Do we care about Climate Change?
Rising temperatures + Online Creeping + Voices of PolicyFide
Hello
Hope you are doing well and staying safe. This week we talk about climate change, women in sciences, privacy in digital arena and our feature review this week!
Climate Change and Changing Times
The average temperature will hit more than 1.5 degrees Celsius even before 2040 as per a 4000 pages report by IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change).Â
The report has 4 main key takeaways:
Increment in temperature- Countries that made commitments under the Paris Agreement to keep the temperature below 1.5-2 degrees Celsius are faltering, and challenges are great as the temperatures will increase up to 3 degrees Celsius by the end of the century.Â
Chronic Effects- Humankind in millions will experience chronic hunger to extreme poverty by 2050 along with extreme events of forest fires, droughts and floods.
Catastrophic Changes- It discusses changes that will be irreversible and catastrophic ranging from melting ice caps to increasing sea levels.
Blue carbon ecosystem- IPCC stresses upon conservation and restoration of blue carbon ecosystems—kelp and mangrove forests, by switching to plant-based diets that will help in reducing the emissions by as much as 70 per cent by 2050.
It is an extensive report indicating how climate change will impact the world in the coming years. If this is the reality, then are we doing enough for what the future holds?
(Sources: Aljazeera,NDTV)
Women of Sciences
Recognition, motivation and push are essential for any individual to prosper in a field or discipline, but are we doing enough?
Do you know that 74 % of girls in high school show interest in STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics) but when it comes to choosing a profession, women consist only 43 per cent of the total STEM enrollments in the country as per the All India Survey on Higher Education (AISHE) 2018-19 by the Ministry of Education?Â
The question is why are we talking about this?
bioRxiv- the preprint server of biology published an analysis that indicated 69% of the direct quotes from experts in Nature, a leading international scientific journal, were from men. The argument persists as, why are women given so less importance in STEM fields. We analysed a few reasons which hinder their growth in the field-
The conditioning and the environment- Despite being interested in STEM at an early age, the data from Microsoft indicates how the interest of girls drop as they reach high school.Â
Less recognition of and at work- As per the Timesjob survey, 21 per cent of respondents felt that women professionals get less recognition for their work in the tech industry.Â
Persisting gap- Even after the positive trend of more women choosing the STEM subjects in college, the percentage of women with STEM degrees has dropped from 25% to 24%.
How can we overcome this?Â
To retain more women employees is to provide flexible time, which Forbes says is a non-negotiable circumstance for engineers. By allowing employees to work as per their schedule, companies help them maintain a better work-life balance.Â
Rohini Godbole, who authored Lilavati’s Daughters, a collection of nearly 100 biographical essays on women scientists, feels that pressure to manage the family needs to change.
A recent research report by McKinsey said that narrowing the gender gap in STEM can lead to an increase of $12-28 trillion in the global economy.Â
Maintaining boundaries and ensuring privacy or ONLINE CREEPING
Norton, a corporation that provides antivirus and security software for devices, conducted a survey of over 10,000 adults, including 1,000 Indian adults, to assess consumers’ online habits if they are healthy or not.
The report assessed the stalking behaviours and found this - 74% of adults who stalked their current partner or ex without their knowledge or consent, 31% checked their messages, emails, phone calls and 29% tracked their location without their knowledge and consent.
Why does stalking happen in the first place?Â
52 per cent of Indian adults believe that it is harmless to stalk a current or former partner online while 59 per cent believe that online stalking is okay if it is to check on their partner’s physical or mental health.
How to deal with this?
Collect evidence- Stalking is often difficult to detect or keep records of, "so it is really important to try to collect evidence, even if that is journaling what you see," says Julie Kun, CEO of Women's Information and Referral Exchange (WIRE).
Seek legal help- File a complaint to the NCW which will take the matter up with the police.
emotional support- Tell your trusted sources and seek help from them.
Most importantly, stay safe.
(Sources: The Quint, Indian Express)
What else is happening?
Japan has proposed a Four-day working week to improve work-life balance.
Union Minister Ravi Shankar claimed that Twitter locked his account for an hour and the social media giant also confirmed and explained that it had blocked his account due to US copyright policy, as the Twitter vs Government of India persists.
4 researchers from IIT Kharagpur, studied the new climate projections which indicated that sea levels will rise around Lakshadweep Islands between 0.4 mm per year to 0.9 mm per year due to the impact of global warming. Chances are that the airport and the nearby residential areas will get affected.
National Geographic, one of the world's well-known mapmakers, has declared the presence of this fifth ocean, the Southern Ocean which surrounds Antarctica.
Voices of PolicyFideÂ
This week, we cover Tanupriya Jain’s read In Service of the Republic by Vijay Kelkar and Ajay Shah. Tanupriya is currently pursuing masters in Conflict Management and Development wrote about her read this month-
Vijay Kelkar and Ajay Shah are two economists who have made significant contributions to India’s policy reform in its remarkable economic growth from 1991 -2011. This book may be a detailed guide explaining the virtues of self-organising systems, the art of state intervention in markets and institution building. The book is correctly organised and divided into different sections, explaining all concepts just like the damage done by control, the creative destruction of capital and private solutions to market failure. Throughout the book, the authors stress the necessity for policymakers to exercise caution and restraint when intervening in markets. They believe that the gains from trade liberalisation in 1991 should have been followed by a group of reforms for building state capacity towards better enforcement of contracts, protection of property rights and investment in knowledge institutions. Although the book is written within the simplest language possible with examples for each and each concept explained, the basic background of economics would be better before you start reading. Strongly recommended for people curious about public policy, governance, law and economics.Hope you found this week’s newsletter meaningful.
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