Excellent piece on Urban Gardening in Orion Magazine
http://www.orionmagazine.org/index.php/articles/article/6918
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Happy Fourth of July
Edward Achorn in this morning’s Providence Journal reminded me of Abraham Lincoln’s great regard for the Declaration of Independence. In his editorial he quotes Lincoln in a speech made August 17, 1858:
‘ We hold these truths to be self evident: that all men are created equal: that they are endowed with certain unalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.’ This was their majestic interpretation of the economy of the universe. This was their lofty, and wise, and noble understanding of the justice of the Creator to His creatures. Yes, gentlemen, to all His creatures, to the whole great family of man.
In their enlightened belief, nothing stamped with the Divine image and likeness was sent into the world to be trodden on, and degraded, and imbruted by its fellows. They grasped not only the whole race of man then living, but they reached forward and seized upon the farthest posterity. They erected a beacon to guide their children and their children’s children, and the countless myriads who should inhabit the earth in other ages.
Wise statesmen as they were, they knew the tendency of prosperity to breed tyrants, and so established these great self evident truths, ‘to protect people in future days when they might suffer under a government that forced its will on them for the benefit of economic and political interests, oppressing or stealing the labor of some to make others rich or powerful.’
They knew their posterity might look up again to the Declaration of Independence and take courage to renew the battle which their father began – so that truth, justice, and mercy, and all the humane and Christian virtues might not be extinguished from the land; so that no man would hereafter dare to limit and circumscribe the great principles on which the temple of liberty was being built.
What a wonderful string of words….’This was their majestic interpretation of the economy of the universe.’ With great irony we now begin to realize the qualities of the Declaration of Independence’s economic thought (See blog on happiness).
Mr. Achorn assumed Lincoln’s words sound hopelessly old-fashioned in today’s world. Other than the ‘man’ antique language, I would hope we can still appreciate Mr. Lincoln.
Happy Fourth of July.
Getting serious about happiness
The happiest countries in the world are all in Northern Europe (Denmark, Norway, Finland, Netherlands). Their average life evaluation score is 7.6 on a 0-to-10 scale. The least happy countries are all poor countries in Sub-Saharan Africa (Togo, Benin, Central African Republic, Sierra Leone) with average life evaluation scores of 3.4. But it is not just wealth that makes people happy: Political freedom, strong social networks and an absence of corruption are together more important than income in explaining well-being differences between the top and bottom countries. At the individual level, good mental and physical health, someone to count on, job security and stable families are crucial.
These are among the findings of the first ever World Happiness Report (download PDF), commissioned for the April 2nd United Nations Conference on Happiness (mandated by the UN General Assembly). The report, published by the Earth Institute and co-edited by the institute’s director, Jeffrey Sachs, reflects a new worldwide demand for more attention to happiness and absence of misery as criteria for government policy. It reviews the state of happiness in the world today and shows how the new science of happiness explains personal and national variations in happiness.
The Article
How food shapes our cities
The moral imperative for educational policy
It has been two years since the administration’s Race to the Top education competition was implemented, and scholars, advocates, practitioners and journalists are asking whether the program has been effective. From my perspective, this is the wrong question. We must instead determine whether a contest that provides support to some but not others is sufficient for addressing the structural inequities that make separate and unequal education a persistent fact of life in America today.
Race to the Top and other competitive grant programs are essentially designed to help those who can run, but our nation must be committed to lift from the bottom in order to provide equal, high-quality education for all children everywhere. Our present education policy does not meet this moral imperative.
I was extremely uncomfortable last year when it was announced that Rhode Island had ‘won’ a substantial financial award in the Race to the Top Program…
The Jesse Jackson Opinion Piece
Population Growth and Ecological Planning
A very interesting TED talk on population growth…..slightly less than fifteen minutes and very valuable.
Voluntary Carbon Trading…the latest financial scam
An interesting article about the number of ‘scams’ developing around voluntary carbon trading.
North Carolina Legislates a New Dark Ages
Most debates about climate change have an abstract quality, in part because they tend to be about the whole world and deal with collective action that seems increasingly remote. But go down to the local level, and the climate issue becomes alarmingly concrete. Among the first to feel the impact of climate change will be coastal communities, which will have to put in place practical policies to deal with rising seas, more intense storms, and more frequent floods. Otherwise, a lot of homes, businesses and infrastructure will be damaged or destroyed, and people will die. Just ask the folks in New Orleans gearing up for another hurricane season.
But if you live in North Carolina, whose delicate barrier islands protect extensive lowlands vulnerable to both hurricane storm surges and flooding from heavy rains, think again. The state legislature is in the process of deciding not merely to ignore climate change, but to make it illegal.
The Forbes Article
U.S. economy heading straight for the cliff
Washington (CNN) — You do not have to be an investor in the stock market or real estate or looking for a job to be alarmed when several highly regarded observers warn that the United States economy is about to be driven “off the cliff” by increasing debt, the expiration of tax cuts and the prospect of deep spending cuts.
The alarm should concern anyone who cares about our democratic system.
The reason we are getting awfully close to the edge is because the Democrats and Republicans are inclined to pull the steering wheel in opposite directions. Granted, alarms are often sounded, but as we shall see shortly, this time there are strong reasons to fear that our gridlocked political system will prevent us from responding before we go over the edge.
The most authoritative voice speaking out this time is that of Ben Bernanke, the chairman of the Federal Reserve. He stated recently that, “It is very important to say that if no action were to be taken by the fiscal authorities, the size of the fiscal cliff is such that there is, I think, absolutely no chance that the Federal Reserve could or would have any ability whatsoever to offset that effect on the economy.”
The Article
Environmental Finance
Bunge, the agri-business ‘giant’, recently acquired Climate Change Capital…leading to a change in focus toward ‘impact investing’.
I always end up confused…particularly when they talk of CCC holding $1.4 B in ‘committments’. I know what they mean by committments, but I do not know (and they do not explain) how that translates to Company balance sheet.
Big numbers…impact investing….does this make sense?
The Article
Richard Pace 