Guest MINDSETTER™ Hinckley: A Test for Whitehouse - Environment or Political Expediency
Sunday, January 13, 2019
Senator Whitehouse has staked his political career on the fight against global warming, taking on private companies, corporations, and political opponents tooth and nail, leaving no plastic straw unturned. But what if the massive polluter and contributor to global warming was the government itself, the USPS? And with an easy fix, that allowed citizens to opt out of junk mail, up to 51 million tons of carbon could be removed from the environment per year? Would he act against the government and the USPS?
When I ran against Sheldon in 2012 I was towing the conservative party line about global warming, but also spoke about the hikers creed of “leave no trace,” as some sort of middle ground. Looking back I realize you can’t have it both ways and since then I’ve evolved. I would say I agree with Sheldon on his singular issue, the world, not just America, is overwhelming the environment and it’s time to act decisively, look at all polluters, here and abroad, private and government, assess the impact, assess the solutions, and ACT. In this article I’ll outline a simple way we can take a MASSIVE step forward, here in America, to stem global warming, protect the environment, conserve natural resources AND save the taxpayers billions of dollars per year.
In the midst of my third decade as a technology entrepreneur, I remember many of the formative days of the Internet Age. One of the most impactful and significant was the introduction and mainstream adoption of e-mail. In fact, I sat a few cubes away from the guy at BBN Technologies in Cambridge, who put the @ sign in the naming convention of e-mail, (yeah I’m old). In the early 90’s few people before AOL had an e-mail address and there were no rules or security around the sending of unsolicited messages. This, of course, led to the mass production of unsolicited e-mail… and voila junk e-mail was born! The word SPAM was introduced to our nomenclature and shortly thereafter, the government got involved. Along came the federally introduced and enforced CAN-SPAM Act, which laid out laws for sending e-mail and enabled recipients to easily OPT-out of unwanted communication… In effect, it gave the inbox owner tools to block the delivery of unwanted junk mail and control what ended up in their inbox. Obviously, the net effect of the unsolicited e-mail was more annoyance than anything, yet the government acted quickly on behalf of inbox owners.
GET THE LATEST BREAKING NEWS HERE -- SIGN UP FOR GOLOCAL FREE DAILY EBLASTMeanwhile in yet another example of Big Government do as I say, not as I do, the US Postal Service, a government agency, which is subsidized by taxpayers, directly and indirectly, to the tune of billions of dollars per year, does not allow citizens to “OPT-out” of REAL junk mail. In comparison to the “annoyance” of electronic junk mail, there are several meaningful and impactful reasons in this day and age to afford citizens the tools to manage their federally controlled mailbox, the way the federal government mandates companies to respect people’s inboxes. They are as follows: clutter, waste, over filling while away, lost important mail in the pile of circulars, to name a few, but…
The most important reason is the environment and global warming. Here’s why.
The environmental impact and cost of USPS junk mail is tallied at:
- 28 billon gallons of clean water per year
- 100 million trees harvested, equaling 550,000 acres, a size slightly smaller than Rhode Island’s land mass.
- Over 1 billion pounds added to our landfills annually IF 50% of junk mail is recycled.
And…according to ForestEthics.org and Motherearthliving.com, Junk mail is a MAJOR contributor to Global Warming creating 51 million metric tons of Greenhouse Gasses per year, which is the yearly carbon equivalent of each of these:
- 9 million cars
- 11 Coal fired power plants (Sheldon hates these)
- The combined emissions of 11 States
- Mowing 20 billion lawns
- Driving 5 million School buses
- Heating 13 million homes
That’s a lot of unnecessary pollution… and the good news is, all we need to initiate change is Federal action from Congress, mandating the USPS give residents the right to block delivery of Junk Mail. The perfect bill to sponsor for a U.S. Senator on an environmental crusade…
Sounds simple right? Sadly it probably won’t happen and here’s why…
Junk mail makes up 50% of the struggling and wildly inefficient US Post office’s annual revenue. The post office is the third largest employer in the country, 500,000 people (down from a high of 700k), but more importantly, these aren’t ordinary jobs, these are GOVERNMENT JOBS. And if you followed the logic of my last article about the government’s monopoly on primary and secondary education turning our public school system into a government jobs program, you’ll understand that the USPS isn’t actually about delivering the mail anymore, if it was, we’d let the private sector compete for the business like other markets and get out of the money losing business all together…however, like our public school system, the USPS which started out as a crucial service 200 years ago, has become a bloated, inefficient, government jobs program, representing a large block of voters that can make the difference between winning or losing an election.
Trust me, I have no beef with any of the government employees who work hard every day to deliver our mail, it’s a tough, often thankless job. You know the saying “neither rain nor snow nor heat nor gloom of night…”
But sadly they are stuck in a broken, inefficient, archaic system that is one of the nations largest mandated polluters. In fact, when compared to its private sector counterparts the USPS is 80% less efficient, meaning like most monopolies, it fails to innovate, which would explain it’s massive losses, debt (14 billion USD) and required subsidies. The sad reality is folks, without a monopoly on delivering first-class mail and a Congressional mandate to force 84 billion pieces (real number) of junk mail down our throats every year, the US Post Office would implode on its own weight.
Career politicians know this, yet government jobs are the third rail for some and mean the difference between re-election or not…of being supported by the rank and file or not…the difference between taking a stance OR blindly carrying someone’s water…
So the question remains, “Is an inefficient, heavily subsidized and outdated government jobs program more important than the environment?” No more junk mail may mean no-more Post Office, as we know it. The question to you Senator Whitehouse, as someone who has been beating the drum of global warming for years IS…Environment or Government Jobs Program? Facts are stubborn and decisions are hard, you’ve made your priorities clear, you’ve lectured us, we’ve heard you, will you go to the matt for the environment on this one or not?
Readers, what are your thoughts on what he’ll choose? Government Jobs or Environment? Please vote with comments below…
Barry Hinckley is a Newport-based business leader and former GOP candidate for the United States Senate.
Related Slideshow: PHOTOS: Inauguration Day - January 1, 2019
Related Articles
- Guest MINDSETTER™ Hinckley: America’s Major Segregation Problem
- Whitehouse’s Ads Rated “Four Pinocchios” by the Washington Post
- GoLocalProv/Harvard’s Della Volpe Poll: Raimondo’s Opioid Money, Whitehouse Leads, Free College
- RI State Lodge Fraternal Order of Police Endorses Flanders Over Whitehouse
- Whitehouse Beats Back Flanders’ Challenge for U.S. Senate Seat
- NEW: Whitehouse Challenges Trump’s Appointment of Whitaker as Acting AG in U.S. District Court
- Lawless on LIVE: Whitehouse “Damned If He Did, Damned If He Didn’t” Report Kavanaugh Allegations
- Nardolillo Blasts Senator Whitehouse for Government Shut Down
- Flanders Calls for Whitehouse to Return Corporate PAC Money
- Flanders on Why Whitehouse Should Write a $3 Million Check, on LIVE
- U.S Senate Judiciary Comm. Refers Whitehouse’s Kavanaugh Accuser to FBI for Investigation
- VIDEO: Flanders Calls Out Whitehouse as “One-Issue” Candidate on Climate Change
- UPDATED: Whitehouse Contacted About Kavanaugh Rape Allegation in Newport
- NEW: Whitehouse Refuses Comment on Reporting Alleged Newport Kavanaugh Assault Later Recanted
- VIDEO: Whitehouse Walks Out of Senate Judiciary Before Vote on Kavanaugh
- Demand Progress Urges Reed, Whitehouse To Vote To Stop War in Yemen
- GoLocal Statewide Poll: U.S. Senator Whitehouse Versus Flanders, Nardolillo
- Flanders Blasts Whitehouse for Voting Against Rollback of Dodd-Frank Act
- Anti-War, Pro-Environment Candidate Fontes on Challenging Senator Whitehouse on LIVE
- Fontes Challenges “Pretend Progressive” Whitehouse to Debate
- UPDATED: Chafee Tells GoLocal He Will Primary Whitehouse for U.S. Senate
- AFL-CIO Endorses Whitehouse, Cicilline & Langevin for Re-Election
- Whitehouse Takes Thousands from Execs and PAC at Net Neutrality Killer Comcast
