, this stark choice leads to an obvious conclusion:
that religion is a force for ill. For these atheists, their lack of belief is a
defining characteristic, along with their conviction that religion is
retrograde.
Others have simply been brought up in the general
cultural atheism of our time, where religion is not a major part of people’s
lives. In this case, lack of belief is almost incidental; it is not a part of
their belief system or values, it is simply an absence. The same poll also
finds that lack of religious belief is much less common among older Britons
than in 18- to 24-year-olds.
The great generational gulf is one I attribute (at
least in part) to traditions, and to the sense of belonging and community that
the church provides for older people. For many older Anglicans, community, I
wager, is a much stronger incentive for church attendance than theology.
Although younger people are generally far less
religious than their parents, there are reasons to think the reverse may be
true for British Muslims, and atheism should not been seen as an inevitability.
While this latest YouGov/Times poll is another benchmark in the decline of
religious belief in the UK, much more study is needed to understand all that is
driving this, and where religion may still be resurgent.
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