Reading widely: sharing an op ed on climate anxiety (and letting the Sun's op ed policy"speak for itself"). Even if you don't have PERA, I bet you'll get to bail it out.
Climate anxiety?
I've posted about climate anxiety in the past and thought I'd follow up on that with an op ed from the Sun (linked first below).
I want to mostly post this without comment in the spirit of encouraging wide reading, but there are a couple things that I just can't let go by without remarking on them.
First, I linked to my earlier remarks about climate anxiety second below. Anxiety is a funny thing. It gets worse the more we hear about it and the kinds of writing, listening, and watching we do greatly influences it.
Second, I want to point to the following quote (with link intact so you can follow and see for yourself):
"We also know climate change is a contributing factor. According to the 2023 Colorado Health Access Survey, 2 million Coloradans believe climate change has affected themselves or their families, and of those, 1 in 3 climate change has hurt their mental health. And nearly half of Colorado adults think their community isn’t adequately prepared to deal with a climate-related disaster."
When I myself followed this link (given that 2 million out of 5.4 million Coloradans seemed gigantic!), I run into some confusion. That page does indeed have that claim up near the top (see the attached screenshot highlighted in red). But then I look a little to the left and note that it's not the actual version of the 2023 CO Health Access Survey (circled in blue).
Going to that full survey, you'll note that, quoting from the third link below:
"The Colorado Health Access Survey – the CHAS – is the premier source of information on health coverage, access to health care, and the factors that influence health in Colorado. Roughly 10,000 randomly selected households in the state have participated every other year since 2009, allowing comparisons across a time marked by sweeping changes in health policy."
Something doesn't add up here--perhaps a misunderstanding on my part. How is it that a random selection of 10,000 households can produce 2 million people saying they believe climate change has affected their health?
I emailed the Sun's opinion editor to see if they knew about this and/or if they would connect me to the author so I could see what is happening. As of this writing, I've heard back from the Sun's opinion editor who told me he does his best to vet the columns and appreciates my "digging in". He told me he would forward my inquiry to the author. No word from the author yet, but if that changes I'll update.
In the meantime, give the op ed a look and see if you can, while not perhaps quantitatively), you can at least qualitatively try to understand the anxiety some feel about the climate. If nothing else, at least familiarize yourself with what others are saying.
https://coloradosun.com/2024/07/31/opinion-colorado-climate-anxiety-mental-health/
https://open.substack.com/pub/coloradoaccountabilityproject/p/missing-details-when-toting-up-the?r=15ij6n&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web
https://www.coloradohealthinstitute.org/programs/colorado-health-access-survey
Related:
Just as an FYI re. the Sun's Opinion policy.
The screenshot here combines the Sun's overall opinion policy into one diagram (and they come from the links below if you want to follow back -- the blurbs go left to right and correspond to the order in which they're linked below).
Put what you see here and in the post above in context of Sun Editor Larry Ryckman's oft-repeated email response to me: the Sun's policies "speak for themselves".
https://coloradosun.com/submission-guidelines-opinion/
https://coloradosun.com/ethics/
You got a PERA retirement? ** Even if not, I have a sneaking suspicion you'll get to bail it out with your money.
Whether you do or not, I have the sneaking suspicion that you'll be called upon at some point to bail it out with your tax money.
PERA (Public Employees Retirement Association -- the retirement plan for public sector workers in Colorado) continues to struggle financially. See the recent Sun article linked first below for more details.
This is not new nor news: in the past, I've shared op eds about PERA written by Joshua Sharf (see the second link below for his latest which dates back to Oct 2023). The only new wrinkle is that the legislative subcommittee which deals with PERA recently got an independent review.
A review which essentially said what Sharf (and others) have been saying for a while now. PERA quite simply has more obligations than cash coming in, and their projections in to the future are not realistic--a claim which, of course, PERA's own people say is not true.
The recommendations in the latest of the reports, the one that is detailed in the Sun article, calls for a $2 BILLION (yes with a B) infusion of cash by the state. Absent that, the report claims, PERA can't fund its obligations.
As the chair of the legislative subcommittee is quoted as saying in the Sun article, however, "I don't think it's [the $2 deposit into PERA by the state] is ever going to happen."
I agree. Ain't no way. But if you think that PERA has no problems, and can already meet its obligations, I disagree. I think there's a problem in PERA, a big one, and I think we taxpayers along with PERA retirees are going to end up getting the shaft. Likely benefits will get reduced and taxpayers will have to bail it out.
I'll leave you with one last thought. While lawmakers have been busily ignoring this problem, they have managed to fund a whole lot of things in this state that could arguably be considered less of a priority than the state meeting its obligations to its retirees.
That is, while the water heater in our house has been leaking and groaning ominously, we've been busy spending money on "Live Laugh Love" plaques and matching towel sets.
**Full disclosure, as a state employee, I'm in PERA though I chose to do the DC plan when I signed up. So, I in essence have an IRA funded and managed by PERA, a choice made because I thought the defined benefit package would be at best speculative by the time I retire and wanted more control over my own money.
https://coloradosun.com/2024/07/30/colorado-pera-pension-finances-alarm/