The National
Small Business Association (NSBA) is seeking leaders from the small business
community to become part of NSBA’s Leadership Council. This is a great way to
get involved in small business advocacy as well as promote yourself and
your business both nationally and in your community.
Specifically
we are seeking members who may know their member of Congress, have experience
in leadership positions in other organizations, have had some experience in
dealing with the media and most importantly are passionate about small
business.Our goal is to have at least one Leadership Council member in each
Congressional District. The needs of small business has to be
communicated to our political leadership in an effective manner so that
loans, grants, contracts and small business relief measures are a national
priority as we emerge from the pandemic. Congress also needs to understand
the impact of tax and regulatory policies on small business.
We have
developed a survey to better understand your leadership qualifications. To be
considered please complete the Leadership
Council Survey.
The NSBA Leadership Council is the premiere network of small-business leaders
from across the U.S. who meet on a regular basis to identify key issues that
are important to the small business community. Our members bring
a wide variety of skills and interests to the table. Some of our
members like to work in the background while others like to be in front of
the camera. We need all types because we have a message that needs to
be communicated. We need to get the attention of our elected officials and
educate them on our real-world issues including the impact of Covid-19 on
small business and why small business must play a leading role in improving
our nation's infrastructure.
If you are interested in becoming a spokesperson for small business and gain visibility
for you and your firm while helping advance the small-business community
before lawmakers and members of the media please consider this opportunit
Thank you in advance for your time and consideration. We look forward to
talking with you soon.
Please click
here to take the survey. We
will review your answers and will respond to you shortly.
To
find out more about The National Small Business Association please click
here to visit our website.
This
week, Mayor Bowser observed the Metropolitan Police Department’s (MPD) Active
Bystander for Law Enforcement (ABLE) training that is required for all MPD
sworn members. For years, MPD has trained members on the requirement and duty
to intervene. In 2021, as part of its annual professional development training,
MPD formally adopted this new national best practice training program that
prepares officers to successfully intervene to prevent harm and to create a law
enforcement culture that supports peer intervention.
The
Georgetown Law Innovative Policing Program, partnering with global law firm
Sheppard Mullin, created the ABLE training, which employs evidence-based
practices to give officers the tools and skills they need to perform an
intervention on a fellow officer, a subordinate, or even a superior officer.
ABLE is unique and uses lessons from other industries like aviation, medicine,
and college campuses.
Learn more about the program HERE, and watch the
demonstration HERE.
The G20 is the international forum that brings together the world’s major economies. Its members account for more than 80% of world GDP, 75% of global trade and 60% of the population of the planet.
The forum has met every year since 1999 and includes, since 2008, a yearly Summit, with the participation of the respective Heads of State and Government.
In addition to the Summit, ministerial meetings, Sherpa meetings (in charge of carrying out negotiations and building consensus among Leaders), working groups and special events are organized throughout the year.
As members of BEMA International you advocate and
represent full inclusion of communities of color, communities at risk (CAR),
marginalized and vulnerable populations. Inclusion of the ‘whole
community’.
You have a voice locally that YOU at your local
community level is the start of the change in addressing issues in your
community, we have a voice nationally, and globally. A voice and taking
actions not only addressing global health, but the changes and impacts of
climate change, disasters\emergency management, and crisis in our
communities.
The COVID-19 crisis has brought our communities
together. Do not stop the momentum.
CDS
Chair\CEO BEMA International
Dear Colleagues,
Thank you ever so much for signing on to the CSO Advocacy Letter ahead of the
G2O Finance and Health Ministers Meeting on October 29, 2021.
Please note that the letter has
been published on our website, and will be shared on our various
social media platforms, we encourage you to kindly share the joint
advocacy letter - calling for a coordinated, global response to the pandemic, as we ask
world leaders to commit to the following urgent actions:
sEnsure
at least 70% of people in every income category in every country are fully
vaccinated
by
sharing doses at scale, releasing production slots, and supporting
non-exclusive knowledge
and
technology sharing measures;
sIncrease
multi-year financing for the pandemic response and preparedness in
low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) to match the scale of need;
sReallocation
of Special Drawing Rights (SDRs) to support the fight against the
pandemic
in LMICs;
sStrengthen
global leadership and accountability..
Did you know that our state is home to the highest concentration of women-owned businesses in the
country? It is a distinction that fills me with great pride and fuels
my work as Chair of the Senate Small Business Committee. So I always
look forward to October, because it is National Women’s Small Business
Month, during which we recognize the contributions of women-owned small
businesses to our local and national economies
This year, National Women’s Small Business Month comes
more than 18 months into the COVID-19 pandemic, which has devastated
women-owned small businesses. Many are reporting a decline in sales and
fear of permanent closure. In 2020, more small businesses closed than
any other year on record and, as of May 2021, more than 37% of small
businesses have closed, according to research conducted by Opportunity Insights.
Throughout the pandemic, women entrepreneurs have been more likely than
male owners to report a significant decline in the overall health
of their business. Historically, women-owned small businesses lag behind male-owned small companies in three
forward-looking measures: investment plans, revenue projections, and
staffing expectations.
The COVID-19 pandemic truly has confirmed the key role
the federal government has in empowering women entrepreneurs to
overcome the pervasive, historic roadblocks that stop them from
starting and growing successful businesses. In fact, a recent
report issued by the Government Accountability Office (GAO) found that
policies enacted by Congress in the bipartisan Economic Aid Act and the
American Rescue Plan made distribution of loans under the Paycheck
Protection Program (PPP) more equitable this year than during 2020. For
example, while women were underfunded during the first round of PPP
administered by the Trump administration, the report found that the
share of loans made to women in 2021 under the Biden administration —16
percent—was in line with the percentage of small businesses owned by
women, also 16 percent.
This report shows that through thoughtful, targeted
efforts, it is possible to bridge the historical gaps that prevent
underserved entrepreneurs from starting and growing small businesses.
Now, as Congress continues to debate President Joe
Biden’s Build Back Better Agenda—a once-in-a-generation investment in
our families, communities, and small businesses—it is vital that we
build on the lessons learned during the pandemic to continue investing
in women entrepreneurs.
That is why I am convening a hearing in the Small
Business Committee next week, so the Senate can hear from women
entrepreneurs, experts, and advocates about how we can unleash the full
potential of women-owned small businesses.
I am especially looking forward to hearing the testimony
of Dr. Tammira Lucas, founder of The Cube Cowork in Baltimore and
cofounder of Moms as Entrepreneurs. She will shed light on the unique
barriers that mothers face on the path to business ownership, as well
as the tools and resources Congress can create to support them on their
entrepreneurship journey.
The economic recovery that lies ahead will be difficult,
but it is also an opportunity. With the right investments, Congress can
empower women entrepreneurs so they can be an engine of economic growth
for communities in Maryland and nationwide. Already, women-owned
businesses employ 9.2 million people—only 8 percent of the total
private sector workforce. And they generate $1.8 trillion in annual
revenue—only 4.3 percent of annual private sector revenue. While these
numbers seem small on the surface, they tell a remarkable story about
the potential for women owned small businesses: from 2007 to 2018,
total employment by women-owned businesses rose 21 percent, while employment for all
businesses declined by 0.8 percent.
In other words, women-owned small businesses have been
drivers of economic growth in our economy despite the myriad headwinds
they face on the path to success. And it’s even more evident for
minority women. Between 2007 and 2018, businesses owned by minority
women grew by more than 163 percent.
Imagine what our women entrepreneurs could do if there
were less obstacles in their way, and if they had more support during
their entrepreneurship journey?
To ensure a robust recovery, Congress needs to continue
to be deliberate in our efforts to support women entrepreneurs. Through
thoughtful policy, Congress can make meaningful changes to empower
entrepreneurs, especially women. The years ahead pose a challenge, but
they are also full of potential. We simply cannot allow this time to go
to waste.
If you are interested in watching the hearing next week
on Wednesday, October 27 at 2:30 PM (ET) to hear from Dr. Lucas and our
other witnesses, it will be livestreamed here.
What is empathy and how is it different
from sympathy? Watch this short but powerful video to find out and
discover how empathy can improve your connections to people, including
those you support in your work as a humanitarian or development
professional.
Scientists looked at more than 100,000 studies and found the world has a giant climate-crisis blind spot
By Rachel Ramirez
(CNN)Scientists using artificial intelligence to sift through around 100,000 climate studies were trying to put a number on how many people in the world were already experiencing the impacts of the climate crisis.
Instead, they discovered something else: there is a worrying inequality in the world of climate science.
The shoreline of Kadavu Island in Fiji, where rising sea levels have led to coastal erosion.
Climate change studies are twice as likely to focus on wealthier countries in Europe and North America than low-income countries like those in Africa and the Pacific Islands. That blind spot is a problem, as the Global South is and will continue to be more profoundly impacted by the climate crisis than wealthier countries.
The ability to link the climate crisis to real-world impacts has grown dramatically in the past decade, as more people face the consequences of a warming planet, including deadly floods, destructive wildfires and crippling heat. But it has been a challenge to collect and scrutinize the vast amount of research, to fully understand the global impact.
In research published in the journal Nature Climate Change on Monday, scientists used machine learning — training computer algorithms to detect patterns and predict outcomes — to analyze more than 100,000 climate change studies.
"There's just so much climate science produced, like tens of thousands [of studies], and getting to grips with this evidence is really difficult," Max Callaghan, lead author of the study and a researcher at the Mercator Research Institute on Global Commons and Climate Change, told CNN. "So we trained the machine learning algorithm to predict the areas that we didn't have time to look at — which is most of them."
Enter your email to sign up for the Wonder Theory newsletter.
Compiling the results of all of those studies would suggest a vast majority of the world — 80% of land area, where 85% of the world's population lives — is experiencing the effects of the climate crisis right now. It's a large percentage, but experts know the true number is even higher.
The authors called the blind spot in research an "attribution gap." Callaghan said the gap suggests 85% is likely to be an underestimate.
Friederike Otto, co-lead of the World Weather Attribution initiative, who was not involved with the machine-learning research, also said the study's estimate is likely too low. Over the years, climate scientists like Otto have been saying the climate crisis will leave no place in the world untouched.
"The study focused on changes in mean temperature and precipitation, rather than extremes, but we know that heat extremes are changing faster than mean temperatures and that heat extremes are increasing almost everywhere," Otto told CNN. "It is likely that nearly everyone in the world now experiences changes in extreme weather as a result of human greenhouse gas emissions."
A family from Sydney, Australia, visiting an area devastated by bush fires in the New South Wales region of Australia on Jan. 28, 2020.
"What we find here is that the evidence is distributed unequally across countries," Callaghan said. "And this is really important because often when we try to make a map or to find out where the impacts of climate change are happening, we find often few scientific papers in less developed countries or low-income countries."
Callaghan added that this attribution gap leaves people wondering if climate change is happening in those areas, even though climate scientists firmly believe so.
"We want to try and point out that absence of evidence isn't evidence of absence," he said.
The authors note in the study that an automated approach is "no substitute for careful assessment by experts," however, it can identify large numbers of studies for a region that may point towards consequences brought by human-caused climate change.
Tom Knutson, senior scientist with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and co-author of the study, told CNN the machine learning methodology has "a number" of limitations and weaknesses, since it only accounts for certain climate impacts — in this case, human-induced precipitation and temperature changes.
If it accounted for other impacts such as sea level rise, for example, he said the outcome may have suggested "a greater fraction" of the world's population has been experiencing climate change.
The people of Kiribati have been under pressure to relocate due to sea level rise. Each year, the sea level rises by about half an inch. Though this may not sound like much, it is a big deal considering the islands are only a few feet above sea level, which puts them at risk of flooding and sea swells.
A recent report by the World Meteorological Organization found that an extreme weather event or climate disaster has occurred every day, on average, somewhere in the world over the last 50 years, marking a five-fold increase over that period.
This summer alone was packed with extreme weather events across the Northern Hemisphere: While the United States has been battered by a cocktail of drought-fueled wildfires, devastating floods and a historic heat wave, China and Germany experienced deadly flooding events in July as southern Europe and Canada battled destructive wildfires of its own.
Despite the observed extremes, the dearth of substantial scientific evidence has the effect of limiting the changes that can be proposed or implemented in under-studied locations, Callaghan said.
Sea walls are one of Tanzania's most visible climate adaptation projects to protect its residents against coastal erosion and flooding.
"It's useful to bring together the literature and data as this study has, which allows us to see where more data is needed and where there are gaps," Otto said, pointing to previous studies. "Their finding of a gap in the Global South is similar to what we found last year, where we saw that extreme events are identified less often and are the subject of fewer attribution studies when they occur in poorer countries."
World leaders will gather at a critical UN climate meeting in less than a month, and one of the issues that will be discussed is the amount of funding developed nations can pledge to help the Global South move away from fossil fuels and manage the impacts of the climate crisis.
Callaghan said this new machine learning research delivers a key message for world leaders: Climate change is already happening and the planet will only continue to warm, meaning adaptation is critical as well as halting the use of fossil fuels. The new study provides an outline of where more climate funds and climate research are needed, and it is up to global leaders to implement that.
"The world will continue to warm until we stop burning fossil fuels, and there is simply no way around that," he said. "And what we really need to recognize is that we need to change the trajectory and reduce emissions."
Correction: This story has been updated to reflect the study was published in the journal Nature Climate Change