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11.12.2009

Link between falling minimum wage, cheap food & obesity

From the National Bureau of Economic Resesarch:

Growing consumption of increasingly less expensive food, and especially “fast food”, has been cited as a potential cause of increasing rate of obesity in the United States over the past several decades. Because the real minimum wage in the United States has declined by as much as half over 1968-2007 and because minimum wage labor is a major contributor to the cost of food away from home we hypothesized that changes in the minimum wage would be associated with changes in bodyweight over this period. To examine this, we use data from the Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System from 1984-2006 to test whether variation in the real minimum wage was associated with changes in body mass index (BMI).
From Grist.org article & the study:
[E]ven though lower income persons are more likely than higher income persons to be obese, obesity has increased most among higher income persons in recent years, as might be expected if changes in the price of food away from home were driving increases in obesity.
You know, how fast food has gotten cheaper relative to making your own lunch/dinner with healthy food at home, eating out more often piles on the weight more easily.

Take the Single-Use Plastic Emergency Response (S.U.P.E.R.) Hero Pledge

Learn about PlasticPollutionCoalition.org:

Plastic Pollution 101: The basic concepts

Plastic is forever.

Plastic has become a plague.

Plastic affects human health.

Recycling is not a sustainable solution.

The Pacific Garbage Patch.

Take the pledge:
I will follow the “4 Rs” of sustainable living in the following order of preference:
Refuse:

Just say NO to single-use and disposable plastics like bags and bottles, straws, cups, plates, silverware and razors. Instead, bring your own shopping and produce bags to the market. Carry a reusable bottle with you for drinking on the go. Bring your travel mug to the coffee shop. Pack your own utensils. Skip the straw. (Plastic straws are for suckers!) Bring your own containers for take-out or ask for non-plastic disposable packaging.
Reduce:

Reduce waste: buy in bulk, choose products with the least packaging, look for products and packaging made from renewable resources, and avoid plastic packaging and containers. Choose products that have the least amount of disposable parts, like razors with replaceable blades and toothbrushes with replaceable brushes.
Reuse:

Reuse preferably nontoxic (glass, stainless steel) containers and goods to make less waste. Bad habits are disposable, containers are reusable.
Recycle:

Recycle what you can’t refuse, reduce or reuse. Recycling is a last option because it uses energy, and there may not be a market for the refabricated materials.

I will be a S.U.P.E.R. Hero!
Then go to Fake Plastic Fish and show your plastic:
Take the challenge. Collect your plastic waste (both recyclable and non) for one week or more. Then photograph, tally, and post it here. What can we learn about our habits and lifestyles by examining our waste? And what changes can each of us make to leave the planet a little less trashy?
Refuse plastic bags.

Beautiful photos of albatross chicks killed by being fed plastic

Watch this in HD full screen. The music is powerful too.



From Chris Jordan's YouTube page:

The nesting babies are fed bellies-full of plastic by their parents, who soar out over the vast polluted ocean collecting what looks to them like food to bring back to their young. On this diet of human trash, every year tens of thousands of albatross chicks die on Midway from starvation, toxicity, and choking.
From the photographer's website, ChrisJordan.com:
The pervasiveness of our consumerism holds a seductive kind of mob mentality. Collectively we are committing a vast and unsustainable act of taking, but we each are anonymous and no one is in charge or accountable for the consequences. I fear that in this process we are doing irreparable harm to our planet and to our individual spirits.
The music for Midway. Message from the Gyre is "15 Aftermaths" from "Vol 1. : Battle Cry".
The long, complex journey that leads us home. This is the first song I ever wrote, when I was 15-years-old.
From MidwayJourney.com:
Midway Atoll, one of the remotest islands on earth, is a kaleidoscope of geography, culture, human history, and natural wonder. It also serves as a lens into one of the most profound and symbolic environmental tragedies of our time: the deaths by starvation of thousands of albatrosses who mistake floating plastic trash for food.
Do something!

Help fund the artists by donating or buying their work.
Ban the use of plastic bags near our waterways.
Forward this story to every one you know.
Never use helium balloons.
Never litter.

Originally saw this at MNN.com.

11.11.2009

Wall Street Execs should donate 100% of their bonuses to help Vets get health care

From Bloomberg news, Wall Street bonuses are up 60% vs 2008:

The firms -- the three biggest banks to exit the Troubled Asset Relief Program -- will hand out $29.7 billion in bonuses, according to analysts’ estimates.
The big banks continue to get free money from us in the form of 0% Fed Funds Rate, Federal Guarantees in various forms and other programs amounting to trillions of dollars a year most you aren't aware of. They are continuing to make mad money, taking the same risks they took before they blew up the economy and got bailed out, and are paying larger bonuses on top of that.

Vets, who have proudly served their country, die every day due to a lack of health care.

From a research team at Harvard Medical School, their study found:
A research team at Harvard Medical School estimates 2,266 U.S. military veterans under the age of 65 died last year because they lacked health insurance and thus had reduced access to care. That figure is more than 14 times the number of deaths (155) suffered by U.S. troops in Afghanistan in 2008, and more than twice as many as have died (911 as of Oct. 31) since the war began in 2001.
The solution?

The Bank Execs should donate 100% of their bonuses we helped them make to fund a Health Care System that would insure 100% of all Vets.

Vets deserve no less.