The greater the disparity in wealth between the very rich and everyone else, the more unstable an economy becomes. Our nation has now created a larger gap in the distribution of wealth than the massive chasm that helped fuel the Great Depression.
Photo Courtesy Ryan Rickett On Wednesday evening, Barneys New York Fashion Director Julie Gilhart hosted a launch of Rozae Nichols’ new line, IAN, in conjunction with the launch of The Huffington Post’s newest local blog, Los Angeles, under Managing Editor Willow Bay. As one would expect from Barneys in Beverly Hills, it was truly a chic and elegant event, complete with champagne and canapés. Willow Bay, Rozae Nichols, Arianna Huffington and Julie Gilhart sat as a panel and answered questions. In…
Earlier this month (Dec. 7, 2009), two Op-Ed columns appeared in the New York Times–one, by Nobel-winning economist Paul Krugman, supporting ‘cap and trade’ strategies for reducing carbon emissions, and the other, authored by NASA’s James Hansen advocating a new approach that he calls ‘fee and dividend’. So, which is the most effective policy to pursue and implement? The following is a break down of the two carbon-cutting strategies:
There is only one way to avoid the collapse of our species on the planet earth: we have to consume less. And I believe that the world renowned Reverend Billy Talen and the Church of Life after Shopping can show us the path to sustainable righteousness. Buy Nothing Day, participate by not participating
Foragers coming in loaded with pollen on the hive landing board. In 2007, large commercial beekeepers started reporting big drop-offs in their bee colony populations. By 2008, estimated colony losses of between 30 and 70% were being reported, as a flurry of bad news about bees made the media rounds. The loss since then of over 40% of the nation’s commercial honey bee (Apis mellifera) colonies–most seemingly due to so-called Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD; caused most likely by the IAPV…
The United Nations (UN) released a report on September 1 that gives their strongest criticism of climate change funding to date. They say that rich, developed nations really need to step it up in the battle to control and reduce climate change. They say that funding should be about 27 times higher than it currently is ($500-600 billion compared to $21 billion annually). The UN states that it does not “shy away… from insisting that the advanced countries will have…
Greenpeace’s “Solar Generation” activists installed solar panels on President Obama’s Grandmother’s house in Kenya last week.
Just a couple of weeks ago, soya traders agreed to extend a moratorium on buying soya linked to Amazon destruction. However, as discussed in January, 80% of Amazon deforestation is from cattle farming. With continued involvement of major international organizations and companies — Greenpeace, McDonald’s, Nike, Wal-Mart, and Carrefour — a giant leap in protection of the Amazon was made a few days ago.
A study published in PLoS One has found that climatic conditions by the middle to end of the 21st century will no longer support some of California’s main tree crops. California’s Central Valley currently grows $9 Billion dollars worth of apples, walnuts, cherries, prunes, peaches, pistachios and almonds. The study is the result of work on climate modeling based on the effects of likely climate change in California’s Central Valley. Temperatures have been rising a degree Fahreneheit for the last…
The EU is cutting electricity use equivalent to Sweden and Austria’s annual usage. In total, after previous ecodesign regulations, the savings will be greater than Italy’s total consumption by 2020. The European Union (EU) agreed to cut carbon emissions by 20% by 2020 earlier this year. They stated: “The challenge is to spark a new industrial revolution that will deliver a low-energy economy, whilst making the energy we consume more secure.” In another move to spark this new industrial revolution,…
South Africa is a world leader both in terms of mineral resources and in the development of mining technology to extract these resources. The industry there leads the world in many areas, and has had enormous impact on the growth of Africa and on the environment. 1. The Biggest Open Cast, Hand Dug Mine in the World The Big Hole of Kimberly was dug by hand, using picks and shovels. There is debate about whether the Big Hole is the…
Last Wednesday, as I was riding my bicycle down Third Street to the farmer’s market, my thoughts turned to the economist Jospeh Schumpeter and his seminal book “Capitalism, Socialism and Democracy”. Streams of loud cars and trucks barreled past me on the road, some of the vehicles nearly grazing me as oblivious drivers chattered on cell phones. As I continued pedaling down the street, images of organic daikon and Schumpeter’s theory of “Creative Destruction” swirled around in my brain.