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Sandy refugees set to be booted from NYC hotels

by OfeliawWeeks Posted on April 1, 2013

Sandy refugees set to be booted from NYC hotels

By Susie Cagle

Coming up on the six-month anniversary of Superstorm Sandy, New York City is ready to move on. But more than 2,000 Sandy refugees still living in the city’s hotels are not — since they’re, you know, homeless.

John de Guzman

This is no longer a housing option — and soon a hotel might not be either.

According to the city’s Department of Homeless Services, upwards of 900 displaced families are living in more than 45 different hotels throughout the five boroughs. Since last October, more than 3,000 storm-swept families have spent one or more nights in a hotel through a city program, which is slated to end on April 30. A separate FEMA program does not yet have an end date.

“We’re trying to get people focused on the future,” Homeless Services commissioner Seth Diamond told The Wall Street Journal. That would be a future in which they might not have anywhere to live, apparently. Diamond said the city would be placing some people in public housing units, while others might receive federal Section 8 vouchers. Everyone else would apparently be on their own, with some potentially having to leave the city altogether.

From The New York Times:

Some housing experts and elected officials said the city’s reliance on hotels underscored how federal and local disaster planning had to be revised to include more emergency rental assistance.

“Why are we spending money on hotels instead of helping families pay the rent?” asked Rosanne Haggerty, president of Community Solutions, a nonprofit organization in New York that works to end homelessness. She added, “For a fraction of the cost, families could be in a stable situation and getting a running start in putting their lives together.”

The damage from Hurricane Sandy revealed how many residents of coastal areas in New York, especially in Brooklyn and Queens, were renters with low incomes.

Of more than half a million households across New York and New Jersey that registered for assistance from FEMA by February, 43 percent made less than $30,000 a year, according to studies by Enterprise Community Partners and the Furman Center for Real Estate and Urban Policy at New York University.

Some of those who have still not found permanent housing had been living in illegal basement apartments and in other living arrangements without leases or other documents needed for apartment hunting or immediate federal rental assistance. A small group, about 2 percent, are illegal immigrants and another small group has not cooperated in efforts to place them. …

But mostly, they are poor.

FEMA is spending an average of $252 per night per family for the hotel rooms — which is still a far cry from the kind of scratch you’d need to buy those beachfront homes in the bargain-flooded, basement-priced Rockaways.

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Sandy refugees set to be booted from NYC hotels

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Life Code – Dr. Phil McGraw

by Theodot7v8 Posted on March 19, 2013

READ GREEN WITH E-BOOKS

Life Code

New Rules for the Real World

Dr. Phil McGraw

Genre: Self-Improvement

Price: $12.99

Publish Date: November 13, 2012

Publisher: Bird Street Books

Seller: Ingram DV LLC


A new bestselling book called Life Code by Dr. Phil McGraw about the new rules for living in the real world.

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Life Code – Dr. Phil McGraw

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Big Sugar could get a big government bailout

by xf0ks040u Posted on March 14, 2013

Big Sugar could get a big government bailout

By Susie Cagle

Trigger warning, healthy eaters. The USDA is considering a big sugar bailout. Here’s how that would work: The agency would buy 400,000 tons of sugar from surprisingly productive sugar companies in order to give those sugar companies enough cash to pay back the the $862 million they borrowed from the USDA last October. And then you would riot in the streets because what the hell is going on, USDA?!

The Wall Street Journal reports on the part before the rioting:

The USDA makes loans to sugar processors annually as part of a program that is rooted in the 1934 Sugar Act. The loans are secured with some 4.1 billion pounds, or 2.05 million tons, of sugar that companies expect to produce from the current harvest. That comes to almost a quarter of total U.S. output that the USDA forecasts for this year.

If domestic sugar prices bounce back before a final decision [on the bailout] is made, the USDA would back away from plans to intervene in the market, [said USDA economist Barbara Fecso]. A final decision could come as early as April 1. …

The loan program was designed to operate at no cost to taxpayers. A June 2000 study by the Government Accountability Office, then called the General Accounting Office, estimated the program’s cost to the U.S. economy at $700 million in 1996 and $900 million in 1998.

The bailout would help bolster the price of sugar, therefore driving up the cost of sweetened goods. But even if you hate sugar and all the terrible things it does to our bodies, you’re still paying for it.

Is that enough, though, to ally carrot and cupcake lovers in what New York Magazine wishes were a militant social movement?

Big Sugar has spent decades paying its way into politicians’ hearts, demanding price controls and tariffs that boost profits and artificially inflate sugar prices, and using its political clout to establish a permanent life-support mechanism for an industry whose major product is causing many Americans to die.

Why wait? Let’s Occupy Sugar, and Occupy it now.

Speaking of unholy alliances, New York points to a 2012 report by the Heritage Foundation. Free-market-loving Heritage hates Big Sugar. The foundation points to big political spending by sugar companies, just the kind of sweet stumping that killed New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s soda ban.

Heritage Foundation

Not feeling riled yet? Maybe have an angry-making Coke first.

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Brand Creates Fashionable Footwear from Uncommon Materials

by Michalak876 Posted on March 5, 2013

Created by three friends who were influential in some of the most successful fashion footwear brands, such as Converse, Puma and Fila, Unstitched Utilities blends style and sustainability in a way that’s truly tough to beat. Earth911 sat down with co-founder and lead designer Kevin Crowley to learn more about how it all started for Unstitched Utilities and what the innovative upcycled brand plans to do next.

Made from recycled and recyclable materials, each pair of Unstitched Utilities shoes is a one-of-a-kind marriage of style and sustainability. Photo: Unstitched Utilities

An inside look at Unstitched Utilities

Unstitched Utilities was founded by former Converse designer Kevin Crowley, longtime Puma president Jack Steinweis and former Shane and Shawn sales manager Mark Kane and  brings upcycled materials and time-honored fashion trends together in a truly show-stopping way.

After spending years working with some of the most successful fashion footwear brands, the three friends say they were tired of big-time corporations holding them back from doing what they felt was right, so they decided to set out on their own.

Starting with Tyvek material, a recyclable thermoplastic, the partners launched Unstitched Utilities in 2009. The vegan-friendly line has since expanded to include innovative materials such as upcycled rice bags, biodegradable fabrics and material made from recycled magazine and newspaper pages.

Don’t Miss: 10 Awesome Upcycled Products from Ethical Ocean

Evolving from a pipedream into an emerging fashion sensation, Unstitched Utilities has come a long way in a few short years. But lead designer Kevin Crowley has his sights set on something even better – a 100 percent recyclable, cradle-to-cradle shoe.

“It would be great if we could make a shoe that would go 360 rather than go back into the landfill,” Crowley tells Earth911. “I’d love a cradle-to-cradle shoe…but that’s something we’re still working on now.”

While the idea is still in the early planning stages, Crowley describes his closed loop shoe concept as similar to the neon colored jelly sandals common on grade-school playgrounds. These old-school kicks are made with injection molds, meaning they can be created with only one material for easy recyclability.

Other concepts he’s considering include attaching decorative elements with chain-stitching (similar to the closures on pet food bags), so one component of the shoe can be removed and recycled before tossing the rest.

“Maybe the whole shoe can’t [be recycled] right off the bat,” Crowley says. “We’re trying to adapt to existing equipment, materials and machinery, but the idea would be that something is better than nothing.”

You Asked, Earth911 Answered: What Does ‘Close the Loop’ Really Mean?

Incorporating material made from recycled magazine pages, these street-fashion kicks are one of Unstitched Utilities’ top sellers. Photo: Unstitched Utilities

While pursuing his dreams of a cradle-to-cradle shoe, Crowley is steadily expanding the portfolio of upcycled and eco-friendly materials in the Unstitched Utilities line. Keeping his eyes peeled for the next big innovation, the designer dutifully attends trade and materials shows across the U.S. – examining everything from air conditioning ductworks to gardening materials to see if they could be put to use in a shoe.

“We’re trying to take creativity and fashion and hook it up to an environmental need,” Crowley explains.

Some of the brand’s most popular designs incorporate a cutting-edge material made from recycled magazines and newsprint. With an eye-catching look and an eco-friendly feel, Crowley says the company’s recycled magazine kicks practically fly off store shelves.

“The material from a fashion point is just drop dead gorgeous,” Crowley said of Unstitched Utilities’ magazine shoes. “They’re really high fashion. Everybody loves those shoes.”

More Uncommon Style: PHOTOS: Street Fashion Made From Old Umbrellas

The trio has plans to expand their line to include accessories like jewelry, backpacks and hats, as well as launch a boutique collection made from upcycled thrift store sweaters.

“I don’t think you do this sustainability thing in one swat, in any product or brand,” Crowley says. “It’s a balancing act you’re doing all the time, but we’re doing better today than we were three years ago.”

For more information on Unstitched Utilities, check out the brand’s website or pick up a pair of their sweet upcycled kicks at the company’s web store or one of our favorite online sellers, Ethical Ocean.

Want to score a pair for free? Ethical Ocean is giving away a bunch of awesome upcycled products right now, including a pair of sneaks from Unstitched Utilities. Click here to enter!

Homepage Image: Unstitched Utilities

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Brand Creates Fashionable Footwear from Uncommon Materials

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2013 will be a banner year for farm profits, according to analysis that ignores the drought

by wqds234der Posted on February 12, 2013

2013 will be a banner year for farm profits, according to analysis that ignores the drought

By Philip Bump

2012 was a brutal year for American farmers. The massive drought meant that the Department of Agriculture paid out $15 billion in crop insurance; prices of staple crops skyrocketed as yields plummeted.

It appears, however, that this was the darkness before the dawn. A new estimate from the USDA suggests that 2013 will be the most profitable year for farmers in four decades. From The Wall Street Journal:

The Department of Agriculture projected in a report Monday that net farm income in the U.S. will reach $128.2 billion in 2013—the highest since 1973 when adjusted for inflation and the highest on record on a non-adjusted basis.

The rosier outlook is driven by expectations farmers will grow more corn and soybeans after last year’s drought. Analysts predict increases in production will more than offset any price declines and rising costs, with the agency seeing corn stockpiles rising by more than 2 billion bushels.

The forecast also reflects a continued boom in the farm belt initially fueled by rising global demand for grains and increased mandates for corn-based ethanol.

And the first thing those farmers will do is repay the USDA for its crop insurance outlays in 2012, I assume. After all, it was God who made a farmer, not the USDA.

Shutterstock

There is, however, a great big caveat in the government’s predictions.

The USDA’s forecast for 2013 is based on historical yield averages and doesn’t take into account current weather conditions. Parts of the Midwest, such as Indiana and Illinois, have seen a return in moisture, but much of the Great Plains, including Nebraska and Kansas, remain in drought.

“If we don’t get some above-normal rainfall through the next few months, we are going to enter the [growing] season very, very dry,” said Steve Nelson, president of the Nebraska Farm Bureau, who grows corn and soybeans in the south central part of the state.

An estimate in January suggested that the 2012 drought has already turned into the 2013 drought, and is likely to last until April.

So how much crop insurance should we put you all down for?

Philip Bump writes about the news for Gristmill. He also uses Twitter a whole lot.

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Monsanto CEO acknowledges climate change, open to GMO labels, thinks veggies suck

by AshleaMelina844 Posted on January 31, 2013

Monsanto CEO acknowledges climate change, open to GMO labels, thinks veggies suck

By Susie Cagle

The Wall Street Journal sat down with Monsanto CEO Hugh Grant in what were probably some very nice chairs for this comfy little edited Q&A. The global agriculture giant is “battered, bruised, and still growing,” according to the WSJ, whose cup runneth over with pathos for poor Hugh. The interview kicks off with: “What’s the harm in disclosing genetically modified ingredients to consumers?” Yes, Hugh, please tell us about the harm.

Grant says California’s Proposition 37 — which would have required GMO foods to be labeled, and which Monsanto spent millions to defeat (weird, WSJ, y’all left that bit out!) — “befuddled the issue.” But Grant says he’s personally “up for the dialogue around labeling.” Why? Because he thinks GMOs are so great of course! (Come on, you knew that answer.)

They’re the most-tested food product that the world has ever seen. Europe set up its own Food Standards Agency, which has now spent €300 million ($403.7 million), and has concluded that these technologies are safe. [Recently] France determined there’s no safety issue on a corn line we submitted there. So there’s always a great deal of political noise and turmoil. If you strip that back and you get to the science, the science is very strong around these technologies.

GMO haters gonna GMO hate! And Grant would rather be in the future than in the past. “I think some of the criticism comes with being first in a lot of these spaces. I’d rather be there than at the back of the pack.” On the whole, Monsanto has “mended a lot of fences” and “turned things around” recently with the general public, according to Grant, in part because of “consistent messaging.” I will give him that!

One of Grant’s and Monsanto’s messages, apparently: Vegetables taste crappy. This should definitely help the company with the 18-and-under crowd, at least.

Fresh fruit and high quality vegetables are becoming more important than they ever were. So we see an opportunity there, but the opportunity in veggies is going to be driven by where we are spending our money. We are spending our money on nutrition and taste. A lot of veggies look great, but they don’t taste like much. We think the consumer will pay a premium for improved nutrition and improved taste.

Grant says Monsanto spends a billion-and-a-quarter dollars a year on research and development but only “took a look at” climate change a couple years ago (!!), asking scientists if it was “fact or fiction?”

The conclusions that came back were, ‘There’s definitely something there. This isn’t an anomaly. There’s enough evidence to suggest that it’s getting warmer.’ For agriculture that’s going to absolutely present challenges, at the very time we need to produce more, it’s an environment that’s heated. In the much longer term, we’re going to have to focus on breeding to accommodate those temperature shifts.

Climate change: It’s bad for business. That’s actually not a terrible slogan to reach right-wing climate deniers. Thanks, Monsanto.

Susie Cagle writes and draws news for Grist. She also writes and draws tweets for

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If named secretary of defense, Chuck Hagel will leave Chevron’s board

by oks23po Posted on January 30, 2013

If named secretary of defense, Chuck Hagel will leave Chevron’s board

By Philip Bump

secdef

Chevron board member Chuck Hagel.

A spot of good news: If Chuck Hagel is confirmed as defense secretary, he will resign his seat on the board of Chevron. While it seems likely that the oil company would prefer he remain, helping guide its strategy as he simultaneously made determinations about the deployment and structure of the largest military in the history of the world, others disagreed.

From The Wall Street Journal:

Chuck Hagel will shed hundreds of thousands of dollars of stock in Chevron Corp. CVX -0.46% and private equity firm McCarthy Group LLC if the Senate confirms him to be the next defense secretary, according to his financial disclosure. …

Mr. Hagel’s assets were valued between $2.9 million and $6.1 million in total. … In addition to his stock holdings, Mr. Hagel earned $116,000 in director fees from Chevron and between $5,001 and $15,000 in dividends.

In addition to divesting Chevron and McCarthy holdings, Mr. Hagel said he would resign his positions with both firms and 25 other entities.

Why? “One conservative outside group, the American Future Fund, said that the Chevron holdings could have posed a potential conflict of interest because of the company’s fuel contracts with the Pentagon.” Oh, right. The massive conflict of interest. Thanks for pointing that out, conservative outside group.

Once Hagel resigns from Chevron’s board, he will forget all about the company’s priorities and its ongoing arguments for expanding the use of its products in the military. He will not fall back on the many discussions he had as a compensated member of the board and as a shareholder in the company when determining how the military should operate.

Leaving Chevron in the same unhappy position in which Halliburton found itself after its CEO Dick Cheney resigned to become vice president.

Philip Bump writes about the news for Gristmill. He also uses Twitter a whole lot.

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So much hope and so many problems for the L.A. river

by AshleaMelina844 Posted on January 17, 2013

So much hope and so many problems for the L.A. river

By Susie Cagle

A new, green future awaits the concrete drainage ditch that we know as the Los Angeles River. But it may have to wait for quite a while.

pmong9

The Army Corps of Engineers, which originally poured all that concrete about 80 years ago (thanks for nothing, dudes), is teaming up with city engineers on a $10 million study of the potential for restoring the river’s ecosystem, creating wetlands for animals and hang-outs for people. From The Wall Street Journal:

The study examines an 11-mile stretch of the river on the city’s east side, where some resilient plants have survived in a narrow, muddy strip of so-called soft bottom at the center of the channel.

Efforts to manipulate the river’s concrete form without losing its flood-control function will be a “delicate balancing act,” said Josephine Axt, the Corps’ local planning chief who is leading the study, known as Alternative with Restoration Benefits and Opportunities for Revitalization, or Arbor.

It’s like “setting the table,” said Omar Brownson, executive director of the L.A. River Revitalization Corp., which coordinates economic-development projects along the river. “We’re creating a more attractive destination for investment.”

Yes, well, what’s a revitalized habitat without the business it attracts? I guess?

The Corps is expected to present the results of the study to the public in June. But that public might not take so kindly to the Corps and their master plans by then. Just last month, the Corps razed dozens of acres of the river’s wildlife habitat along the Sepulveda Basin, seriously pissed off the local water agency, violated the Clean Water Act, and potentially also violated endangered species protections.

State Sen. Kevin de León, one of several local officials who has demanded an explanation from the Corps, said the Sepulveda project “doesn’t bode well” for the future of efforts to revitalize the Los Angeles River’s natural landscape.

The Journal plays down the “Sepulveda incident” with this weird statement: “The federal interest, the public’s desires and a noticeable change in recent years in the way Los Angelenos view the river have cushioned the blow of the Sepulveda Basin shearing.”

If anything, the wetlands razing may just motivate the public to push the Army Corps harder to get this one right.

But even if the Corps cleans up its act, Los Angeles has a long way to go to clean up its river, which watchdog groups have found is periodically contaminated by mercury, arsenic, cyanide, lead, and fecal bacteria.

Earlier this month, the Supreme Court ruled that L.A. area governments were not responsible for the polluted water that flows through storm drains and into the Los Angeles and nearby San Gabriel Rivers. But, fearing further litigation and fines (lead! fecal bacteria!), the county is looking at less painful ways to fund the clean-up. It is now considering an “ambitious” property tax to pay for pollution remediation, at about $54 per house, and up to $11,000 per big box store, per year. Not surprisingly, it is not terribly popular with the locals.

Without the cash to pay for the infrastructure to filter the water, these are going to be some dirty, dirty wetlands indeed.

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So much hope and so many problems for the L.A. river

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California enjoys and/or suffers from a historic baby bust

by trasze2aja Posted on January 14, 2013

California enjoys and/or suffers from a historic baby bust

By Susie Cagle

Despite what my Facebook friend feed may be implying lately, California as a whole is not bursting at the seams with cute drooly babies. In fact, the Golden State is having a population crisis, at least by American standards. According to a new report from the University of Southern California, the state is making a “historic transition”: California’s fertility rate has dropped to 1.94 children per woman, below the 2.1 rate that replaces and grows the population and the economy. The U.S. birthrate was 2.06 children last year. Demographers are calling the drop, which has affected all racial and ethnic groups, “unprecedented” (and “European”).

Shutterstock

“Kids are no longer overrunning us. Now they’re in short supply,” demographer Dowell Myers told the San Jose Mercury News. “It changes the priorities for the state.”

Post-baby-boom, California had no population worries. In 1970, kids accounted for a third of the state’s population. Now they’re projected to make up one-fifth by 2030.

The Wall Street Journal is particularly hysterical about what a lower population might mean for California’s economic growth.

“Unless the birthrate picks up, we are going to need more immigrants. If neither happens, we are going to have less growth,” said [Stephen Levy, director of the Center for Continuing Study of the California Economy]. The report wasn’t optimistic, saying that “with migration greatly reduced…outsiders are much less likely to come to the rescue.”

Investments in the state’s education system will be vital to meet labor-force needs and prevent the economy from contracting, said Mr. Levy. With less migration to the state, the skills and human capital necessary to keep California’s economy afloat will need to be homegrown, both Mr. Levy and Mr. Myers said.

With more than 90% of the state’s children under age 10 born in the state, “the majority of the next generation of workers will have been shaped by California’s health and education systems,” Mr. Myers said. “It’s essential that we nurture our human capital.”

Yes, nurturing, let’s do that. But all these people are talking like California’s population is shrinking, which it’s not at all: Between 2010 and 2012, it grew by nearly 700,000 people, in large part due to immigration. That’s just a lot less growth than before.

It may be historic, but it’s hardly surprising. California suffered some of the worst fall-out from the housing boom and bust, has filled its jails well over capacity, and has cut services across the board, while many of its municipalities, as the Wall Street Journal put it, are slouching toward insolvency. At least a fifth of California’s kids grow up in poverty. Why should we be sad there aren’t more of them?

California’s kids will unfortunately face a heavier burden in taking care of the state’s booming elderly population. But with more kids, they’d also face a heavier burden in competing for dwindling resources. A smaller population is a more sustainable one in the long run. Immediate economic concerns aside, a goal of perpetual, endless growth isn’t good for anyone, the cute and drooly among us included.

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Record-high average gas prices in 2012 are almost certainly great news for oil companies

by kowalski099 Posted on January 2, 2013

Record-high average gas prices in 2012 are almost certainly great news for oil companies

By Philip Bump

These prices are actually low by today’s standards.

The Wall Street Journal is tremendously incensed about gas prices. For the record, it tells us in the headline of an article, gasoline was the most expensive ever in 2012.

The national average price of [gasoline] for the year was $3.60 a gallon, a significant jump from the previous record of $3.51 set in 2011. While 2008 is famous for a huge summer spike that drove the average above $4 a gallon, price[s] weren’t as consistently high as this year, leaving 2008 in third place overall at $3.25. …

AAA said the national average has broken a daily record high for a total [of] 248 days in 2012, including 134 consecutive days of records. April 5 and 6 marked the highest daily national average of the year at $3.94 a gallon … while the price dropped to its low point of $3.22 on Dec. 20.

The paper’s heavily conservative readership might be puzzled by this news. After all, this is what domestic oil production is doing:

And as we know from Republicans, increased drilling means gasoline prices should be going down. But they aren’t (as we’ve noted before). They’re bouncing all over the place.

GasBuddy.com

If we’re to believe that the key to reducing gas prices is more drilling, the second chart in this post should look like the first, except upside down. It doesn’t. It looks like this chart …

Post1.org

… which is the price of a barrel of oil over time. Because that’s what gasoline prices correlate to: how much a barrel of oil costs on the international market.

That gas-prices chart also looks a little like this one.

Data from DailyFinance.com

This graph shows quarterly earnings for oil companies. Up in the summer of 2011, back down, then up again. The correlation is between how much gas costs and how much oil companies earn.

At the end of this month, those companies will start releasing their 2012 profits. If the all-time high average price is any indicator, Exxon and Valero and Chevron and BP probably had a pretty good year.

Philip Bump writes about the news for Gristmill. He also uses Twitter a whole lot.

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