CNN (December 1)
“Nearly every piece of plastic ever made still exists today. More than five trillion pieces of plastic are already in the oceans, and by 2050 there will be more plastic in the sea than fish, by weight… Some 8 million tons of plastic trash leak into the ocean annually, and it’s getting worse every year. Americans are said to use 2.5 million plastic bottles every hour.” The potentially catastrophic impact largely lies beyond our gaze in remote places, like Midway Atoll, where birds are dying from plastic consumption. There is now also “growing evidence that fish may prefer eating plastic to food,” and that the nano-plastics and styrene that make their way into the food chain could have profoundly negative consequences for humankind.
Tags: Birds, Consequences, Consumption, Evidence, Fish, Food, Food chain, Midway Atoll, Nano-plastics, Oceans, Plastic, Remote, Styrene
USA Today (August 25)
Most U.S. middle and high schools “still start earlier than 8:30 a.m.,” despite growing scientific evidence that older students should sleep later. Next month, “Seattle will become one of the largest urban districts to push back start times…. Less tardiness and more attentive students should be enough to awaken more districts to the benefits of later start times for teenagers.”
Tags: Evidence, High schools, Older students, Sleep, Start times, Tardiness, Teenagers, U.S.
Bloomberg (January 26)
“Why are economists so willing to declare to the world that free trade is good?” Their consensus flies in the face of popular opinion and “powerful evidence that industries and regions that have been more exposed to Chinese import competition since 2000—the year China joined the World Trade Organization—have been hit hard and have not recovered.”
Tags: China, Competition, Consensus, Economists, Evidence, Free trade, Imports, Industries, Popular opinion, Regions, WTO
Bloomberg (October 14)
“Ernst & Young LLP took Bernie Madoff at his word when it signed off on audits of a fund that helped feed the biggest Ponzi scheme in U.S. history. The firm must now defend that decision at the first trial of an auditor over losses tied to Madoff, who’s serving a 150-year prison term for stealing billions of dollars from thousands of investors.” The case will be tried by jury in a state court in Seattle and comes just after “the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board, the lead U.S. audit regulator, warns that one in three audit opinions in the U.S. lack appropriate supporting evidence.”
Tags: Audits, Bernie Madoff, Ernst & Young, Evidence, Investors, PCAOB, Ponzi scheme, Prison, Regulator, Seattle, Trial, U.S.
Institutional Investor (July 28)
“CSR reporting is on the rise, and so is its impact. More companies are publishing corporate social and sustainability reports on their operations amid fresh evidence that transparency enhances valuations.”
Tags: CSR, Evidence, Impact, Operations, Reporting, Sustainability, Transparency, Valuations
New York Times (January 4, 2014)
“Five months into the latest American effort to nudge Israelis and Palestinians toward a peace agreement, the one party clearly committed to a deal is the United States.” Over 20 talks have been held, with the U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry logging ten trips to the region. Despite these efforts to reach an agreement by the end of April, “there is no evidence of concrete progress, but there are increasing signs that both sides may be positioning themselves to blame the other if negotiations collapse.”
Tags: Agreement, Blame, Collapse, Evidence, Israel, John Kerry, Negotiations, Palestine, Positioning, Progress, U.S.
The Economist (December 7, 2013)
Despite frequent assertions, there is no evidence that genetically modified (GM) crops are bad for people. On the other hand, copious evidence demonstrates how GM crops “benefit the health of the planet. One of the biggest challenges facing mankind is to feed the 9 billion-10 billion people who will be alive and (hopefully) richer in 2050. This will require doubling food production on roughly the same area of land, using less water and fewer chemicals.” GM crops provide the hope that we will be able to meet this challenge.
USA Today (September 4)
“As evidence mounts that permanent brain damage and dementia are legacies of some still-unknown number of NFL careers, the league faces a dilemma: Bone-jarring hits are an unavoidable part of football, but if the game gets too brutal, fans and the parents of prospective players could abandon it…. Making an inherently violent game less dangerous won’t be easy.”
Tags: Brain damage, Career, Dangerous, Dementia, Evidence, Fans, Football, Game, Hits, NFL, Parents, Players, Violent
Los Angeles Times (January 18)
Though the Rape of Nanking took place 75 years ago, it remains a major irritant troubling the relationship between China and Japan. “What is alarming is that the leaders of Japan…have an understanding of their country’s wartime history that is grounded primarily in fiction.” There can be no question that the notorious event took place given the abundant evidence including eyewitness testimony and film footage. “Japanese denial in the face of all this ensures that a historical event will continue to fan the flames of anger and distrust. The sooner the facts are recognized and Japanese leaders renounce paying tribute to mass killers and rapists, the sooner true healing can begin.”
