June 10, 2016

The Urgency Of Our Unsustainable Lifestyle

 
This post has been contributed.
 
You’ve undoubtedly heard it by now. We are living an unsustainable lifestyle as a species. The fact that some still go on to deny it is astounding. We are burning through our resources and stripping life, minerals and land from the earth at a shocking rate. Yet still there are many who are seeing ways to start turning the car around. Perhaps optimistic, but there are those pushing for ways of a more sustainable future. These people are finding ways to try and scale the civilization we have built, or at least be able to support it. The alternative doesn’t bear thinking about.
 
 
Our food
But part of that alternative involves mass starvation. The kind that first world country inhabitants would have trouble imagining. Not just is it going to be difficult to support the infrastructure of wide-scale food delivery. We’re going to actually be running out of food itself. Particularly, finding the amount of protein foods we produce and eat to be entirely unsustainable. That’s why, already, people are looking to alternative foods. From the salmon farming industry to those who swear by insects as a protein source.
 
Our water
It’s not just food that we’re running out of, either. Fresh, drinkable water is dwindling now, as well. Particularly when you consider the rise of droughts in areas like California, that’s a real concern to be addressed. Without taking the steps to live in ways that use less water, we are directly contributing to the shrinkage of the world’s water supplies. There are even some who say that water might replace oil as one of the most viciously fought-over resources on the planet.
 
Renewable energies
Speaking of oil, it’s become clear that we can no longer rely on it and fossil fuels. Yet, despite the rising chorus of scientific evidence and rallies for us to slow down, we show very few signs of doing that. We need to start taking seriously the fact that the energy consumption our society needs will no longer be possible at the rate we’re going. That we need to start seriously looking at the means of providing alternate, renewable energies. Already, solar and geothermic power are being developed and exploited, but we need to go faster.
 
Dwindling reserves
Speaking of energy, it’s important we take a good look at the dwindling reserves we have in terms of oil. There are no more reserves on the planet that are at peak levels. They are all dwindling and we’re not likely to find any more. Unless, by some miracle, huge reserves are discovered, we’re looking at running out of fossil fuels before the next century.
 
Making a difference
It’s not too late to start fighting for the conservation of our food, our water and our earth’s resources.  The Empowerment Institute is just an example of one of the groups fighting for a sustainable living campaign. The other groups mentioned above, the alternate energy providers and salmon farmers, are all for the same thing. If you want to start making a difference, vote with your money towards sustainable products.
 
 
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June 6, 2016

What Will Obama’s Legacy Be?

This post has been contributed.
 
As each month ticks by, we come closer and closer to the US presidential election date. On November 8th, a new candidate will take over from Obama, and move into The White House. At this moment in time, Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump are the two front runners. We’ve already seen an intense campaign, and things will heat up, even more, I’m sure.
 
But, today we’ll forget about the future, and look at the past. President Obama has been at the helm for eight years. When he burst onto the scene, he promised change. He wanted to fix America and lead us to a brighter future. As his tenure draws to a close, I think it’s interesting to look back at what he’s done. What will his legacy be?
(pixabay: https://goo.gl/vVB0eU)  
 

Obamacare

The main thing Obama will be remembered for is his Obamacare. He campaigned to change the health industry in America, for the greater good. Millions of uninsured patients are now covered thanks to Obamacare. It was a system that helped to provide Americans with access to high-quality healthcare. Before this, only the rich could afford the best care possible. It was met with great praise from Americans, and they loved him for it. But, as seen on http://www.takingonissues.com/, some are skeptical about it. They say it’s confusing and costs taxpayers money. Regardless of what you think, it’s a policy that he’ll be remembered by forever. And, Hillary Clinton looks to continue with Obamacare if she wins the election. So, his legacy will live on through future presidents.

Education

Another key talking point about his presidency was education. Obama signed legislation that helped reform higher education in America. He stopped student loans from being controlled by corporate fat cats. Instead, he made them affordable and even implemented a system to make it easier to pay them back. Non-wealthy students were no longer unable to afford a college education. It made for a fairer playing field and gave the less fortunate a chance to succeed.

Terrorism

The threat of terrorism has remained constant throughout Obama’s reign. Currently, ISIS is the biggest worry regarding world terror. As per an article on http://time.com/, he said some acts of terror will never be stopped. But, he also mentioned how they’ve dealt with the main threat of terrorism. They’ve stopped terrorists from having the means to carry out massive attacks like 9/11. And, it must be remembered that Obama was the president when Bin Laden was captured and killed. On the larger scaled, it can be argued that he dealt with the war on terror well. There haven’t been any huge attacks like 9/11 during his reign.
 
So, what will Obama’s legacy be? He’ll leave The White House having created life changing policies for many Americans. It should also be noted how he cut unemployment
 
rates dramatically too. There will be groups that think he failed, but that’s natural. In my opinion, he’s done a good job, and the country is in a better shape now than in 2008.
 
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June 2, 2016

Do Workers Now Have Too Many Rights?

This post has been contributed.
 
Nobody wants to see a return to the days to nineteenth-century factory work. The working day was long and monotonous. And the work itself was downright dangerous. But the question has been raised as to whether workers today have too many rights. Is that true?
 
Employment law has changed a lot since the early days. In the middle of the nineteenth century, workers weren't able to bargain for better pay. They either took what they got, or they found something else. But once workers started to band together all that began to change. Workers suddenly got the right to unionise, thanks to political changes. And this increased unionisation had a number of profound effects in the twentieth century.
 
 
The most important effect was that workers’ pay started going up. In unionised industries, pay tended to be a lot higher than in non-unionised industries. In turn, that made the industries themselves more attractive to workers and many workers found jobs.
 
But the other effect was that it made employing people less attractive to industry bosses. They didn’t want to have to pay all the extra compensation. And so they looked for ways to automate labour. Of course, early on, the incentives to do that were small. Yes, workers were paid slightly more, but it still paid the owners of businesses to employ them.
 
But since the end of the second world war, workers’ rights have continued to advance. In developed countries, much of the legislation has revolved around discrimination. First discrimination based on gender was eliminated in the 1960s. Then, after that, discrimination based on race, thanks to the civil rights movement. Then, following on from that, a whole raft of anti-discriminations measures. Businesses could no longer discriminate on grounds of sexual orientation, religion or age.
 
By the 2000s, the legislative reforms were complete. And practically everybody celebrated them, even businesses themselves.
 
The Problems
 
But, of course, these reforms came with significant costs. One of the biggest costs was the fact that businesses were now far more exposed to legal proceedings. Once the legislation came in, businesses could face employment tribunals on grounds of discrimination.
 
Businesses started looking for employment tribunal representation. They needed some form of legal protection against the increasing frequency of tribunals. And they needed to be far more careful in the way that they recruited and treated staff.
 
Many saw this as a victory for the worker. After all, who wants to see discrimination in the workplace? Nobody. But of course, it might now be working against the interest of workers themselves. Let’s take a minute to think about this.
 
One of the biggest problems that workers now face is that they are a lot more expensive to employ. Companies must take out insurance to cover the costs of litigation. And they must be vigilant against future legal claims. Remember, it’s not just the direct costs of employment that companies have to worry about. It’s the risk that they might get sued. And each time they take on somebody new, they have to factor in this risk. If the risks go up, then from their perspective, so too do the costs of employment. And if those go up, then they’re less likely to want to employ somebody new.
 
But it’s not just in matters of discrimination where workers’ rights have expanded. Worker’s rights have also expanded in other areas. Workers are entitled to workplace pensions, parental leave and minimum wages. And all these things sound great on paper. In fact, anybody with a shred of decency would want these policies to remain in tact.
 
But of course, these policies don’t come for free. Somebody has to pay for them. And that person is usually the workers themselves. Why? Well, the problem is that all of these policies have the effect of making labour a lot less attractive. If employees are able to sue their bosses every five minutes, then their bosses aren’t going to want to take them on.
 
In individual cases, we wouldn’t expect this to have much of an effect. But when we’re talking about the whole economy, the effect on workers is large.
 
The main issue seems to be that a lot of these employment policies were a great idea when they were introduced. In the past, employers had little choice but to employ real people. Not much production, especially in services, could be automated. And so employers had to just accept that labour was expensive. Ultimately, they passed these higher costs onto consumers.
 
Now, though, the situation is changed. It’s no longer the case that human labour is sacred. There is the real possibility that robots will replace people over the next three decades. And that process will occur far more quickly, the more expensive is labour.
 
The Solutions
 
So what’s the solution? We can’t go back to the nineteenth century working conditions. We’ve moved on since then, not to mention the fact that going back would be political suicide. And we can’t carry on as we are now, mainly because of the threat of automation.
 
The solution might be found within businesses themselves. Businesses work best when they have a vibrant and diverse workforce. But to achieve this, they need to have excellent human resources credentials. For employees to succeed, they need to find businesses that have a great culture. The culture needs to be one of constantly moving people forward and increasing their skills. The best defence that many people can have against automation is to increase their value to the companies they work for. Yes, employment law makes employing people less attractive. But workers themselves can do a lot to counteract this. They can work hard to make themselves more attractive. Having great skills and doing a great job is one way to secure this.
 
Of course, there will always be times when employers have acted unjustly towards their staff. And in these situations, tribunals are justified. But it’s the wider, systemic effects that should worry us if we want to keep people in work.
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