Tag: India

Global Sex Trafficking: Part II-Asia

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GLOBAL SEX TRAFFICKING:

PART II – ASIA

 By Trevor K. McNeil

Denied

Human trafficking is quite simply the exploitation of a human being. Trafficked people typically have limited access to the basic necessities of food, sleep, hygiene, safety and medical care. Traffickers subject their victims to terrible physical and psychological abuse. Social isolation, being one of the worst. Violence and harsh exploitive treatment often leads to serious health risks including HIV/AIDS. Furthermore serious mental health issues result from such treatment. Anxiety, fear, stress, insecurity and trauma are common. The few studies done on the results of trafficking on its victims show high levels of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) in formerly trafficked persons. The Trafficking experience can also lead to cognitive impairment, memory loss, depression, and even suicide.

Another Side Of Human Trafficking

Sex trafficking is an element of the globalized human trafficking trade.  The casual observer does not see the harmful consequences of the underground criminal trafficking business. Trafficked children are of course the most vulnerable.  Sadly, trafficking whether for labor or sex or a combination of the two will have a detrimental impact on a child’s emotional, physical, and overall psychological development. Human trafficking is slavery.  Slavery is at its greatest level in human history.

Human Costs

Human beings are social creatures. Social isolation is a devastating result of trafficking. A sex trafficker’s evil intent is to separate a slave from their family and support system. There is no mechanism for the enslaved to reach out for help. The traffickers send victims to international destinations cutting them off even further from empathetic social contacts due to language, geographic and cultural differences. Rescued sex slaves report facing stigma and isolation both during and after their trafficking experience, most hurtful from family and friends.

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EV: The Obvious Future

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EV: Electric Vehicles The Obvious Future

By D. S. Mitchell

*”Adoption of a new technology like EV’s (electric vehicles) may seem slow or look like it’s never going to happen, until it passes a threshold… and then it just takes off.” Reda Cherif for the International Monetary Fund

Slashing EPA Annual Budget by Over 30%

When Trump won the 2016 presidential election I knew the attack on the environment would move forward like a bulldozer in a butterfly garden. In Trump’s first year in office he pulled the United States out of the landmark Paris climate deal, paving the way for the continued reckless burning of fossil fuels. The Paris Climate Accord is non-binding on signers, but focuses on a global effort to hold the Earth’s temperature rise to fewer than two degrees Celsius above pre-industrial temperatures. The consequences of failing to limit greenhouses gases and thereby their destructive effects is a future most of us do not want to imagine.

High Jacking the Mission of the EPA

In March of 2018, Trump proposed slashing the EPA annual budget by over 30%.  Since 2017 the EPA has lost more than 700 employees, including 200 scientists. Meanwhile the disgraced and the now thank God departed, Scott Pruitt, wasted Agency money on a 24 hour security detail, expensive air travel, and sound proof booths for his office. Rather than protect the environment and work with the world to limit green house gas production this administration wants to subsidize coal, and ramp up oil exploration in previously protected wilderness areas and vulnerable off-shore sites.

EV Promises Reduced Air Pollution

Despite the bad news on so many U.S. environmental fronts there is good news in the automobile industry. Automobile manufacturer’s world-wide are committing to the EV.  They see the handwriting on the wall.  The governments of Europe, China, and India are committed to reducing air pollution. Part of that vision will be enabled by electric vehicles. The mass acceptance of the EV will consequently cut the production of fossil fuels and their consumption. Perhaps that is the reason coal, and gas producers are in such a hurry to mine and pump fuel reserves while they still have an opportunity. Because they, more than any other industry, recognizes the world is changing.

Horse and Buggy Days

There is a growing understanding that gas and diesel-powered vehicles will soon join the horse and buggy, and the dial telephone. New studies support a rapid acceleration process and a gathering  momentum of  the coming EV tsunami. Surprising as it may seem The International Monetary Fund and Georgetown University predicts that more than 90% of all passenger vehicles in the U.S., Canada, Europe and other wealthy industrialized countries will be EV by 2040. Some studies are even more bullish than the IMF projections. In fact, there are predictions that by 2030, ninety percent of all U.S. vehicles will be EV. That is a mere 12 years away.

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