Tag Archives: despite

In the Light of Humane Nature – Arthur B. Weissman

by Myrna Posted on February 1, 2020

READ GREEN WITH E-BOOKS

In the Light of Humane Nature

Human Values, Nature, the Green Economy, and Environmental Salvation

Arthur B. Weissman

Genre: Nature

Price: $11.99

Publish Date: October 1, 2013

Publisher: Morgan James Publishing

Seller: OpenRoad Integrated Media, LLC


This engaging book encourages us to tap into humanity’s highest ideals to solve environmental and social problems and become better people in the process.   Despite significant progress in recent decades, the environmental crisis is far from over. We know what needs to change, but we don’t seem to know—economically, politically, or socially—how to stop the juggernaut of destructive development and resource depletion. Something continues to undermine our efforts to become a truly sustainable society.   This book highlights the positive accomplishments we have made recently in greening the economy, but also exposes the underlying causes of our continued march toward disaster. A seasoned environmental professional, Arthur Weissman argues that what causes our environmental problems and stymies solutions ultimately relates to human values and our attitudes toward the world around us, including other humans, other species, and nature as a whole. We will attain our true relationship with nature only when we embrace the highest human values.   In the Light of Humane Nature weaves personal narrative and autobiographical details with professional and philosophical discourse. Weissman sticks to essential concepts we can all comprehend, and presents the changes we need to make in our moral and aesthetic outlooks to connect with our highest human values so that we may achieve a sustainable and humane world.  

Read more:

In the Light of Humane Nature – Arthur B. Weissman

Posted in alo, Anchor, FF, GE, LAI, LG, ONA, oven, PUR, Ultima, Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , , | Comments Off on In the Light of Humane Nature – Arthur B. Weissman

Greta Thunberg: We need a ‘concrete plan’ for climate action, not nice words

by DeangelBayly Posted on August 30, 2019

This story was originally published by the Guardian and is reproduced here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration.

Unprecedented pressure exerted by young activists will push world leaders to address the unfolding climate crisis, even with a recalcitrant U.S. under Donald Trump, Greta Thunberg told the Guardian.

Thunberg, the teenager whose school climate strikes have ignited a global youth-led movement, said that her journey to New York on a solar-powered yacht was symbolic of the lengths young people will take to confront the climate crisis.

She said: “It’s insane that a 16-year-old has to cross the Atlantic in order to take a stand, but that’s how it is. It feels like we are at a breaking point. Leaders know that more eyes on them, much more pressure is on them, that they have to do something, they have to come up with some sort of solution. I want a concrete plan, not just nice words.”

Thunberg’s vessel emerged from the mist of an unseasonably drizzly day to be met by a throng of supporters and media at a marina near the southern tip of Manhattan on Wednesday. Her arrival was heralded by a flotilla of 17 sailboats, charted by the U.N., that intercepted her vessel near the Statue of Liberty.

Supporters chanted “welcome Greta” as the Swedish teenager stepped off the yacht, shook some outstretched hands and said that it felt like the ground was shaking beneath her feet.

Thunberg told the Guardian: “It’s so overwhelming. I’ve gone from nothing but me and the ocean to this.”

Despite the adulation from the crowds, Thunberg said she didn’t relish being cast as the global figurehead of the climate movement.

She said: “My role is to be one of many, many activists who are pushing for climate action. I don’t see myself as a leader, or icon, or the face of a movement.”

More:  

Greta Thunberg: We need a ‘concrete plan’ for climate action, not nice words

Posted in Accent, alo, FF, G & F, GE, LG, ONA, Prepara, solar, solar power, The Atlantic, Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on Greta Thunberg: We need a ‘concrete plan’ for climate action, not nice words

Why I Love a Good Clothes Swap

by AmeliaPulkkinen81 Posted on June 8, 2019

Back in middle school, when shopping was a favorite pastime but?spending money was hard to come by (that allowance didn’t stretch very far), my little clutch of girlfriends and I invented what we thought was an ingenious way to expand our wardrobes for free. We called this grand exchange a “clothes swap.”

Each season, one of us would host?a party?to which we’d bring a haul of items that we’d grown out of or grown tired of. After arranging ourselves on the floor in a circle, wares displayed, we’d take turns holding up an item for “bid.” From there, it was up to expert female negotiation, complete with try-ons, to decide who got what. (Talk about diplomacy!)

By the time we were finished, each of us would walk away with?a whole new bag of clothes, filled to the top with cute pieces of clothing from the others’ closets. At the end of the season, we’d return what was?borrowed, deciding whether what we’d given away was worth missing, then gradually evolving our wardrobes?from there. It was magic!

Later on, I realized that we weren’t the only ones onto the idea that sharing is caring. In fact, clothes swaps have become a very popular party format. I mean, who doesn’t love the idea of getting something new to wear without having to spend a dime?

So many of us?find ourselves blankly staring at our closets each morning wondering how we could possibly have nothing to wear. Despite wardrobes overflowing with shoes, tees, dresses and jackets, we still grow tired of seeing the same pieces day after day. And when the urge to shop strikes, our wallets (and knowledge of our destructive consumeristic tendencies) halt us in our tracks.

A clothes swap solves all of these problems at once. It’s free, has no environmental impact and helps inject a little novelty into our wardrobes just when we need it most. Really, it’s a fantastic idea!

Sound like something you could get into? All you need is willing participants, a few guidelines for the group and keen minds ready to barter! Here are some ideas to get you started.

How to Host a Clothes Swap

1. Invite?a mix of guests?within a similar size range or make the party accessories only (shoes, bags, scarves, jewelry).

2. Set rules that will help create a calm, polite space for negotiating. Settle on a specific number of items to bring (say, 10 or so), set up a lottery system for picking order, and lay out some criteria for the quality items.

3. Encourage browsing and bartering, clear space for a makeshift fitting room and set a fixed amount of time for the swap. You could even display all the items like you might in a boutique!

4. Set out snacks and drinks to establish a leisurely pace to the evening. The last thing you want is a selfish frenzy! It’s all just for fun, after all. This isn’t a sample sale.

5. Donate any pieces that are leftover. There’s no pressure for every last straggling item to be taken home.

If your first clothes swap goes well, it might just become a regular event, like it did for my friends and I back when we were kids. Hold a swap once per season, or make it an annual bash that brings together friends from a variety of different social circles. Your closet will?be glad you did!

Credit:  

Why I Love a Good Clothes Swap

Posted in alo, bigo, FF, GE, LAI, LG, ONA, Uncategorized, Venta | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on Why I Love a Good Clothes Swap

Productivity Is the Key to Economic Growth

by LatishaTabor Posted on May 24, 2017

Mother Jones

<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC “-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN” “http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/loose.dtd”>

Mick Mulvaney says the haters don’t know what they’re talking about:

In his remarks Tuesday, Mulvaney mentioned that the economy had often grown in the past at rates of 3 percent and called people’s objections to the Trump administration’s expectation of growth rates that high “absurd.”

“It used to be normal. Ten years ago, it was normal. In fact, it’s been normal for the history of the country,” said Mulvaney.

Mulvaney is sort of right about this. But there’s more to it. The basic formula for economic growth is simple: Economic growth = Population growth + Productivity growth. Population growth has been slowing down for decades, and Mulvaney isn’t going to change that. We know exactly what the population of the country is going to be over the next few years.

So that leaves productivity growth, which the BLS estimates here. Here’s what all three factors have looked like since 1960:

In order to achieve 3 percent economic growth, we need productivity growth of about 2.3 percent. This is decidedly not normal for the history of the country—not in the past 50 years, anyway. With the brief exception of the unsustainable housing bubble era, we haven’t hit that since the end of 60s.

Productivity growth is a real problem, and it’s something of a mystery why it’s been so low lately. But it’s a mystery to Mulvaney too, and it’s certainly not due to punitive tax rates or heavy-handed regulations. Despite this, Mulvaney is suggesting that Trump can more than double the productivity growth rate of the past ten years, reaching a target we haven’t hit in a normal, healthy economy for the past half century. There’s simply no reason to believe this, and Mulvaney hasn’t even tried to explain how he thinks Trump can accomplish it. Not even hand waving. He’s literally said nothing about productivity growth at all.

Until he does, nobody should believe his growth estimates. It all comes down to productivity, and that’s what Mulvaney needs to talk about.

Taken from:

Productivity Is the Key to Economic Growth

Posted in FF, GE, LAI, LG, ONA, Uncategorized, Venta | Tagged , , , , , , , | Comments Off on Productivity Is the Key to Economic Growth

Raw Data: Health Care Spending Growth Around the World

by BlairGaskin Posted on March 16, 2017

Mother Jones

<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC “-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN” “http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/loose.dtd”>

I got into a conversation today about my contention from last night that national health care systems are better at controlling costs than the private sector. We all know that US health care costs are the highest in the world, but are they growing faster than the rest of the world? And how about different health care sectors in the US?

I haven’t looked at this in years, so I decided to dig up the data and see. First off, here is growth in health care spending among a representative group of rich countries during recent decades:

This data is a little tricky because some countries changed the way they calculated health care spending during this period. I didn’t use any of them, and it’s possible that one or two might have grown faster than us. But the US is certainly in the top two or three, if not at the very top.

One problem with international comparisons of health care spending is that some countries are aging faster than others, and it stands to reason that countries with older populations will spend more than those with younger populations. Here’s a look at spending growth during the period 1970-2002 that controls for aging:

During these earlier decades there are several countries with higher growth rates than the US. I’m a little surprised there weren’t more, given that postwar European countries were still catching up to the US during the first half of this period.

Finally, here’s a comparison of growth rates just within the US:

The data here tells a pretty consistent story. Despite starting at a higher base, the US is in the top two or three in the world—maybe at the very top—for health care spending growth over the past half century or so. Within the US, private health care spending growth has outpaced both Medicare and Medicaid. Both internationally and in the US, government-run health care programs appear to be better at controlling costs than the private sector.

Of course, there are other sources of data and other ways of doing comparisons, so don’t take this as the last word. If I come across any other studies that seem to have interesting ways of slicing the data, I’ll follow up.

View original post here:  

Raw Data: Health Care Spending Growth Around the World

Posted in FF, GE, LG, ONA, Uncategorized, Venta | Tagged , , , , , , , | Comments Off on Raw Data: Health Care Spending Growth Around the World

Chart of the Day: The Supreme Court Over the Past 70 Years

by kellia88103519 Posted on February 2, 2017

Mother Jones

Christopher Ingraham at Wonkblog pointed me to an interesting bit of data yesterday. It’s the Martin-Quinn measure of how the Supreme Court tilts over time, and apparently it’s widely accepted as reasonably accurate. Here it is for the entire postwar period:

There are two fascinating nuggets here:

Despite conservative kvetching, the Court has leaned conservative for all but seven years from 1946 to 2013. The seven years of the Warren Court are literally the only period in recent history during which the Court has been consistently liberal.
The Martin-Quinn measure depends on the votes of the median judge, which is Anthony Kennedy right now. This is what accounts for the Court’s recent shift to the left. According to his Martin-Quinn score, Kennedy has been getting steadily less conservative ever since he joined the Court, and over the past three years he’s become positively liberal:

I suppose this is old news to veteran court watchers, but it’s new to me. Has Kennedy really shifted that much over his career? And is he now generally left of center? If so, does this have anything to do with the effect of Sotomayor and Kagan joining the Court in 2009-10? It sure looks like it.

This article is from:  

Chart of the Day: The Supreme Court Over the Past 70 Years

Posted in FF, GE, LG, ONA, Uncategorized, Venta | Tagged , , , , , , , | Comments Off on Chart of the Day: The Supreme Court Over the Past 70 Years

While Trump tweets out insults, Obama publishes an article about clean energy in a scientific journal.

by MarisolM85 Posted on January 9, 2017

In the piece, which appeared in Science on Monday, the president outlines four reasons that “the trend toward clean energy is irreversible”:

1. Economic growth and cutting carbon emissions go hand in hand. Any economic strategy that doesn’t take climate change into account will result in fewer jobs and less economic growth in the long term.

2. Businesses know that reducing emissions can boost bottom lines and make shareholders happy. And efficiency boosts employment too: About 2.2 million Americans now have jobs related to energy efficiency, compared to about 1.1 million with fossil fuel jobs.

3. The market is already moving toward cleaner electricity. Natural gas is replacing coal, and renewable energy costs are falling dramatically — trends that will continue (even with a coal-loving president).

4. There’s global momentum for climate action. In 2015 in Paris, nearly 200 nations agreed to bring down carbon emissions.

“Despite the policy uncertainty that we face, I remain convinced that no country is better suited to confront the climate challenge and reap the economic benefits of a low-carbon future than the United States and that continued participation in the Paris process will yield great benefit for the American people, as well as the international community,” Obama concludes — optimistically.

This article is from: 

While Trump tweets out insults, Obama publishes an article about clean energy in a scientific journal.

Posted in alo, Anchor, Anker, Casio, Citizen, Dolphin, FF, G & F, GE, LG, ONA, Pines, The Atlantic, Ultima, Uncategorized, Wiley | Tagged , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on While Trump tweets out insults, Obama publishes an article about clean energy in a scientific journal.

New York State will shut down its dangerously placed Indian Point nuclear plant.

by KathieBrewster9 Posted on January 9, 2017

In the piece, which appeared in Science on Monday, the president outlines four reasons that “the trend toward clean energy is irreversible”:

1. Economic growth and cutting carbon emissions go hand in hand. Any economic strategy that doesn’t take climate change into account will result in fewer jobs and less economic growth in the long term.

2. Businesses know that reducing emissions can boost bottom lines and make shareholders happy. And efficiency boosts employment too: About 2.2 million Americans now have jobs related to energy efficiency, compared to about 1.1 million with fossil fuel jobs.

3. The market is already moving toward cleaner electricity. Natural gas is replacing coal, and renewable energy costs are falling dramatically — trends that will continue (even with a coal-loving president).

4. There’s global momentum for climate action. In 2015 in Paris, nearly 200 nations agreed to bring down carbon emissions.

“Despite the policy uncertainty that we face, I remain convinced that no country is better suited to confront the climate challenge and reap the economic benefits of a low-carbon future than the United States and that continued participation in the Paris process will yield great benefit for the American people, as well as the international community,” Obama concludes — optimistically.

Source: 

New York State will shut down its dangerously placed Indian Point nuclear plant.

Posted in alo, Anchor, Anker, Casio, Citizen, Dolphin, FF, G & F, GE, LG, ONA, Pines, The Atlantic, Ultima, Uncategorized, Wiley | Tagged , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on New York State will shut down its dangerously placed Indian Point nuclear plant.

Obama is making another move to block offshore drilling.

by ColumbuHEFO Posted on January 9, 2017

In the piece, which appeared in Science on Monday, the president outlines four reasons that “the trend toward clean energy is irreversible”:

1. Economic growth and cutting carbon emissions go hand in hand. Any economic strategy that doesn’t take climate change into account will result in fewer jobs and less economic growth in the long term.

2. Businesses know that reducing emissions can boost bottom lines and make shareholders happy. And efficiency boosts employment too: About 2.2 million Americans now have jobs related to energy efficiency, compared to about 1.1 million with fossil fuel jobs.

3. The market is already moving toward cleaner electricity. Natural gas is replacing coal, and renewable energy costs are falling dramatically — trends that will continue (even with a coal-loving president).

4. There’s global momentum for climate action. In 2015 in Paris, nearly 200 nations agreed to bring down carbon emissions.

“Despite the policy uncertainty that we face, I remain convinced that no country is better suited to confront the climate challenge and reap the economic benefits of a low-carbon future than the United States and that continued participation in the Paris process will yield great benefit for the American people, as well as the international community,” Obama concludes — optimistically.

More – 

Obama is making another move to block offshore drilling.

Posted in alo, Anchor, Anker, Casio, Citizen, Dolphin, FF, G & F, GE, LG, ONA, Pines, The Atlantic, Ultima, Uncategorized, Wiley | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on Obama is making another move to block offshore drilling.

Living At Home Has Become Steadily More Popular Since the 1960s

by VioletLJGnnihr Posted on December 21, 2016

Mother Jones

<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC “-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN” “http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/loose.dtd”>

According to the Wall Street Journal, millennials are living in their parents’ basements at record rates:

Almost 40% of young Americans were living with their parents, siblings or other relatives in 2015, the largest percentage since 1940, according to an analysis of census data by real estate tracker Trulia.

Despite a rebounding economy and recent job growth, the share of those between the ages of 18 and 34 doubling up with parents or other family members has been rising since 2005. Back then, before the start of the last recession, roughly one out of three were living with family.

Hmmm. “Rising since 2005.” I’ll assume that’s technically true, but take a look at the chart that accompanies the Journal piece. The number of young adults living with their parents rose in the 70s. And the 80s. And the aughts. And the teens. Basically, it’s been on an upward trend for nearly half a century. That seems more noteworthy to me than the fact that it failed to blip slightly downward after the Great Recession ended.

Part of the reason, of course, is that people have been getting married and settling down later in life. According to the OECD, the average age at first marriage has increased nearly five years just since 1990, and ranges between 30 and 35 around the world:

The United States is still at the low end of the world average.

See the original post:

Living At Home Has Become Steadily More Popular Since the 1960s

Posted in FF, GE, LG, ONA, Uncategorized, Venta | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on Living At Home Has Become Steadily More Popular Since the 1960s