POLS 170 Blog Group 0202

                                             Above is an oil refinery in Germany, that gets oil from a Russian Pipeline (WSJ)         As of April 28th, 2022, Germany, one of the most influential and powerful members of the European Union said that it would agree to a ban on Russian oil. This comes only a few months after the nation said that would be impossible to cut off its reliance on Russian oil. They believe that they can ban Russian oil if they are given enough time to acquire oil from elsewhere. Oil reliance from Russia in the nation used to be much higher, at 35% percent, where today it lies at around 12%. EU Russian oil use is around 27% of all oil. Ultimately if the EU goes forward with this ban it will make oil and gas prices skyrocket all over the world, showing that a decision in today's worl...

Global Health Fails to Represent Introduction It’s easy enough to say we need to diversify things in our world– we can clearly see the need for it globally whether it may be in terms of leadership, power, politics, etc.. But the stark reality is that global issues still aren’t being tackled in a representative manner (Bertram et al. 2020). Specifically, gender inequities are prominent in both leadership opportunities and in health outcomes. Global health needs to reflect the demographics of our world if it wants to see appropriate and effective outcomes. In my blog post, I plan to explain the shortcomings of global health initiatives due to the gender inequities that permeate them and why it is important we make changes that reflect the rich diversity of our world. Leadership Going into this blog post, I already knew that gender inequalities existed in global health– but it wasn’t until I saw the numbers firsthand that I realized how significantly low the number of female representatio...

 Is climate change as serious as many say or is it just a way for media or politicians to downplay? https://www.nytimes.com/article/climate-change-global-warming-faq.html?auth=login-google1tap&login=google1tap     For about 20 years climate change has continued to grow as one of the most major problems around the world. The emissions of greenhouse gases has caused Earth's temperature to rise at a steady pace. A major concern when talking about climate change is its legitimacy. Of course climate change is legitimate, but in recent years there has been much hype to whether climate change is actually occurring or not. Scientists have understood the reasoning behind the consistent rising of the Earth's temperature, which is carbon dioxide in the atmosphere that cause the warming.      Climate change has been a tough challenge to navigate for many countries around the world because it can be treated so many different ways. From the year 1998 the Kyoto Protoc...

    Will We Ever Be Able to Help the Environment? The environment is a public good that continues to be taken advantage of. Despite the various efforts made by coalitions and some countries, the environment is being depleted, and we are beginning to experience the consequences. Big businesses and firms typically choose to produce goods and services in the cheapest way possible which is evidently always the options that hurt the environment the most. As our world becomes more and more interconnected, pollution drastically increases and heavily contributes to climate change. There is clear evidence of climate change and the effects of global warming which has pressured governments to be held accountable and create policies to change the ways in which humans operate. Although there have been many protocols, organizations, and reforms made, not every country abides by these new rules. Without the compliance of every country there will be no real preservation of the envir...

  The United Nations (UN) should move to classify excessive pollution as terrorism in order to more effectively mitigate against the climate crisis. In 2006, the entirety of the UN adopted a global counter-terrorism strategy that includes provisions to “address[], prevent, [and] combat” terrorism and its spread (un.org). Classifying excessive pollution as terrorism would allow for the predominant international governing body to use existing precedent to hold member states accountable for climate crimes. The UN is fundamentally opposed to climate change because - as a UN subsidiary explains - “[c]limate change threatens the effective enjoyment of a range of human rights” (ohchr.org). Under this definition, climate change threatens the UN’s core value of “reaffirm[ing] faith in fundamental human rights” as outlined in the organization’s charter. With all of this in mind, states jeopardize human rights when consciously abdicating their duties as stewards of the Earth and cannot be per...

     EVs In The US Will Help, But It Cannot Solve Climate Change Alone      The auto market over the course of the past decade has changed in huge ways. 10 years ago there were little to no electric vehicles on the market and the company Tesla was only known by a few. Today electric vehicles are becoming more common and Tesla is becoming a household name. Electric vehicles continue to be adopted at higher and higher levels in the US and across the world in specifically wealthier nations. This is not by chance, and in many cases not by choice either. People are becoming more environmentally conscious as climate change has become a larger part of dominant discourse all over the world today. Electric vehicles are supposed to be a way that as a society, CO2 emissions can be curbed daily easily by switching to renewable energy vehicles. The problem is that no matter how much the United States may do to promote electric vehicles if it is not adopted all over the ...