⚡Poison
Good morning! If you missed yesterday’s update, here it is.
It’s election day. Make sure to hit the ballots. Mississippi and Kentucky choose governors, Virginia its state legislators, Washington decides on affirmative action, and NYC votes three local offices and changes to the city charter.
Why pay attention. Local elections don’t ever get the buzz of the presidential and congressional elections, but they’re very important. Outside of having high impact on your day-to-day life, they could also offer some hints on how citizens feel about Trump and other core issues like his impeachment, affirmative action, guns and more.
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Let’s get into it!
Look at Nature for New Technology
When we were kids, we asked my parents why people don’t just create technology that copies plants. We didn’t like how street lights looked next to the trees. What if you could combine them? Well, our five year old selves would be happy to know that people are working on that.
Artificial leaf converts CO2 into energy. Leaves are quite successful at pulling CO2, sun, and water to create energy, so what if we could mimic that ability? Cars and airplanes running on fuel from sunlight and CO2, instead of oil.
New research. Yimin Wu, an engineering professor at the University of Waterloo led a project that works on an artificial leaf technology, inspired by photosynthesis.
“We’re using carbon dioxide and water and sunlight as an input, and producing methanol and oxygen as a product.”
The process, so far, is 10 times more efficient than photosynthesis in a plant.
Others in the race. Climeworks, a startup that pulls CO2 using direct air capture, is currently working with others to test the feasibility of a new plant that will turn C02 into renewable jet fuel. Carbon Engineering is also attempting to do something similar.
Wu’s next steps. After improving the efficiency, Wu hopes to commercialize the process. While the process reduces emissions, it also reduces the need for world-negative energy extraction like oil production. It could be a win-win.
When Air Becomes Poison
New Delhi declares health emergency. Air pollution climbed to dangerous levels over the weekend and into Monday due in part to the burning of crops. Officials have begun restricting car use and closing schools.
(NYTimes)
Every winter. Farmers in northern India burn crops to make room for the next harvest. The fumes float toward New Delhi and suburbs and mix with construction dust, vehicle emissions, and smoke from firework displays during Diwali.
In October, farm fires were at their lowest in eight years, but it doesn’t seem to have been enough.
(NYTimes)
This weekend. Levels of deadly particulate matter reached 60 times the global safety threshold in many areas. That’s the same as smoking more than two packs of cigarettes a day.
Courts slam authorities.
"This is a shocking state of affairs in which we are put, as on today," the court said. "This is a blatant and grave violation of right to life of the sizable population by all these actions and the scientific data which has been pointed out indicates that life span of the people is being reduced by this kind of pollution which is being created."
School children protest outside the Indian environment ministry against alarming levels of pollution (CNN)
Court has ordered Delhi’s pollution board to immediately halt “polluting industries” and demanded the government submit a “roadmap” to prevent this in the future.
Inequality Over the Decades
We love the tree model of learning — to fully understand a topic, you need to start at the roots, go up the trunk, through the branches, and finally end at the leaf. In today’s debate about inequality, we love to focus on the leaves. We discuss poverty rates today, the number of billionaires, and more. However, with an issue as systemic as inequality, we need to go back to the roots — we need to fully understand the history of how we’ve arrived where we are today.
Capital and Main has looked through archives, examined economic programs, and spoken to cross-functional experts to identify key points where policymakers have made systemic shifts to further inequality since World War II. Check it out below!
Early Milestones
1949 — Through a series of court cases, the US Supreme Court begins to uphold laws that hurts union and strike down laws that strengthen unions.
1970 — Richard Nixon reduces the corporate tax rate, resulting in a greater tax burden on the middle class; since then, most administrations have followed in suit
1971 — Lewis Powell, a future associate justice of the Supreme Court, sends a memo to the US Chamber of Commerce urging government and business leaders to fight to maintain corporate dominance in politics
1978 — Rallies are held to push for reform to the Taft-Hartley bill in order to strengthen the ability of unions to collectively bargain; Senate Republicans defeat the reform bill
The Modern Foundations
1980 — Carter signs the Motor Carrier Act, deregulating the trucking industry and allowing thousands of small firms to spring up. While more small business sounds great, it kills the industry’s unions. This begins an era of corporate deregulation, neutralizing organized labor and reducing wages.
1980s — Reagan cuts aid to poorest families and housing programs. The Omnibus Reconciliation Act of 1981 made hundreds of thousands of families ineligible for aid, resulting in an increase in poverty. Also, the budget for HUD was cut 74 percent, resulting in a steep increase in homelessness.
1981 — The number of companies employing lobbyists in DC rise from 175 to 2,445 in ten years, driven by the need for members of Congress to raise money for reelections
1981 — Ronald Reagan slashes the highest tax rate from 70 percent to 50 percent
1981 — The SEC legalizes stock buybacks, enabling companies to use profits to increase their stock prices rather than investing in R&D or distributing earnings to employees through bonuses and salaries
Recent History
1994 — Clinton signs NAFTA, making it easier for companies to change locations and avoid high costs; this gives companies new tools in collective bargaining, further weakening the unions
1996 — Clinton kicks off the TANF program, significantly cutting cash aid to the poor and shifts the supported population from everybody in need to just “workers with children”; if you’re a childless adult, you’re out of luck
1997 — Minimum wage is stuck at $5.15 and will be here for the next decade
1999 — Clinton repeals Glass-Steagall, a bill passed in the New Deal era focused on insulating commercial banking from investment activity; this move laid the foundation of the financial collapse in 2008
2001 — Bush tax cuts drive both the federal deficit and income inequality higher
2017 — Trump cuts the corporate rate to 21 percent, lowers the capital gains tax, and increases the exemption on the estate tax, helping the wealthiest Americans
Tomorrow Today
🎟️ Thursday, December 5: Community Event
Change cannot be achieved alone, only together. In that spirit, we are kicking off community events at our space in New York City. Mark your calendars for our very first event on Thursday, December 5 — we’ll be sending out more details soon!
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