#local government unit

[reasonsforhope]

"After a year of the statewide fee on single-use plastic bags, the Eco-Cycle recycling center in Boulder estimates between 1.5 billion and 1.8 billion fewer plastic bags were used in Colorado in 2023.

The center anticipates a greater reduction in use in 2024 as businesses phase out the use of single-use plastic bags in most cases.

Eco-Cycle calculated its estimate by taking the number of plastic bags each American uses per year on average — 365, according to National Geographic— and factoring Colorado’s population, along with reduction estimates from several local communities.

Randy Moorman, Eco-Cycle’s director of policy and community campaigns, said the reduction is crucial because single-use plastic bags are the number one contaminant found in Colorado’s rivers and streams. They also are not able to be fully recycled and instead have to be “down-cycled” into other products...

Businesses in Colorado have until June to use whatever single-use plastic bags they already have while still collecting the 10-cent fee. The collected fees are divided between the business and the local government to fund green initiatives. Denver, for example, has collected $5 million for its special revenue fund since its fee was implemented in 2021.

Becky Goyton, an education coordinator with Denver’s Office of Climate Action, Sustainability, and Resiliency, said the money has funded many environmental initiatives, including the purchase of reusable bags for residents and sustainable products for small businesses. Unlike most budgetary matters, Goyton celebrates the decline in revenue to the fund.

“Having some revenue to do some great projects and reinvest in the community is wonderful, but it’s not our goal,” Goyton said. “Our goal is to see that fee go down and that revenue go down because that means more people are bringing their own bag and less disposable bags are being put out into the community.”

In addition to single-use plastic bags, Colorado businesses are also required to phase out Styrofoam containers this year. Like with plastic bags, businesses are permitted to use already-purchased Styrofoam products but cannot obtain any more."

-via ABC Denver7, January 11, 2024

--

And further progress just kicked in at the beginning of this year:

"[On January 1, 2024], the next phase of Colorado's plastic bag ban takes effect. The next step for HB21-1162 is that stores will no longer have plastic bags at all. They will only offer recyclable paper bags which will still be 10 cents each. Stores that already have stock of plastic bags already, can use those up before making the transition...

Businesses that don't comply can face up to $500 in fines for a second violation and up to $1,000 in fines for a third and subsequent violation."

-via ABC Denver 7, December 25, 2023

[wearytaco]

when are we gonna talk about the fact that in the United States you get taxed for not having health insurance?

[b0bthebuilder35]

Children should not have to pay for things at a place they are required to be for more than 4 hours a day.

[worldcitiesday]

(Part 1) UN Habitat - Pre-Summit World Assembly of Local and Regional Governments.

Convened by the Global Taskforce of Local and Regional Governments (GTF), the World Assembly will bring together Local and Regional Governments (LRG) leaders with national governments to exchange on their contributions to the "Our Common Agenda" and the outcomes of the SG's Advisory Group on LRG.

Watch (Part 1) UN Habitat: Pre-Summit World Assembly of Local and Regional Governments!

[creativityandinovationday]

(Part 1) Celebrating the Future with Localization of SDGs, Culture, Youth and Digital Innovation.

Expected Outcomes:

Strengthened collaboration between youth, local communities, and global partners.

Enhanced digital innovation and data integration for SDG localization.

Increased awareness of cultural initiatives and their role in climate action and sustainable development.

Networking opportunities for stakeholders to explore future partnerships and initiatives.

This event serves as a significant precursor to the UN Summit of the Future 2024, setting the stage for impactful discussions and actions toward achieving global goals.

This conference, held just before the UN Summit of the Future 2024, focuses on engaging youth, promoting digital innovation, and localizing the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). It brings together various stakeholders to explore creative solutions and governance innovations, essential for a sustainable future.

Watch (Part 1) Celebrating the Future with Localization of SDGs, Culture, Youth and Digital Innovation.

[psilactis]

just saw a post talking about how good libraries are and that they are like, the last free thing people have access to. I'm so so so glad to be brazilian. Truly a hellish experience sometimes but mostly it's so good

[carlocarrasco]

DILG tells LGUs to update disaster plans and hazard maps in preparation for La Niña phenomenon

While the entire Philippines is sweltering under the intense summer heat, the Department of the Interior and Local Government (DILG) told the local government units (LGUs) to update their disaster plans and hazard maps in light of the looming La Niña phenomenon, according to a Philippine News Agency (PNA) news article. To put things in perspective, posted below is an excerpt from the PNA news…

[sayruq]

The U.S. will use its veto power against a Palestinian bid to be recognized as a member state of the United Nations during a vote at the Security Council expected to take place Thursday evening. Vedant Patel, principal deputy spokesperson for the State Department, described as premature an effort by the Palestinian Authority (PA) to gain member status at the U.N. He said there was not unanimity among the Security Council’s 15 members that the Palestinian Authority had met the criteria for membership, with unresolved questions over the governance of the Gaza Strip, where Israel is in a war to defeat and eliminate the controlling power, Hamas. “And for that reason, the United States is voting no on this proposed Security Council resolution,” Patel said.

Earlier it was revealed that the United States was secretly pressuring other members of the Security Council to shoot down a Palestinian state membership so the US wouldn't have to use its veto as that would lead to a wave of local and international criticism for Joe Biden.

[timogsilangan]

i rlly do not think white global northerners understand how fucking bad the anti sinovac psyop was in context of the philippines and other targeted countries being from the global south, with a history of economic and military intervention and destabilization by the usa specifically.

i live in the philippines and sinovac was the only available vaccine for MONTHS of the pandemic. people were fucking dying and we had no pfizer, no j&j, no astrazeneca, no moderna. sinovac was the ONLY vaccine supply we had. and the supply wasnt even enough for even my small city. we do not have the infrastructure to manufacture our own vaccines and tests. we were entirely reliant on imports from other countries who Did have the capacity to manufacture such things

i got up early for several days straight to go to a pop up walk in vaccination site (were talking there by 7:30am) set up in a fucking public basketball court because it was the only way to get vaccinated, and 3 times i had to go back empty handed so to speak after exposing myself to this massive opportunity for transmission because they fucking ran out of shots and prioritized the elderly and disabled and i didnt have my legal pwd (person with disability) card yet. i had to go to a different barangay (local unit of government) to get my shot MONTHS LATER and only got mine because one of my family was in the local govt and reserved some shots for us.

many filipinos use facebook which is where some of the psyop was conducted because you can use it for free on your phone and it is often where news is disseminated. i know we have that joke about People Believing Anything They See On Facebook but i cannot stress enough that people here get local news from fb the same way you (used to) get news from twitter about shit like localized emergencies and whatnot.

because we are third world, you know that the state of our education system is nothing compared to the states. media and news literacy here is dangerously low and the population is sensitive to mis/disinformation, as can be seen during the 2022 presidential elections where the usa Also interfered lol. i cannot stress enough how much of the population was susceptible to this psyop, especially those in poverty who couldnt afford proper education. hell, even educated people fell for this shit. do you think jhunjhun who didnt finish grade 6 would be able to identify disguised foreign intervention that was in his own language?

we were already recovering from public scrutiny of a different vaccine, a dengue vaccine, which lowered public trust in inoculation. and then the usa goes and does THIS??? i cannot emphasize enough that they are directly responsible for the tens and thousands of unvaccinated covid deaths. they are responsible for my friends having to bury their unvaxxed parents and grandparents at the age of 19. they are responsible for mass death and disability.

but were just a country in the periphery. so who cares about us? our lives are worthless to the usa, which is why they admitted that they did this when they would otherwise "never" to their own population. third worlders arent real people to your government. we are merely statistics and a petri dish for experimentation. so who cares if we die? the real important thing isnt our lives, its that the usa has more control over us than china.

[gnc-tits]

i have no problem with striking and whatnot and of course i donate when i can but so so much of usamerican political action (aside from the heroes who do direct action but lets be real, not everyone is the person to do that) is like. follow the strike. call your reps. which is important! its super important to do that! but this country is so so divided from state to state like i really did not feel it until spending some time away from home but we all live so so differently and it sucks in different ways thats vaguely united but. to give a personal example: i have no idea what its like to be a trans person in a red state. i just have no idea. i imagine its pretty fucking bad, and where i live isnt even that great but a 16 year old got killed IN SCHOOL in oklahoma the other day like the sheer difference in how we live is insane. i only know what it’s like to be a trans person in this state. and thats just one of the ways we’re divided! and soooo much usamerican political action is this broad fucking country wide thing we’re all supposed to be doing and it does matter, it is important, but more and more people in gaza are dying and we need a ceasefire now. we’re divided as fuck and on all different ends of the working class spectrum and something like a strike (which, again, cannot stress this enough, does matter) i genuinely believe isnt going to get to a ceasefire fast enough

yknow what we can do though? organize with our local community. like i cant speak for more rural areas unfortunately but cmon if you live in a city you have to know at least someone who is generally progressive and doesnt have to worry as much about being killed for it. there are people out there who want a better world, you just have to find them and yall! if you organize and enough people get together and put a fire under politicians asses you CAN call for a ceasefire in your city it IS possible it is so possible and even if it doesnt pass you can still get together and make noise. and if you take that energy and apply it to other cities in your state and connect with them and influence them then like. its a lot fuckin harder to ignore! as of right now around 70 us cities have called for a ceasefire and it is largely divided and there are like. none in red states where we need them to be. and lets be real none of the blue ones are lookin that great either. but if you get like, i dont know, as many as possible but even like, 10 is still significant, if you get that many cities in one state calling for a ceasefire then its a lot harder for your state reps to ignore you. and absolutely keep calling and emailing but. i dunno. 5 months of genocide and theyre still largely ignoring us, so maybe we need to do something a little bit more that’s actually feasible for the way we’re living

[reasonsforhope]

No paywall version here.

"Two and a half years ago, when I was asked to help write the most authoritative report on climate change in the United States, I hesitated...

In the end, I said yes, but reluctantly. Frankly, I was sick of admonishing people about how bad things could get. Scientists have raised the alarm over and over again, and still the temperature rises. Extreme events like heat waves, floods and droughts are becoming more severe and frequent, exactly as we predicted they would. We were proved right. It didn’t seem to matter.

Our report, which was released on Tuesday, contains more dire warnings. There are plenty of new reasons for despair. Thanks to recent scientific advances, we can now link climate change to specific extreme weather disasters, and we have a better understanding of how the feedback loops in the climate system can make warming even worse. We can also now more confidently forecast catastrophic outcomes if global emissions continue on their current trajectory.

But to me, the most surprising new finding in the Fifth National Climate Assessment is this: There has been genuine progress, too.

I’m used to mind-boggling numbers, and there are many of them in this report. Human beings have put about 1.6 trillion tons of carbon in the atmosphere since the Industrial Revolution — more than the weight of every living thing on Earth combined. But as we wrote the report, I learned other, even more mind-boggling numbers. In the last decade, the cost of wind energy has declined by 70 percent and solar has declined 90 percent. Renewables now make up 80 percent of new electricity generation capacity. Our country’s greenhouse gas emissions are falling, even as our G.D.P. and population grow.

In the report, we were tasked with projecting future climate change. We showed what the United States would look like if the world warms by 2 degrees Celsius. It wasn’t a pretty picture: more heat waves, more uncomfortably hot nights, more downpours, more droughts. If greenhouse emissions continue to rise, we could reach that point in the next couple of decades. If they fall a little, maybe we can stave it off until the middle of the century. But our findings also offered a glimmer of hope: If emissions fall dramatically, as the report suggested they could, we may never reach 2 degrees Celsius at all.

For the first time in my career, I felt something strange: optimism.

And that simple realization was enough to convince me that releasing yet another climate report was worthwhile.

Something has changed in the United States, and not just the climate. State, local and tribal governments all around the country have begun to take action. Some politicians now actually campaign on climate change, instead of ignoring or lying about it. Congress passed federal climate legislation — something I’d long regarded as impossible — in 2022 as we turned in the first draft.

[Note: She's talking about the Inflation Reduction Act and the Infrastructure Act, which despite the names were the two biggest climate packages passed in US history. And their passage in mid 2022 was a big turning point: that's when, for the first time in decades, a lot of scientists started looking at the numbers - esp the ones that would come from the IRA's funding - and said "Wait, holy shit, we have an actual chance."]

And while the report stresses the urgency of limiting warming to prevent terrible risks, it has a new message, too: We can do this. We now know how to make the dramatic emissions cuts we’d need to limit warming, and it’s very possible to do this in a way that’s sustainable, healthy and fair.

The conversation has moved on, and the role of scientists has changed. We’re not just warning of danger anymore. We’re showing the way to safety.

I was wrong about those previous reports: They did matter, after all. While climate scientists were warning the world of disaster, a small army of scientists, engineers, policymakers and others were getting to work. These first responders have helped move us toward our climate goals. Our warnings did their job.

To limit global warming, we need many more people to get on board... We need to reach those who haven’t yet been moved by our warnings. I’m not talking about the fossil fuel industry here; nor do I particularly care about winning over the small but noisy group of committed climate deniers. But I believe we can reach the many people whose eyes glaze over when they hear yet another dire warning or see another report like the one we just published.

The reason is that now, we have a better story to tell. The evidence is clear: Responding to climate change will not only create a better world for our children and grandchildren, but it will also make the world better for us right now.

Eliminating the sources of greenhouse gas emissions will make our air and water cleaner, our economy stronger and our quality of life better. It could save hundreds of thousands or even millions of lives across the country through air quality benefits alone. Using land more wisely can both limit climate change and protect biodiversity. Climate change most strongly affects communities that get a raw deal in our society: people with low incomes, people of color, children and the elderly. And climate action can be an opportunity to redress legacies of racism, neglect and injustice.

I could still tell you scary stories about a future ravaged by climate change, and they’d be true, at least on the trajectory we’re currently on. But it’s also true that we have a once-in-human-history chance not only to prevent the worst effects but also to make the world better right now. It would be a shame to squander this opportunity. So I don’t just want to talk about the problems anymore. I want to talk about the solutions. Consider this your last warning from me."

-via New York Times. Opinion essay by leading climate scientist Kate Marvel. November 18, 2023.

[solrazo]

SM Supermalls job fair paves the way for 2024 career opportunities

SM Supermalls, in collaboration with the Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE), Public Employment Service Office (PESO), Local Government Units (LGUs), the Private Sector Advisory Council (PSAC) Jobs Group, the Philippine Chamber of Commerce and Industry (PCCI), the Employers Confederation of the Philippines (ECOP), Philippine Exporters Confederation, Inc. (PHILEXPORT), and SM Retail are set…

[thingsifoundongeoguessr]

that's not a real name

[worldcitiesday]

(Part 2) UN Habitat - Pre-Summit World Assembly of Local and Regional Governments.

Convened by the Global Taskforce of Local and Regional Governments (GTF), the World Assembly will bring together Local and Regional Governments (LRG) leaders with national governments to exchange on their contributions to the "Our Common Agenda" and the outcomes of the SG's Advisory Group on LRG.

Watch (Part 2) UN Habitat: Pre-Summit World Assembly of Local and Regional Governments!

[rhk111sblog]

A Group called the "Chinese People's Association for Friendship with Foreign Countries (CPAFFC)" led by Ambassador Yan Wanming visited the Province of Cagayan recently with Goal of helping uplift the Social Economic Status of the Province.

They were met by the Local Government Unit (LGU) Officials of the Province led by Governor Manuel Mamba. The CPAFFC promised to find "Sister City" Links in China for Cities in Cagayan, as well as help Scientists from the Province get Scholarships and Training in China in the Field of Aqua Culture Fishing.

Gov. Mamba and Amb. Yanming also later met in Manila to discuss further cooperation between Cagayan and China in the Fields of Agriculture, Aquaculture, Livestock and Tourism, and to discuss futher the planned opening of the Port of Aparri. Photos by the Cagayan Provincial Office

SOURCES:

Cagayan Provincial Information Office Facebook Page Post, 12/16/23 – 1237H {Archived Link}

Cagayan Provincial Information Office Facebook Page Post, 12/17/23 – 1541H {Archived Link}

[carlocarrasco]

Commission on Audit (COA) tells local governments to limit expenses of discretionary funds to amounts under law

Recently the Commission on Audit (COA) reminded local government units (LGUs) to limit the expenses of discretionary funds as it cited the case of one particular town that exceeded its “prescribed statutory limitation” for extraordinary and miscellaneous expenses (EME) by millions of Pesos in 2023, according to a Manila Bulletin news report. To put things in perspective, posted below is an…