Hey, Cali, listen up

California is going to be really affected by climate change

California gets dire warning on global warming, via Environmental News Network

Roads and bridges, the water supply, agriculture, public health and even winter skiing all will be affected by global climate change, said the report by University of California-Berkeley agricultural
and resource economics professors David Roland-Holst and Fredrich Kahrl.

This is the first time a major academic institution has studied the link in economy and environment, and the results are not good. It was already announced that we spend $28 Billion per year in health issues due to poor air quality. This however is estimating that real estate losses could be in the trillions due to sea level increases.

I know we are a state that cares about this and does the right thing, but this is a proverbial diagnosis from the doctor that we have to change NOW!

but she made me do it

Research from two economists out of England suggests that becoming overweight may be a phenomena associated with “keeping up with the Joneses.”

They acknowledge that in a Darwinian society, in which people compete for status, being overweight carries a stigma. But as more people become obese the perception of what constitutes being overweight changes. ‘Thus when my neighbour gets a little fatter, I … become a little fatter (since it is now not necessary to be so slim in order to compete),’ Blanchflower and Oswald write.

Data suggests that people living in developed countries are approximately 10kg heavier than they were a few decades ago. The two economists found that, among European women, ‘there is evidence that perceptions of being overweight depend not just on a person’s own Body Mass Index, but also on their BMI relative to other people’.

I found this very interesting, too:
Their findings are supported by similar socio-economic analyses. Studies have suggested that it is psychologically preferable to be jobless in areas where there is significant unemployment. ‘This is presumably for reasons of reduced stigma,’ Blanchflower and Oswald write. ‘For equivalent reasons, it may be easier to be fat in a society that is fat.’ They also suggest an individual’s perception of whether they are overweight depends on their socio-economic characteristics and that ‘highly educated people hold themselves to a thinner standard’.

You can find the whole article HERE

not lovin’ this

McDonald’s surprised everyone on Wall Street a few weeks ago by posting an 11% increase in profit, placing itself among the few not being hit by this economy.

There is so much wrong with this, I do not know where to begin.

money, money, money

One aspect of the bailout bill is that the US Treasury will have to print much of the money that we agreed to hand out to the banks. A few months ago, I researched the life cycle of producing cold hard cash to determine if it were “green”.

I decided to republish that article just as a friendly reminder that money does not grow on trees. In all honesty, it grows on a GMO cotton bush. Anyway, the article is below.

have you ever thought about the process of making money. And, I don’t mean how to increase the value in your checking account. I am referring to the process of actually making cold hard cash.

I had never thought about it until Ali… he asked for the credit, I’m giving it to him….mentioned it to me and broke down some of the steps of the process. Of course, my ears perked up and I decided to research it. We all think we know the process… ink, paper, printing, cutting, distribution. But let’s look at it from a carbon footprint point of view.

PAPER

I think researching this provided the most interesting bit of information for me. The actual note is made up of 75% cotton and 25% linen. I bet your first thought is that you are happy we aren’t cutting down trees. Ha! Linen is somewhat ecologically okay. It is made from flax, and is labor intensive to manufacture. However, in order to get the longest possible fibers it is hand harvested and it uses bacteria, not chemicals, to decompose the pectin present and free the fibers. These fibers are then woven into cloth and used accordingly. Given the rest of the data I found, let’s say this is the “cleanest” part of making money.

Cotton….what a very different story. I am not even sure where to start on this because I was in such shock when I started researching it.
1.) 80% of cotton production starts with GMO, Monsanto seeds. YOU GET THIS, RIGHT! If you do not support GMO, how it affects farmers, the EPA policies created in support of Monsanto and you make every effort to not financially support this company or comparable companies….TOO BAD! By spending cash you give to Monsanto and the like.
2.) Cotton is one of the top four largest industrialized agricultural industries, behind corn and soy, slightly above canola. U.S produces 19.2 million, 480 lb bales of cotton per year.
3.) It takes 20,000 liters of water to make 1kg of cotton. This is the equivalent to one t-shirt and one pair of jeans.
4.) 2.4% of agriculture is cotton, but it uses 24% of the world’s use of insecticide and 11% of world’s use of pesticide
5.) The agricultural process is bad to the environment through drainage practices and leaching into the soil, application of pesticides, extensive irrigation, dam construction for the irrigation.
6.) 73% of irrigated land comes from fresh water withdrawl. This is pumping water from clean sources to water the crops.
7.) In return, run off to adjacent water sources (wetlands, streams, lakes) contains pesticides, salts, fertilizers, all of which is contaminating out fresh water ecosystems and causing extinction of marine life.
8.) The impact of cotton growing destroys the soil and after time must be abandoned for new locations, leaving acres and acres of dead zones.
9.) 25,000 cotton growers in the US are subsidized at $2 billion per year.
10.) The equipment used is a cotton harvester which costs the farmer $150,000 to purchase. It holds 120 gallons worth of fuel.
11.) Undisclosed amount of labor costs, the fuel those laborers use to get to and from work, the medical issues because the cotton harvesters are dangerous.

And so on, and so on, and so on. And, we haven’t even started printing the money!

Not much to be found about the ink except that it is a magnetic, oil based ink.

PRINTING

The process of printing money is called Intaglio printing. It requires large equipment that is made out of metals and plastic. The metals are copper and zinc and used in the printing presses. The make plates with the image of the currency out of these metals, ink is placed on these plates and the paper runs by them to get the print. The plastic, as we know, is an oil based product.

There is an international law that allows each country to hold a monopoly on the production of their currency. Why do I mention this? Because we purchase our Intaglio printing machine, and the plates with the IMPRINT OF OUR MONEY, from China. Yep. China has the image of our money so they can make the printing presses we use. We pay them $30,000 per machine.

Now, we can factor in the cost of the two Bureau for Engraving and Printing locations. We have one in D.C. and one in Fort Worth. There is the cost of the two facilities:
1.) Resources needed for building Fort Worth and upgrades to D.C. facilities.
2.) Running the plant for money production on two shifts, five days a week; include labor costs as well as cost of running high speed presses for 18hrs/day.
3.) air conditioning/heating costs
4.) electricity costs
5.) employees and their respective carbon impact on the Earth
6.) Resources needed to store notes at controlled temperature

TRANSPORTATION

The money has to get from B.E.P into your hands, right?

Consider fuel costs and usage to get from each location to the Reserve Banks around the country.

1 round trip flight to a destination under 2hrs uses 500lbs of CO2
1 round trip flight to a destination about equal to 4hrs uses 1250lbs of CO2
1 round trip flight to a destination greater than 4hrs uses 2000lbs of CO2

That’s just the flying portion. You can also calculate the fuel costs and usage of driving the money in armored trucks. Keep in mind that these are not transportation vehicles for humans… this is not carpooling. This is paper.

BANKS

I can’t even begin to calculate the carbon footprint of a bank. First off, I have no idea how many banks exist in the U.S. and much of this will be generalization based off the bank I use. Most are probably, at minimum, 2000 sq ft. They more than likely have the air conditioning/heating units on close to 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. They employ, on the average, 25 people per branch who each drive their own cars and park in lots, that I view as a waste of usable land. At least at the bank I use, it is not even a covered parking lot, and is a black top, which I know is contributing to the increased heat of the Earth.

All of this to keep money in circulation. I haven’t even started researching coins, except to know that it costs us 3 pennies to make 1 penny.

Here is the life expectancy of our money:
$1……. 21 months
$5……..16 months
$10……18 months
$20……24 months
$50……55 months
$100…..89 months

This is based on our current population. The more people we have, the more money will be needed and therefore production will have to increase.

The US Treasury estimates that it cost 6.2cents per note to make our money last year. This is a cost of $571 Million dollars per year. TO MAKE MONEY!!

I am not by any means saying that we should all stop using cash. I would never want to guess what that could do to our infrastructure. I would also never want to limit the poor of our country that run their lives mainly on cash and not credit or debit cards. But in the interest of each of us being educated and making wise decisions about even the smallest things we can do to impact our carbon footprint, I felt this was an interesting exercise in breaking down a fundamental need of each American.

Maybe, now, when you go to the ATM, or pull out your wallet to purchase something, you will look at that piece of paper in a different way. Maybe you will see it as a GMO seed contributing to a corporation you choose not to support. Maybe you will see it as a product made by China. Maybe you will see it as the fuel cost to get it from the treasury to your pocket. I don’t care. I just think we need to start seeing it differently.

Some links:
information on environmental impact of cotton

yearly production of money

it’s me, not you

Treehugger is reporting on a report from the International Energy Agency that oil prices will rise again and keep on going.

“While market imbalances could temporarily cause prices to fall back, it is becoming increasingly apparent that the era of cheap oil is over,” says the IEA in the World Energy Outlook report, obtained by the Financial Times ahead of its release next week.

You can find more information about the report HERE and HERE.

Living Planet Report

The World Wildlife Fund presented it’s annual report about the state of our world. And, if you think the downward economic spiral has been bad… you ain’t seen nothing yet.

The report describes the changing state of global biodiversity and the pressure on the biosphere arising from human consumption of natural resources. It concludes by telling us that by the mid-2030′s we will need the equivalent of two Earth’s to support us, unless we make rapid and immediate change.

The site is fantastic. It is interactive, full of graphs and charts that clearly depict what is going on, as well as a comprehensive list of possible solutions. I highly recommend perusing it. You can find it HERE.

GOOD sheet

Good Magazine created a new sheet and it’s all about the economy.

It is a really interesting fact sheet if you have the time to peruse. go HERE.

this is nice

So I put out a post about poverty and our responsibility, and as if the universe heard me…. Treehugger posted THIS.

“Poverty isn’t a simple problem, and there are no simple solutions for it, but that hasn’t stopped a handful of the world’s smartest green thinkers from postulating on how to end poverty. While the bad news might be that poverty still exists, the good news is that these four theories, from four remarkable thinkers, all foresee a future without (or with much less) poverty and with a clean, green environment.

Read on to get details on ideas from Wangari Maathai, Bill Clinton, Van Jones, and Paul Hawken.”

Can green make us greener?

George Soros knows money and economy. When he talks, I listen.

Watch an excerpt from an interview with Bill Moyers…. he thinks we need to fix global warming… which would benefit our economy…. where have I heard this before? Why are people not listening the first time?

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nDiX9N0p1sw]

babysitting 101

Paul Krugman won the Nobel Prize in Economic Science today for his work on international trade patterns.

Slate Magazine re-ran an article published in 1998 called “Baby-Sitting the Economy” about how learning from a babysitting co-op going bust, could give us information to save the world.

Click HERE for the article.

“If you think this is a silly story, a waste of your time, shame on you. What the Capitol Hill Baby-Sitting Co-op experienced was a real recession. Its story tells you more about what economic slumps are and why they happen than you will get from reading 500 pages of William Greider and a year’s worth of Wall Street Journal editorials. And if you are willing to really wrap your mind around the co-op’s story, to play with it and draw out its implications, it will change the way you think about the world.”

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