https://www.vox.com/climate/24139383/climate-change-peak-greenhouse-gas-emissions-action
An essay in Vox suggests that there is real hope for climate improvement provided we don’t see a second Trump Term. (From the article:)
Last year, more solar panels were installed in China — the world’s largest carbon emitter — than the US has installed in its entire history. More electric vehicles were sold worldwide than ever. Energy efficiency is improving. Dozens of countries are widening the gap between their economic growth and their greenhouse gas emissions. And governments stepped up their ambitions to curb their impact on the climate, particularly when it comes to potent greenhouse gases like methane. If these trends continue, global emissions may actually start to decline.
Climate change is a critical business ethics issue. The danger of rising temperatures calls into question the social utility of many common industries and business practices. We are at a critical point. The article is optimistic but very guardedly and there are dozens of caveats. We are in dangerous waters with very few sure ways to go on these matters.
Ellen DeGeneres is back on the comedy circuit.
From the article linked to above.
The Federal Trade Commission on Tuesday voted 3-2 in favor of adopting a historic and far-reaching ban on noncompete agreements, potentially giving more leverage in the job market to millions of U.S. workers. The agency has said that the agreements, in which workers are forbidden from seeking a job with a competing business for a certain period of time, lead to an “unfair method of competition” and violate federal law. The vote by the agency’s five commissioners this week means the ban will move forward.
From time to time, the world of business ethics coughs up a good story, a positive story. The Federal Trade Commission has approved a ban on noncompete agreements. This has been long overdue. Originally non-compete agreements were targeted at employees whose inside knowledge of the company would give an unfair advantage to any company that hired them. Unfortunately, many employers realized they could use the agreements to make it difficult for employees to leave since the agreement made it very difficult for them to get a job in the same field. They argued that knowledge given in fast food places like how to make a sandwich were proprietary and required a non-compete agreement. This legal bufoonery did not disguise the intent of making life more difficult for employees and empowering the company to treat them badly since the workers had difficulty finding new jobs with the agreement in place.
From the article linked to above:
Musk on Tuesday responded to an interim court order from Australia’s eSafety Commission requesting that X hide graphic and distressing videos of the recent Sydney stabbing within 24 hours with a Wizard of Oz meme: it’s all shits and giggles over at X. In further posts, he took aim at the eSafety commissioner, claiming she wants “authority over all countries on Earth”, after labelling her a “Commissar” for requesting the removal of the video in the first place, which depicted an attack that the NSW police have since classified as a terrorist incident.
The idea that freedom of speech is served by these horror postings of crimes and other savagery is just nonsense. Media has the power to exalt, to educate and to entertain. But here it is simply a horror fest in which demented criminals are given free publicity encouraging copycats and universal cynicism from the nihilistic values on display by these internet companies.
We have a right to see that evil deeds not be celebrated, to not see vicious anti-social clowns in action and absolutely a right to not ever have to be treated to the half wit, degenerate manifestos of mass murderers and terrorists.
https://www.yahoo.com/news/gm-tricked-millions-drivers-being-175245410.html
Automakers have been selling data about the driving behavior of millions of people to the insurance industry. In the case of General Motors, affected drivers weren’t informed, and the tracking led insurance companies to charge some of them more for premiums. I’m the reporter who broke the story. I recently discovered that I’m among the drivers who were spied on.
People were led to believe that OnStar got you help when you had car or travel problems but that is not all that the program does. Get a load of this:
My husband’s LexisNexis report had a breakdown of the 203 trips we had taken in the car since January, including the distance, the start and end times, and how often we hard-braked or accelerated rapidly. The Verisk report, which dated to mid-December and recounted 297 trips, had a high-level summary at the top: 1,890.89 miles driven; 4,251 driving minutes; 170 hard-brake events; 24 rapid accelerations; and, on a positive note, zero speeding events.
Once they’ve got your data, it can be sold to anyone at anytime and it never goes away. It can raise your insurance rates. It has raised insurance rates on many individuals. Your data is in real way, digital currency and when stacked with other such digital data, you pay the costs of that knowledge.
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/google-delays-cookie-phase-following-014600158.html
Google is going to delay its plan to eliminate cookies. I find this a depressing development. We consumers should have the right to not have our internet choices tracked and reported. However, Google still plans on eliminating cookies, just when is still up in the air.
Quote below from the link above from Yahoo Finance:
Google has spent years preparing to get rid of cookies following similar moves by Apple and Mozilla, the developer of the Firefox browser. It has promoted the change as a way to improve consumer privacy and developed an alternative set of technologies known as the Privacy Sandbox to replace many of their features. The plans have encountered several roadblocks from industry participants. Google first announced plans to block cookies in early 2020, targeting the end of 2022 for their elimination.
https://www.yahoo.com/news/popular-conspiracy-theory-website-just-224116709.html
Gateway Pundit is seeking bankruptcy protections as it attempt to deal with a flood of lawsuits.
Quote from the link listed above:
For two decades, the site has published falsehoods and conspiracy theories on everything from vaccines to election fraud. Donald Trump frequentlyshares its material. The most notable lawsuit against the website is from Georgia election workers Ruby Freeman and Shaye Moss. In 2021, they sued the Gateway Pundit, Hoft and his twin brother, and website contributor Joe Hoft in St. Louis Circuit Court for defamation and emotional distress. The website had falsely alleged that the mother-daughter pair had purposefully manipulated the vote count in Joe Biden’s favor.
I won’t miss them. They deserve the economic penalties derived from their misbehavior.
https://www.yahoo.com/news/iranian-rapper-toomaj-salehi-sentenced-185523872.html
An Iranian court sentenced outspoken rapper Toomaj Salehi to death after his arrest over songs that criticized the government, his lawyer said Wednesday.
This is an extremely sad story, a tragedy. Civilizations advance along a number of different avenues simultaneously although often at different speeds. Artistic movements are often less noticed than economic or technological or even political developments but it can be argued that artistic developments are the most important in the long term. Songs are strong indicators of the health of a society. If songwriters have great freedom to create, that says a lot about the creative environment in which they function.
We may safely conclude that Iran is a zone devoid of progress for artistic expression. This is a sure sign of a fearful, incompetent and reactionary government. The United States even with its turbulent political activity and struggling factions is a far more healthy environment for art. That is a good sign for the nation’s future and its effect on the larger development of worldwide civilization.
James Alan Pilant
Pilant's Business Ethics Blog 