Poll data shows LA County residents’ opinions on climate change

By Stacker

Starting next year, school lunches in California could get a lot healthier if a new bill passes to set guidelines for added sugar.

Senate Bill 348 would limit the amount of added sugar to 25 grams a day.

Sen. Nancy Skinner, D-Berkeley, authored the bill to improve the quality of school lunches, as California now provides two free meals a day to all public school students.

“For many of these kids, that’s more than half the calories they’ll consume in a day,” Skinner pointed out. “We need to make sure that our meals are as healthy as possible and don’t contrib- ute to chronic diseases like diabetes.”

The Biden administration unveiled new guidelines for sugar, salt, fat and whole grains, which will be phased in over the next few years. It marks a reversal from the Trump administration policy, which argued stricter guidelines do little and generate more waste if children reject the healthier options.

Skinner noted the bill also directs the state to study whether kids in school currently have sufficient time at lunch to eat.

“My bill asks to get the data on whether we are providing adequate time for children to eat,” Skinner explained. “And if not, what adjustments would we make?”

According to the American Diabetes Association, more than 4 million Californians have diabetes and another 10.3 million have prediabetes.

The bill does not address food sold in vending machines or at school events.

References:

Senate Bill 348 announcement Sen. Nancy Skinner, D-Berkeley 02/08/2023

Federal guidelines U.S. Dept. of Agriculture 02/03/2023

Diabetes data American Diabetes Assn. Oct. 2021

Proposed rule U.S. Dept. of Agriculture 02/07/2023

According to the Pew Research Center, about two-thirds of Americans feel the federal government is not doing enough to counteract the effects of climate change. While a majority of U.S. adults acknowledge climate change to be a real issue, there is less consensus in regards to what measures to take to address the worsening climate crisis.

Solutions such as planting more trees to absorb carbon emissions garnered widespread, bipartisan support. Approval for taxing corporations based on their emissions output or introducing stricter emissions standards for vehicles, on the other hand, seemed to fall along party lines, with 86-89% of Democratic-leaning respondents supporting those measures, versus 52-55% of Republicanleaning respondents. Attitudes toward climate change policies are split by more than mere political party affiliation, however.

Other important demographic factors include generational differences, gender, race, ethnicity, socioeconomic situation, and proximity to a coastline where natural disasters have increased in frequency. Economic reliance on fossil fuels also plays a large role in whether people support or oppose climate change measures on both a local and federal level.

In order to parse how people in Los Angeles County feel about climate change

‘Rust’ shooting

occurred Oct. 21, 2021, inside a church building on the Western set of “Rust” outside Santa Fe, New Mexico. Baldwin was wielding a prop gun, helping set up camera angles for an upcoming scene, when the weapon discharged, killing Hutchins, 42, and wounding director Joel Souza.

Baldwin has insisted that he was told the gun wasn’t loaded when it was handed to him. He also contends that while he pulled back the hammer of the weapon, he never pulled the trigger.

Regardless, the actor was charged last month with involuntary manslaughter, as was the film’s armorer, Hannah Gutierrez-Reed.

Baldwin’s attorney, Luke Nikas, previously called the charges “a terrible miscarriage of justice.”

“Mr. Baldwin had no reason to believe there was a live bullet in the gun — or anywhere on the movie set,” Nikas said. “He relied on the professionals with whom he worked, who assured him the gun did not have live rounds. We will fight these charges, and we will win.”

The new lawsuit was filed Thursday on behalf of Hutchins’ mother, Olga Solovey; father, Anatolii Androsovych; and younger sister, Svetlana Zemko. All three are Ukrainian citizens, living near Kiev.

“The events that led to the shooting by Alec Baldwin of a loaded gun constituted intentional acts and/or omissions, without any just cause or excuse, by him and the producers of ‘Rust,”’ the lawsuit states. “Mr. Baldwin chose to play Russian Roulette with a loaded gun without checking it and without having the armorer do so. His behavior and that of the producers on ‘Rust’ were intentional acts and/ or omissions, without any just cause or excuse and with utter disregard of the consequences of said acts and/or omissions.

“The fact that live ammunition was allowed on a movie set, that guns and ammunition were left unattended, that the gun in question was handed to Alec Baldwin by the assistant director who had no business doing so, and that safety bulletins were not promulgated or ignored, coupled with the fact that the scene in question did not call for a gun to be fired at all, makes this a case where injury or death was much more than just a possibility — it was a policies, Stacker compiled statistics using data from the Yale Program on Climate Change Communication. The data is from a survey conducted in 2021.

Nationally, 71.8% of people think climate change is happening. California has the 16th highest percentage of residents in the country who think their governor should be doing more to address global warming. Los Angeles County has the 10th highest percentage of residents in the state who are worried about global warming.

Los Angeles County climate change opinions by the numbers

- People who think global warming is happening: 76.3%

--- 1.2% lower than state average

--- #21 highest in the state

- People who do not think global warming is happening: 10.7%

- People who think global warming is caused mostly by human activities: 64.8%

- People who agree that global warming is affecting weather in the United States: 71.2%

- People who believe global warming will harm them personally: 59.3%

- People who support regulating CO2 as a pollutant: 74.0%

- People who think Congress should be doing more to address global warming: 64.9%

- People who say a candidate’s views on global warming are important to their vote: 65.6% likely result.”

Counties with the most people who think climate change is happening in California #1. San Francisco County: 86.7% #2. Alameda County: 86.4% #3. San Mateo County: 83.8% #4. Santa Cruz County: 82.8% #5. Santa Clara County: 82.6% Counties with the most people who think climate change is not happening in California #1. Tuolumne County: 21.1% #2. Lassen County: 20.7% #3. Shasta County: 19.7% #3. Tehama County: 19.7% #5. Modoc County: 18.3% Republished with CC BY-NC 4.0 License. This article was copy edited and retitled from its original version.

The suit alleges battery, intentional infliction of emotional distress, negligence and loss of consortium. It seeks unspecified damages.

Gutierrez-Reed, who is also among the defendants in the lawsuit, has denied wrongdoing in Hutchins’ death, saying through her attorneys that she repeatedly pushed for additional firearms training on the set, and that producers forced her to focus more on props than on her duties as an armorer. She also said film producers failed to notify her that Baldwin was using a gun while helping to set up camera angles, so she was never called into the church set to oversee the weapon, which was handed to him by assistant director David

Halls.

While Baldwin and Gutierrez-Reed are both facing involuntary manslaughter charges in New Mexico, Halls was given a plea deal — pleading no contest to a charge of negligent use of a deadly weapon. The deal, which still needs judicial approval, calls for him to receive a suspended sentence and six months probation. Baldwin and GutierrezReed could both face up to five years in jail if convicted.