Transgender Bathroom Use and More

Transgender Bathroom Use
Lawmakers in more than a dozen states -- most famously in North Carolina -- have introduced bills that would require transgender people to use public restrooms corresponding to the sex they were assigned at birth rather than  with their gender identity at the present time. In February, the Trump administration sided with those states, telling schools they could go back to blocking trans kids from using bathrooms based on their current identity. [1]

HB2, the transgender bathroom law in North Carolina, may cost the state more than $3.76 billion in lost business over a dozen years, according to an analysis by the Associated Press. This could be an underestimation of the law's true costs, as the AP was conservative in its estimations of if HB2 was the principal reason a company pulled out.

Noise Pollution
The World Health Organization describes noise pollution as a environmental health burden "second only to air pollution." European Union data shows that 40 percent of the EU's population is exposed to unhealthy noise levels. There is a social injustice component to a chronic overexposure to noise, as low-income children, for example, attend louder schools. Patients are misdiagnosed more often in dangerously noisy hospitals. Silence is at risk of becoming a rich person's plaything.

U.S. Military as Giant Polluter
The U.S. military is likely the "largest organizational user of petroleum in the world," according to a congressional report released in December 2012. Beyond its immediate carbon footprint --difficult to measure -- the U.S.military has placed countless countries under the thumb of oil giants. In 2007, the Brookings Institute found that the U.S.Department of Defense uses more energy than 100 nations.

The U.S. military is exempt from any required reductions in greenhouse gas emissions.

ADDENDUMS:
* According to a 2014 study conducted by 5 Gyres [Institute] and a team of international scientists, 5.25 trillion particles of plastic, weighing approximately 268,940 tons, pollute the world's oceans.

*Dozens of companies currently get waivers that allow them to avoid following "Buy America" provisions. Trump could revoke the waivers any time he wants.

*Iran Nuclear Deal
The Trump administration has confirmed that Iran has continued to comply with the Iran nuclear deal; however, the National Security Council will lead any interagency  review of whether easing economic sanctions as part of the accord "is vital to the national security interests of the U.S."

Iran has reduced its uranium stockpile by 98 percent and removed two/thirds of its centrifuges. A unilateral withdrawal would create diplomatic chaos with the other powers that signed the accord and the European Union, which had a representative at the negotiations.