Rising Tide, Floundering Boats
Worth noting: as this L.A. Times article explains, a rising economic tide in the US is still leaving college-educated workers floundering:
Earnings for workers with four-year degrees fell 5.2% from 2000 to 2004 when adjusted for inflation, according to White House economists.
It seems that, for a widening share of workers, income has become untethered from standard the yardsticks of prosperity. Sure, economic output is rising, both total and per capita. Productivity is up. Profits are up. Unemployment is relatively low. But personal income is following a different trajectory.
Of course, there could be all sorts of confounding factors in play. A hot economy brings more people into the workforce, which surpresses wages. The number of college-educated workers could be rising, diluting the value of a college diploma. And so forth. But it's still hard to call an economy "thriving" when the typical worker -- even one with a good education -- is having a harder time making ends meet. And above all, it makes me wonder if it isn't time to look for better yardsticks of prosperity.
What's Driving Global Warming?
I'm not sure why this surprises me, but it does: in the Northwest states, transportation--our cars and trucks, plus planes, boats, and trains--accounts for the majority of the region's CO2 emissions from fossil fuels.
When you break the numbers down a bit more, gasoline alone accounts for almost a third of all energy-related CO2 emissions.
For the country overall, transportation represents only about one third of total emissions from fossil fuels. But that's mostly an accident of geography: the Northwest's hydropower is relatively climate-friendly, which keeps emissions from homes, businesses and industry relatively low; whereas coal -- which supplies most of the nation's electricity -- is a first-order climate offender. Nationwide, electricity generation accounts for nearly 40 percent of total climate-warming emissions from fossil fuels.
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Required Reading On Property "Rights" - #19
[Note: This is a part of a series.]
If you're following the Northwest's gaggle of anti-planning ballot measures, you have some new required reading today...
In the Oregonian, first rate reporting from Laura Oppenheimer on Washington's Initiative 933, the progeny of Oregon's Measure 37. She takes a look at I-933's supporters and opponents and their competing beliefs. Also, in the Oregonian, an excellent article by Allan Brettman on what would happen under I-933 to Portland's biggest suburb, Vancouver, Washington, where farms and suburbs share an uneasy detente.
In High Country News, writer Ray Ring investigates for-hire signature gatherers in Montana, where Initiative 154 was similarly spawned by Oregon's Measure 37. Ring also tracks I-154's shadowy campaign funding all the way to Howard Rich, the New York real estate tycoon who is bankrolling initiatives in several states.
High Country News also has five must-read profiles on Oregon residents who are personally affected by Measure 37. And HCN has a nifty round-up of the status of anti-planning initiatives in Western states.
Finally, in a preview of what other Northwest states may be facing if their anti-planning ballot measures pass, the New York Times' Timothy Egan takes a hard look at a notorious Measure 37 claim in central Oregon. Unless Oregon taxpayers pony up $203 million, a property owner will carve up his in-holding in Newberry Crater National Volcanic Monument with a mine, an energy project, and tract vacation housing.
