Support for LGBTQ youth

 Support for The Equality Act, which would amend the 1964 Civil Rights Act to explicitly prevent discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity, in the United States Congress is coming more from Democrats than Republicans.

A place for all

 

Different assessments of the legislation exist  among Catholic bishops and theologians. Joshua J. McElwee reports Pope Francis' famous remarks in a 2013 press conference "Who am I to judge?" were discussed in an interview of the Pope in July 2015, by Italian journalist Andrea Tornielli. Francis' reply appears in his book “The Name of God is Mercy.”

 

"On that occasion I said this: If a person is gay and seeks out the Lord and is willing, who am I to judge that person?" the pope says. "I was paraphrasing by heart the Catechism of the Catholic Church where it says that these people should be treated with delicacy and not be marginalized." "I am glad that we are talking about 'homosexual people' because before all else comes the individual person, in his wholeness and dignity," he continues. "And people should not be defined only by their sexual tendencies: let us not forget that God loves all his creatures and we are destined to receive his infinite love."1

In April 2019, John Gehring asked why were the Bishops so quick to oppose LGBTQ Protections when congressional Democrats introduced The Equality Act? The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops quickly opposed the measure. In a letter to Congress, the chairmen of three USCCB committees denounced the proposed bill, claiming that “rather than offering meaningful protections for individuals,” it “would impose sweeping regulations to the detriment of society as a whole.”

 Douglas Laycock, a University of Virginia professor and scholar of religious-liberty law, thinks we have reached a stalemate in trying to strike a balance between respect for religious freedom and LGBTQ equality. Religious institutions that see a threat to their conscience rights and LGBTQ advocacy groups have become “deeply intolerant and have no respect for the rights of the other side,” Laycock says. “Both sides are dug in.” The Catholic Church and other religious institutions that hold traditional beliefs about marriage and sexuality are facing what Laycock calls “unprecedented demands” to provide birth control and other services. “There is no precedent in American history for asking our largest religious groups to violate central tenets of their faith,” Laycock says. At the same time, he notes, religious individuals and faith-based institutions have often overreached in making religious-liberty claims. A reasonable accommodation of religious-conscience concerns in a diverse public square, Laycock argues, is different from an absolutist understanding of religious liberty that has no limits. He says that so-called First Amendment Defense Acts pushed by conservative lawmakers go too far in “creating a total carve out” for religious exemptions, even when the government fails to articulate a compelling interest. He sees the opposite problem with the Equality Act: a lack of any accommodations for religious groups. “The demand for religious exemptions is proper, and there are none in this bill,” he says. But Lisa Fullam, a professor of moral theology in the Jesuit School of Theology at Santa Clara University, argues those religious exemptions are at the heart of the problem. “The bishops seem to want to carve out space for Catholic institutions to practice exactly the kind of discrimination the Catechism forbids, and use shaky justifications to that end,” Fullam says. “It would seem obvious that the bishops would support this legislation since the Catechism explicitly rejects any form of ‘unjust discrimination’ against LGBT people.”2

In Louisville, Kentucky, women religious have signed on to a bishops’ statement supporting LGBTQ youth. Six women religious communities and a federation of congregations of women religious have added their support to a statement signed by bishops supporting LGBTQ youth. In January, "God Is on Your Side: A Statement from Catholic Bishops on Protecting LGBT Youth" was released on the website of the Tyler Clementi Foundation, a group that fights anti-LGBTQ bullying in schools and faith communities. Ten bishops, an archbishop and a cardinal have signed the statement as of Feb. 12. The staff at the schools sponsored by the Ursuline Sisters of Louisville, Kentucky, wanted to start an outreach program for LGBTQ students at the high school and asked the sisters if they had a statement in support.

 

"While we had general statements in support of all life, we did not have a specific statement," Ursuline Sr. Jean Anne Zappa, president of the community, wrote in a statement to Global Sisters Report. "We thought it was important to help those students and wanted to support the staff pastorally." The congregation's communications director, Kathy Williams, was aware of the "God Is on Your Side" effort, so the sisters crafted a statement in support. "We respect the intrinsic dignity of all human life, including the lives of LGBT youth, who face many challenges, including bullying, harassment and violence, as well as being at higher risk for suicide," the Ursulines' statement reads. "As followers of Christ, we are called to welcome and defend those on the margins, especially those whom society rejects. ... LGBT youth are children of God, created by God and loved by God. We stand in solidarity with them."3

The conviction of Pope Francis that God is mercy resonates with our experience of Love that is unconditional and calls us to protect the well being and the dignity of all especially the marginalized and persecuted.

 

References

 

1	(2016, January 10). Francis explains 'who am I to judge?' | National Catholic Reporter. Retrieved February 27, 2021, from https://www.ncronline.org/news/vatican/francis-explains-who-am-i-judge
2	(2019, April 8). The Wrong Message | Commonweal Magazine. Retrieved February 27, 2021, from https://www.commonwealmagazine.org/wrong-message
3	(2021, February 12). Women religious sign on to bishops' statement supporting LGBTQ .... Retrieved February 27, 2021, from https://www.globalsistersreport.org/news/news/news/women-religious-sign-bishops-statement-supporting-lgbtq-youth

 

See Judge Act: CST Security and Economics of Climate Change

 Kevin Moynihan of KM Productions, a Halifax based fully equipped production company, shares “Laudato Si’ + 5: See, Judge, Act”. This review of our progress engaging with the 2015 Encyclical of Pope Francis, “Laudato Si”,under the Catholic Social Teaching tradition of See, Judge, and Act offers a reminder of the need for action on Water Shortage, Climate Change, and Loss of Biodiversity and hope in sharing the work of individuals and organizations involved in taking action today.

 

Sir David Attenborough, renowned British naturalist and broadcaster, presented a warning that the world risks ‘collapse of everything’ without strong climate action to the UN Security Council.

 

“If we continue on our current path, we will face the collapse of everything that gives us our security: food production, access to fresh water, habitable ambient temperature, and ocean food chains,” he said, adding “and if the natural world can no longer support the most basic of our needs, then much of the rest of civilization will quickly break down... “People today all over the world now realize this is no longer an issue which will affect future generations,” he said.  “It is people alive today, and, in particular, young people, who will live with the consequences of our actions.”2

Mark Carney, UN Special Envoy on Climate Action and Finance, spoke, in a recent interview, about how private finance is increasingly aligned behind achieving net-zero greenhouse gas emissions.

 

Climate change is an existential threat. We all recognize that, and there’s increasing urgency around it. But the converse is, if you are making investments, coming up with new technologies, changing the way you do business, all in service of reducing and eliminating that threat, you are creating value. And what we have seen increasingly, spurred initially by the Sustainable Development Goals, accelerated by Paris, and then by social movements and governments, is societies putting tremendous value on achieving net zero. Companies, and those who invest in them and lend to them, and who are part of the solution, will be rewarded. Those who are lagging behind and are still part of the problem will be punished.3

We have evidence to see and judge the likely impact of the climate emergency on our health and welfare. Catholic Social Teaching and economic common sense underlie our movement to avoid catastrophe in the lives of our children and grandchildren.

 

References

1	(n.d.). KM Productions. Retrieved February 24, 2021, from http://www.kmproductions.ca/
2	(2021, February 23). World risks 'collapse of everything' without strong climate action .... Retrieved February 24, 2021, from https://news.un.org/en/story/2021/02/1085452
3	(2021, January 21). Mark Carney: Investing in net-zero climate solutions creates value .... Retrieved February 24, 2021, from https://www.un.org/en/climatechange/mark-carney-investing-net-zero-climate-solutions-creates-value-and-rewards

 

 

Economic and scientific analysis of Climate Challenge to impact Canada

 Politicians, economists, risk assessors, and climate scientists have numbers and models to guide their analysis of the climate emergency.

Climate change risk assessment

 

  David V Wright of the University of Calgary, Faculty of Law, writes that American economist Frank Ackerman called the social cost of carbon (SCC) “the most important number you’ve never heard of.” Times have changed. Today, the SCC figures prominently in climate policy discussions and analyses, and recent developments in Canada and the US are sure to reach any late adopters out there. That’s because the social cost of carbon (SCC) is a cornerstone in the Biden Administration’s ambitious climate action, and this comes at a time when Canada is showing a rejuvenated commitment to this important tool.

 

A few aspects of the new US context stand out as particularly relevant for Canada. First, the reconvened US IWG will provide renewed institutional might that was lacking for the last four years. In particular, this IWG can resume its leadership role in refining and improving SCC methodologies, and, for better or worse, Canada can comfortably resume its follow-the-leader approach (see here for a detailed account; more discussion on this below). Second, and related to the first point, the US is going to publish its new “interim” SCC values imminently (as well as SCM and SCN), so Canada will likely want to adopt similar revised values to ensure congruence across economies to the extent consistency is desired (which it typically is). Third, it would make sense for Canada to get to work in parallel or in collaboration with the US IWG on a similar timeline toward final revised SCC values by January 2022 (and, to be candid, this may well be happening already; I have not heard word). Fourth, by requiring the IWG to make recommendations on other federal “areas of decision-making, budgeting, and procurement… where SCC, SCN and SCM should be applied”, the Climate EO is signaling potential expansion of spheres where the SCC may be deployed. For example, this may build on emerging practices in the US of integrating the SCC into project-level approval decisions (see this article for discussion of such), something that has not happened in Canada to date (as discussed below, and see my and Meinhard Doelle’s discussion of this here). As such, Canada ought to be considering similar expanded options.1

An explainer by Kevin Rennert and Cora Kingdon reviews the social cost of carbon, from a basic definition to the history of its use in policy analysis. The SCC is used in benefit-cost analysis to quantify the dollar-value of a policy’s effect on climate change due to changes in greenhouse gas emissions. For policies that increase emissions, the expected increase in emissions (in tons) is multiplied by the SCC, and the result is included as part of the total estimated costs of the policy. For policies that decrease emissions, the change in emissions is multiplied by the SCC, and the result is added to the expected benefits of the policy.

 Estimates of the SCC are calculated in four steps using specialized computer models.

• Step 1: Predict future emissions based on population, economic growth, and other factors.

• Step 2: Model future climate responses, such as temperature increase and sea level rise.

• Step 3: Assess the economic impact that these climatic changes will have on agriculture, health, energy use, and other aspects of the economy.

• Step 4: Convert future damages into their present-day value and add them up to determine total damages.

These four steps are completed to obtain a baseline value for the damages of emissions. Then, the modeling process is repeated with a small additional amount of emissions to see how much it changes the total cost of damages. The increase in damages from the additional emissions provides an estimate of the SCC. The model is then run hundreds of thousands of times to evaluate the uncertainty of the estimates.2

Climate change is a classic market failure. The costs of emitting CO2 are borne by society at large, whereas the benefits accrue to those burning fossil fuels. In order to correct the market failure – for instance, with a carbon tax – we need to know the social cost of those CO2 emissions.

 Moreover, when governments measure the costs and benefits of a policy or investment decision, they need a value for CO2 emissions. If the SCC is high, then the benefits of cutting CO2 are large and costly climate actions will be justified. If the SCC is low, regulations might be more trouble than they’re worth.3

The Economist asks what impact Joe Biden will have on the fight against climate change. Joe Biden’s climate-friendly energy revolution seeks to find what it will take to fight rising temperatures.

 

Mr Biden has shown a willingness to pull multiple levers of power in pursuit of his climate agenda, announcing support for action through diplomacy, financial regulation, transport planning and more. The next decade is crucial in averting climate catastrophe, according to the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Mr Biden, along with Mr Kerry, will also have to helm America’s efforts at climate diplomacy, helping to persuade other countries to go further, faster. The Biden administration believes it has to co-operate with China to make sufficient progress on reducing global greenhouse-gas emissions, but arguments over security, trade and human rights make that difficult. COP26, the UN’s climate summit scheduled for November in Glasgow, will be a crucial test of the new president’s skills. But he seems committed to the task. Almost all the calls he made to world leaders after winning the election mentioned climate change, according to his transition team. And the world in which Mr Biden assumes office is different from the one he left at the end of the Obama administration. The need for economic recovery from the covid-19 pandemic means that governments are prepared to plough unprecedented sums of money into projects. Renewable energy is cheaper than ever before. Greener pastures might, at last, lie ahead.4

 

https://www.economist.com/img/b/800/420/90/sites/default/files/images/print-edition/20210220_FBC760.png

The Economist notes the problem is made worse by the fact that some conservative Democrats have their own reservations. Joe Manchin, a Democrat from West Virginia, says that he supports climate action. But he rejects the idea that coal, the dirtiest fossil fuel, might be permanently removed from the world’s energy portfolio.

 

A decisive American effort to reduce emissions would be a potent signal of solidarity and a great enabler of change. It is unlikely that poor- and middle-income countries, eager to lift their citizens out of poverty, will try hard to curb their emissions if the world’s richest nation declines to limit its own, which are among the world’s largest per person. A vibrant American programme would also guarantee levels of innovation devoted to the fight for a stable climate that easily exceed today’s. America’s wealth, national laboratories, universities, corporate giants and entrepreneurs, if properly harnessed to the task of decarbonisation, will undoubtedly produce novel approaches and technologies that would benefit other nations.5

Nine authors in Nature, offer eight priorities for calculating the social cost of carbon as advice to the Biden administration as it seeks to account for mounting losses from storms, wildfires and other climate impacts.

 

Biden’s actions mark a return of science-based policy in the United States. An open, transparent and inclusive IWG process will help to re-establish the SCC as central to climate policy. Reversing Trump’s changes will be quick and pragmatic for the interim number. Other steps require much more deliberation. Plenty of scientific and economic judgements need to be made. These include how to deal with endemic uncertainties, including sudden and irreversible ‘tipping points’, such as ice-sheet collapses. Ethical questions must be considered, including the consequences for vulnerable communities and future generations. Other nations use widely different SCC values or overall approaches2. Germany’s 2020 guidance presented two values: €195 (US$235) and €680 ($820). Some countries instead establish a goal for emissions reductions (such as the United Kingdom’s 68% reduction by 2030 compared to 1990 levels) and then focus on minimizing the costs of achieving it, estimated at $20–100 per tonne of CO2. This is called a target-consistent approach. Others have leaned heavily on the Obama-era SCC — including Canada, the state of New York and many major corporations. The Biden review will be influential well beyond the US government6

Economy decisions about when and how much resources to apply to the existential threat of the climate crisis can be debated using analytical tools like the SCC number.

 

References

 

1	David V Wright, “An Important Number You’ve Likely Heard About: Recent Social Cost of Carbon Developments in the United States and Canada” (February 19, 2021), online: ABlawg, http://ablawg.ca/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/Blog_DVW_Social_Cost_Carbon_Update.pdf
2	(n.d.). Social Cost of Carbon 101 - Resources for the Future. Retrieved February 20, 2021, from https://www.rff.org/publications/explainers/social-cost-carbon-101/
3	(2017, February 14). Q&A: The social cost of carbon | Carbon Brief. Retrieved February 19, 2021, from https://www.carbonbrief.org/qa-social-cost-carbon
4	(2021, January 31). What impact will Joe Biden have on the fight against climate change?. Retrieved February 19, 2021, from https://www.economist.com/the-economist-explains/2021/01/31/what-impact-will-joe-biden-have-on-the-fight-against-climate-change
5	(2021, February 19). Decarbonising America - Joe Biden's climate-friendly energy .... Retrieved February 19, 2021, from https://www.economist.com/briefing/2021/02/20/joe-bidens-climate-friendly-energy-revolution
6	(2021, February 19). Eight priorities for calculating the social cost of carbon - Nature. Retrieved February 20, 2021, from https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-021-00441-0

 

Innovation, War Time Effort, and Political Action

 

Recent articles and books have proposed strategies and action plans to use the past Canadian experience in innovation and war time productivity to begin an emergency plan to address the existential threat of climate change.

Less GHG from power plants

 

Bill Gates is about to release a book, “How to Avoid a Climate Disaster: The Solutions We Have and the Breakthroughs We Need.” Canada and the U.S. must take the lead because all the other countries look to us," Gates told The Current's Matt Galloway, "Unless the U.S. and Canada do their part, the rest of the world won't."

 

It's a cause he's invested in in recent years. In 2015, he spearheaded an initiative to fund clean energy technologies, and in 2019, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation poured hundreds of millions of dollars into helping farmers in developing nations adapt to the impacts of climate change. As the world starts to allocate funding toward the pandemic recovery, Gates says, it's the perfect time to think about long-term climate challenges. "The pandemic reminds people we count on government to look ahead [to] avoid terrible things happening," he said.  "And amazingly, young people are more interested in climate than ever. No matter what their political affiliation is, certainly in Canada, the U.S., Europe, we see a lot of energy around this. And of course, we've got this goal to get to zero [emissions] by 2050."1

Seth Klein spent the last year writing a book about Canada’s experience in the Second World War, searching for lessons on how to confront another equally dire emergency – the climate crisis – and how we can quickly transition off fossil fuels (A Good War: Mobilizing Canada for the Climate Emergency, ECW Press).

Emergency action by government

 

He has frequently been asked in interviews, “How do you know when a government gets the emergency?”

 

Here are my four markers for when you know that a government has shifted into emergency mode: 

1)    It spends what it takes to win;

2)    It creates new economic institutions to get the job done;

3)    It shifts from voluntary and incentive-based policies to mandatory measures; 

4)    It tells the truth about the severity of the crisis and communicates a sense of urgency about the measures necessary to combat it.

During the Second World War, the Canadian government did all those things. Likewise, in response to the pandemic, the Trudeau government has passed all four markers. But with respect to the climate emergency – thus far at least – our current federal and provincial governments are failing on all four counts.2

Mobilizing Canada for the Climate Emergency

 

The Economist reports that Britain has reduced its carbon emissions more than any other rich country. The elimination of power stations that burn coal has helped Britain cut its carbon emissions. They are down by 44%, according to data collected by the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS) during a period when the economy grew by two-thirds.

 

Britain’s success has given it prominence in the global debate on climate change. This year it will co-host COP26 in Glasgow, the world’s largest and most important climate gathering. Boris Johnson, the prime minister, is attracted to the futuristic whizbangery of clean energy and is deploying “climate diplomacy” to help define post-Brexit Britain’s place in the world. In November he presented a “ten point plan for a green industrial revolution” that included spending £12bn ($17bn) on clean energy gubbins. But examining Britain’s decarbonisation shows that much of its success was circumstantial, and that the country’s hardest problems are ahead of it. After a decade of meeting its own legally binding decarbonisation targets, Britain is now veering off course.3

The recent mobilization of resources by government to combat the Covid19 pandemic, the success of innovation in developed countries and political action in Britain point to a strategy for meeting or exceeding the climate goals Western countries have adopted in accord with the IPCC mission to reduce GHG emissions and limit global temperature rise.

 

References

 

1	(2021, February 14). Bill Gates on tackling climate change and why Canada and U.S. .... Retrieved February 16, 2021, from https://www.cbc.ca/radio/thecurrent/the-current-for-feb-15-2021-1.5912334/bill-gates-on-tackling-climate-change-and-why-canada-and-u-s-must-take-the-lead-1.5912418
2	(2020, November 25). Canada must adopt an emergency mindset to climate ... - Seth Klein. Retrieved February 16, 2021, from https://www.sethklein.ca/blog/canada-must-adopt-an-emergency-mindset-to-climate-change
3	(2021, February 13). Hard cuts - Britain has reduced its carbon emissions more than any .... Retrieved February 16, 2021, from https://www.economist.com/britain/2021/02/14/britain-has-reduced-its-carbon-emissions-more-than-any-other-rich-country

 

 

Capitalism Taxes and COVID

 

Stephan Richter and Uwe Bott, January 26, 2021 are no fans of neo-liberalism.

Rising tide floats all yachts

 

In an article for the globalist they look who is now suddenly disavowing it. Klaus Schwab and the World Economic Forum are running away from their past 50 years of tax cuts for the rich that failed to trickle down, an economics study says.

 

It also means tackling global mega corporations, especially those based in the United States. Beginning with their often-grotesque tax shenanigans, they are the real free riders in a troubled world. Their systematic effort to avoid paying their fair share — and thereby to contribute to preserving democracy and fairness in our societies — can no longer be tolerated. Holding these mega corporations to account firmly — even breaking them up — is in their own collective self-interest. For unless this happens, the essence of what these companies ultimately depend on the most — i.e., a consensus in favor of continued global integration — will vanish. It is already brittle enough.1

Aimee Picchi reports for CBS news that a paper, by David Hope of the London School of Economics and Julian Limberg of King's College London, that examines 18 developed countries — from Australia to the United States — over a 50-year period from 1965 to 2015. The study compared countries that passed tax cuts in a specific year, such as the U.S. in 1982 when President Ronald Reagan slashed taxes on the wealthy, with those that didn't, and then examined their economic outcomes.

Per capita gross domestic product and unemployment rates were nearly identical after five years in countries that slashed taxes on the rich and in those that didn't, the study found.  But the analysis discovered one major change: The incomes of the rich grew much faster in countries where tax rates were lowered. Instead of trickling down to the middle class, tax cuts for the rich may not accomplish much more than help the rich keep more of their riches and exacerbate income inequality, the research indicates. "Based on our research, we would argue that the economic rationale for keeping taxes on the rich low is weak," Julian Limberg, a co-author of the study and a lecturer in public policy at King's College London, said in an email to CBS MoneyWatch. "In fact, if we look back into history, the period with the highest taxes on the rich — the postwar period — was also a period with high economic growth and low unemployment."2 

Patrick Foulis writes in the Economist about a new type of creative destruction as Covid-19 is up-ending capitalism. Business top dogs will face a new climate in which three tenets of modern business—the primacy of shareholders, globalisation and limited government—are in flux.

A stakeholder capitalism

 

Firms will be under pressure to pay less attention to shareholders and more to workers. The pace of global buybacks almost halved in mid-2020 and won’t bounce back fully even as profits recover. The stagnation of globalisation means that more multinationals will have to operate as federations of national businesses and will be unable to reap the full efficiency gains from being run as a single globally integrated organisation. And as the size of government expands everywhere, the levels of regulation and taxes will inevitably rise. For the top 3,000 global firms the median effective tax rate paid has dropped from 33% two decades ago to just 22% now; the only way is up. At the end of this recession the world of business will have been shaken up—and so will the rules of capitalism.3 

The business that survives COVID 19 will likely increase responsibility to stakeholders, balance global trade with local production, and work in greater partnership with government policy objectives.

 

References

1	(2021, January 26). Klaus Schwab and the World Economic Forum Run Away from .... Retrieved January 26, 2021, from https://www.theglobalist.com/world-economic-forum-klaus-schwab-neoliberalism-capitalism-corporate-responsibility/
2	(2020, December 17). 50 years of tax cuts for the rich failed to trickle down, economics .... Retrieved February 8, 2021, from https://www.cbsnews.com/news/tax-cuts-rich-50-years-no-trickle-down/
3	(2020, November 17). The World in 2021 - Covid-19 is up-ending capitalism | The World .... Retrieved February 9, 2021, from https://www.economist.com/the-world-ahead/2020/11/17/covid-19-is-up-ending-capitalism