Where to invade next
Econ4 does not accept advertising dollars. And we don’t promote commercial ventures. But for the first time ever, we’re making this exception (free promotion – still no dollars) for Michael Moore’s latest film. It debuts in theaters on Feb. 12.
Paving the way to a clean energy future
And now, something hopeful:
The French government plans to pave 1,000 kilometers (621 miles) of its roads with solar panels in the next five years, which will supply power to millions of people.
“The maximum effect of the program, if successful, could be to furnish 5 million people with electricity, or about 8 percent of the French population,” Ségolène Royal, France’s minister of ecology and energy, said….
France’s Agency of Environment and Energy Management said that 4 meters (14 feet) of solarized road would be enough to supply the electrical needs of one household, excluding heat. One kilometer (0.62 miles) will supply enough electricity for 5,000 residents.
Read more and see a video about it here.
Let them drink pollution?
The drinking water crisis in Flint, Michigan, is a wake-up call, writes Econ4’s James Boyce:
The tragic crisis in Flint, Michigan, where residents have been poisoned by lead contamination, is not just about drinking water. And it’s not just about Flint. It’s about race and class, and the stark contradiction between the American dream of equal rights and opportunity for all and the American nightmare of metastasizing inequality of wealth and power.
Read his post for the Institute for New Economic Thinking here.
Video remix contest: recent entries
For your viewing pleasure, here are two more recent entries in the Econ4 Video Remix Contest. The deadline for prize eligibility is February 1st. Submit yours soon!
More entries in the Econ4 video contest
Here, for your inspiration and entertainment, are two more recent entries in the Econ4 Video Remix Contest. We’ll continue to post selected entries.
Reminder: Deadline for prize eligibility is February 1st.
Video remix: More entries
Here we share two more recent entries in the Econ4 Video Remix Contest. We’ll continue to post selected entries in coming weeks.
Reminder: Deadline for prize eligibility is February 1st.
Talk about perverse incentives
More guns -> more deaths -> more guns. A vicious circle becomes a business model:
While the country reels from a series of mass shootings, each one reigniting the debate over the regulation of firearms, the hottest investments in the stock market seem to be shares of gun manufacturers.
Read it and weep: here.
Econ4 Video Remix Contest: Great entries
It’s time to start sharing some of the great entries we’ve received in the Econ4 Video Remix Contest. Stay tuned for more!
Entries received by February 1, 2016, are eligible for cash prizes. You can enter here.
Another energy future is possible
A new study by Stanford University scientist Mark Jacobson and colleagues offers a blueprint for a fossil-free energy future in the 50 U.S. states and across the globe:
Globally, the transition to clean, renewable energy would create more than 20 million more jobs than would be lost in the transition. It would also stabilize energy costs, thanks to free fuels such as wind, water and the sun; reduce terrorism risk by distributing electricity generation; and eliminate the overwhelming majority of heat-trapping emissions that contribute to climate change.
Where water flows to money
Engineers think water flows downhill. Economists think it flows to money. We think they’re right, and it’s wrong. Read what’s happening in California here:
APPLE VALLEY, Calif. — Outside her two-story tract home in this working-class town, Debbie Alberts, a part-time food service worker, has torn out most of the lawn. She has given up daily showers and cut her family’s water use nearly in half, to just 178 gallons per person each day.
A little more than 100 miles west, a resident of the fashionable Los Angeles hills has been labeled “the Wet Prince of Bel Air” after drinking up more than 30,000 gallons of water each day — the equivalent of 400 toilet flushes each hour with two showers running constantly, with enough water left over to keep the lawn perfectly green.
Only one of them has been fined for excessive water use: Ms. Alberts.
More here.
