⚡Flying
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A forgiving legal system
The United States is the most incarcerated country in the world, because the justice system’s approach leans heavily on punishment. But what if society focused on creating a better future for victims and perpetrators? This is called restorative justice.
Tell me more. A growing movement in America, restorative justice seeks to use dialogue between criminals, victims, and families as an approach to healing. You can look at South Africa as an example of the model.
In practice. The model was used by South Africa’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission. It began over 20 years ago and was intended to bring more unity to the country after the end of apartheid in 1994. Victims and perpetrators came face-to-face and spoke in an attempt to heal wounds and move forward. People were sometimes granted amnesty if they accepted responsibility for what happened.
On forgiveness. Harvard law professor Martha Minow, in her book When Should Law Forgive?, explores how to scale and apply a restorative justice approach to the criminal justice system in the US. She calls for the system to redistribute the its efforts towards resolution and healing over punishment. It doesn’t ask to remove punishment altogether, but poses the question: how could society be different?
Imbalance. Currently, Minow criticizes the system as unfair in how it offers forgiveness and second changes. It favors those of wealth, power, and influence over the underrepresented, disadvantaged, and marginal. Can we build a more fair legal system by changing the incentive structures of the entire process?
Minow’s focus on incentives is important. The US system’s focus on retribution over rehabilitation is evident through the country’s incarcerated numbers, but what often is not observed is the lives of the people after they’ve completed their time. We should pay attention to how people end up in the criminal justice system again after their initial experiences with it. Maybe a restorative justice system would incentivize the system to better rehabilitate perpetrators and build a more productive society moving forward.
Flying saves the planet
Flying and travel are often viewed as sources of major pollution by environmentalists. Greta Thunberg sailed the Atlantic for climate conferences and refuses to fly because of the environmental impact of air travel.
Flight shame. It’s a movement popularized by well-intended climate activists that argue “flying is bad for the climate, so if you care about life on Earth, don’t fly.” Sounds pretty simple… right?
Well… tourism protects. The tourism industry depends on air travel (surprise). And the global efforts of protecting nature is linked to tourism’s bank account. If travelers stop taking trips to various wildlife and nature-oriented places, conversation efforts will drop due to funding; and poverty will grow in those areas decreasing the likelihood of new efforts.
Some numbers. 1 in 10 people are employed in the travel and tourism industry and in many countries, people travel for… nature! Nature-based tourism is a top foreign exchange earner in some countries. Furthermore, aviation accounts for only ~2.5% of human-induced C02 emissions. For context, deforestation contributes up to 20%, which is similar in size to all transportation combined.
Conversation efforts. Some tour operators directly protect millions of acres of endangered species habitats and others work on conservation projects and funding to save various endangered and often hunted animals. Some argue that the key reason the mountain gorilla is not yet extinct is because of tourism. People are willing to fly to Africa and pay large sums of money to see one in the wild. Because of this, governments and local communities that are supported by tourism continue to protect them. Similarly, over a million tourists visited Tanzania last year to see the wildebeest migration in Serengeti. If that suddenly disappeared, the vast plains could be turned into cattle ranches or other income generating land.
The lesson. When local communities grow and thrive due to tourism, they become very conscious about protecting nature. They are allies and partners in sustainability efforts.
Of course, not all tourism is good. Efforts need to continually be made to implement more sustainable tourism practices around the world. People need to stop throwing trash and others need to stop taking pieces of the environment home. We need to keep protecting culture, environment, and community. However, it is interesting that shaming people from flying could have the reverse effect than what was intended.
Short takes
The law should treat social media companies as publishers.
Air pollution makes you dumber. Bye bye IQ.
When stealing designs damage the environment. Allbirds co-founder: Amazon’s lookalike shoe undermines our sustainability efforts.
Styrofoam eating larvae wins national highschool sustainability contest.
Tomorrow Today
🎟️ Thursday, December 5: Intro to Unconventional Activism
Change cannot be achieved alone, only together. In that spirit, we are kicking off community events at our space in New York City. Eat some food and learn from seasoned unconventional activists who have started mission-driven companies to accelerate change. Stayed tuned for speaker announcement and the menu. Get excited!
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