Also on today’s menu:
Chevron To Resume Oil Pumping in Venezuela
Shutting Down The Farms
What About The Pets?
Faced with the possibility of a railroad strike that could interrupt the delivery of supplies across the country, President Joe Biden Jr. has asked Congress to intervene with legislation forcing workers to remain on the job. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi promised to take up the bill this week.
Biden said he is “a proud pro-labor president” who is reluctant to override the ratification procedures for union contracts, but “at this critical moment for our economy … we cannot let our strongly held conviction for better outcomes for workers … hurl this nation into a devastating rail freight shutdown.”
Union leaders and railroad management have been negotiation for more than two-and-a-half years for new contracts, with the wages, sick leave, and a system known as Precision Schedule Railroading (PSR) at the center of the dispute. PSR keeps workers on tight schedules with little time for anything but work, and does not allow for family emergencies. Biden’s Presidential Emergency Board tried to resolve the differences with an agreement calling for wage increases and health benefits, but it did not address the problems associated with PSR. Most unions voted to accept the brokered agreement, but four rejected it and, if they strike, the others are likely to join them.
A congressional solution barring a strike would provide cover for both management and unions, so neither side would face criticism, although the larger problem with PSR would remain unsolved. For railroad management, the strict scheduling has allowed the companies to eliminate 40,000 jobs and make record profits. Workers, however, are subject to brutal schedules and dangerous working conditions because of smaller crews and lack of down time.
Chevron To Resume Oil Pumping in Venezuela
The Biden Administration has approved Chevron’s bid to resume the pumping of oil in Venezuela, despite continuing concerns about the socialist Venezuelan government. The fact that Nicolas Maduro’s regime has resumed talks with the opposition Unitary Platform has been viewed as a positive step toward restoring democracy in Venezuela, according to Biden.
The U.S. Treasury Department granted the license to Chevron to resume “limited natural resource extraction operations in Venezuela” which would “alleviate the suffering of the Venezuelan people and support the restoration of democracy,” the department said in a statement.
Republicans have criticized the move, with Representative Thomas Tiffany (R-Wisconsin) asking, “Why is Joe Biden so obsessed with killing oil and gas jobs in America and creating them in Venezuela?”
Shutting Down The Farms
The Netherlands is the world’s second-largest exporter of agricultural products after the United States, with more than half of Dutch land being used for agriculture, and another 24,000 acres worth of crops growing in greenhouses. That makes it responsible for the largest portion of nitrogen emissions in the country.
In order to comply with European Union environmental rules, the Dutch government will have to reduce the country’s nitrogen emissions by 50 percent by 2030, and that means targeting agriculture. Nitrogen Minister Christianne van der Wal has announced a “compulsory purchase” of as many as 3,000 farms near environmentally sensitive areas, with the goal of shutting them down. Van der Wal said the government would pay “well over” the value of the farms.
Still, farmers are unhappy with the plan and their discontent has led to the creation of a new political party, BoerBurgerBeweging (BBB), which aims to reform the nitrogen law.
What About The Pets?
Farms are not the only entities being targeted by climate action groups. Kimberly Richardson of CNN advocates changing the food given to pets, saying their meat-heavy diets require the expenditure of energy, land, and water, producing “huge amounts of planet-warming gases.”
“[F]eeding dogs and cats creates the equivalent of around 64 million tons of carbon dioxide in the U.S. each year,” Richardson writes. “That’s roughly the same impact as 13.6 million cars on the road. And if our furry friends formed a separate country, it would rank 5th in global meat consumption behind China, the U.S., Brazil, and Russia.”
She suggests discussing pets’ diets with a veterinarian. While cats require meat in their diets, dogs are omnivores and do not need meat in every meal. She quotes Angela Frimberger, a veterinarian with Vets for Climate Action, who said, “[T]he trend to feed premium quality ingredient food goes back to our habit of viewing our pets’ needs through the lens of what we would like, rather than what they actually need or like.”
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