A look at the global gender gap

From the World Economic Forum this year comes the annual Global Gender Gap Report (read it here) which compares the world's countries in terms of gender parity in economic, political and educational participation, as well as health and empowerment.
The short version is a list of the top 10 countries in the world. Let's look at the very top first:

This is what any Scandinavian like me would expect, and yes we should be proud of it. Not everything here is perfect in terms of gender equality, of course, and much is left to do, but compared to the rest of the world, it might look damn close to perfect.
The global average is 68%, and the Western Europe average is 72.%, while the Middle East (the worst region) averages at 60%.
Let's continue down the list:

This is the point where things get interesting, and people go "What...?". How come an African country ranks higher than France or Germany, and what is Nicaragua doing there, a country that totally bans abortion? Nicaragua does have one of the world's highest shares of women in parliament, and in Rwanda an incredible 61% of its members of parliament are women.
It is worth noting that the index looks at very data points for health and political empowerment. For health, it only looks at birth ratios and life expectancy, and for empowerment, it only looks at political positions of parliamentary level and above. These are the two scores that pull Nicaragua and Rwanda up toward the top of the ranking, whereas their scores for economic parity (rank 69 for Nicaragua and rank 30 for Rwanda) and educational parity (36 for Nicaragua and 109 for Rwanda) or much lower.
Let's look at the next two:

New Zealand is not much of a surprise - it is kind of a like a southern hemisphere Scandinavia, led by a kick-ass female prime minister to boot. But the Philippines, a country that not only totally outlaws abortion, but also forbids divorce? It is however one of the few countries in the world where women are as likely as men to have managerial positions in business, and ranked just slightly below Norway in economic parity.
Finally, the last two of the top 10:

Ireland may be a small surprise, having just recently got of their abortion law (yay!), but Namibia is a perhaps one people would not expect. But Namibia is in fact the country with the fifth highest share of female law makers in their national parliament, and also scores relatively high in each other category.

The indicators chosen does have a huge impact on the rankings produced, and such an index does have its obvious imitations.

However, while economic pay parity is what we are focusing on here in the rich north of Europe, it is worth remember how bad it actually is in some countries:

Women have as much access to financial services as men in just 60% of the countries and to land ownership in just 42% of the countries assessed

 And also when it comes to female participation in politics, this is the exception, not the norm:

 Across the 149 countries assessed, there are just 17 that currently have women as heads of state, while, on average, just 18% of ministers and 24% of parliamentarians globally are women

These are things that this index tells us something about, and it is worth celebrating that there are countries in the world that are not Scandinavian or wannabe-Scandinavia (hello, New Zealand!) that are doing well in these areas.

Life in plastic, it's fantastic

Life in plastic, it's fantastic

I remember one song by Aqua from six years ago, and it is "Barbie Girl", where they sang about what it was like to be a plastic toy.

Jokes aside, plastic really is a fantastic product. With all the recent focus on plastic as a problem when it ends up in the ocean - which is a real and urgent problem - it is easy to forget how much our lives are improved and enriched by plastics. And that plastic in itself is clean, highly energy-efficient, and plentiful - it is in practice a renewable resource.

Plastic is replaces many other materials that consumes a lot more energy and non-renewable raw materials to produce. Since it is incredibly cheap, it increases overall global wealth. It helps greatly increase the longevity of food and reduce food waste.

The problem with plastic in the ocean is vast, and comes from multiple sources. However, for the most part, it is a problem of garbage collection and disposal. It is a problem we urgently need to address, because most plastics produced today break down in nature at a glacial speed, and we keep producing more of it:

An investigation into the 'Great Pacific Garbage Patch' shows that nearly half of it is composed of discarded fishing gear. Another investigation into microplastic particles concluded that the "largest proportion of these particles stem from the laundering of synthetic textiles and from the abrasion of tyres while driving".

Another problem is that much of the plastics we produce today also contains pollutants that can bleed into both the environment and whatever is contained within the plastic. Landfills can leak these pollutants into ground water, which is why recycling and incinerators is far better ways to handle plastic waste.

Plastic in itself is just polymers of carbon with some oxygen, nitrogen and sulfur - all plentiful, non-toxic chemical elements on Earth. High temperature burning of clean plastic, as done in modern garbage disposal facilities, reduces plastic to its constituent chemical elements and cleanly and efficiently eliminates the problem of plastic waste.

If we can get sufficient renewable energy, then one day we can manufacture plastics from carbon capture from emission sources or simply the atmosphere, which will reduce CO² levels as a byproduct.

The problem of biodegradability is especially important for any plastics that may be left behind by accident in the ocean, such as fishing nets and lines. Different types of plastic have different biodegradability, with fishing equipment unfortunately being among the worst, although estimates are usually not very reliable.

So what should be done to deal with the problems of oceanic plastic waste?

• Encourage the use of and research into biodegradable plastics through financial incentives
• Invest heavily in carbon capture research
• Invest in garbage collection and incineration facilities in third world countries that have the biggest waste problems
• Negotiate treaties to make it economically advantageous to use recycling and incinerators rather than landfills
• Strict financial penalties for any garbage waste not properly disposed of, and separate police force to enforce it (which can be paid for by the collected penalties)
• In particular, strict financial penalties for fishing boats that do not return with their fishing nets

Plastic pollution is a problem that it is solvable with current technology and will only be easier to solve with future advances in technology, but requires political will and international cooperation. According to must-read report and set of recommendations from the Ocean Conservancy, we can reduce plastic waste leakage into the ocean by 65% annually within 2025 by focused efforts on only five countries.