Category: Environment

Wood Project Gives Ex-Offenders New Lives

On June 14, 2018

In Climate Change, Environment, Ex-Offender Rehabiitation, Jobs, Low Income Finance, Solution

(Editor Note: Insight Bytes focus on key economic issues and solutions for all of us, on Thursdays we spotlight in more depth Solutions to issues we have identified. Fridays we focus on how to build the Common Good. Please right click on images to see them larger in a separate tab.)

Photo: USA Today

The US Forest Services has kicked off a new program to reclaim urban lumber from abandoned homes by using workers from non-profits who had criminal records. The innovative program attacks two major problems in urban centers like Baltimore, where 70 % of criminal offenders are returned to prison within 3 years, and there are over 16,000 abandoned structures in the city. Quite often the abandoned structures are hives of prostitution, drugs and criminal activity.

Morgan Grove, Urban Wood Project leader, says “It’s about air quality and water quality. It’s also about reducing crime and helping people move forward”. She continued by declaring, “At its core, it’s really still maintaining the mission of revitalizing that the Forest Service has had since the agency was started in the early 1900s.”

The following table outlines the linked issues of high crime, abandoned buildings, high prison rates and the health of communities:

Sources: Justice Policy Institute, Prison Policy Initiative – Maryland, USA Today – 6/11/18

It is interesting to note the issues Baltimore city officials face in reclaiming their communities to return them to being healthy places to live, environmentally, and to redeem the people in the community to a productive life. We see many of these same issues in the rural regions of our country, that have been left behind by losing jobs to other offshore sites, reduced education opportunities, poor health, drugs and slow Internet infrastructure.

As a country we are missing the opportunity to rebuild lives, the environment and the economy unless we support innovative programs like the Urban Wood Project.

Lyft Takes Responsibility for the Environment

By Patrick Hill

On June 7, 2018

In Climate Change, Environment, Oil, Pollution, Renewable Energy

Image: lyft.com

Lyft recently announced that it will be purchasing carbon offset credits to be used to make riding in Lyft cars carbon neutral. John Zimmer, Lyft, co-founder noted in a Medium post that in 2017 when President Trump announced the US was leaving the Paris Climate Agreement that Lyft was joining many other companies in We Are Still In, to declare as an alliance their commitment to protecting the environment. The group started by Michael Bloomberg brings state and local governments, businesses, universities and colleges representing 120 million Americans and $6.2 trillion of the economy affirming their commitment to the Paris agreement.

Zimmer outlines a bold effort with multi-million dollar investments in carbon control or emissions projects near major markets in Ohio, Michigan, and Oklahoma. The $11 billion ride sharing company declares, “your decision to ride with Lyft will support the fight against climate change.” The ride hailing company sees a future where all their vehicles are electric and carbon emission free – as the race is on toward electric cars and possible autonomous rides.

We applaud the move by Lyft, taking on corporate social responsibility for the millions of tons of emissions that Lyft cars are spewing into the air every year. Some studies show that ride sharing rather than reducing the number of car rides people take, they actually are increasing because using the app is so easy and the cost relatively inexpensive. So, the move and commitment by Lyft to take responsibility for our environment is a key move we expect to see from every company that adds carbon emissions to the atmosphere.

Here are examples of the carbon footprint of various types of cars and transportation systems:

Sources: DEFRA, EIA, EPA, GREET, Shrinkthatfootprint.com – 6/7/18

Clearly the combination of solar with electric cars is promising along with public transit like the school bus or Eurostar rail. We need to make carbon emissions emitted by all businesses a priority in government policy transparency to show consumers and investors how businesses are contributing to carbon emissions and what they are doing about the problem. The Lyft Green Cities Initiative demonstrates the commitment by Lyft to take responsibility for our environment that we expect to see from every business as they all contribute carbon emissions to the atmosphere.

Ocean Cleanup Takes on the Plastic Environmental Challenge

By Patrick Hill

On May 31, 2018

In Environment, Pollution, Solution

(Editor Note: Insight Bytes focus on key economic issues and solutions for all of us, on Thursdays we spotlight in more depth Solutions to issues we have identified. Fridays we focus on how to build the Common Good. Please right click on images to see them larger in a separate tab.)

Photo: The Ocean Cleanup

We have noted in recent discussions the environmental disaster lurking in our oceans from tons of plastic. Now there is a company that is doing something about this problem with unique technology to pull the plastic out of the ocean. The non-profit, The Ocean Cleanup Foundation headquartered in the Netherlands with its first operations center in Alameda, California in the San Francisco Bay has developed an innovative passive system with a floater, a solid screen floor and sea ancho causing the system to move slower than the plastic and guide the debris into a collection system.

The Ocean Cleanup prototype has been tested over the past several months in the ocean outside the Golden Gate. The environmental group plan on launching the first operational system in June to begin removal of plastic in the Great Pacific Garbage Patch in the Northern Pacific. Founder, Slat Boyton, estimates their system will collect up to 50 % of the garbage or 40,000 metric tons can be collected in 5 years.

Sources: NOAA, Woods Hole Grant, BBC – 2014

It is critical to clean up the existing plastic as it takes 450 years to degrade completely and prior degrading can sometimes be in micro plastic pieces easily stuck in the digestive systems of ocean wildlife.

Ocean Cleanup plans on bringing the plastic back for recycling and sale to plastic reuse companies. While recycling economics may not allow for a break even business, the UN estimates the value in damage to the marine ecosystem at $13 billion. Regardless of the cost, plastic pollution at the magnitude it is now destroying wildlife, will eventually cut a key link in the life food chain and hurt us all.

We are pleased to see Boyton and his team take on this huge environmental threat to our oceans, the wildlife that lives there and our own existence in the end.

Activists Push Environmental Corporate Reform at McDonalds

By Patrick Hill

On May 24, 2018

In Corporate Nation State, Corporate Reform, Environment, Solution

Image: thepeoplesconvention.org

We believe corporate behavior will most likely only change when shareholders demand change through corporate reform. While some farsighted companies are moving to all sustainable materials for their packaged goods McDonalds has been slow to make it happen.

McDonalds says it is willing to move to eliminate plastic straws by 2025 – seven years from now. That timeframe is just too late. There are plastic straw substitutes like biodegradables are available now made from starch, corn or bamboo. The giant restaurateur has been dragging on making shift. Plastic in our oceans is a huge problem, destroying habitat for ocean creatures and fouling their food sources multiplying each year by 8 million metric tons.

Source: The Ocean Conservancy – 5/24/18

We applaud the plastic straw proposal by SumOfUs, corporate reform activists, obtaining 450,000 signatures to qualify for a shareholder vote.

Corporate decision making must continue to be monitored, and when a decision is making our planet more uninhabitable it must be changed to make our life here sustainable. The reality is that those profits are not going to matter in a planet where our environment is destroying the world we live in placing people world-wide in jeopardy of shortened life spans.

Unfortunately, today the plastic straw proposal only received 8 % of shareholder votes. The vote of major shareholders and institutions against the proposal shows there is still work to be done to in corporate reform. We are pleased to see major institutions, like Blackrock, where CEO Larry Fink has demanded that companies they invest in get more engaged in environmental issues and ‘how’ they make money not just make money. When CEOs at major companies see that it is in their interest to move the paradigm of environmental protection ahead then we will know that they are listening to us, the people, rather than Wall Street. Corporations and the wealthy control Congress so we need to go directly to Corporate Nation States to bring about real change.

High Gasoline Prices Hurt Low Income Consumers Most

By Patrick Hill

On May 15, 2018

In Climate Change, Environment, Oil

Image: earthfinds.co.ug

OPEC nations have been reducing their oil output over the past few months, while the US has been increasing its output – to the point where the US has become a net oil exporting country. Yet, with the US pulling out of the Iran Nuclear Agreement, oil prices shot up even higher. For a regular gallon of gas, the price has increased 23 % over a year ago.

Source: gasprices.aaa.com – 5/15/18

Prices are highest in the Western states and East Coast where there are more environmental regulations requiring special gas additives and higher taxes for road maintenance. Major gasoline price rises anywhere hit the lowest income groups the hardest, yet even harder in expensive Western and East Coast states.

Sources: Bureau of Labor Statistics, Morgan Stanley Research, The Wall Street Journal, The Daily Shot – 5/15/18

Low income people are already squeezed by higher rents, fewer low cost homes to purchase, rising health care costs, higher health insurance for individuals by undermining the Obamacare exchanges, higher debt, low wages and longer commutes (as often they don’t have the money to live near work). Longer commutes mean that a gasoline price increases hurt these long commuters harder than other drivers.

Next steps:

We need to get back to a focus on the 80 % and the lower income 10 – 20 % who are taking the brunt of price increases for necessities across our economy. We need to invest in affordable housing near employment to reduce commutes (reduce as purchases), public transportation in rail, bus and tram systems. While, reducing environment regulations may help the oil industry to pump more oil, we do so at the cost of our environment and health in the future – where quite often lower income people live near refineries and pollution leaking tank sites. Investing in renewable energy sources to reduce our need for costly gas offers more alternatives and is an environmentally sound strategy. Plus, corporate employers could help hourly and lower salary workers with public transportation credits to be used to reduce expenses of driving by supporting car pools and using public transportation. Local and State government can offer tax deductions on the matching grants to corporations that offer public transportation and carpooling credits.

California Leads with Solar New Home Requirement

By Patrick Hill

On May 10, 2018

In Climate Change, Environment, Renewable Energy, Solution

Photo: npr.org

The State of California is the first state in the country to require all new homes being built beginning in 2020 have solar panels. The requirement applies to all single family and condo units up to three stories high. The additional cost is estimated to be about $9, 500 added onto one of the highest median prices in the country at $565,000.

Some observers would have preferred that the State focus on building large solar farms rather than residences since the residence approach means that utilities have to deal with power coming up line that may be difficult for them to handle. Yet, residence based solar panel electricity provides for a more distributed system, rather than a centralized one offering more redundancy, options for homeowners and great self-reliance.

The residence based electricity option basically poses an alternative to central line based power utilities. Essentially with competition from residences it will spur utilities to cut costs and see how to move into renewable energy quicker to take advantage of lower costs for solar power.

Sources: California Energy Commission, The Wall Street Journal – 5/9/18

The shift to renewable energy sources is crucial to meet objects for climate change as endorsed by 175 countries in the Paris Climate Accord. When we think about the consequences of not meeting the challenge of climate change it is unthinkable how hostile our planet will be to live on – eventually making it uninhabitable.

We call for a national initiative to make renewables the standard for all new homes. As we have noted almost 60 % of the people want to set the environment as a priority even if there is an economic cost. if the federal government won’t do it then the top 20 new housing states should implement the plan and make renewables as the de facto approach toward home building.

To assist first time buyers, we recommend the State of California offer for homes under $400k an energy credit to be used as a credit on families’ state taxes to help out with the added solar expense added onto the price of a new home.

Let’s get the country moving toward renewable energy as our standard way of building communities and enjoy a climate that we all can live in.

GOP Leadership Not Legislating the Will of the People – Environment

By Patrick Hill

On April 3, 2018

In Environment

Photo: pinterest.com

As the GOP Administration announces a rollback of car efficiency standards set by the Obama administration, the GOP leadership continues to be out of step with the will of the people. A recent poll by Gallup shows a significant shift in the attitude of Americans about the tradeoffs between the environment and the economy. Now US citizens believe that the environment is the first priority even if it reduces some economic growth.

Sources: Gallup, The Wall Street Journal, The Daily Shot – 4/3/18

The shift in concerns about the environment over the economy started in 2014 until today where an overwhelming majority 57 % of Americans say the environment is the first priority even at the risk of curbing economic growth.

Next Steps:

The environment is a non-partisan issue actually, if we don’t have clean water, air or land on our planet we won’t be able to survive here. This administration has taken giant steps backward by withdrawing from the Paris Climate Treaty, relaxing clean water standards for coal producing area streams, allowing energy and mining on protected wilderness lands, opening ocean protected areas to oil drilling and now rolling back car mileage goals. It is time for all Americans to make their will known to our elected leaders in Congress and the White House by requiring our politicians pass laws that reflect the will of the people over the short term goals of energy, mining and car manufacturers who don’t seem to care enough about our survival. We have noted the lack of scientific or intelligent policy making in the recent EPA decision to not use generally accepted research or data to make policy decisions. The EPA positions on our health, the environment and priorities to protect our people are totally one hundred and eighty degrees out of sync with the will of the people and must change – now!

EPA Continues Attack on Health in Disguised Policy

By Patrick Hill

On March 27, 2018

In Conflicts of Interest, Environment

Image: epa.gov

The EPA quietly has been planning a change to its policy on the use of scientific research to make it more ‘transparent and scientific’. Their plan is to disregard any scientific research that uses confidential study data. So, research into the health of American’s affected by fossil fuels with confidential health records of study patients would have to be redacted and made available for researchers from industry or universities taking industry funds. The process of de identifying patient data would cost millions of dollars. The EPA is standing sound scientific research on its head by telling us they are making it more ‘scientific’ while they throw out studies like the ‘Six Cities’ 1993 study by Harvard University identifying a link between air pollution and premature deaths. The new kill scientific data based studies policy will have broad ramifications across all policy areas, providing the EPA with the means to select whatever research it likes to relax regulations on industry behavior that will be harmful to our health.

Meanwhile, most of the energy industry is looking ahead investing in renewables:

Source: EIA, The Wall Street Journal, The Daily Shot – 3/13/18

The EPA is looking to protect the revenue streams of fossil fuel companies who are already in need of a change in their business models.

The American Lung Association reports that in 2017 that 40 percent of Americans still live in areas where the air is still unhealthy to breathe. So, the EPA has more work to do, not relax regulations.

Next Steps:

It is clear what is happening with this new bogus policy, EPA leadership is working to dismantle the work of the agency over the past 20 years to protect American’s health, by undermining the scientific foundation of EPA policies and federal laws. Our political leaders in Congress need to take a look further than next quarter’s profits for the fossil fuel industry and do its job of protecting the health of 125 million Americans breathing unhealthy air. Our Insight Byte of March 15 in our Insight Byte Archive reviews how our economy related to the environment is interlocked and connected as well as our health.