{LS Models LS Land Issue 04 Fair
Patrick Fog
In cases involving discrimination in mortgage loans or home improvement loans, the Department may file suit under both the Fair Housing Act and the Equal Credit Opportunity Act. The Department brings cases where there is evidence of a pattern or practice of discrimination or where a denial of rights to a group of persons raises an issue of general public importance. Where force or threat of force is used to deny or interfere with fair housing rights, the Department of Justice may institute criminal proceedings. The Fair Housing Act also provides procedures for handling individual complaints of discrimination. Individuals who believe that they have been victims of an illegal housing practice, may file a complaint with the Department of Housing and Urban Development [HUD] or file their own lawsuit in federal or state court. The Department of Justice brings suits on behalf of individuals based on referrals from HUD.
The Fair Housing Act makes it unlawful to discriminate in housing on the basis of sex. In recent years, the Department's focus in this area has been to challenge sexual harassment in housing. Women, particularly those who are poor, and with limited housing options, often have little recourse but to tolerate the humiliation and degradation of sexual harassment or risk having their families and themselves removed from their homes. The Department's enforcement program is aimed at landlords who create an untenable living environment by demanding sexual favors from tenants or by creating a sexually hostile environment for them. In this manner we seek both to obtain relief for tenants who have been treated unfairly by a landlord because of sex and also deter other potential abusers by making it clear that they cannot continue their conduct without facing repercussions. In addition, pricing discrimination in mortgage lending may also adversely affect women, particularly minority women. This type of discrimination is unlawful under both the Fair Housing Act and Equal Credit Opportunity Act.
Like many economic and political movements, the fair trade movement arose to address the perceived failure of the market and remedy important social issues. As the name implies, Fair Trade has sought not only to protect farmers but also to correct the legacy of the colonial mercantilist system and the kind of crony capitalism where large businesses obtain special privileges from local governments, preventing small businesses from competing and flourishing. To its credit, Fair Trade USA has played a significant role in getting American consumers to pay more attention to the economic plight of poor coffee growers. Although Fair Trade coffee still accounts for only a small fraction of overall coffee sales, the market for Fair Trade coffee has grown markedly over the last decade, and purchases of Fair Trade coffee have helped improve the lives of many small growers.
Recognizing the dire circumstances confronting farmers during the late 1980s, when the price of coffee once again plunged, fair trade activists formulated a system whereby farmers could obtain access to international markets and reasonable reward for their labor. In 1988 a coalition of those economic justice activists created the first fair trade certification initiative in the Netherlands, called Max Havelaar, after a fictional Dutch character who opposed the exploitation of coffee farmers by Dutch colonialists in the East Indies. The organization created a label for products that met certain wage standards. Other similar organizations arose within Europe, eventually merging in 1997 to create FLO, based in Bonn, Germany, which today sets the Fair Trade-certification standards and serves to inspect and certify the producer organizations.
The selective use of advertising media or content when used exclusively with respect to various housing developments or sites can lead to discriminatory results and may indicate a violation of the fair housing law. For example, the use of English-language media alone, or the exclusive use of media catering to the majority population in an area, when there are also available non-English language or other minority media in such area, may have a discriminatory impact. Similarly, the selective use of human models in advertisements may have a discriminatory impact. The following are examples of the selective use of advertisements that may be discriminatory:
Selective geographic advertisements
Such selective use may involve the strategic placement of billboards; brochure advertisements distributed within a limited geographic area by hand or in the mail; advertising in particular geographic coverage editions of major metropolitan newspapers or in newspapers of limited circulation which are mainly advertising vehicles for reaching a particular segment of the community; or displays or announcements available only in selected sales offices.
Throughout the global south, family farmers follow generations of tradition to cultivate food products we enjoy every day. Yet many family farmers in the developing world don't receive a fair price for their crops. These isolated rural communities lack direct market access, often selling their premium crops below the cost of production to local middlemen who misrepresent global prices. This cycle of debt forces many to abandon their land and years of agricultural heritage, destroying the social and cultural fabric of these communities. When farming communities in the developing world suffer, the whole world suffers - forced immigration, inferior-quality products and large-scale farming methods that often compromise the environment.
A shift towards broader sustainable development issues in policy discussions in the last few years has provided the inspiration for the series of improvements, enhancements and extensions applied to update both the IMAGE (Integrated Model to Assess the Global Environment) model and the models, TIMER (energy) and FAIR (climate policy).
One of the key elements of sustainable development included in the IMAGE-TIMER-FAIR models is affordable energy. At the same time, air pollution and climate change have to be kept under control. Other factors to be considered are management of water systems in support of agriculture, industry and human settlements; increasing agricultural production, while protecting soil, groundwater and surface water quality, and slowing down, and eventually halting, further loss of biodiversity. More generally, these issues can be described as the challenge in striking the balance between human development and the goods and services provided to humans by the natural and managed ecosystems, which are put at risk by human activities.
This book concentrates on the data and models used in IMAGE 2.4, illustrated with a number of applications. IMAGE 2.4 assumes such basic drivers as demographics and economic development, energy consumption and production, and agricultural demand, along with trade and production. Important elements addressed here in the biophysical modelling of land-cover and land-use processes are current and historical land cover and land use, the global carbon and nitrogen cycles, management of nutrients in agricultural systems and, finally, climate variability (including interaction with land use). And last but not least, there is a presentation of how IMAGE data and information are used to feed broader policy tools for exploring biodiversity and climate mitigation.
Furthermore, HB 90 requires the Maryland Department of Housing and Community Development (DHCD) to submit a report on fair housing to the Governor and General Assembly by Dec 1, 2023, and every five years thereafter. The bill mandates that DHCD complete this report in consultation with local governments and housing authorities in Maryland and develop a template that these partners can use to gather and present data on fair housing within their own jurisdictions.
Climate models are based on well-documented physical processes to simulate the transfer of energy and materials through the climate system. Climate models, also known as general circulation models or GCMs, use mathematical equations to characterize how energy and matter interact in different parts of the ocean, atmosphere, land. Building and running a climate model is complex process of identifying and quantifying Earth system processes, representing them with mathematical equations, setting variables to represent initial conditions and subsequent changes in climate forcing, and repeatedly solving the equations using powerful supercomputers.
Around the world, different teams of scientists have built and run models to project future climate conditions under various scenarios for the next century. So the groups can make a fair comparison of their results, they run the same experiment. Because each climate model is slightly different, the results show a range of projections. Though yearly values projected for temperature and precipitation differ among the models, the trend and magnitude of change is fairly consistent.
In 2021, the Task Force issued a referral to the Catastrophe Risk (E) Subgroup to evaluate catastrophe perils for possible inclusion in the Risk-Based Capital charge (other than hurricane and earthquake which were added in 2013). Beginning in 2022, modeled loss data for wildfire is being collected for informational purposes only. The Subgroup has formed an ad hoc group to review severe convective storm models.
The NAIC Catastrophe Insurance (C) Working Group of the Property and Casualty (C) Committee serves as a forum for discussing issues and solutions related to catastrophe models. The Working Group also maintains the NAIC Catastrophe Computer Model Handbook. The Handbook explores catastrophe computer models and issues that have arisen or can be expected to arise from their use. It provides guidance on areas and concepts to allow for better understanding and to stay updated about cat models. The Handbook is currently undergoing review and updates and will be re-branded as the NAIC Catastrophe Model Primer.
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