2022
March
04
Friday

Monitor Daily Podcast

March 04, 2022
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Peter Grier
Washington editor

This week we’ve been using this intro space to answer questions that may be top of readers’ minds about the Russian invasion of Ukraine. (Be sure to check out our full Ukraine coverage from correspondents in Ukraine, Europe, and the United states here.) Today’s question is a difficult one: How do you give Russian President Vladimir Putin an off-ramp in a morally responsible way?

In other words, how can we offer Mr. Putin incentives to stop fighting and agree to a negotiated settlement that leaves him with less than his original goals in launching the war?

This is important because cornering Mr. Putin would be dangerous for everyone. Western sanctions are biting quickly, the Russian military has performed poorly, and an angry leader could be tempted to double down on violence or escalate nuclear tensions.

The scale of the war now makes a settlement seem far-off. But Russia and Ukraine have already opened talks on the Belarus border. Ukraine on Thursday said they have agreed to create safe corridors to evacuate civilians and deliver aid.

“Off-ramps are important to end this war, even if there was not a danger of nuclear weapon use,” says James Acton, a nuclear expert at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace who’s written recently on the subject.

Russia needs to realize Ukraine is too defiant to become a quiet client state on its border. Ukraine needs to accept it is unlikely to push Russia out of its entire territory.

In between are hard questions about Ukrainian neutrality and security, control of Donbass and other separatist regions, and reparations for destruction already wrought.

The U.S. can strengthen Ukraine’s hand by making it very clear that if the parties reach agreement Washington will lift economic sanctions, says Dr. Acton. U.S. officials haven’t given a public timetable for how sanctions might come off.

“We need to emphasize we don’t seek to destroy Russia; we seek to get Russia out of Ukraine,” Dr. Acton says.


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Today's stories

And why we wrote them

Vladimir Putin didn’t want Ukraine in NATO. He may see Finland and Sweden join instead. Their shift is over more than just security. It also reflects a desire to uphold values like freedom and democracy.

Vladimir Putin appears to have acted without consulting others in launching Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Long-standing assumptions and historical grievances contributed over years to that development. 

Yara Nardi/Reuters
Reports of racism against those fleeing Russian attacks add to the tension for many refugees. Here, a man who made it across the border of Poland waits to board a bus bound for a refugee center in Przemyśl, Poland, March 1, 2022.

The strain of war can bring out people’s courage – and their basest reactions, such as racism. The invasion of Ukraine has been no different. We have twinned stories on racial reactions in the war. First, African refugees face racist treatment.

Lukasz Glowala/Reuters
Refugees from Ukraine cross the Ukraine-Slovakia border in Vysne Nemecke, Slovakia, on March 3, 2022, following Russia's invasion of Ukraine. Some reporters have expressed a sense of shock that this could happen in a majority-white, European city.

Our second story on racial aspects of Ukraine is about the bias of some news coverage. What does it mean when reporters express shock about war in “civilized” Europe, but not in, say, the Middle East?

Listen

Illustration by Jules Struck

This children’s TV show helps Indigenous voices thrive

How people are portrayed in media can transform how audiences view themselves and one another. What does it take to represent communities well? Here’s Episode 2 of our podcast series “Say That Again?”

Episode 2: Hey Ma, I’m on TV!

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The Monitor's View

Propelled by the rapid pace of today’s fashion industry to introduce new styles – known as fast fashion – it’s no wonder many clothes buyers find themselves with a “closet of regrets,” as The Wall Street Journal dubs it. All the clothes that don’t get worn can hang heavy on a consumer’s mind until they are finally thrown away. The trouble is, “There’s no ‘away’ for your clothes,” says Maxine Bédat, author of a 2021 book, “Unraveled: The Life and Death of a Garment,” and an activist trying to alter the industry’s wasteful ways.

A few stats tell the story. Every second, worldwide, the equivalent of a garbage truck of textiles is dumped in landfills or burned in incinerators. The plastic that makes up 60% of clothes ends up as microplastics in seas, soil, air, even arctic ice. The industry produces 10% of all carbon emissions and a fifth of industrial water pollution worldwide. 

Although some companies have voluntarily tried to minimize their environmental and social impact, little progress has been made. So, this January a bill was introduced in New York state’s legislature that would set high standards for the industry while helping consumers better understand the impact of their purchases. The bill is aimed at the recognized fashion capital of the world: New York City.

Known as the New York Fashion Act, the proposed law would require every large multinational fashion name operating in the state – from luxury brands to fast-fashion giants – to map their global supply chains, disclose their environmental and social impacts, and set Science-Based Targets to cut emissions. Failure to meet the targets could bring a 2% penalty on annual revenue

Ms. Bédat, who worked with the bill’s co-sponsors to craft the measure, says the industry’s pell-mell growth in the 1990s led to a race for ever cheaper costs. That led to supply chains so dispersed and tangled that clothing brands themselves were in the dark. Calls for voluntary standards and corporate responsibility only led many companies on a detour of “greenwashing” – using often-dubious claims of “sustainability” as a marketing tool.

The bill is pro-business, contends Ms. Bédat, because it would level the playing field for companies to operate at the same environmental standards. It “is an effort to meet industry [leaders] where they are, recognize the good faith efforts they are already making, and come up with a common standard, but do so with some teeth,” she told The New York Times.

Also involved in the bill’s creation was Ken Pucker, former chief operating officer of Timberland, a footwear company respected for its environmental leadership. “When you look back over the 20-25 years since corporate responsibility started, emissions are up 50%, says Mr. Pucker, now a senior lecturer at Tufts University’s Fletcher School. “So, something’s not working.”

“We have a system that values growth coupled with more people with more consumptive capacity coupled with cheaper stuff issued more frequently coupled with social media,” he says. When asked if a new consciousness of growth is needed, Mr. Pucker replies, “I’d say we need a new consciousness of success” – a broader vision of what and how we interpret value.

Similarly, Ms. Bédat is looking beyond the “more” of fashion to how people value their clothes. While researching her book, she followed the story of a garment from its beginning in cotton fields to oil rigs to textile mills, talking to the people whose work ends up in clothing. Afterward, she saw her own clothes differently. To really see them, she needed fewer of them. She learned to muzzle the barrage of marketing and social media influencers that drive the “more” of fashion.

“We need a richer relationship with our things,” she concludes. “And the value of them comes from the story behind our things as much as the things themselves. ... The message of my book is to really love your things,” she said in an RSA podcast.

Her book closes with a vision of a future when “we will love our [clothes] because we have wrested control of our own attention and removed the noise in our inboxes and on our social media channels that had distracted us from our true needs and desires. And we bought them not ... to fill other holes in our lives, but from an aware and informed mindset.” That could be just enough to clear out anyone’s “closet of regrets.”


A Christian Science Perspective

About this feature

Each weekday, the Monitor includes one clearly labeled religious article offering spiritual insight on contemporary issues, including the news. The publication – in its various forms – is produced for anyone who cares about the progress of the human endeavor around the world and seeks news reported with compassion, intelligence, and an essentially constructive lens. For many, that caring has religious roots. For many, it does not. The Monitor has always embraced both audiences. The Monitor is owned by a church – The First Church of Christ, Scientist, in Boston – whose founder was concerned with both the state of the world and the quality of available news.

In every corner of the world, God’s goodness and love are present to help and heal – “sheltering, guiding, and protecting too,” as this poem conveys.


A message of love

Aly Song/Reuters
Ukrainian Paralympic Committee President Valerii Sushkevych raises his fist during the athletes' parade of the Paralympic Games at National Stadium in Beijing, March 4, 2022. The International Paralympic Committee announced the night before that athletes from the Russian Paralympic Committee and Belarus, despite being called neutral, are no longer allowed to compete at the 2022 Paralympics.
( The illustrations in today’s Monitor Daily are by Karen Norris and Jacob Turcotte. )

A look ahead

Come back Monday, when we'll have coverage from embattled Ukraine by our veteran conflict correspondent Scott Peterson, who walked over the border crossing from Poland to Ukraine late this week.

More issues

2022
March
04
Friday

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