‘We need solutions that prioritize both safety and sustainability’

‘Lithium batteries are bursting into flames, starting dangerous, toxic trash fires’

Amy Lestition Burke and Heidi Sanborn at The Hill

Workers in “recycling and waste management face an escalating threat: fires and explosions sparked by improperly discarded consumer products containing lithium-ion batteries,” say Amy Lestition Burke and Heidi Sanborn. Without “swift, coordinated action from both manufacturers and policymakers, the situation will only grow worse.” Product design “must account for safe, cost-effective end-of-life management, including identifiable and removable batteries.” Manufacturers “must take responsibility for the full life cycle of their products, and policymakers must act now to protect workers.”

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Some have “claimed that the debt problem in the developing world is dissipating, but in fact the situation in many low- and lower-middle-income countries has become deeper and more entrenched,” says Joseph Stiglitz. Governments are “diverting precious public resources away from education, health, infrastructure and climate adaptation to service debts.” This is “not a path to sustainable development — this debt is a roadblock.” Today’s “crisis reflects a systemic failure, which lies in the persistent asymmetry of global capital flows.”

The “surgeon general is the nation’s doctor, but what the nation needs is a nurse,” say Connie M. Ulrich, Mary Naylor and Martha A.Q. Curley. At this “critical time in our nation’s history, who better than a nurse to lead the country in addressing the challenges of health promotion and disease prevention?” The “surgeon general is charged with providing Americans with the best scientific information available on how to improve their health,” and this “science is the science of nursing.”

Enlightened Americans’ “presence in America to fight for its promise is a duty and responsibility,” says Andrew Mitrovica. They “can fashion a formidable, immovable buttress against the wretched aspects of Trumpism — its assault on facts, erosion of democratic norms, embrace of authoritarianism, and corrosive pursuit of division and fear.” This “contest cannot be won remotely — far from the epicenter of the urgent battle.” Absence “creates space for extremism to entrench itself,” and Trumpism “thrives when opposition retreats.”

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