Tag Archives: living

Wonky Mr. Potato Head wants you to know it’s not the shape that counts

by Madelai90A Posted on July 2, 2016

what a spud

Wonky Mr. Potato Head wants you to know it’s not the shape that counts

By on Jul 2, 2016Share

“Fugly spud” isn’t the name a self-loving starch wants to be branded with. But Mr. Potato Head will damn well wear it proudly if it makes you stop throwing away ugly veggies.

The toy company Hasbro has partnered up with U.K.-based grocery store chain Asda to bring attention to food waste with the Wonky Mr. Potato Head. Profits from an auction for the limited-edition, dashingly asymmetric fellow will go to FareShare, a nonprofit that redistributes surplus foods, according to the charity’s website.

“It’s the taste, not the shape that counts, and the charities and community groups we support can turn them into delicious meals for people in need,” said Daniel Nicholls, Corporate Development Officer at FareShare, in a statement.

Food waste is undeniably a huge problem. About one-third of the world’s food supply is wasted every year even though 800 million people go undernourished.

Grist’s Nathanael Johnson breaks down our wasteful ways even more:

The United States spends $218 billion a year producing food that nobody eats — amounting to 40 percent of all food grown. We devote roughly 80 million acres to grow food just for the garbage bin — an area three-quarters the size of California.

That’s a lot of squandered food.

A novelty toy isn’t going to solve that problem single-plastic-handedly, but it’s at least a start on the path to less waste — and a victory for self-respecting veggies everywhere.

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Here’s How To Do Free Trade Right

by Dieter25Fczq Posted on July 1, 2016

Mother Jones

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Jared Bernstein says that Donald Trump has a legitimate point about the problems with American trade agreements:

The process by which they’re negotiated is undemocratic, they uplift investor rights over sovereign rights, they reverse the order in which certain challenges should be tackled, and they fail to deal with currency issues. But globalization cannot nor should not be stopped. Done right, it delivers great benefits to advanced countries through the increased supply of goods, and it helps improve the living standards of workers in developing countries through profits made from trade with wealthier nations. Trump’s tariffs would undermine all of that.

Most liberals agree with this criticism. Until Trump, in fact, opposition to trade deals was mostly limited to liberals—and still is, judging by the number of Republicans who oppose Trump’s trade agenda. But as Bernstein says, international trade is basically a good thing. So what should we do to make it fairer? Tariffs and trade wars aren’t the answer. Here are Bernstein’s five recommendations:

Take action against those who suppress the value of their currencies relative to the dollar.

Change the sequencing of labor and environmental rights. Any benefits to partners in terms of market access must be preceded by confirmation that labor and environmental rights are enforced. That means that countries we enter trade agreements with must offer sustained evidence that conditions on the ground have improved, and that we withdraw trade benefits when there’s evidence of backsliding.

Relocate risk in investor disputes. The current Investor-State Dispute Settlement (ISDS) process is set up in such a way that investors in countries that are signatories to trade deals can, through non-elected tribunals, override the sovereign laws of developing countries….The answer to this problem is to shift this risk away from the broader public and back to the investors themselves. The way to accomplish this is by taking ISDS out of future trade agreements and insisting that investors privately insure themselves against investment losses.

Take a public welfare stance toward patent and copyright protections. Trade agreements should not increase protectionism. They should not extend patents or limit the competition that reduces prices and increases access to needed medicines.

Sunlight disinfects trade agreements. The trade agreement process is uniquely secretive and exclusive — and as a result non-representative of the views of millions of people affected by the deal….This level of secrecy must end. We’re not talking about nuclear codes but about the formulation of policies that will affect the everyday economic lives of every American. US-proposed text and then the texts of agreements after each negotiating round ought to be made publicly available.

Personally, I think the second point is the most important. We talk endlessly about protecting labor in these agreements, but nothing much ever really happens. The only way it will is to insist that labor rights come first, before markets are opened up.

Conversely, I’ve never been convinced that ISDS is quite the villain it’s made out to be. I’m open to argument on this score, but trade agreements always need some kind of enforcement authority outside the nation states themselves, and ISDS is one of them. It’s been around for a long time, and really doesn’t seem to have done any harm to US interests.

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Here’s How To Do Free Trade Right

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Will California start drilling deep for water?

by Myrna Posted on June 29, 2016

Stanford scientists find a ‘water windfall’ deep underground; its viability as a resource is problematic, its protection is essential. Source article:  Will California start drilling deep for water? ; ; ;

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Will California start drilling deep for water?

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Arnold Schwarzenegger is here to terminate your hamburger addiction

by MelissaHope Posted on June 28, 2016

Conan the Vegetarian

Arnold Schwarzenegger is here to terminate your hamburger addiction

By on Jun 28, 2016Share

A sweaty Arnold Schwarzenegger wanders across a barren wasteland before turning to the camera and jawing out the line, “Less meat, less heat… more life.”

This is a scene in the latest James Cameron flick, a public service announcement for the advocacy group WildAid and the Chinese Nutrition Society, aimed at linking meat eating to climate change. It’s meant to sway people to follow the country’s new dietary guidelines and eat less meat. So far there’s just a “behind the scenes” teaser, and it’s predictably over the top. Animal agriculture isn’t as big a producer of greenhouse gases as Cameron claims. He says it’s the second biggest, but you have to include all farming (plants plus animals) and forest clearance to make ag the second biggest emitter.

Cameron and Schwarzenegger are basically claiming that meat will destroy the world. It would be more accurate to say that, while meat-eating is carbon intensive, animal agriculture is also a key step in making a better world for many poor farmers and underfed kids. But who goes to a Cameron or Schwarzenegger film for nuance? If the flexing Governator can help convince affluent Chinese and rich people around the world that they don’t need meat to be strong, so much the better.

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Arnold Schwarzenegger is here to terminate your hamburger addiction

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Watch a burning house float away in an epic flood

by Tina270173925682 Posted on June 24, 2016

Rain of Terror

Watch a burning house float away in an epic flood

By on Jun 24, 2016Share

West Virginia’s deadly deluge just took a turn for the apocalyptic. A burning building was swept down a creek after significant flooding in the small town of White Sulphur Springs.

The video leaves us with a major cliffhanger: What happened after the house hit the bridge?

We don’t know — but we do know that a storm dumped up to nine inches of rain on parts of West Virginia (eight inches on White Sulphur Springs) during a 24-hour period leading up to Thursday night, which set the stage for this alarming vision. The floods prompted a state of emergency in several counties around the state and caused at least four deaths.

From Paris to Houston, we’ve witnessed more than the world’s fair share of formidable floods in recent months, from the devastating to the truly surreal. Case in point: Earlier this week, a D.C. subway station escalator essentially turned into a waterfall after extensive rainfall in the area. Though it’s hard to pin the blame for any one extreme weather event on climate change, a shifting climate means heavier deluges in some areas and longer dry spells in others. Looks like West Virginia is getting a whole lot of the former.

Hey, can we at least take a raincheck for the apocalypse?

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Watch a burning house float away in an epic flood

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Bernie Sanders lays out what Democrats should do next

by MohamedMullings Posted on June 23, 2016

Feelin’ the bern

Bernie Sanders lays out what Democrats should do next

By on Jun 23, 2016Share

The race for the Democratic nomination may be more or less over for Bernie Sanders. The natural question is: What does he do next? The Vermont senator insists that’s the wrong question, in an op-ed published in the Washington Post. Instead, it’s about “what the 12 million Americans who voted for a political revolution want.”

Those 12 million, according to Sanders, want to see his major platform points — a just economy, overturning Citizens United, criminal justice reform, and action on climate change — come to fruition. He writes on climate change:

If present trends continue, scientists tell us the planet will be 5 to 10 degrees Fahrenheit warmer by the end of the century — which means more droughts, floods, extreme weather disturbances, rising sea levels and acidification of the oceans. This is a planetary crisis of extraordinary magnitude.

What do we want? We want the United States to lead the world in pushing our energy system away from fossil fuel and toward energy efficiency and sustainable energy. We want a tax on carbon, the end of fracking and massive investment in wind, solar, geothermal and other sustainable technologies.

Sanders’ supporters last week pushed the Democratic National Committee to embrace many of these points in its party platform, including calls for a nationwide fracking ban and a carbon tax. While Sanders and Clinton mostly agree on the science and dangers of climate change, his rival never endorsed either of these proposals.

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Bernie Sanders lays out what Democrats should do next

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Today’s headlines, brought to you from the future

by MelissaFitch Posted on June 21, 2016

As seen in Palm Springs, California. REUTERS/Sam Mircovich

Just Chill

Today’s headlines, brought to you from the future

By on Jun 21, 2016 12:18 pmShare

Welcome to the future, where news like this becomes mundane:

“Record-Breaking Heat Tops 120 Degrees in Parts of Southern California”
“1,000 flee L.A.-area wildfires fueled by heat wave”
“Deadly Heat Wave Adds Misery to Fire-Ravaged West”
“Oppressive heat to challenge all-time records across the southwestern U.S. early this week”

These are all headlines from a local news channel, USA Today, NBC, and Accuweather about the brutal heatwave that hit the Southwest this week. One-fifth of the country felt the miserable temperatures marking the official start of summer, and parts of California and Arizona even surpassed the 120-degree mark, in what the National Weather Service described as a “rare, dangerous and deadly” heatwave.

But this kind of event is becoming less rare in a climate-changed world that is constantly breaking all kinds of extreme records.

Scorching heat has had deadly consequences in India, where a heatwave this year contributed to a death toll of 1,500. Nor is this easily fixed by running the ACs higher, which packs a double punch of aiding warming and pumping pollution into communities of color.

As the headlines show, the future is not very far away at all.

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Today’s headlines, brought to you from the future

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If U.S. health care were a country, it would rank 13th for emissions

by MollieVvr568526 Posted on June 14, 2016

If U.S. health care were a country, it would rank 13th for emissions

By on Jun 14, 2016Share

A visit to the doctor’s office or hospital evokes images of cleanliness: sterile countertops, white walls, and sleek tools. But any given hospital needs to run lights and heat 24/7 and energy-hungry machines. All this winds up making America’s massive healthcare system a big source of the pollution that makes some patients sick.

According to new research from Yale University, if the U.S. healthcare system were a country, it would rank 13th in the world in terms of greenhouse gas emissions. That means it emits more than the entire United Kingdom, contributing to climate change and harming public health. U.S. healthcare is also responsible for 12 percent of acid rain, 10 percent of smog, and 9 percent of respiratory diseases from particulate matter.

And the portion of our emissions generated by the health industry is steadily expanding: The Yale study reported an increase from 7 percent of the United States’ total emissions in 2003 to nearly 10 percent in 2013, over a period when the health care industry grew as a whole. The United States also spends nearly twice the average of what other developed countries spend on health care in terms of GDP.

While doing vital work to make us healthier, the industry could also be doing more to avoid the pollution that makes us sick.

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If U.S. health care were a country, it would rank 13th for emissions

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We are fleeing the world’s coasts

by EloiseQ42rlu Posted on June 10, 2016

We are fleeing the world’s coasts

By on Jun 10, 2016Share

As if beaches weren’t already scary (think: Shark attacks! Seagulls swooping in to snatch a sandwich from your hands! And [gulp] beach body season!), you may have heard that climate change is ushering in even greater terrors. We’re talking intense hurricanes, tidal flooding, and sea-level rise of three or four feet by 2100.

And people may already be responding to the planet’s not-so-subtle signals that coastal areas may not a safe place to live in the future. According to a new study from Environmental Research Letters, population growth patterns have indicated a slight distribution away from coastlines. The share of population that lives 124 miles from the coast has decreased slightly in recent years, from 52 percent in 1990 to 51 percent in 2010.

Wait! One percentage point may be a subtle change, but it’s likely contrary to what you’ve heard before, since there’s a common understanding that people are actually moving toward the coasts. And on a global scale, many more people live in coastal areas today than in the past — about five times as many as in 1900, Fast Company reports.

Humans have historically been drawn to coasts, and that’s for good reason. Life near the sea has a lot to offer: food, jobs, and the occasional orca sighting. But eventually, the coastally inclined might find themselves in a bit of a salty pickle if they don’t move further inland. The ocean is all too eager to move into beachfront properties and turn living rooms into giant aquariums.

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We are fleeing the world’s coasts

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Republicans in Congress just passed a law giving EPA more power

by LouisaMichalski Posted on June 9, 2016

The Chemical Bothers

Republicans in Congress just passed a law giving EPA more power

By on Jun 9, 2016Share

Congress did something this week that’s practically unheard of. It handed the Environmental Protection Agency broad new powers.

The Senate on Tuesday passed a sweeping bill that revamps how federal regulators handle chemical safety, after Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) lifted a last-minute hold on a vote. Because the House already passed the same reconciled version, the bill is headed to President Obama’s desk, where he is expected sign it into law.

Which means a Republican-controlled Congress managed to do something that no Congress since 1976 had been able to do: Overhaul the Toxic Substances Control Act, a flawed, unenforceable law that gave the EPA just 90 days to study whether a new chemical was dangerous. It didn’t even allow the EPA to regulate asbestos-containing products, the U.S. Court of Appeals ruled in 1989.

The new bill means the EPA can finally evaluate cancer-linked substances like BPA and styrene used in plastics and formaldehyde found in fabrics and cars. It establishes uniform standards for evaluating about 20 chemicals at a time, and means more funding can be directed toward studying high-priority problem chemicals, especially those used near drinking water.

In extreme cases, the law might lead to a ban on certain chemicals. In others, it might mean more warning labels or limited use.

For a little perspective on just how great a task the EPA now has ahead, there are some 64,000 unregulated chemicals on the market.

No law, much less one coming from a conservative Congress, is perfect. And the industry won at least one key fight: States won’t be able to restrict or ban chemicals if they’re under review by the EPA. That’s why the Environmental Working Group opposed the bill, and why New York’s attorney general said he was disappointed in it. But most health and green groups accepted the compromise bill as an overall win.

This was a rare instance in which the manufacturers and chemical industries were on the same side as environmental and public health advocates: Everyone knew the current system was broken and needed to be fixed, and still it took many years to reach a compromise. Even the Senate’s resident science denier James Inhofe (R-Okla.) endorsed the bill.

But don’t expect to see this kind of cooperation on other public health issues, from lead-poisoned water to any of the threats posed by climate change. For that, we’ll need a very different Congress — and we can’t afford to wait another 40 years to get it.

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Republicans in Congress just passed a law giving EPA more power

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