Monthly Archives: April 2022

U.S. Health Care Affordability in 2020

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This article looks at health insurance coverage for adults in America during the first half of 2020. This article presents results from the Commonwealth Fund’s latest Biennial Health Insurance Survey, which assesses the extent and quality of coverage for U.S. working-age adults. The survey began in 2001 and has three measures to gauge the adequacy of insurance coverage. The first is whether or not people have insurance. The second is if they have insurance and whether they experienced a gap in coverage in the prior year. The third is whether high out-of-pocket costs and deductibles are causing them to be underinsured, despite having continuous coverage throughout the year.

The survey for this article began in January of 2020. A nationally representative sample of 4,272 adults ages 19 to 64 was interviewed about their health insurance coverage through June 5.

The article gives important highlights of the survey, explains who is underinsured, and gives a graph that shows the percentage change of people that are underinsured over ten years.

The article goes on to present many graphs that present the percentage of ethnic groups who are uninsured, the change over time of adults in employer plans that are underinsured, change over time of the percentage of adults with a share of private insurance with deductibles of $1,000 or more, the percentage of people with inadequate insurance coverage that have more problems paying medical bills, the percentage of medical debt that leaves people with lingering financial problems, the percentage of uninsured or underinsured adults who often avoid or delay getting needed health care and medications, the percentage of people with higher deductibles who report financial problems more frequently because of medical bills or delaying care because of cost, then finally the percentage of adults who look for but do not buy plans in the individual market or marketplaces cite because of affordability.

The article concludes by explaining how the study was conducted.

This article and information relate to Social Injustice by showing the high uninsured rates of ethnic groups. The uninsured rates of black and Latino people are much higher than the uninsured rate of white people.

https://www.commonwealthfund.org/publications/issue-briefs/2020/aug/looming-crisis-health-coverage-2020-biennial

 

 

Giant Iceberg Floats by Newfoundland

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In 2017, a massive iceberg drifted past a town in Newfoundland at a whopping 15 stories above the water. This number is especially large when taking into consideration that the tip of the iceberg is only 10% of the entire mass of the iceberg. It’s not uncommon for icebergs to float by Canadian shores, but lately more and bigger icebergs have made their way south, calving off of Greenland. This is concerning, as a rise in temperatures (in part due to rising green house gas emissions) means that glaciers are shrinking. With glaciers melting and calving off more and more icebergs, the sea level is set to rise as well, meaning that icebergs won’t be floating past Canadian shores, they’ll be floating over them. Also concerning is the inconsistencies in how many icebergs calve annually, with 1,546 icebergs clogging shipping lanes in 2014 (one of the top 6 most severe cases in over 100 years), and only 687 icebergs 2 years later in 2016. GHG have real effects, and more needs to be done to reduce them.

 

https://www.livescience.com/58783-huge-icebergs-drift-by-canadian-village.html

Sustainable Energy creating JOBS!

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Sustainable/renewable energy is a fairly new infrastructure and is still being implemented on small scale. However, renewable energy is the industry of the future. Within New York State alone they are planning on using “Clean Energy and Offshore Wind, Projects Are Expected to Reduce the City’s Fossil Fuel Use for Electricity by More Than 80 Percent in 2030”. Through these many projects, there is a demand for labor where it is proposed that these projects are expected to directly create more jobs. According to the 2019 Clean Energy Report (2019), New York State has already created 160,000 clean energy jobs and has been increasing since. With a 10% growth in the industry from 2016 to 2019. This shows the opportunity that installing clean energy in our communities will have on improving job growth and together improving our communities economically and environmentally.

 

                                                

 

https://www.nyserda.ny.gov/About/Newsroom/2021-Announcements/2021-11-30-Clean-Path-NY-Champlain-Hudson-Power-Express-Renewable-Energy

 

 

LEDS to save Electricity!

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Something I have never really taken into consideration before was how often I personally don’t think about light usage.  My dorm room has almost all LED lights, but I personally bought them for convenience in college, I didn’t really think about it in environmentally friendly terms.  With doing some research I found that about 5% of LED light’s energy is converted into heat while 95% is converted into light.  They also use a LOT less power than a typical fluorescent light, using a 36 watt vs a fluorescent’s 84 watt light.  By replacing fluorescent lights in your house, that brings down the emission of greenhouse gases entering the atmosphere as well as reduces the demand of power plants.  Since it is unlikely that everyone will transition to LED lights within the next 5 years, a smaller goal when it comes to energy consumption is to turn off the lights when exiting a room or not having them on at all when it is not needed, for instance in the broad daylight.  A lot of the time fluorescent lights will also have toxic substances within the light bulb such as mercury.  When it comes to LED lights, they contain no toxic substances, have fewer lights needed to achieve the same level of brightness as fluorescent and incandescent lights, and have a longer lifespan, which leads to less carbon emissions (and the less likely you’ll have to replace the lights, so you’ll spend less money.  As someone who likes to decorate, and have those twinkly lights in my dorm room that many other college students my age have, it’s a lot more cost efficient and better for the environment to have compared to other options when it comes to light.  Go out and buy yourself a strip of those color changing LED lights to “spice up” your room!

resources:

https://www.energy.gov/eere/articles/study-environmental-benefits-leds-greater-cfls

https://www.sepco-solarlighting.com/blog/the-advantages-of-led-lights-for-the-environment

 

Fast Fashion and It’s Consequences

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Many companies involved in fast fashion and unsustainable practices use outdated and less eco-friendly processes to produce their goods. A a result of these outdated manufacturing practices, the carbon footprint of many clothing brands are alarmingly high. Fast fashion caters to increasingly high levels of supply and demand, so the products are over produced, and then retailers buy them at exceedingly high prices. Whatever is left over are usually disposed of unethically, rather than being donated or up-cycled. Brands like Aerie, She-in, and the like are some of the biggest contributors to this issue. However, there are viable, and fun alternative solutions to this issue that not only are sustainable, they’re also very much within current fashion trends and practices. As mentioned earlier, up cycling is not only an alternative option, it’s also affordable. Thrifting is also a popular alternative, and it’s also way more affordable than buying at full price in-store. Savers, Goodwill, and the Salvation Army are all large and fairly well known companies that utilize thrifting practices. There are several benefits to thrifting and buying clothes which include, but are not limited too, lesser levels of air pollution, less waste production, and healthier oceans. It turns out that polyester, which is used in many fabrics, doesn’t decompose in water, and instead just adds to the pollution of our oceans. Strikingly enough, people throw away 60-80 pounds, on average, of unwanted clothing over the course of their lifetimes. The fashion industry also contributes to ~10% of global carbon emissions. So, it is not unfair to state that thrifting is, in fact, good for the environment, and it’s also wicked fun.

 

Sources:

https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbestechcouncil/2022/01/31/sustainability-in-fast-fashion-how-tech-can-minimize-waste/?sh=2f5be76331e6

https://www.swiftfit.net/blog/sustainable-thrift-shopping

Food Waste: A Major Problem

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Often when we throw out leftovers, or walk through a grocery store with many unsold items set to expire the next day, we don’t think anything of it.  To many people, food waste is just another part of life; however, it is actually a major problem which is growing every year.  Wasted food is defined as food not used for its intended purpose; common examples include uneaten prepared food and plate waste.  While some uneaten food is donated to feed people, much of it ends up in landfills.  The amount of food wasted each year is great, as according to the EPA, “ about 63 million tons of wasted food were generated in the commercial, institutional, and residential sectors, with about 32 percent being managed by animal feed, bio-based materials/biochemical processing, codigestion/anaerobic digestion, composting, donation, land application, and sewer/wastewater treatment” in 2018.  So, just how much food is 63 million tons? According to an estimate from The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations in 2011, about ⅓ of all food produced for human consumption is wasted.  Food waste is a large global issue and continues to be pervasive to today.

In order to combat the issue of food waste, there are some methods that can be employed in our day-to-day lives.  For instance, to help quell food waste at home, you can pay extra attention to what you buy in the grocery store; do not buy in bulk unless you know you can consume all of the items before they go bad.  Learn how to store produce correctly, so it lasts longer and less food has to be thrown away. Plan what you are going to eat during the week before you go shopping, so none of your food goes to waste.  If we all try to employ these habits in our daily lives and are a little more conscious when it comes to food waste, we can help to minimize a major sustainability issue.

 

https://www.epa.gov/sustainable-management-food/sustainable-management-food-basics

https://www.epa.gov/recycle/preventing-wasted-food-home

 

Composting is Convenient!

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Composting has been a method of disposing food waste that many people use in more rural parts of the county for years; however, as we have seen, cities are beginning and have already implemented composting programs. One can see from the EPA’s data that composting has increased from 23.4 million tons a year to 24.9  million tons between 2015 and 2018 (EPA). If a family wants to compost, there are strict rules for what one can put in their compost pile. No animal products can go into compost. This is because of the high amount of fat that does not decompose well (Pela, 1). Meat can also attract pests which is a concern depending on where one lives. Another factor is that raw animal products may have bacteria such as E. coli which thrive in warm, humid environments like a compost pile (Pela, 1).  Now you may be wondering why Union allows us to compost any and all food scraps? This is because Union supposedly sends the waste to a high heat composting facility. They introduce heat in a controlled environment to break down all food scraps without the fear of introducing bacteria to the soil. Many people decide not to compost due to concerns about pests and a misunderstanding of its time commitment. However, in reality, if you rake your leaves into a pile on the edge of your property, you are already composting. It is just a matter of being consistent and having a container in your kitchen to quickly dispose of scraps daily before emptying them into your compost pile.

 

https://www.epa.gov/facts-and-figures-about-materials-waste-and-recycling/national-overview-facts-and-figures-materials

https://pela.earth/blogs/news/can-you-compost-meat

Vegetable Oil as a Fuel Source for Cars

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Believe it or not, there are ways to run a car on energy sources that are not diesel or petroleum. As fossil fuel emissions have become the object of concern in the past few decades due to due climate change, people have been eager to find energy sources that are more sustainable than basic petroleum. They have recently discovered that it is possible to power a car on vegetable oil, which is a much more sustainable energy source than petroleum. Burning vegetable oil is known to be less toxic, and it “produces up to 75% fewer greenhouse gas emissions and particulates” (Choosesq.com). While vegetable oil is not a perfect solution to climate change, it makes you wonder what other renewable energy sources are possible. This is why we need to invest more money into innovation and invention, so that the brightest minds in the world can figure out ways to save the planet.

 

Works Cited:

https://choosesq.com/blog/how-to-run-a-car-on-vegetable-oil/#:~:text=It%20is%20possible%20to%20run,SeQuential%20for%20your%20biodiesel%20needs.

 

Earth Day Origins

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The holiday of Earth Day was inspired by a 1969 oil spill in Santa Barbara, California. In that catastrophic and well-known oil spill, between 3.5 and 4.2 million gallons of crude oil were spilled into the Santa Barbara Channel. The very next year, the first Earth Day was hosted to raise awareness for this event, as well as spark more support and visibility for the growing environmentalism movement.

Since that initial oil spill, between 1969 and 2017 there have been 44 more oil spills in North America, every single one of them over more than 420,000 gallons, according to the National Oceanic Atmospheric Administration. That means that since the initial 3.5-4.2 million gallon oil spill that caused Earth Day, at the very least 18.48 million gallons of oil have been spilled, and that’s a low estimate that excludes the past 5 years, which have seen a large uptick in oil spills.

Hopefully, we can muster up a renewed interest in taking down oil companies within the environmentalism movement, and ensure a healthy future for the ocean for us and the generations that come after us.

Sources:

The History of Earth Day

https://abcnews.go.com/Business/wireStory/california-spill-52-years-historic-oil-disaster-80400250

https://response.restoration.noaa.gov/oil-and-chemical-spills/oil-spills/largest-oil-spills-affecting-us-waters-1969.html

Dilemma on sustainability and poor communities

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Sustainability development is a building block of four pillars. Those four pillars are social, economic, human, and environmental. Although they are all crucial to maintaining our earth and what’s in it, the economic pillar is imperative to reduce the cost of living. With that being said, different classes will receive greater economic benefits than others. The role of renewables in tackling poverty by Sarah Dawood brings an emphasis on the development of clean energy in third world countries. However, there will be contribution issues within impoverished communities due to them already lacking access to food and water which created economic inequality,“ Stanford University found that climate change has increased economic inequality between developed and developing countries by 25 percent since 1960.” This creates a dilemma between implementing green energy and forcing poor communities to abide by those standards. If these places already lack the means of creating sustainable power sources at a low cost just like many of the first world countries, how can we expect them to make meaningful contributions to growing clean energy? While green energy seems like the best alternative to fossil fuels we have to be careful about how we go about implementing these newer rules and regulations. Otherwise, we run the risk of economically draining these poor communities with the disconnect between wealthy communities who try to communicate and enforce ways of living as if those resources are accessible among every community of people.

Source link, https://www.newstatesman.com/spotlight/energy/2021/11/renewable-energy-tackling-poverty-developing-countries