Editor's Take: July 23, 2008
Credit: eole, flickr
The Eco in Economics
Today, David Suzuki asks us to put the "eco" back in "economics," and that's just what communities around Cascadia are doing. Solar energy could bring a green job boom to Oregon. Meanwhile, California starts giving low-interest loans to help families make energy-saving investments and one Montana community thinks it has what it takes to balance jobs, forests, and local economies.
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California Pays Out for Energy-Saving Improvements
Los Angeles Times
07/22/2008
California on Monday enacted a law that allows cities and counties to make low-interest loans to homeowners and businesses to install solar panels, high-efficiency air conditioners and other energy-saving improvements.
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Montana Project Promotes Jobs, Community, Forests
Missoulian
07/23/2008
In the modern West, development is converting many rural areas into a problematic "wildland-urban interface," but Forest Service officials believe they've found the answer in their Frenchtown Face restoration project. The $1 million project is designed to reduce the risk of severe wildfires and restore the forest's health, while producing jobs and revenue for the local economy.
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Sun Has Green Collar Jobs in Oregon on the Rise
Oregonian
07/23/2008
At least three big solar companies are considering Oregon for manufacturing plants that, along with the unannounced expansion of an existing project, could provide thousands of family-wage jobs. The Oregonian has uncovered expansion plans and potential plants that would build the state into something of a Solar Forest.
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Alaska House Approves Gas Pipeline Plan
Anchorage Daily News
07/23/2008
Members of the House of Representatives voted late Tuesday to approve an exclusive state license for a Canadian energy company proposing to build a natural gas pipeline down the Alaska Highway to Alberta. The 24-16 vote supports the license for Calgary-based TransCanada Corp., one of the continent's biggest gas pipeline operators.
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Pine Beetle Ravaged Areas Plan for Social Chaos
Toronto Globe and Mail
07/23/2008
Communities in the British Columbia region hardest hit by a massive pine-beetle epidemic have come up with a blueprint for how to survive a bleak economic period that could follow when logging levels fall by an anticipated 70 per cent.
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Breast Cancer Among Native Women May be Leveling
Anchorage Daily News
07/22/2008
A mysterious 30-year-long increase in breast cancer rates among Alaska Native women may finally be leveling off - after tripling between 1969 and 1998. At least that's the hope, said Janet Kelly, an epidemiologist with the Alaska Native Tribal Health Consortium, addressing a local cancer symposium Tuesday.
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Idaho: 42,000 May Gain from Minimum-Wage Boost
Boise Idaho Statesman
07/23/2008
Thursday's 70-cent increase in the hourly minimum wage will boost paychecks for almost 22,000 more jobs across Idaho on top of nearly 20,000 that were affected by the initial increase a year ago, the Idaho Labor Department said Tuesday.
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US Rushes to Change Workplace Toxin Rules
Washington Post
07/23/2008
Political appointees at the Department of Labor are moving with unusual speed to push through in the final months of the Bush administration a rule making it tougher to regulate workers' on-the-job exposure to chemicals and toxins. The agency did not disclose the proposal, as required, in public notices of regulatory plans that it filed in December and May.
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Why Your Happiness Matters to the Planet
The Christian Science Monitor
07/22/2008
Overall, people around the world have grown happier during the past 25 years, according to the most recent World Values Survey (WVS), a periodic assessment of happiness in 97 nations. On average, people describing themselves as "very happy" have increased by nearly 7 percent. The findings seem to contradict the view, held by some, that national happiness levels are more or less fixed.
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Views: Time to Put the Eco Back in Economics
Georgia Straight
07/23/2008
Economics and ecology are based on the same root word, eco, from the Greek oikos, meaning "home". Ecology is the study of home while economics is its management. It seems obvious that managing our "home" would depend on understanding these conditions and principles. But in elevating economics above everything else, we ignore the reality that we live within and make a living from the finite confines of the biosphere - the thin layer of air, water, and soil where all life exists.
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