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Earlier this week, Time published an explosive story about an American company that reportedly revived a long-extinct species, the dire wolf. To some, its a scientific miracle: Some 10,000 years after the species went extinct, the planet is once again home to three living dire wolf pups, brought about by the ingenuity of scientists at Colossal Biosciences. But lets not mistake spectacle for substance. Yes, its cool that biotechnology can now create animals that resemble extinct species. Colossal is already eyeing its next actsthe woolly mammoth and the dodo. But beyond the buzz and the billion-dollar ambition, this project doesnt offer real solutions to our planets biodiversity crisis. At best, its a novelty. At worst, its a distractionand a dangerous one. There are over 47,000 species currently considered to be threatened with extinction, including both plants and animals. Many are under threat because of human activity, whether weve eliminated their habitats, over-hunted them, or polluted the land, air, and water they rely on to the point that they can no longer sustain life. Colossals gene editing experiments are being described as a kind of conservation, but they wont help the many species that are currently fighting for survival. The company has argued that their discoveries can be used to save those species that are still hanging onfor example, by engineer[ing] more robust elephants that can better survive the climatic ravages of a warming world, as the Time article puts it. It wouldnt be the first time humans tested an unprecedented idea on wild populations in an attempt to influence biodiversity. In 1935, Australia introduced the cane toad as a means of controlling the sugar cane beetle population. But it backfirednot only did it fail to fix the beetle problem, but much worse, cane toads took over the region, causing ecological havoc everywhere they went. The Asian carp is another example, introduced to the U.S. by farmers in the 1970s who wanted to use them to clean their commercial fishing ponds. Today, theyre one of the most notorious invasive species plaguing the eastern United States. We know by now that meddling with natural ecosystems can cause unpredictable, damaging chains of events. Even if Colossals efforts go as planned, lets be clear-eyed about what this means: Were not fixing the damage caused by humans. Were just modifying animals to make them less susceptible to it. Drivers of biodiversity loss like climate change and industrial animal agriculture are forces that are not going to stop on their own, which makes gene-editing endangered species little more than a bandaid. We may prolong the existence of a handful of species, but meanwhile, the core issue would only continue to grow. And whats worse, the idea that we can bring back species from the dead may lead us to treat the issue of biodiversity loss with less urgency. If we can just fix it later, why worry too much about it now? Its not as if this project offers any benefit for the dire wolves themselves, or any individual nonhuman animals, for that matter. When animals are summoned back from the dead in this manner, they cant be reintroduced into the natural world. Its not the same place, with the same ecology and biodiversity makeup, that the wolves lived in 10,000 years ago. Throughout modern history, there are only a few cases where captive breeding was used to successfully fortify a declining natural population, as animals kept or bred in captivity often cannot survive in the wild, let alone thrive. Thats why the three wolf pups bred by Colossal are going to spend their entire lives in a monitored fenced-in enclosure. They wont be able to form the complex social structures wolves are known to, with distinct familial roles. They were created to be analytical subjects for human study, and will presumably never experience life in the wild. Colossals chief science officer, Beth Shapiro, called their pups the luckiest animals ever, thanks to their containment and human supervision. Its true the wild is no picnic, but Im skeptical that any undomesticated animal in captivity would agree with Shapiro, no matter how cushy the cagethe pups were much better off not being born in the first place. And aside from all of this, the three pups arent technically real dire wolves. In breeding the pups, Colossals scientists didnt actually reanimate the genetic material of the dire wolves that lived thousands of years ago. They studied that genetic material, and artificially rewrote the code of a tiny portion of the common gray wolf in a slippery attempt to make it match. As one commentator put it, You could probably create an unusually hairy elephant, but that wouldn’t be a wooly mammoth. All in all, the genetically modified pups are bootleg-like recreations, not authentic recoveries, part of a mad science experiment to generate PR. To paraphrase a certain movie about scientists who recreated long-extinct animals for the sake of human curiosity, its neat that our scientists can do something like thisbut its high time to consider whether they should. Building the off-brand dire wolves took a chunk of the whopping $200 million the company raised and the work of some 130 bright minds. It pains me to imagine other, more immediately useful ways those resources could have been applied. Few efforts are as noble as conservation, and I acknowledge that stemming the biodiversity loss is a complicated issue that’s going to call for many different solutions. But with so much at stake and a clock that wont stop ticking, we ought to be sensible about the approaches we try. Before indulging in science fiction-inspired reveries, lets do what we can to save those species that still have a chance while keeping the welfare of the individual animals in mind along the way. To not do so would be a colossal mistake.
Category:
E-Commerce
Where legislatures have refused to boost pay and benefits for workers, advocates have often taken the fight straight to voters. In recent years, voters in Michigan, Missouri, and Nebraska overwhelmingly backed higher state minimum wages and guaranteed paid sick leave at the polls. But despite that strong showing of support, lawmakers on both sides of the aisle are now trying to water down or even roll back the measures their constituents approved. In November, 58% of Missouri voters approved Proposition A, which raises the state minimum wage to $15 by 2026 and requires employers to provide paid sick leave. That level of support, said Missouri Jobs with Justice Policy Director Richard Von Glahn, stems from the fact that the measure speaks to the experiences that voters have in their lives and where the economy is not working for them. Typically, when his organization was out gathering signatures, voters expressed surprise that the minimum wage was not already $15 an hour and that paid sick leave was not already a guarantee. The vote shows it was the clear will of what voters want, Von Glahn said. But in March, the Missouri House passed legislation repealing the paid sick leave measure and undoing the states decades-long practice of regularly updating the minimum wage to keep up with inflation. If the bill becomes law, wage increases will cease in January 2027. To justify such changes, Republican state Representative Mitch Boggs said, Of course the people voted for it. It would be like asking your teenager if he wanted a checkbook. Theyre going to vote for it every time. Republican state Representative Scott Miller put it another way: Just because 57% of the people that voted that day voted in favor of something, that doesnt make it right. Theyre taking away the choice of businesses to engage in [the] free market. Its not just lawmakers trying to undo the will of the voters, however. A group of businesses and individuals have asked the state Supreme Court to strike down the measure entirely, arguing that it violates the state Constitutions single subject requirement. In their lawsuit they claim that wages and paid sick time are separate issues that should not have been combined in a single measure. Von Glahn pushed back on that argument: Wages for hours worked and wages for paid sick time, thats part of total compensation. As a working person, if I have money in my check, do I care if its from paid sick days or from hours that I worked? Nebraska voters passed their own paid sick leave ballot measure by a staggering 74% this past November. A majority of voters in every legislative district supported it, and the support was higher than for the lawmakers themselves. Thats not the only measure state lawmakers want to change, however. In 2022, nearly 59% of voters approved a measure that will raise the states minimum wage to $15 an hour by 2026 and keep increasing it in later years to keep up with inflation. Nebraskans really care about their neighbors, Jo Giles, executive director of the Womens Fund of Omaha, said of the support both measures received. Paid sick leave, she said, is a common sense solution. As in Missouri, many voters she spoke to while gathering signatures were surprised it wasnt already guaranteed. And yet efforts to get lawmakers to take action themselves had not succeeded. We tried for many years, Giles said, including during the height of the pandemic when workers were getting sick by the thousands. But bills never moved forward. After many, many attempts, we determined, Okay, were not going to get it through the Legislature, so lets ask the people what they want, Giles said. It was pretty clear what the people wanted: They wanted paid sick leave, they wanted to increase the minimum wage. That hasnt stopped Nebraska lawmakers from seeking to change the measures approved by their constituents. Last year, two state lawmakers introduced bills to exempt young workers from the higher wage. The Nebraska Legislature is officially nonpartisan, but one of the lawmakers was aligned with Democrats and the other with Republicans. The effort failed to advance in the Legislature. This session, those two lawmakers and others are seeking to weaken both the minimum wage and sick leave policies. Legislative Bill 698, introduced by a Republican-aligned senator, would exempt companies with 10 or fewer employees from the paid sick leave requirement. Yet the measure voters passed already makes an allowance for small businesses by allowing those with 20 or fewer employees to provide their workers with fewer days of leave. The bill would also exempt agricultural workers and those under 16 while eliminating employees right to sue their employers if they arent given the leave theyre owed. Giles argued that these changes gut the core aspects of the initiative. Another bill introduced this year, Legislative Bill 258, meanwhile, would allow employers to pay people younger than 19 a lower minimum wage and would eliminate future minimum wage increases. Beyond the impact on workers themselves, Giles believes lawmakers actions could harm the entire state. What does that mean for our overall democracy if people cannot exercise their voice and implement policies that are popular? she said. Residents votes should be honored. In both Missouri and Nebraska, conservative lawmakers have led the charge to roll back ballot measures. In Michigan, Democrats have joined the effort. Back in 2012, Mothering Justice, a nonprofit that advocates for issues impacting women of color, started pushing for a paid sick leave bill in the state Legislature, but Republicans stood in the way. It became clear that if we wanted to get this done, we would have to go straight to voters, said Danielle Atkinson, the nonprofits founder. Her group was poised to do so, submitting more than 280,000 signatures to put both paid sick leave and a higher minimum wage on the ballot in 2018. There was always overwhelming support from voters, she said, because it was extremely popular and needed. But then the Republican-controlled Legislature stepped in that September. Over united Democratic opposition in the state Senate but with some Democratic support in the state House, lawmakers passed legislation to raise the minimum wage and institute a paid sick leave requirement before voters had the chance to weigh in. That wasnt because lawmakers agreed with the ballot measures; they did so explicitly to come back and gut both measures later on, something that would have been much harder had the issues passed by ballot measure. State Senate Republican Majority Leader Arlan B. Meekhof explained the vote this way: The Senate adopted the policy to preserve the ability for this Legislature and future legislatures to amend the statute to better fit our state and our economy. And lawmakers did in fact later amend the legislation by voting to delay the minimum wage increase by nearly a decade, scrap future inflation adjustments and preserve a lower tipped minimum wage. Lawmakers also exempted employers with fewer than 50 employees from paid sick leave and scaled it back for everyone else. The groups behind the ballot measures fought back in the courts, arguing that what lawmakers did violated the state Constitution. That took time, energy, and a considerable amount of resources, Atkinson said. But we thought it was important to fight for the will of the people and direct democracy. Last summer, it seemed they had finally won: The state supreme court found the Legislature had indeed violated the state Constitution and reinstated the original wage and sick leave measures. The new benefits were set to go into effect on February 21. We were extremely hopeful, Atkinson said. We were like, Great, on to the next fight. But the Legislature wasnt done intervening. An hour before midnight on February 20, lawmakers passed bills to preserve a lower tipped minimum wage, delay implementation of paid sick leave, exempt young and temporary seasonal workers, reduce guaranteed unpaid time off for employees of small businesses, and strip workers of the right to sue employers for violating the new rights. This time, nearly half of Democrats in both chambers joined with all Republicans to pass the measures, and Democratic Governor Gretchen Whitmer signed them into law. The governor had heard concerns about implementation of the new law, according to a statement from spokesperson Stacey LaRouche, while the bill was under consideration, and supported a bipartisan deal that protects servers and wait staff, while also providing certainty to small businesses and helping Michigan remain competitive. Business groups, particularly the Michigan Restaurant and Lodging Association, had lobbied hard for the tipped minimum wage changes. It was very clear that lawmakers of both parties were being influenced by the business community, Atkinson said. The restaurant industry did a very good job of manufacturing outrage. Atkinson is frustrated that those tactics succeeded. Michigan is a place where were known for workers rights, and we had an opportunity to be a pretty big part of a larger movement to eliminate a sub-minimum wage, and we missed it, she noted, referring to the lower wage employers can pay tipped employees. Having Democrats join in was even worse. When you see Democrats introducing legislation thats undermining workers rights, it makes . . . an easier target for Republicans to do the same, she said. Its really unfortunate that that came from members of a party that claims to be for workers rights. This piece was originally published by Capital & Main, which reports from California on economic, political, and social issues.
Category:
E-Commerce
For years, baby boomers have been aging in place and keeping home turnover low. And now, not only are boomers holding onto their homes, theyre also the generation buying the most propertyboxing out millennial homebuyers for only the second year since 2013. Millennials, who range from 26 to 44 years old, have largely dominated the housing market for the past decade. The only exceptions to this rule have occurred in 2023 and 2024, according to data from the National Association of Realtors (NAR). Between July 2023 and July 2024, the share of millennial homebuyers dropped to 29%, down from 38% a year ago. Meanwhile, boomers (ages 60 to 78) accounted for 42% of home purchases. In a plot twist, baby boomers have overtaken millennialsthe largest U.S. populationto become the top generation of home buyers, Jessica Lautz, NAR deputy chief economist and vice president of research, said in a press release. Whats striking is that half of older boomers and two out of five younger boomers are purchasing homes entirely with cash, bypassing financing altogether. What does this mean for aspiring homebuyers? While this is only the second time that boomers have overtaken millennials in recent years, it does represent a larger pattern: First-time homebuyers are getting older. In 1991, the median age of first-time homebuyers in the U.S. was 28 years old. In 2024, it was 38 years old. As real estate expert Lance Lambert put it, the median first-time U.S. homebuyer in 2024 (age 38) has been out of high school for 20 years but is also only 24 years away from the earliest age at which they could receive Social Security benefits (age 62). One main driver for this shift is the fact that both cost of living and home affordability have increased significantly in the past several years. Since 2020, the income needed to afford the average American home has shot up by a whopping 79%. Starter homes are a thing of the past for many aspiring young homebuyers. Still, some young Americans are managing to become first-time homebuyers, and theyre establishing new standards for home ownership along the way. Per the NAR report, 3% of homebuyers over the past year were Gen Zers. Gen Z is slowly entering the housing market with the lowest household income and theyre more likely to be single than other buyers, Lautz said. Of the generations, Gen Z had the largest share of single, female homebuyerspresumably as many women put off marriage or choose to remain single.
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E-Commerce
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