These lies about climate change just wouldn’t die in 2022
Elizabeth Weise, USA TODAY – December 29, 2022
There was a time – a recent time – when concern about the environment was relatively bipartisan, not a cultural flashpoint.
A Republican, President Richard Nixon, established the Environmental Protection Agency in 1970. In the 1980s and 1990s, bipartisan majorities voted to strengthen the Clean Air Act and the Clean Water Act, led by a Republican – Rhode Island’s Sen. John Chafee.
Those days are gone, and today a wide range of misleading statements and outright lies about the reality of human-caused climate change circulate widely.
The sheer volume of misinformation can distort perceptions of how many people don’t believe the science that shows the Earth’s climate is changing because of human activity, said Katharine Hayhoe, an atmospheric scientist and professor at Texas Tech University.
“I call them ‘zombie arguments’ because you can explain that they’re not true but they still go stumbling around because they’re not about facts but excuses,” she said.
In truth, a small number of people actually believe these lies, she said. Surveys by the Yale Program on Climate Change Communication in Connecticut have found 8% to 9% of Americans are totally dismissive of climate change, believing it is either not happening, not human-caused or not a threat. Many of these people also endorse conspiracy theories about global warming.
“They’re just 8% of the population. A loud 8%, and very present online, but only 8%. So I would rather answer from the perspective of everybody else,” said Hayhoe, who is also an evangelical Christian whose most recent book is “Saving Us: A Climate Scientist’s Case for Hope and Healing in a Divided World.”
Here are some of the most common climate myths and lies experts say have been circulating this year:
Wrong: Summer heat waves show renewables can’t work
Power grids in Texas, California and the Pacific Northwest all faced extreme heat events this summer. Each power system was pushed to the brink by the draw on electricity for air conditioning. And yet none broke.
Nonetheless, a false narrative circulated saying that solar and wind energy had made those power grids – and especially California’s – fragile and unable to cope with high demands.
In fact, the opposite is the case. While renewable energy does present challenges, especially during heat waves, this year proved that careful planning and green innovations can successfully meet those challenges.
In California, battery storage and conservation allowed the state to avoid power outages during a 10-day September heatwave. In the Northwest, battery storage and voluntary programs that rewarded customers for reducing demand kept the system running.
In Texas in July, a heat wave caused the Electric Reliability Council of Texas to take emergency measures, including urging residents to restrict their use and paying power operators as much as $5,000 per megawatt hour to keep generators running. ERCOT said two factors affected its ability to meet soaring demand: low wind power generation and outages at coal- and natural gas-fed power plants.
Blaming renewable energy as the cause of power crunches is unfair, said David Doniger, senior strategic director in the Natural Resources Defense Council’s climate and clean energy program.
“Their answer is always ‘Stick with fossil fuel because renewables and efficiency can’t fill the need.’ This is the lie; those are the problem and not the solutions,” he said.
“Some of the biggest lies these days are focused on slowing the transition from fossil energy to cleaner alternatives by saying problems or shortcomings for renewables make it impossible.”
Energy experts say the percentage of U.S. power that comes from renewables can go much higher than today’s relatively low numbers without causing severe stress on electrical systems. In April, records were set when 28% of U.S. electricity came from renewable resources.
They do acknowledge that decarbonizing the final 10% of the electric grid will be tricky but say that’s not a reason to avoid decarbonizing the first 90%.
Grace Suzanna Mashensic, 16, of Columbus, Ohio, cheers for Jane Fonda as she speaks during “Fire drill Fridays,” a climate change rally, Friday, Dec. 2, 2022, in Washington.
Wrong: Using ESG criteria is ‘woke’ capitalism
Making investment decisions with environmental, social and governance factors in mind has been around for decades.
But recently it has been decried as “woke capitalism,” and a concerted effort has been waged to stop companies from taking all three, known as ESG, into consideration when they make investments. That’s especially true when it comes to taking environmental risk management.
In the past year, 18 states have either proposed or adopted rules limiting the ability of the state government and public retirement plans to do business with entities found to “discriminate” against certain industries based on environmental, social and governance criteria, according to JD Supra, a legal news source. For example, Arizona’s State Board of Investment said in August that ESG considerations could not be considered in the investment management of its assets.
“It’s a sinister lie that’s deeply counterproductive, not just to the climate but also to people’s pocketbooks and pensions,” said Alicia Seiger, who teaches sustainability and energy finance at Stanford University’s law and graduate schools of business in California.
Telling companies they can’t consider all available information to make solid long-term investments “is insanity,” she said. “That should be determined by the investor, not the political system.”
Wrong: Believing in climate change is only for the far left
Experts have noted an effort by some to lump in climate change with other liberal and progressive causes, such as racial justice. The implication is that those who believe global warming is an issue to be dealt with must also support a host of other objectives that are considered “far left.”
“Conspiracy theorists connect climate change to other lightning-rod issues to generate emotional, irrational responses that drive online engagement,” said David Di Martino, co-founder of triplecheck, a nonprofit that works to combat the spread of misinformation, including climate misinformation.
Wrong: There’s no hope for fixing climate change, so why try?
An increasingly frequent message centers around “doomerism,” the lie that it’s totally impossible to reduce greenhouse gas emissions to near-zero without devastating the economy and significantly reducing our standard of living, so there’s no point in even trying.
This is wrong because the technology to decarbonize much of the electrical grid already exists. Meanwhile, wind and solar, along with battery storage, are increasingly cheaper than coal and natural gas. Decarbonizing more hard-to-reach areas, such as steel and cement production and aviation fuel, will take longer but are in the works.
An Oxford University study released in September found a fast transition to decarbonized energy systems is cheaper than a slow one or not transitioning at all. Achieving zero-carbon energy systems is “possible and profitable” and will save the world at least $12 trillion compared with continuing current levels of fossil fuel use, it found.
A long-term lie has been that climate change isn’t real, but as shifting climate patterns have made that argument harder to make, it has moved to one that says there are either no good alternatives to fossil fuels or the alternatives themselves cause problems and are too expensive.
“In other words, we are stuck with fossil fuels and there are no good alternatives, so burn baby burn,” said Jason Smerdon, a professor of climate physics at Columbia University in New York.
These arguments are mostly in aid of fossil fuel producers who want to keep making money as long as they can.
“Climate disinformation has always been about delaying any action on global warming,” Smerdon said. “They simply perpetuate the false assumption that we have no choice but the same old reliance on fossil fuels.”
If fact, the business community is jumping in with both feet because they see solid opportunities, said Julio Friedmann, chief scientist at Carbon Direct, a carbon management firm and former professor at Columbia University.
“We have the technology we need and we have a lot of the market-aligning policies we need,” he said.
It’s no longer a question of “Is this even possible?” but instead “How quickly can we do it?”
“It’s a fundamentally different mindset,” Friedmann said. “That’s why I’m bullish on our ability to round these corners and get the job done.”
Trump’s tax returns released after long fight with Congress
Michael R. Sisak and Jill Colvin – December 29, 2022
Signatures of former President Donald Trump and former first lady Melania Trump appear on their individual tax returns for 2016, released by the Democratic controlled House Ways and Means Committee, are photographed Friday, Dec. 30, 2022. The returns, which include redactions of some personal sensitive information such as Social Security and bank account numbers, span nearly 6,000 pages, including more than 2,700 pages of individual returns, and more than 3,000 pages in returns for Trump’s business entities. (AP Photo/Jon Elswick) ASSOCIATED PRESS
Democrats in Congress released thousands of pages of former President Donald Trump’s tax returns Friday, providing the most detailed picture to date of his finances over a six-year period, including his time in the White House, when he fought to keep the information private in a break with decades of precedent.
The documents include individual returns from Trump and his wife, Melania, along with Trump’s business entities from 2015-2020. They show how Trump used the tax code to lower his tax obligation and reveal details about foreign accounts, charitable contributions and the performance of some of his highest-profile business ventures, which had largely remained shielded from public scrutiny.
The disclosure marks the culmination of a yearslong legal fight that has played out everywhere from the presidential campaign to Congress and the Supreme Court as Trump persistently rejected efforts to share details about his financial history — counter to the practice of transparency followed by all his predecessors in the post-Watergate era. The records release comes just days before Republicans retake control of the House and weeks after Trump began another campaign for the White House.
The records show how Trump limited his tax liability by offsetting his income against corporate losses as well as millions of dollars in businesses expenses, asset depreciation and other deductions.
While Trump paid $641,931 in federal income taxes in 2015, the year he began his campaign for president, he paid just $750 in 2016 and 2017, according to a report released last week by Congress’ nonpartisan Joint Committee on Taxation. He paid nearly $1 million in 2018, but only $133,445 in 2019 and nothing in 2020, the year he unsuccessfully sought reelection.
The records also detail Trump’s foreign holdings.
Trump, according to the filings, reported having bank accounts in China, Ireland and the United Kingdom in 2015 through 2017, even as he was commander in chief. Starting in 2018, however, he only reported an account in the U.K. The returns also show that Trump claimed foreign tax credits for taxes he paid on various business ventures around the world, including licensing arrangements for use of his name on development projects and his golf courses in Scotland and Ireland. In 2018, according to Joint Committee on Taxation figures, Trump paid more in foreign taxes than he did net federal income.
The documents show that Trump’s charitable donations fluctuated during his presidency but, in his final years, represented only a sliver of his income. In 2020, the year the coronavirus ravaged the economy, Trump reported no charitable donations at all. In 2019 and 2018 he reported writing checks for about $500,000 in donations. In earlier years the numbers were higher — $1.8 million in 2017 and $1.1 million in 2016.
It’s unclear whether the reported sums included Trump’s $400,000 annual presidential salary, which he had said he would forgo and claimed he donated to various federal departments.
The release marks the latest setback for Trump, who has been mired in investigations, including federal and state inquiries into his efforts to overturn the 2020 election. The Department of Justice also has been investigating reams of classified documents found at his Mar-a-Lago club and possible efforts to obstruct the investigation.
In a statement Friday, Trump lashed out at Democrats and the Supreme Court for the release.
“It’s going to lead to horrible things for so many people,” he said. “The radical, left Democrats have weaponized everything, but remember, that is a dangerous two-way street!”
He said the returns demonstrated “how proudly successful I have been and how I have been able to use depreciation and various other tax deductions” to build his businesses.
Presiding over a routine pro forma session of the House on Friday, Rep. Don Beyer, chairman of the Joint Economic Committee, said great care had been taken to ensure the returns were treated with sensitivity, with personal and other identifying information redacted.
“We’ve been trying to be very careful to make sure that we weren’t ‘weaponizing’ the IRS returns,” said Beyer, D-Va. He also is a member of the tax-writing House Ways and Means Committee, which held a party line vote last week to make the returns public.
The returns detail how Trump used tax law to minimize his liability, including carrying forward massive losses from previous years, as allowed by tax law. Trump said during his 2016 campaign that paying little or no income tax in some years “makes me smart.”
His tax returns show he did that by structuring his company as a massive sole proprietorship, with nearly every dollar, pound, euro and yuan passing through his golf courses, hotels and other assets affecting — and in many cases helping — his own bottom line.
For instance, in 2020, more than 150 of Trump’s business entities listed negative qualified business income, which the IRS defines as “the net amount of qualified items of income, gain, deduction and loss from any qualified trade or business.” In total for that tax year, combined with nearly $9 million in carryforward loss from previous years, Trump’s qualified losses amounted to more than $58 million for the final year of his term in office.
Another of Trump’s money losers: the ice rink his company operated until last year in New York City’s Central Park. Trump reported a total of $2.6 million in losses from Wollman Rink over the six years made public. The rink, an early Trump Organization jewel run through a contract with New York City’s government, reported a loss of $1.3 million in 2015 despite taking in $9.3 million in revenue, according to the tax returns. The rink turned a $298,000 profit in 2016, but was back to melting cash in each of the next four years.
Aspects of Trump’s finances had been shrouded in mystery since his days as an up-and-coming Manhattan real estate developer in the 1980s.
Trump, known for building skyscrapers and hosting a reality TV show before winning the White House, did provide limited details about his holdings and income on mandatory disclosure forms and financial statements he provides to banks to secure loans and to financial magazines to justify his place on rankings of the world’s billionaires.
Trump’s longtime accounting firm has since disavowed the statements, and New York Attorney General Letitia James has filed a lawsuit alleging Trump and his Trump Organization fraudulently inflated asset values on the statements. Trump and his company have denied wrongdoing.
In October 2018, The New York Times published a Pulitzer Prize-winning series based on leaked tax records that contradicted the image Trump had tried to sell of himself as a self-made businessman. It showed that Trump received a modern-day equivalent of at least $413 million from his father’s real estate holdings, with much of that money coming from what the Times called “tax dodges” in the 1990s.
A second series in 2020 showed that Trump paid no income taxes at all in 10 of the previous 15 years because he generally lost more money than he made.
The IRS only began to audit Trump’s 2016 tax filings on April 3, 2019 — more than two years into his presidency — when the Ways and Means chairman, Rep. Richard Neal, D-Mass., asked the agency for information related to the tax returns.
Every president and major-party candidate since Richard Nixon has voluntarily made at least summaries of their tax information available to the public. Trump bucked that trend as a candidate and as president, repeatedly asserting that his taxes were “under audit” and couldn’t be released.
Associated Press writers Paul Wiseman and Farnoush Amiri in Washington, Meg Kinnard in Columbia, South Carolina, and Nicholas Riccardi in Denver contributed to this report.
Think those bags are recyclable? California says think again
Don Thompson – December 29, 2022
FILE-This Friday, Jan. 24, 2014 file photo conveyors carry mixed plastic into a device that will shred recycle them at a plastics recycling plant in Vernon, Calif. California in 2014 enacted the nation’s first ban on single-use plastic shopping bags. But in 2022, state Attorney General Rob Bonta says consumers who think they’re helping the environment with reusable plastic bags had better think again. He says manufacturers can’t back up their claim that the thicker, more durable bags are recyclable in California. (AP Photo/Reed Saxon, File)This undated photo shows a plastic bag, in Los Angeles. California in 2014 enacted the nation’s first ban on single-use plastic shopping bags. But state Attorney General Rob Bonta says the thicker, reusable plastic bags that many retailers now use may not be recyclable as required by law. (AP Photo/John Antczak)In this Oct. 25, 2013, file photo, a plastic bag sits along a roadside in Sacramento, Calif. California in 2014 enacted the nation’s first ban on single-use plastic shopping bags. But in 2022, state Attorney General Rob Bonta says consumers who think they’re helping the environment with reusable plastic bags had better think again. He says manufacturers can’t back up their claim that the thicker, more durable bags are recyclable in California. (AP Photo/Rich Pedroncelli, File)
SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) — Since California adopted the nation’s first ban on single-use plastic shopping bags tin 2014, most grocery stores have turned to thicker, reusable plastic bags that are supposed to be recyclable.
But Attorney General Rob Bonta is now investigating whether the bags are truly recyclable as required by law.
“We’ve all been to the store and forgotten to bring our reusable bags,” Bonta said recently. “At least the plastic bags we buy at the register for 10 cents have those ‘chasing arrows’ that say they are 100% recyclable, right? Perhaps wrong.”
He asked six bag manufacturers to back up their claims that the bags can be recycled and threatened legal action that could include banning the bags temporarily or issuing multimillion-dollar fines.
His office declined to say last week how many of the companies responded, citing an ongoing investigation. The American Chemistry Council, a plastics industry group, said that manufacturers disagree with Bonta’s characterization.
Other states, including New York, New Jersey and Oregon, have followed California in banning single-use plastic bags. Beyond California, only a handful of states require that stores take back plastic bags for recycling, with Maine first adopting such a law in 1991, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures.
Policy experts and advocates estimate that just 6% of plastics are recycled in the United States, with the remaining burned, trashed or littered. More plastic bags ended up in California landfills in 2021 compared with 2018, according to data from the state’s recycling department.
Californians Against Waste Executive Director Mark Murray in part blames pandemic policies.
Consumers are supposed to be able to return their plastic bags to grocery stores and other retailers. But many removed their bag recycling bins during the early days of the pandemic, fearing contamination.
For the system to work, retailers must collect the bags and sell them back to manufacturers for use in making new bags that must include 40% recycled content and be reusable at least 125 times. Murray suspects that most are reused once.
“That’s not meeting the standard and it may be time to phase these bags out,” he said.
The California Retailers Association declined comment because it said each retailer has its own policy, and the California Grocers Association did not respond to a request for comment.
As of now, makers of the bags get to self-certify to the state that their bags can be recycled. But Bonta said that requires a comprehensive system to collect, process and sell the used bags, none of which exist. Putting the bags in most curbside recycling bins interferes with recycling other products by clogging equipment and increasing the risk of worker injury, he said.
Plastic bags and similar products are “a top form of contamination in curbside recycling bins,” California’s Statewide Commission on Recycling Markets and Curbside Recycling wrote in a 2021 report.
Bonta asked six manufacturers — Novolex, Revolution, Inteplast, Advance Polybag, Metro Polybag and Papier-Mettler — to prove their bags can be recycled in California. His office hasn’t said if they all responded, citing an “active and ongoing investigation.”
Revolution Chief Executive Sean Whiteley said the company has been recycling more than 300 million pounds of plastic material annually for decades and is “confident in our own sustainability and compliance record.”
He noted lawmakers publicly introduced the single-use bag ban legislation in 2014 at one of the company’s Southern California subsidiaries.
“At our core, we are an environmental recycling company that also makes sustainable plastic solutions,” he said in a statement.
Novolex said it is “committed to complying with all state laws and regulations.” The company responded to Bonta’s request but declined to share its full response with The Associated Press, a spokesman said.
Novolex’s bags have been certified as eligible for recycling by an independent laboratory and, therefore, must be marked that way, the company said in a statement.
The other four companies did not respond to multiple emailed requests.
Manufacturers are “aggressively working so that all plastic packaging that is manufactured is remade into new plastics,” said Joshua Baca, vice president of plastics at the American Chemistry Council.
It’s not Bonta’s first plastics-related clash with industry. Earlier this year he subpoenaed ExxonMobil as part of what he called a first-of-its-kind broader investigation into the petroleum industry and the proliferation of plastic waste.
Thompson recently retired from The Associated Press.
Southwest Airlines grew to become the US’s largest domestic carrier by offering free checked baggage, easy-to-change tickets — and still sticks to unassigned seats
Taylor Rains – December 28, 2022
Southwest Airlines flight attendants in an undated historic picture.Southwest Airlines
Southwest Airlines, the US’s largest domestic carrier, experienced an operations meltdown in this holiday season.
Despite its problems, Southwest celebrates its customer- and employee-focused mission.
The airline found success using unconventional marketing strategies focused on humor, booze, arm wrestling, and go-go boots.
Southwest Airlines is the US’s largest domestic carrier, serving over 100 destinations across the country. The carrier has been in operation since 1971 and just celebrated its 51st anniversary in June.
Stephen M. Keller/Southwest Airlines
With Southwest’s immense size, it has a lot of systems at play to keep it running efficiently and on time. But, sometimes a nasty winter storm can derail even the best carrier’s operations.
Elliott Cowand Jr/Shutterstock
But, Southwest suffered from more than just the weather in the holiday season of 2022.
Canceled flight travelers line up in front of Southwest Airlines sign at Denver International Airport.Hyoung Chang/Getty Images
Captain Mike Santoro, vice president of the Southwest Airlines Pilots Association, told Insider the storm was the catalyst of the meltdown, but “outdated” scheduling software created the snowball.
Southwest confirmed to Insider that its systems were unable to handle the “magnitude” of disruptions, which amounted to over 7,000 from Christmas to December 28 alone.
Travelers wait at a Southwest Airlines baggage counter to retrieve their bags after canceled flights at Los Angeles International Airport on December 26, 2022.Eugene Garcia/AP Photo
The company acknowledged its software needs an update, with a spokesperson saying, “we are focused on making investments in technology upgrades to work toward that solution.”
Passengers line up at the Southwest ticket desk at San Francisco International Airport on December 26, amid widespread delays and cancellations for the airline.Tayfun Coskun/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images
Despite its operations issues in the holiday season of 2022, Southwest prides itself on being a customer- and employee-focused airline, bringing “LUV” to its operation, and keeping safety, hospitality, and customer service at the forefront of its mission. (LUV is its stock symbol.)
Southwest Airlines
According to financial information company BrightScope, Southwest has one of the highest-rated employee 401k plans. Meanwhile, J.D. Power reported in May that customers ranked Southwest as having the best economy product in North America.
The grieving owner is planning to sue the airline.MARK RALSTON/AFP via Getty Images
Haley Woods, founder of Girls LOVE Travel — a Facebook group with over one million members — told Insider that when her flight was canceled over the holiday week, she encountered the most “professional” and “upbeat” Southwest employees.
V_E/Shutterstock
“While this disruption might derail others from using SWA in the future — their customer kindness has reminded me that I will absolutely be looking past this and onward for future adventures,” she said.
Passengers wait in line to check in for their flights at Southwest Airlines service desk at LaGuardia Airport, Tuesday, Dec. 27, 2022, in New York.Yuki Iwamura/AP
While it’s could still lose some trust from customers, Southwest is likely to eventually bounce back. See how the airline has grown over the years to be the powerhouse it is today.
Southwest started as a small carrier based in Texas and only operated intra-state routes between three cities, San Antonio, Houston, and Dallas. The airline, which was originally called Air Southwest, was dreamt up by Rollin King and Herb Kelleher on a cocktail napkin in 1966.
Herb Kelleher (left) and Rollin King (right)Southwest Airlines
King mapped the network he envisioned, making a triangle between the three key cities. He explained to Kelleher that operating solely in Texas would make the company exempt from the Civil Aeronautics Board’s federal regulations, which controlled fares, routes, and schedules.
Rollin King’s “Texas Triangle”Southwest Airlines
From 1938 to 1978, the airline industry was federally regulated under the CAB as means to ensure major carriers like United and Pan Am were profitable. Fares were sky-high and only business travelers and deep-pocket leisure customers could afford the luxury of flight. The downside was that a lot of the time, planes flew half-empty.
Because Air Southwest was certified under the state’s aviation regulator, the Texas Aeronautics Commission, it was not bound to federal rules — a clever loophole King unapologetically copied from California carrier Pacific Southwest Airlines.
Rollin KingSouthwest Airlines
The loophole allowed Air Southwest to fly freely in Texas and undercut competitors’ fares, offering more customers the option to fly instead of drive in the large state. The business model was game-changing and a threat to legacy airlines.
Herb Kelleher with model of Southwest aircraftSouthwest Airlines
In 1967, three airlines operating under federal rules, Braniff, Trans-Texas Airways, and Continental Airlines, took legal action against Air Southwest, saying it does not have the right to fly in Texas.
Lady Bird Johnson, wife of President Lyndon Johnson, steps off Braniff Airways jetHarvey Georges/Associated Press
The lawsuit took three years to resolve, and in 1970, the Texas Supreme Court ruled Air Southwest could fly in the state. The three airlines then took the case to the US Supreme Court, which declined to review it.
Herb Kelleher (left) Lamar Muse (second from left) and Rollin King (center)Southwest Airlines
Air Southwest’s right to fly in Texas was finalized in December of 1970. The carrier officially changed its name to Southwest Airlines in 1971 and commenced operations on June 18 of the same year.
Southwest flight attendant points to schedule Southwest Airlines
The carrier launched with two routes from Dallas Love Field to Houston and San Antonio using three new Boeing 737-200 aircraft. Flights between Houston and San Antonio commenced in November 1971.
Southwest Airlines Boeing 737-2T4 at Los Angeles International Airport in 1991.Torsten Maiwald/Airliners.net
Part of Southwest’s immense success was due to Kelleher’s focus on unconventional marketing and unique corporate culture.
Herb Kelleher on Southwest tail Southwest Airlines
Kelleher used Pacific Southwest Airways’ idea of “Long Legs And Short Nights” for hostesses, as they were called at the time, keeping with the theme of hiring attractive women to work Southwest flights.
Southwest Airlines flight attendants in an undated historic picture.Southwest Airlines
The airline’s first flight attendants were described as long-legged dancers and were handpicked by a committee that included the same individual who picked the hostess on Hugh Hefner’s Playboy jet.
Southwest Airlines first flight attendant uniformsSouthwest Airlines
Kelleher dressed the flight attendants in a bright orange top, orange hot pants, a white belt around the hips, and white side-laced go-go boots. He also pushed for a laid-back, casual inflight experience and only hired female hostesses who were fun, engaging, and had a sense of humor.
First Southwest Airlines hostess classSouthwest Airlines
Kelleher continued the playboy theme by creating a “love” culture at Southwest. The carrier was called the “love airline,” automatic ticket dispensers were “love machines,” inflight snacks were “love bites,” and drinks were “love potions.”
The airline also crafted its own special inflight cocktails, which were free for passengers. A few were appropriately named Kentucky Matchmaker, the Pucker Potion, and the Lucky Lindsay.
Southwest Airlines flight attendant preparing beverage orders in the galleySouthwest Airlines
He even went on to create ads centered around humor and attractive women. In the context of the 1970s, using attractive female flight attendants to gain customers was an industry norm.
A 1968 photo of three flight attendants for Southwest AirlinesAlan Band/Keystone/Getty Images
In 1972, Southwest made a game-changing, innovative marketing move. The company introduced the “two-tier” fare system, which established two separate price points aimed at different types of travelers.
A Southwest Airlines Customer Service Agent checks in a Customer at the gateDavid Woo/Southwest Airlines
The fares were the regularly priced “Executive Class Service” at $26 one-way and the “Pleasure Class” at $13 one-way or $25 roundtrip. “Pleasure Class” fares were available after 6:59 p.m. on weekdays and all day Saturday and Sunday.
Southwest airlines customer service agents with customers at the ticket counterSouthwest Airlines
The two-tier structure was a wild success, with Southwest increasing its average passenger load from 17 before the move to 75 after.
Southwest pilots Southwest Airlines
In 1973, the company launched a $13 one-way “half-fare” sale on all flights to San Antonio. Southwest’s rival, Braniff, responded with its own “get acquainted sale” with $13 fares between Dallas and Houston. This was the start of the $13 Fare War.
Southwest’s ad declaring war against Braniff’s fare cut Southwest Airlines
Southwest knew $13 fares on its only profitable route would run it straight into bankruptcy, so King quickly came up with a marketing campaign that would put Southwest on top. “Nobody’s going to shoot Southwest out of the sky for a lousy $13,” read the bold ad.
Southwest ad against Braniff’s $13 fare war Southwest Airlines
Southwest matched Braniff’s fare between Dallas and Houston, which was met with praise and respect from customers. As part of the campaign, the airline also offered a free fifth of liquor for passengers who paid the full $26 fare.
Ticket agent poses with a bottle of Chivas Regal in front of adSouthwest Airlines
Business travelers loved the promotion, and lucky for Southwest, three-fourths of its customers opted to pay full price and pocket the free booze. The airline soon became a fan favorite among many Texas business communities, and Braniff was fuming.
Southwest customer holding advertisement and receiving free liquor Southwest Airlines
By the end of 1973, Southwest finally turned its first profit and would continue to profit for 47 years until the coronavirus pandemic ended the streak. Meanwhile, Braniff lost the battle and the war, ceasing operations in 1982.
Braniff Airways aircraft in PeruCarl & Ann Purcell/Getty Images
Southwest’s early challenges did not end with Braniff. In 1964, the Civil Aeronautics Board demanded the city of Dallas build an airport to serve the entire Dallas/Fort Worth area. In 1968, every air carrier operating out of Love Field agreed to move to DFW when it opened in 1974.
British Airways Concord at DFW in 1973 after the airport was finished-/AFP via Getty Images
However, Southwest was not a part of that agreement and filed suit that it would not move from Love Field when the new airport opened. The airline claimed there was no legal reason to end commercial traffic at Love Field and that the company made no written agreement to move its operations.
Concord and Boeing 747 at DFW after the airport’s completion in 1973-/AFP via Getty Images
The city and the DFW Airport Board sued Southwest, saying the CAB rule applied to the airline even if it was made before Southwest was officially founded. However, Southwest argued that its intra-state flights fell outside the jurisdiction of the CAB, so it did not have to leave Love Field.
Opening day of new Love Field terminal in 2013Southwest Airlines
A federal district court agreed with Southwest and ruled that it could operate out of the airport as long as it remained open. When DFW opened in 1974, every airline except Southwest left Love Field.
Southwest aircraft takes off from Love Fieldstock_photo_world/Shutterstock
Southwest continued to grow through the 70s, acquiring 10 aircraft and carrying its five-millionth customer by the end of 1977.
Southwest’s 3 millionth passenger Bob Pianta in 1976 (middle)Southwest Airlines
By 1976, Southwest Airlines had been profitable for three years and proven that government regulation was not necessary for airlines to be successful. Deregulation was a top priority for Jimmy Carter’s administration, and it passed the Airline Deregulation Act in 1978, effectively abolishing the Civil Aeronautics Board.
President Carter signs the airline deregulation bill at the White HouseBettmann/Getty Images
Finally, Southwest Airlines was free to operate interstate flights and the airline began to thrive. Meanwhile, major carriers like Eastern Airlines, Trans World Airlines, and Pan Am spread themselves too thin as they tried to rapidly expand.
Unlike major carriers, Southwest maintained a simple strategy for success after deregulation, like only operating one aircraft type, cleaning the aircraft before landing to allow for a quicker turn, and focusing on humor in marketing.
Southwest flight attendant cleans the aircraftSouthwest Airlines
And its strategy worked. Southwest was prospering while other airlines like Pan Am and TWA collapsed. However, it was not long before the Wright Amendment put another wrench in the company’s plans.
Colleen Barrett with Wright is Wrong petitionsSouthwest Airlines
After deregulation, Southwest wanted to commence interstate flights from Love Field to New Orleans in 1979, but officials at DFW airport feared the increased traffic would hurt the airport financially. So, US Congressman Jim Wright drafted, sponsored, and helped pass a bill restricting passenger traffic at Love Field.
Wright is Wrong sign Southwest Airlines
The law, known as the Wright Amendment, was signed in early 1980 and amended the International Air Transportation Act of 1979. It restricted flying out of Love Field to cities in Texas and the surrounding states of Louisiana, Oklahoma, Arkansas, and New Mexico. The law was meant to keep Southwest from expanding operations out of Dallas.
It only applied to carriers that operated aircraft with more than 56 seats, which Southwest did. So, the airline had to rely on short-haul flights in the five-state area to bolster Love Field operations.
Southwest employees protest the Wright AmendmentSouthwest Airlines
However, in 2004, Southwest CEO Gary Kelly launched efforts to repeal the Wright Amendment, using the slogans “Set Love Free” and “Wright is Wrong” in the campaign.
Herb Kelleher with “Wright is Wrong” slogan Southwest Airlines
In 2006, an agreement was made between Southwest, American Airlines, Dallas, and Forth Worth to phase out the law. They agreed that in eight years, the amendment would be gone, but until then, carriers could fly to any US destination out of Love Field as long as at least one stop was made in any of the nine states under the Wright Amendment.
Passengers sit in new Love Field terminalSouthwest Airlines
On October 13, 2014, at exactly 12:01 a.m., a countdown clock at Southwest’s Headquarters in Dallas hit zero, officially ending the Wright Amendment. A few minutes after, the airline’s first scheduled flight outside of the nine Wright states took off from Love Field to Denver.
Wright Amendment ends Southwest Airlines
The deal also capped the number of gates at Love Field to 20, and the airport still only has 20 to this day.
Southwest aircraft at gate 2 at Love Fieldstock_photo_world/Shutterstock
While the Wright Amendment restricted expansion out of Love Field, Southwest was still able to bolster its network out of other Texas cities in the 1980s, 1990s, and 2000s.
Customer service employee at Houston HobbySouthwest Airlines
Throughout the 1980s, the airline expanded north into cities like Tulsa, Oklahoma City, and Kansas City, and west to Phoenix, Las Vegas, Albuquerque, and California. The airline moved east in the late 1980s with flights to Nashville and into the Midwest with flights to Chicago Midway and Detroit.
Southwest flight takes off from Vegas Southwest Airlines
The airline also updated its livery in the 1980s. Southwest wanted to stand out in the skies and make its brand easily recognizable, so it wrapped its fuselage in desert gold and other warm colors. It received its first 737-300 jet in 1984, dubbed Spirit of Kitty Hawk.
Herb Kelleher with Spirit of Kitty Hawk aircraft Southwest Airlines
Southwest’s flight attendant uniform was also updated by the 80s. Instead of hot pants and go-go boots, the airline allowed employees to wear real pants and skirts.
In the 1990s, the network expanded further east to cities like Baltimore, Cleveland, Columbus, Tampa, Fort Lauderdale, Providence, Islip, and Raleigh-Durham. The airline also began its Pacific Northwest expansion with the acquisition of Morris Air in 1994.
Southwest aircraft dedicated to Rollin King Southwest Airlines
In 1991, the “Friends Fly Free” campaign was launched to battle the recession. The promotion allowed anyone 18 or older to bring a friend of any age free on their flight. It was so popular that Southwest offered the promotion for the next five years.
Southwest’s Friend Fly Free ad Southwest Airlines
In 1992, Southwest’s most infamous marketing stunt occurred between Herb Kelleher and Kurt Herwald, chairman of Stevens Aviation.
Kelleher and Herwald at the Malice in Dallas Southwest Airlines
Southwest had been using the slogan “Just Plane Smart” in its ads, but Stevens Aviation sent a letter to Kelleher noting its similarity to its “Plane Smart” slogan.
Instead of entering a legal battle over the phrase, a Steven Aviation executive suggested an arm-wrestling competition between Herwald and Kelleher. The victor would have full rights to the slogan.
Herb and Herwald arm wrestle at the Malice in Dallas Southwest Airlines
Kelleher marketed the event, dubbed the “Malice in Dallas,” which received worldwide press coverage. “Smokin” Herb Kelleher and “Curtsy” Kurt Herwald put on a full show at the arena, which even earned a congratulatory note from President George Bush.
Malice in Dallas artwork in Southwest HQ Southwest Airlines
At the turn of the century, Southwest revealed the livery that most people know today. The Canyon Blue color scheme debuted in January 2001.
Debut of Southwest’s Canyon Blue livery in 2001 Southwest Airlines
While many airlines opted to introduce fees for things like checked bags and flight changes to recuperate funds, Southwest refused. Instead, the airline launched its “bags fly free” campaign which allows customers two complimentary checked bags. Southwest has not gone back on the offer to this day.
Throughout the 2000s, Southwest continued to focus on humor in its marketing. Its Wanna Get Away commercials proved successful, which promoted $49 one-way fares.
Southwest Boeing 737-800Steven M. Keller
By 2010, Southwest added “Transfarency” to its brand. The airline would not have any hidden fees and would remain customer-focused with an emphasis on Hospitality and Heart. The recognizable tri-color heart was added to its airplanes and workplace.
Heart One Southwest Airlines
In 2011, Southwest acquired AirTran Airways, which opened slots up out of Atlanta and gave it more network expansion opportunities in Mexico and the Caribbean. The two were fully integrated by 2014.
Southwest acquires AirTran Southwest Airlines
Also in 2014, the company’s livery got another new look, with a harder focus on the heart, a new logo, and a sleek new color scheme.
In July 2014, the airline officially became international with its first flight to Oranjestad, Aruba. In the same month, Southwest also started service to Nassau, Bahamas, and Jamaica.
First international Southwest flight lands in Montego Bay, Jamaica Stephen M. Keller
The company’s flight attendant uniform got an update in 2017, marking the first time in 20 years the airline changed the look. Womenswear included two dresses, one black with blue and red stripes and the other gray with red and black stripes. Menswear included a black blazer, a gray shirt and pants, and a red tie.
In October 2017, Southwest became the launch customer for the Boeing 737 MAX 8 jet, with its first revenue flight occurring on October 1. However, the aircraft was grounded in 2019 after two fatal accidents involved the MAX. The airline did not fly the plane again until March 2021.
Southwest Airlines Boeing 737 MAX 8 Southwest Airlines
In 2019, Southwest reached its goal of operating flights to Hawaii with its inaugural service from Oakland to Honolulu.
Passenger boards first Southwest flight to Hawaii Southwest Airlines
In 2020, Southwest ended its 47-year profit streak when the coronavirus pandemic hit. Since last March, the airline has remained focused on the health and safety of its customers and employees.
Southwest flight attendant greets passengers during the pandemicStephen M. Keller/Southwest Airlines
Since the pandemic, Southwest has become profitable again and, like other carriers, is trying to keep up with the surge in air travel.
Southwest Heart One Southwest Airlines
Despite its operations meltdown over the holiday of 2022, the carrier has vowed to get its operation back on track, compensate passengers for their time and added expenses, and continue to bring low fares to customers.
A Southwest Airlines Boeing 737 at a gate in Austin, TexasGeorge Rose/Getty Images
Southwest Airlines pilots union official describes how problems snowballed
The Biden administration is getting involved after a major meltdown causing delays and cancellations of thousands of Southwest Airlines flights across the U.S. Captain Michael Santoro, vice president of the Southwest Airlines Pilots Association, joins CBS News to discuss the problems what what it will take to fix things.
Fears of extremist campaign after attack on US power substations
December 27, 2022
Vandalism at four power substations in the western US state of Washington over the weekend added to concerns of a possible nationwide campaign by right-wing extremists to stir fears and spark civil conflict.
Local police on Tuesday gave no information on who they suspected was behind the vandalism, which knocked out power on Christmas Day for some 14,000 in Tacoma, a port city area south of Seattle.
Tacoma Public Utilities, which owned two of the facilities targeted on Sunday, said in a statement that it was alerted by federal law enforcement in early December about threats to their grid.
The Pierce County Sheriff’s office said Sunday it was investigating but had made no arrests and did not know if it was a coordinated attack.
They said in a statement that they were aware of similar incidents elsewhere in Washington, in Oregon, and in North Carolina.
“It could be any number of reasons at this point… We have to investigate and not just jump to conclusions,” they said.
But it follows warnings by US officials that neo-Nazis who say they want to spark a race war are targeting electricity infrastructure.
Violent extremists “have developed credible, specific plans to attack electricity infrastructure since at least 2020, identifying the electric grid as a particularly attractive target given its interdependency with other infrastructure sectors,” the Department of Homeland Security said in a January intelligence memo, according to US media.
In early December, 45,000 homes and businesses in Moore County, North Carolina were out of power after someone used a high-powered rifle to damage two electricity substations.
In February three men with neo-Nazi ties pleaded guilty in Columbus, Ohio to plotting to use rifles and explosives to damage power infrastructure in various locations.
They pursued “a disturbing plot, in furtherance of white supremacist ideology, to attack energy facilities in order to damage the economy and stoke division in our country,” said Assistant Attorney General Matthew Olsen at the time.
And last year five men who allegedly belonged to white supremacist and neo-Nazi online discussion groups were charged in North Carolina with planning attacks on power infrastructure.
They planned the attack to create “general chaos” as part of their “goal of creating a white ethno-state,” the indictment said.
Jon Wellinghoff, the former chairman of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, said on CNN in early December that the Moore County attack resembled one on an electricity network substation near San Jose, California in 2013.
In that case, which has never been solved, one or more people fired close to 100 rounds at the substation, damaging 17 high voltage transformers at a cost of $15 million.
The Washington Post said after the Moore County incident that law enforcement was investigating eight incidents in four states.
An earlier version of this story referred to the objects vandalized as power stations. They are in fact power substations.
“It is virtually certain that human activities have increased atmospheric levels of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases,” a national panel of experts concluded in a draft of the 5th National Climate Assessment released in November. They see high confidence in forecasts for longer droughts, higher temperatures and increased flooding.
JULY 28, 2022: Aerial view of homes submerged under flood waters from the North Fork of the Kentucky River in Jackson, Kentucky. Flash flooding caused by torrential rains has killed at least eight people in eastern Kentucky and left some residents stranded on rooftops and in trees, the governor of the south-central US state said.
Warming sea surface temperatures around the globe provide more fuel for tropical storms and exacerbate the melting of glaciers and ice sheets.
Why is climate change important?
“Every part of the U.S. is feeling the effects of climate change in some way,” said Allison Crimmins, director of that 5th National Climate Assessment. Representing the latest in climate research by a broad array of scientists, the final version of the assessment is expected in late 2023.
Disaster costs are rising, and scientists warn the window to further curtail fossil fuel emissions and put a lid on rising temperatures is closing rapidly.
Many scientists and officials worldwide agree: Yes. By the end of this century, projections show global average surface temperatures compared to pre-industrial times could increase by as much as 5.4 degrees.
Merriam-Webster defines “crisis” as a time of intense difficulty, trouble, or danger. A mix of warmer temperatures, extreme rainfall and rising sea levels often make naturally occurring disasters worse, while droughts become more intense and heat waves occur more often.
“The climate crisis is not a future threat, but something we must address today,” Richard Spinrad, administrator of National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, said in August 2022.
The term “climate crisis” has been used to describe these worsening impacts since at least 1986. Since the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change was organized in 1988, its reports steadily have grown more dire.
The Fourth National Climate Assessment, released during the Trump administration, warned natural, built and social systems were “increasingly vulnerable to cascading impacts that are often difficult to predict, threatening essential services.”
“Every increased amount of warming will increase the risk of severe impacts, and so the more (rapidly) we can take strong action to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, the less severe the impacts will be,” Cornell University professor Rachel Bezner Kerr said after the release of one recent IPCC report.
Warmer climates put animals on the move and increases the risk they’ll spread pathogens to other animals and to humans. A group of University of Hawaii researchers looked at how 376 human diseases and allergens such as malaria and asthma are affected by climate-related weather hazards and found nearly 60% have been aggravated by hazards, such as heat and floods.
The Summer 2024 Olympics are scheduled to kick off in July in France, where the country’s meteorological officials expect 2022 to be its hottest year since records began in 1900. Meanwhile, the International Olympic Committee has delayed choosing the location for the 2030 winter games, in part over climate concerns.
Even fly fisherman see changes all around them. “Everyone knows if this keeps up, the places we can fish for trout are going to be limited,” said Tom Rosenbauer of Vermont, whose job title at sporting goods retailer Orvis is chief enthusiast.
How does climate change affect animals?
Warmer temperatures are forcing some animal species to move beyond their typical home ranges, increasing the risk that infectious viruses they carry could be transmitted to other species they haven’t encountered before. That poses a threat to human and animal health around the world.
A roseate spoonbill stands bright against the green of a southeast Arkansas swamp. Jami Linder, an Arkansas photographer, documented the first spoonbill nest in the state in 2020.
In the U.S., roseate spoonbills, a brilliant pink wading bird, are moving north as temperatures warm and they’re pushed out of native coastal habitats by rising sea levels.
Thousands Will Live Here One Day (as Long as They Can Find Water)
Keith Schneider – December 27, 2022
A golf cart on a path at Verrado, an 8,800-acre planned community, in Buckeye, Ariz., Dec. 19, 2022. (Adriana Zehbrauskas/The New York Times)
BUCKEYE, Ariz. — Surrounded by miles of creosote and ocotillo in the Sonoran Desert, state officials and business leaders gathered in October against the backdrop of the ragged peaks of the White Tank Mountains to applaud a plan to turn 37,000 acres of arid land west of Phoenix into the largest planned community ever proposed in Arizona.
The development, Teravalis, is expected to have 100,000 homes and 55 million square feet of commercial space. But to make it happen, the project’s developer, the Howard Hughes Corp., will need to gain access to enough water for its projected 300,000 residents and 450,000 workers.
Teravalis is seen by local and state leaders as a crowning achievement in a booming real estate market, but it also represents the intensifying challenge in Arizona and other fast-growing Southwestern states: to build huge mixed-use projects in an era of water scarcity.
“You can’t grow and grow on these far-flung lands and put industries anywhere you want,” said Kathleen Ferris, former director of the Arizona Department of Water Resources and a senior research fellow at the Kyl Center for Water Policy at Arizona State University. “You have to be smarter about where and how we grow.”
Persistent dry conditions are driving up the cost of water and prompting more resistance to new development. But the scarcity of water is also pushing developers to innovate with design and install expensive infrastructure to save fresh water and recycle more wastewater.
A deep drought has settled on the Southwest since 2000, exacerbated by climate change. Water flow has dropped precipitously in the Colorado River and other surface water supplies that serve Arizona and its neighboring states. That is putting more pressure to supply homes and businesses from finite water reserves held in aquifers.
The consequences are being felt across the West. A proposal for a new water pipeline to supply St. George, Utah, has become the focus of public opposition. Communities in Colorado and Utah have declared moratoriums on new developments. And water supply is one reason that rural residents are fighting a proposal to increase the density of homes in Washoe County, Nevada.
In Arizona, groundwater levels are falling so fast that thousands of residential wells all over the state are going dry. In 2021, the Arizona Department of Water Resources halted new-home construction in Pinal County, south of Phoenix, because groundwater pumping exceeded the supply.
In New Mexico, two proposals for big planned communities outside Albuquerque have languished because of concerns over water. At one project, Campbell Farming Corp. proposed building 4,000 homes, a commercial and retail center and two golf courses on 8,000 acres in the mountains east of the city more than two decades ago, according to planning documents, but it faced objections to groundwater use, which would total about 400 million to 500 million gallons annually. The Office of the State Engineer found that Campbell Ranch would not meet a New Mexico requirement for developers to demonstrate that their projects have a 70-year supply of water.
“It’s fundamental; you’re not doing that development without water,” said Kathy Freas, a co-founder of East Mountain Protection Action Coalition, a citizens’ group that opposed the plan.
Similar concerns are buffeting Santolina, a 13,700-acre planned development proposed in 2014 and still not under construction. Located between Albuquerque and the Rio Grande, Santolina is the focus of active public opposition because it would need 7.3 billion gallons of water a year to serve its projected 90,000 residents.
County officials may require Santolina’s developer, Western Albuquerque Land Holdings, to install expensive wastewater treatment and recycling infrastructure to reduce water use and waste. The company has submitted a plan that would convert hundreds of acres from housing to solar energy development, a change that would significantly reduce water consumption but could potentially require it to restart the planning process.
“In the West, water has always been an issue, right? People are just much more alert now,” said Enrico Gradi, deputy county manager for Bernalillo County, who is overseeing the review of the Santolina project.
Water scarcity is also changing the design of the Southwest’s planned communities, which no longer feature big lakes, irrigated lawns, golf courses or open drainage canals.
One example is Sterling Ranch near Littleton, Colorado, a development with roads and parks that are designed to collect and store stormwater for reuse. The 3,400-acre project will have a $350 million closed-loop water supply system that collects, treats and recycles wastewater for more than 12,500 residences, as well as commercial and retail spaces. The developers are also studying how to most efficiently collect and use rainwater from rooftops.
“Until there’s scarcity, most developers aren’t incentivized to conserve water,” said Brock Smethills, president of the site’s developer. “For us, the incentives were aligned on Day 1 to use less water and conserve as much as possible.”
Another example is Verrado, an 8,800-acre planned community in Buckeye, Arizona, that houses 16,000 residents. Along with 30,000 trees for shade and to slow evaporation, Verrado features a water recycling system that collects all of the wastewater from homes and businesses and directs it to a treatment plant capable of recycling 1.5 million gallons a day that is stored and used to irrigate two golf courses.
“Every responsible developer in Arizona knows water is a constraint,” said Dan T. Kelly, chief operating officer and general manager for DMB Associates, the company behind Verrado. “It’s the first question you deal with.”
The intensifying attention to water supply is especially relevant to the Teravalis project. Hughes Corp. paid $600 million to purchase the property from its previous owners, who had proposed to use 3,000 acres for a planned community that would rely on the Hassayampa Basin, an aquifer beneath the project, to supply water. In 2006, the Arizona Department of Water Resources issued two certificates to supply and build 7,000 homes.
Those certificates are still valid, but Hughes Corp. does not have access to supply water to the remaining 34,000 acres — more than 90% of its property. The Department of Water Resources has put the Hassayampa Basin off limits to new development while it studies how much water the underground reserve actually holds.
Water supply options for Teravalis include tapping another aquifer and delivering water by pipeline. It could also lease water from one of Arizona’s Native American tribes that have extensive water rights.
Developers also could buy rights to Colorado River water. Queen Creek, a Phoenix suburb, secured state permission and is preparing to spend $27 million to draw from the river nearly 750 million gallons for its 66,000 residents.
The adage in the West that “water runs uphill to money” applies. This year, Arizona lawmakers approved a $1 billion, three-year appropriation, essentially a down payment to secure stable water supplies.
“We’re at the very start of a new era of innovation and investment,” said Greg Vogel, founder and CEO of Land Advisors Organization, a national brokerage and development consultancy in Scottsdale, Arizona. “Teravalis will be in the making for 50 years, maybe 70 years, until build-out. They’ll have enough water.”
By no means, though, is that a consensus view.
The city of Buckeye, where Teravalis is, uses nearly 3.5 billion gallons annually for its 115,000 residents. Water consumption by Teravalis’ 300,000 residents could amount to three times as much.
In 1980, Arizona enacted a groundwater conservation law that requires developers in the Phoenix metropolitan region to assure buyers that their homes and businesses have a 100-year water supply. The law also requires developers to replenish aquifers with the same amount of water that they withdraw.
Bruce Babbitt, a former governor of Arizona who signed the 1980 groundwater law while in office, said that Teravalis would not meet either requirement. “My conclusion, based on a lot of analysis, is the project is not viable on the scale they are talking about,” he said.
Older and unappreciated: Workers over 50 face a rough time on the job
Katrin Park – December 26, 2022
Forget the Great Resignation. The shakeup of Generation Z workers, seeking fulfillment and treating their jobs like a game of musical chairs, will sort itself out over time. They have their whole lives ahead of them to find something that fits.
The larger crisis is what to do with all the older-than-50 workers searching for gainful employment. This is one of the worst times to be a worker in the twilight of a career. Only half of Americans are steadily employed throughout their 50s. Last year, more than a quarter of workers ages 55 to 59 were out of the workforce, which meant that they didn’t have jobs to retire from.
Across the globe, full-time, stable employment that culminated in pensions has become a relic of the pre-pandemic past. In the United States, an increasing number of workers can’t afford to retire, not with inflation and uncertain retirement savings. Now, a worker must wait to age 70 to collect maximum Social Security benefits, and Congress is expected to discuss raising the age for Social Security eligibility next year.
Multiple factors create challenges for older workers
The disappearance of stable employment with a living wage and benefits – once the driver of upward mobility – has added to growing inequality. Global crises like COVID-19, changing business models and emerging technologies have led to the rise of low-quality, temporary jobs.
If workers have physically demanding jobs such as in retail or hospitality, poor health can force them to drop out. Many workers in their 50s also have caregiving responsibilities for older generations, which temporary gigs don’t accommodate. And of course there’s ageism.
A Brookings Institution report found a strong relationship between holding steady employment in one’s 50s and working in their 60s and beyond. So interventions to support older workers must start earlier on, even in one’s 40s. This can be done by improving the quality of low-wage jobs – including through higher minimum wages, greater work schedule flexibility and paid leave – to reduce turnover. That will help people work longer.
Likewise for firms, this is an opportunity to avoid productivity losses in the long run by maintaining a stable workforce. Firms that rely on disproportionately large numbers of hourly workers tend to have higher turnover rates. They are also less likely to invest in employee training and technologies.
Assisting older workers with developing skills that are in demand can help them get jobs again and meet businesses’ needs.
Such efforts are vital to maintain Social Security benefits, projected to be cut by more than 20% come 2034 unless Congress and the president intervene. Without action, monthly benefits would shrink by hundreds of dollars on average, and anyone 55 or younger would never get a full benefit.
And yet, unemployment statistics tend to leave out 50-something workers who are forced into early retirement. That happens because they are not part of the prime-age workforce, and they haven’t yet reached the benchmark ages associated with retirement, according to Beth Truesdale, a sociologist and author of the Brookings paper. Labor force policy and retirement policy should be considered as one system but are not, and these workers fall through the gap.
It’s a gap that’ll only get wider and harder to fill with the passage of time.
Which is alarming, given that an aging population, not a growing one, is the ticking time bomb.
The global population has just hit the 8 billion milestone, with life expectancy soaring and fertility rates dropping. Across the world, people 75 and older are the fastest-growing group in the labor force. Today, 40 million Americans are 65 and older, a figure expected to double over the next 40 years.
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Not preparing for this inescapable demographic shift will result in a shrinking workforce that struggles to support a ballooning number of “retirees.”
To be sure, improving the working conditions of low-wage jobs or training programs alone will not solve the myriad challenges older workers face. Age discrimination persists.
Katrin Park is a freelance writer and a former director of communications with the International Food Policy Research Institute.
Unfortunately, among the more than 40 million Americans 50 and older in the labor force, according to a 2018 analysis by ProPublica and the Urban Institute, half of them are likely to be laid off or forced into retirement regardless of income, education level or geography.
Without stronger legal protection for older workers and changing business models so they value work experience as a competitive advantage necessary for greater productivity, older workers will face fewer opportunities, resulting in higher rates of poverty in old age.
The disappearance of 50-something workers should factor more prominently in future of work debates. Even if all the quirks of Gen Z work habits were resolved tomorrow, a massive demographic work crisis still looms.
In Arizona, Colorado River crisis stokes worry over growth and groundwater depletion
Ian James – December 26, 2022
The Central Arizona Project Canal running through the desert in Arizona. (Albert Brave Tiger Lee / Los Angeles Times)
Kathleen Ferris stared across a desert valley dotted with creosote bushes, wondering where the water will come from to supply tens of thousands of new homes. In the distance, a construction truck rumbled along a dirt road, spewing dust.
This tract of open desert west of Phoenix is slated to be transformed into a sprawling development with up to 100,000 homes — a 37,000-acre property that the developers say will become Arizona’s largest master-planned community.
“It’s mind-boggling,” Ferris said. “I don’t think there is enough water here for all the growth that is planned.”
Water supplies are shrinking throughout the Southwest, from the Rocky Mountains to California, with the flow of the Colorado River declining and groundwater levels dropping in many areas. The mounting strains on the region’s water supplies are bringing new questions about the unrestrained growth of sprawling suburbs.
Ferris, a researcher at Arizona State University’s Kyl Center for Water Policy, is convinced that growth is surpassing the water limits in parts of Arizona, and she worries that the development boom is on a collision course with the aridification of the Southwest and the finite supply of groundwater that can be pumped from desert aquifers.
For decades, Arizona’s cities and suburbs have been among the fastest growing in the country. In most areas, water scarcity has yet to substantially slow the march of development.
But as drought, climate change and the chronic overuse of water drain the Colorado River’s reservoirs, federal authorities are demanding the largest reduction ever in water diversions in an effort to avoid “dead pool” — the point at which reservoir levels fall so low that water stops flowing downriver.
Already, Arizona is being forced to take 21% less water from the Colorado River, and larger cuts will be needed as the crisis deepens.
To deal with those reductions and access other supplies to serve growth, the state is turning more heavily to its underground aquifers. As new subdivisions continue to spring up, workers are busy drilling new wells.
Ferris and others warn, however, that allowing development reliant solely on groundwater is unsustainable, and that the solution should be to curb growth in areas without sufficient water.
“What we’re going to see is more and more pressure on groundwater,” Ferris said. “And what will happen to our groundwater then?”
Construction workers erect new homes in a residential development called Sun City Festival in Buckeye. Dwindling Colorado River water is delivered to central Arizona, one of the fastest growing metropolitan areas in the U.S., via the Central Arizona Project Canal. (Luis Sinco / Los Angeles Times)
One of the fastest-growing cities in the Phoenix area is Buckeye, which has plans to nearly triple its population by 2030. According to its 2020 water resources plan, 27 master-planned communities are proposed in Buckeye, which depends primarily on groundwater. If all the proposed developments are fully built, the city’s population, now 110,000, would skyrocket to about 872,000.
In the area Ferris visited, construction has begun on the giant development called Teravalis, where the developers plan to build the equivalent of a new city, complete with more than 1,200 acres of commercial development.
State water regulators have granted approvals to allow an initial portion of the project to move forward. But in other nearby areas of Buckeye, state officials have sent letters to builders putting some approvals on hold while they study whether there is enough groundwater for all the long-term demands.
The sun sets on the vast desert landscape along Sun Valley Parkway in Buckeye, Ariz. (Luis Sinco/Los Angeles Times)
“It’s hard for me to imagine wall-to-wall homes out here,” Ferris said, standing on the gravel shoulder of the Sun Valley Parkway, which runs across miles of undeveloped land. “This is the epitome of irresponsible growth. It is growing on desert lands, raw desert lands, where there’s no other water supply except groundwater.”
Nearby, the Central Arizona Project snakes through the desert, filled with Colorado River water. The CAP Canal was built between 1973 and 1993, bringing water that has enabled growth. But its supply came with low-priority water rights that made it vulnerable to cuts in a shortage.
The Phoenix metropolitan area’s population has more than doubled since 1990, expanding from 2.2 million to about 4.9 million people. Subdivisions have been built on former farmlands as development has expanded across the Salt River Valley, also called the Valley of the Sun.
Ferris, a lawyer and former director of the Arizona Department of Water Resources, helped draft the state’s 1980 Groundwater Management Act, which was intended to address overpumping and has since regulated groundwater use in urban areas.
Water from the CAP Canal has enabled cities to pump less from wells. For years, they have banked some of the imported Colorado River water underground by routing it to basins where it percolates down to aquifers.
The Central Arizona Project Canal runs beside a community in the suburbs of North Phoenix. Development projects envisioning thousands of new homes around Phoenix now are in question because of lack of water. (Luis Sinco / Los Angeles Times)
The state requires that new developments around Phoenix and other urban areas have a 100-year “assured water supply,” based on a calculation that allows for groundwater to be pumped down to a level 1,000 feet underground. Changes by the Legislature and regulators in the 1990s cleared the way for subdivisions to rely on groundwater as an assured water supply.
Since then, a groundwater replenishment district has been charged with securing water and using it to recharge aquifers, creating an accounting system. The problem with this system, Ferris said, is that groundwater has been overallocated, allowing for excessive pumping in some areas.
“We’ve got to learn to live within our means. Groundwater was always supposed to be a savings account, to be used only in times of shortages. Well, now those shortages look permanent,” Ferris said. “We ought to be saying, ‘How much growth can we really sustain?’ And put limits on how much water we’re going to use.”
The desert aquifers contain “fossil” water that has been underground for thousands of years.
“That water is not replenished. And so once it’s pumped, it’s pretty much gone,” Ferris said.
In recent years, Arizona has received about 36% of its water from the Colorado River. The river has long been severely overallocated, and its flows have shrunk dramatically during 23 years of megadrought intensified by global warming.
One of a growing number of developments in Buckeye, Ariz., that depend on groundwater. (Albert Brave Tiger Lee / Los Angeles Times)
The river’s largest reservoirs, Lake Mead and Lake Powell, now sit nearly three-fourths empty. Federal officials have warned there is a real danger the reservoirs could drop so low by 2025 that water would no longer flow past Hoover Dam to Arizona, California and Mexico.
Ferris said Arizona now needs to plan for years with little or no Colorado River water. She said she feels sad and angry that federal and state water managers, despite warnings by scientists, failed to act sooner to address the shortage.
“The Colorado River is dying,” Ferris said. “It is dying from overallocation, overuse, aridification, mismanagement.”
In the same way that tough decisions about the Colorado River were neglected for years, she said, “we’re not managing our groundwater well.”
“Either we do something about this now or we pay the consequences later. And we’re paying the consequences now with the Colorado River, because we didn’t deal with those problems soon enough,” Ferris said. “If we fail to plan for the idea that our groundwater will no longer be sufficient, then shame on us.”
Alongside the river’s decline, the Southwest is undergoing a parallel crisis of groundwater depletion. Scientists found in a 2014 study, using measurements from NASA satellites, that pumping depleted more than 40 million acre-feet of groundwater in the Colorado River Basin over nine years, about 1.5 times the maximum capacity of Lake Mead.
The sun sets on the vast desert landscape along Sun Valley Parkway in Buckeye, Ariz. (Luis Sinco / Los Angeles Times)
“Our research has shown that the groundwater in the lower basin has been disappearing nearly seven times faster than the combined water losses from Lakes Powell and Mead,” said Jay Famiglietti, a hydrology professor and executive director of the University of Saskatchewan’s Global Institute for Water Security. “Groundwater losses of that magnitude are literally an existential threat to desert cities like Phoenix and Tucson.”
Next year, Arizona’s allocation of Colorado River water delivered through the CAP Canal will be cut by more than a third. Some Arizona farmers are losing their CAP supplies, while irrigation districts are drilling new state-funded wells.
Arizona’s cities have yet to see major reductions. But that could soon change.
Ferris said she thinks growth should happen in areas where sufficient water is available, and from multiple sources.
A workman prepares a rig to drill for water in the suburbs of Phoenix. Colorado River flows are at historic lows due to warmer and drier conditions caused by climate change. (Luis Sinco / Los Angeles Times)
The city of Peoria, northwest of Phoenix, is one example of an area with a variety of sources, including the Colorado River, the Salt and Verde rivers and recycled wastewater. Since 1996, the city has been banking water underground, storing treated wastewater effluent and a portion of its Colorado River water.
The city is now drilling wells to pump out some of those supplies.
“Even if the Colorado River went away completely, we expect to have enough water banked underground to last us for years,” said Cape Powers, Peoria’s water services director. “We’ll continue to prepare for whatever comes our way.”
Nearby, a drilling crew was preparing to bore one of eight new wells for the city.
“Every drill rig that my company has is spoken for until May or June of next year,” said Ralph Anderson, the owner of Arizona Beeman Drilling. “The business in the next 3 to 5 years is going to just go through the roof.”
Some cities are maneuvering in other ways, reaching outside the Phoenix area to secure water.
The growing Phoenix suburb of Queen Creek recently won approval for a controversial $22-million deal to buy water rights from an investment company that will leave farmland dry in the community of Cibola, next to the Colorado River.
Queen Creek has also signed a 100-year contract to pay landowners $30 million to leave farmland fallow in the rural Harquahala Valley west of Phoenix, allowing them to pump groundwater and ship it to the suburbs.
Other cities are also looking to pump groundwater in the Harquahala Valley and other areas where they would be allowed to transport the water by canal.
Landscaped yards and green grassy playing fields typify the suburbs of North Phoenix. (Luis Sinco / Los Angeles Times)
Buckeye has a substantial amount of groundwater locally and plans to seek additional water that could be brought in from other areas, said Terry Lowe, the city’s director of water resources.
“It’s a hot market, the Phoenix metro area in general, and we’ve got to be able to have that water to meet that demand,” Lowe said. “And so we’re looking at working with others outside to find sources.”
For the planned 37,000-acre community Teravalis, the developers have two existing water approvals, called certificates of assured water supply, to build about 7,000 homes, and plan to seek additional approvals to build more. The developers plan to pump groundwater from the aquifer beneath the property, which lies in the Hassayampa River watershed.
“It’s one of the most plentiful aquifer basins in the state of Arizona. So we feel pretty good about that,” said Heath Melton, regional president for The Howard Hughes Corp. “We feel like we’re in a really good place.”
Melton said the community will conserve water by having low-water-use plants and fixtures, and will use recycled wastewater for outdoor irrigation and to recharge the aquifer.
Developers are also supporting the state government’s efforts to secure additional water from new sources.
Colorado River water flows into the Agua Fria groundwater recharge basins (or groundwater recharge facilities) in Peoria, Ariz. (Albert Brave Tiger Lee / Los Angeles Times)
Legislation signed this year by Gov. Doug Ducey established a new Water Infrastructure Finance Authority that will have about $1.4 billion for conservation projects and to secure additional supplies, including possibly bringing in water from outside the state. Arizona officials have been looking into a possible deal with Mexico to desalinate seawater at the Sea of Cortez and exchange that water for some of Mexico’s Colorado River water.
In the Hassayampa watershed in Buckeye, state water regulators have been working on an updated analysis of the groundwater basin. In letters to some other developers in the area, they have warned that although their report is not yet complete, they have “information indicating that the proposed subdivision’s estimated groundwater demand for 100 years is likely not met when considered with other existing uses and approved demands in the area.”
The Arizona Department of Water Resources similarly announced in 2019 that projections showed insufficient groundwater available for all the planned developments in Pinal County, between Phoenix and Tucson.
“The amount of groundwater we can allocate for these purposes is finite,” said Tom Buschatzke, the department’s director. He said in the Hassayampa basin, all the proposed developments won’t be able to grow on groundwater alone.
“They’ve got to find a different way to do business than what they’ve historically done,” he said. “They’ve got to find different pathways, more likely more expensive pathways.”
Buschatzke said the area still has options, such as bringing in water from other areas or using recycled water.
Even as the supply of Colorado River water shrinks, some researchers are optimistic about the state’s ability to adapt.
“The whole state is at an inflection point where we have to take some definite actions toward making sure of water supplies to serve the populations that are here now and into the future,” said Sarah Porter, director of ASU’s Kyl Center for Water Policy. “Arizona has a long history of meeting these water challenges, and I think Arizona will do that again.”
Ferris said she feels more pessimistic.
Homes are being built in a new community in Buckeye, Ariz. (Albert Brave Tiger Lee / Los Angeles Times)
Visiting a new development in Buckeye, Ferris drove past an entrance with flowing fountains. She watched workers building homes beside a golf course with ponds.
Nearby, new homes stood beside the open desert. On empty lots, flattened patches of dirt lay ready for the foundations to be poured.
“We have to stop growing these giant developments on groundwater. It is unsustainable,” Ferris said. “We need to limit the growth.”
China is losing its place as the center of the world’s supply chains. Here are 5 places supply chains are going instead.
Huileng Tan – December 26, 2022
China is the factory of the world, but COVID-19 has shown the world needs more than China to keep supply chains robust.Visual China Group/Getty Images
China’s COVID-19 policies are pushing companies to diversify supply chains away from the country.
They had already begun moving out over geopolitical tensions and tariffs from the Trump era.
India, Vietnam, Thailand, Malaysia, and Bangladesh are stepping up to replace the world’s factory.
China has been the factory of the world for the past four decades. The pandemic triggered a reckoning of this status.
China’s draconian COVID-19 restrictions have hit global supply chains.Chen Shichuan/VCG/Getty Images
China’s rise as the world’s factory spanned four decades and ushered in an era of globalization and integrated supply chains.
That facade started to crumble around 2018 after President Donald Trump launched a trade war against the East Asian giant. This, in turn, has prompted investors to reassess their geopolitical risks.
While some investors did move parts of their manufacturing facilities out of China at the time, it was the pandemic — and China’s zero-COVID policy — that drove home the importance of not depending on one country for manufacturing needs.
“The geopolitical tensions, in themselves, may not have resulted into this level of realignment of supply chains, but COVID certainly provided that extra vision, extra fillip, the extra fuel to the fire,” Ashutosh Sharma, a research director at the market-research firm Forrester, told Insider this month.
And the effects of the trade war linger. President Joe Biden hasn’t put the kibosh on the elevated tariffs Trump imposed on China — in fact, in October, he imposed export controls on shipping equipment to Chinese-owned factories making advanced logic chips. This further burdened a strained relationship.
To navigate this complicated web of US-China trade tensions, multinationals are, now more than ever, looking to hedge their business risks.
Here are five countries where China’s supply chains are moving to.
India is trying to unseat China in higher-end manufacturing, with the iPhone maker Apple and chipmakers eyeing its vast land and young population.
India has vast land and a young population.Sajjad Hussain/AFP/Getty Images
With its vast land and large, young population, India is a logical alternative to China as the world’s factory.
Apple has already moved some of its iPhone production to the Indian states of Tamil Nadu and Karnataka and is exploring moving its iPad manufacturing to the South Asian nation. JPMorgan analysts expect Apple to move 5% of its iPhone 14 production to India by the end of 2022, they wrote in a September note. They said they believed 1 in 4 iPhones would be made in India by 2025.
“India has a large labor pool, a long history of manufacturing, and government support for boosting industry and exports,” Julie Gerdeman, the CEO of Everstream, a platform for supply-chain risk management, told Insider. “Because of this, many are exploring whether Indian manufacturing is a viable alternative to China.”
The move is easier said than done.
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi has been working on attracting foreign direct investments since he took office in 2014, sending FDI to a record $83.6 billion in the past fiscal year, according to government data.
But significant hurdles still exist — even though the Indian government is boosting its appeal for foreign investments, it’s harder to do business in the country than in China, partly because of bureaucracy and multiple stakeholders that prolong decision-making.
Vietnam has been undergoing rapid economic reform since 1986, which has yielded significant returns.
Garment-factory workers in Hanoi, Vietnam.Manan Vatsyayana / AFP
As a communist country, Vietnam — like China — has been undergoing rapid economic reform since 1986.
The reforms have yielded results, propelling Vietnam from “one of the world’s poorest nations to a middle-income economy in one generation,” The World Bank said in a November post.
In 2021, Vietnam attracted over $31.15 billion in foreign-direct-investment pledges — up more than 9% from the prior year, according to the country’s Ministry of Planning and Investment. About 60% of the investments went into the manufacturing-and-processing sector.
Vietnam’s key strengths are in the manufacturing of apparel, footwear, and electronics and electrical appliances.
Other companies that have shifted some of their production lines out of China to Vietnam are Nike,Adidas, and Samsung.
Thailand’s FDI rose threefold between 2020 and 2021.
Thailand is a key auto and electronics manufacturing hub.Rachen Sageamsak/Xinhua/Getty Images
As Southeast Asia’s second-largest economy, Thailand has been moving up the value chain in manufacturing and is a production hub for car parts, vehicles, and electronics, with multinationals such as Sony and Sharp setting up shop there.
Sony said in 2019 it was closing its Beijing smartphone plant to cut costs and relocated some of the production to Thailand. Sharp said in the same year it was moving some of its printer production to Thailand because of the US-China trade war.
It’s not just international firms. Even Chinese companies have relocated parts of their supply chains to Thailand. Companies producing solar panels, such as Shanghai’s JinkoSolar, are moving their production to the island nation to take advantage of lower costs and avoid geopolitical tensions, the South China Morning Post reported in July.
“Setting up manufacturing plants abroad didn’t come from [the pursuit of] opportunities, it is more of a strategy to deal with challenges to gain market access,” Zhuang Yan, the president of Canadian Solar, said at an industry event in July, SCMP reported.
Foreign direct investments rose threefold to 455.3 billion Thai baht, or about $13.1 million, between 2020 to 2021, the Thailand Board of Investment announced in February.
Bangladesh is already a beneficiary of the supply-chain shift away from China. It now wants a bigger slice of the pie.
Bangladesh is home to a huge garment-manufacturing sector.Mustasinur Rahman Alvi/Eyepix Group/Future Publishing via Getty Images
Even before the COVID-19 lockdowns crippled China’s manufacturing sector, Bangladesh was a rising star in the garment-manufacturing sector.
Bangladesh’s rise was primarily due to rising labor costs in China predating Trump’s presidency.
The cost difference is large — the average monthly salary of a worker in Bangladesh is $120, or less than one-fifth of the $670 a factory worker takes home in the southern-China manufacturing hub of Guangzhou, Mostafiz Uddin, the owner of the Bangladeshi apparel manufacturer Denim Expert, told Insider.
“Moreover, rising material costs is pushing apparel companies to look for alternative destinations like Bangladesh where production prices are comparatively low,” Uddin said.
Bangladesh is now working to attract investments beyond the garment sector into others, including pharmaceuticals and agriculture processing.
Malaysia has for years been eyeing opportunities emerging from companies shifting away from China.
Malaysia’s FDI inflows hit a five-year high of $48.1 billion in 2021.Manan Vatsyayana/AFP/Getty Images
Malaysia has been eyeing opportunities from the manufacturing shift out of China for the past few years.
It has made some headway with the efforts, as it has attracted at least 32 projects that have relocated from China to Malaysia, the Malaysian Investment Development Authority said in July 2020. The authority didn’t provide details of the projects or of the companies that moved.
But even before the pandemic, tech investments into Malaysia had been rising because of lower labor costs and US-China trade tensions. Major deals over the past few years included a 1.5 billion Malaysian ringgit, or $339 million, investment by the US chip giant Micron over five years starting in 2018. Jabil, a US company that makes iPhone covers, has also expanded its operations in Malaysia.
“We knew quite a number that have expressed their intention to shift from China and we have engaged them. The only thing is timing,” Azman Mahmud, then the CEO of the Malaysian Investment Development Authority, told The Malaysian Reserve in 2020.
Malaysia’s FDI inflows hit a five-year high of $48.1 billion in 2021, with manufacturing of electronics and vehicles being the main contributor, according to official government information.
