Author: Eric Gao

Commentary

COMMENTARY: Carbon Bigfoot: The Future of Voluntary Carbon Offset Markets

Eric Gao

Sam Jonker, Stanford University -- When buying a plane ticket in 2024, most customers are presented with a puzzling option: to “offset” the carbon footprint of their flight for the low cost of around $20. As pressures to decarbonize continue to grow, airlines—and heavy industries alike—have been embracing novel solutions to reduce their carbon footprint. One solution—carbon offsetting—has grown to be a $5.5 billion industry, with shared support from both petroleum companies and environmental activists.

Commentary, Culture

COMMENTARY: Harmonizing America: The Case for Federal Support of Orchestras

Eric Gao

Anand Krishnan, Stanford University -- The quality of American orchestras is in rapid decline. Many professional orchestras have been forced into semi-professional status, with over 80% of the roughly 2,000 orchestras in the US now having an operating budget of under $300,000. The latest example of this phenomenon was seen in San Antonio, the nation’s 7th largest city, where an orchestra that regularly welcomed the great violinist Jascha Heifetz was forced to ask its musicians to accept wages under the national poverty line. The federal government must use the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) to better support American orchestras—only then will they be able to replicate the parity that they held with their European counterparts in the late 20th century.