Politics: March 2019 Archives
Plastic bag bans can backfire if consumers just use other plastics instead
Rebecca Taylor, economics lecturer at the University of Sydney, writes: "A U.K. government study calculated that a shopper would need to reuse a cotton carryout bag 131 times to reduce its global warming potential - its expected total contribution to climate change - below that of plastic carryout bags used once to carry newly purchased goods. To have less impact on the climate than plastic carryout bags also reused as trash bags, consumers would need to use the cotton bag 327 times....
"...My results showed that bag bans may not reduce total plastic usage if people begin purchasing trash bags to replace the carryout bags they were previously reusing for their garbage. As this finding shows, well-intended product bans can have unintended consequences....
"In particular, my results showed that bag bans caused sales of small (4 gallon), medium (8 gallon) and large (13 gallon) trash bags to increase by 120 percent, 64 percent and 6 percent respectively. "
Ken LaCorte: I Stopped the Stormy Daniels Story at Fox News. Here's Why.
"It lacked: any mention of payments, a hush money contract or any corroborating evidence beyond the two secondhand accounts.
"On top of that, Stormy Daniels herself had publicly denied the whole thing, a denial she would maintain for another year.
"The story wasn't close to being publishable, and my decision to hold it was a no-brainer. I didn't do it to help Trump and never said nor implied otherwise. It was such an easy call that I never even informed my direct boss or anyone in management about it....
"In her 11,635 word piece, [Jane Meyer] didn't find room to mention the paucity of evidence we had, the conflicting statements nor the other outlets which responded exactly as we did.
"The New Yorker piece couldn't have been more successful for them. In a media world where criticizing Fox News is an industry staple, the piece was picked up by almost every major outlet and Jane Mayer was feted throughout journalism.
"My non-quote quote and wrong story appeared everywhere from cable news to Jimmy Kimmel to the news outlets that re-wrote the story, including The Washington Post, Guardian, Newsweek, The Hill, Esquire, Vanity Fair, and at least 70 others.
"I say 're-wrote' instead of 'reported' because not a single reporter reached out to me. None.
"I'm an easy guy to find, especially since I'm in the process of launching a startup news site intent on bringing fairness back to journalism. This whole episode is an example of why the media has a credibility crisis.
"The ultimate irony is that in its zeal to hang Fox News for journalistic malfeasance, the media tossed journalistic standards in the trash can and gave readers the 100% wrong impression of Fox and the Stormy Daniels story.
"Journalists: these are the reasons why half of America believes Donald Trump when he calls us 'fake.'"
