a waterblog

Now I Know Who Else Besides Me Reads the Penn 'Gazette'

noreply@blogger.com (Ryan) — Wed, 06 Jan 2010 22:36:00 +0000

I'm sad to see that Penn has bought into the idea of man-made "global warming," otherwise known as "climate change." This is the biggest hoax in human history, and is associated with extreme liberal viewpoints. I expected more from an institution of higher learning.

- Lawrence A. Post, RES '53, Clayton, Calif.

will.i.am's bold new plan

noreply@blogger.com (Ryan) — Wed, 09 Sep 2009 02:17:00 +0000

next up: providing places for kids to distance run in Ethiopia (cc)

Today at Oprah's 24th Season Kick-Off Party Extravaganza, for which she shut down a half-mile of Michigan Avenue, the Black-Eyed Peas played their summer smash hit 'I've Got a Feeling' (which apparently is different than 'Hooked on a Feeling,' unfortunately). Afterward, Oprah sat down with the band to find out not just what kind of outfits Fergie's dogs wore to her wedding (a gown and a tux, of course!), but also what frontman will.i.am's latest project will be. let me tell you, it's a winner.

will.i.am, best known in social-awareness circles for the inspiring if over-deifying 'Yes We Can' video he put together during the 2008 presidential campaign (i'll link it, not embed it, so you can choose whether or not to revisit february of 2008.), is starting a new media/awareness campaign, Africa Ten, to coincide with the 2010 World Cup in South Africa. They're releasing a documentary film on ten pro soccer players from ten different African nations coming home to compete for the World Cup and putting on a concert in Jo'burg during the World Cup festivities. The beneficiary of the proceeds from this project, you may ask? Well, according to will.i.am, the money will go to help build places for kids in Africa to play soccer.

Stop the train. Isn't the beauty of soccer the fact that all you need is a ball, feet, and an empty field? Isn't there no shortage of empty fields in Africa? Don't lots of, if not all, kids in South Africa play soccer? Isn't the national obsession with soccer in South Africa and other African nations the reason that the World Cup is coming? '

Okay, to be fair to will.i.am and his shorthand, the official bio of the company says this:

we will create global exposure benefiting our sponsors, partners, and charitable causes, as well as generate a steady stream of income that, after a return on the initial investment, will flow directly into our African based charitable foundation. The foundation will focus grants initially on existing sports-based charities that have a proven track-record delivering on systemic improvements in health and education across Africa.

So it's a media company with a social-awareness angle, not a straight-up charity, and to be fair, he didn't portray it as one. Plus, 'existing sports-based charities that have a proven track-record delivering on systemic improvements in health and education across Africa' sounds a lot better than 'providing sod and white spray paint to newly-created intramural soccer programs across Africa.' Either way, it's always discouraging to see the Oprah platform used to suck all the nuance out of important issues in the name of increased exposure.

At any rate, here's the Black-Eyed Peas' hit for your viewing pleasure:

This Can't Be Right: Starbucks Edition

noreply@blogger.com (Ryan) — Wed, 03 Jun 2009 03:37:00 +0000

This morning, I walked past three Starbucks to get to the ing Direct Cafe in Chicago (which is in an un-street-viewed part of town, inexplicably). Having just moved here from New York, seeing a crapload of Starbuckses is not really anything new; I had to walk by two every day just to get two blocks to the subway. Still, having just been directed by Richard Florida to this piece in the Seattle times, which wonders "if Starbucks is an artifact of an economy that's not coming back?" I found myself hoping these ones would disappear soon.

It's not that I hate Starbucks; well, I think their coffee is scorched crap, but the atmosphere is actually pretty authentic for a coffee shop. The bigger problem, and the one that I hope isn't sustainable, is the attitude of the high-priced coffee drinker. Here I was, walking five blocks to a coffee shop with free wifi and coffee for a buck (plus a refill, and free on fridays!), and I walked by places where the coffee costs more than twice as much and wifi's $7.95 for two hours. And for what, marginally better coffee (i hope not)? Name recognition? I know the crisis has hit Starbucks hard, especially damping its insane growth, but seriously, this company should be dead and buried. At least, I'd like to see the data; at what level of economic distress do people stop caring about adjectives in front of their beverage names and start making modest, sensible choices?

God bless Starbucks for becoming a brand some people can't seem to live without, but if any real, sustainable belt tightening is ever going to take place in this country, undergrads, freelancers, and low-paid elites of all stripes will need to seriously rethink their daily coffee choices. Because the ing Cafe is delicious and pretty empty, now that school's out.

Nice Try, 'House'

noreply@blogger.com (Ryan) — Wed, 20 May 2009 15:40:00 +0000

Did you ever see the episode of 'House, MD,' where the guy from 'Office Space' plays a TB doctor in sub-Saharan Africa, probably modeled off of Paul Farmer's work in Haiti and elsewhere? It's a nice effort by the makers of the show to contrast House's 'save a patient a week that ,o one else could save' brand of medicine and Dr. Charles's 'save lots of patients that anyone else could save, if they had the money' approach. Interesting idea, to be sure, but one thing grated on me - throughout the show, Dr. Charles and everyone else keep referring to his place of work as Africa. Even when he offers one of House's fellows a job, he says, 'why don't you come to Africa with me?' not, 'Why don't you come to Botswana with me?' or 'Why don't you come to Lesotho with me?'

I know that TV producers are often loth to use real African countries when they do episodes focusing on poverty there, but come on, it's a big continent! And TB certainly doesn't affect all parts of it to the same degree. Is he raising money for TB patients in Morocco and Cameroon, or Djibouti and Sierra Leone? According to the WHO, Cameroon has a (2007) TB prevalence rate of 195/100,000, while Djibouti's is 1,104/100,000. To harp on a subject everyone has heard many times before, treating the whole country the same makes it less real, less familiar, and easier to ignore. By encouraging people to learn about how different TB rates are across the continent, and explore the often complex reasons why, 'House' could have encouraged its viewers to think of the diseases of sub-Saharan as important problems that need all the critical thinking we can get, and not just sick babies we should feel sorry for.

The High Cost of Poverty

noreply@blogger.com (Ryan) — Tue, 19 May 2009 18:29:00 +0000

DeNeen Brown has a great piece on the hidden costs of poverty in yesterday's Washington Post. Between lacking bank services and relying on fee-based check cashing, having to shop at corner stores instead of often faraway grocery stores, and the high cost of credit for the poor, the price tags for common goods are, seemingly paradoxically, higher for those in poverty than those who aren't. This isn't necessarily sinister on the part of any particular players, but a perverse outcome of the reality of low wealth and poor markets.

Here's Brown's 'primer on the economics of poverty' when buying food:

You don't have a car to get to a supermarket, much less to Costco or Trader Joe's, where the middle class goes to save money. You don't have three hours to take the bus. So you buy groceries at the corner store, where a gallon of milk costs an extra dollar.
A loaf of bread there costs you $2.99 for white. For wheat, it's $3.79. The clerk behind the counter tells you the gallon of leaking milk in the bottom of the back cooler is $4.99. She holds up four fingers to clarify. The milk is beneath the shelf that holds beef bologna for $3.79. A pound of butter sells for $4.49. In the back of the store are fruits and vegetables. The green peppers are shriveled, the bananas are more brown than yellow, the oranges are picked over.

Here's one poor interviewee's analysis of low-income housing:

"You pay rent that might be more than a mortgage," Reed says. "But you don't have the credit or the down payment to buy a house. Apartments are not going down. They are going up. They say houses are better, cheaper. But how are you going to get in a house if you don't have any money for a down payment?"

Even those folks who managed to get a house while credit was flowing are now facing rate resets based on the reality of their financial situation, meaning the punishingly high rates that are driving many of today's foreclosures.

I've thought a lot about these perverse economics facing the poor. As a frequent rider of the New York City subways, I'm always struck by the fact that, while well-to-do professionals are using unlimited-ride Metrocards, which mean a discounted fare if you take the subway at least to work and back, members of poor communities, even though they too ride the subway at least twice a day, are often using single rides. The poor people pay full fare while the rich and middle class get a discount, simply because it's easier to come up with 4 bucks a day every day than it is to come up with 81 bucks once a month. There has to be a way to deliver the benefits of the discounted Metrocard to people who struggle to amass enough cash to buy one. Meanwhile, full-fare cards should target the people who need them, can afford them, and should, by all rights, be subsidizing the city's finances: deep-pocketed, transit-loving tourists.

Any ideas? Any organizations out there trying to ease the economics of the poor? I'd love to hear about them.

David Brooks Frustrates Me

noreply@blogger.com (Ryan) — Thu, 14 May 2009 16:04:00 +0000

In his op-ed last week, David Brooks talked about the extraordinary (and rigorously-documented) success of the Promise Academies, a pair of charter schools inside the Harlem Children's Zone, a 97-block region of the Manhattan neighborhood dedicated to lift children who live there out of poverty.

The Promise Academies are the most effective piece of the social services network in the HCZ, according to a recent, as-yet-unpublished paper by renowned education researcher Roland Fryer and his colleague Will Dobbie. To quote from their paper(pdf),

The Promise Academies have an extended school day and year, with coordinated after-school tutoring and additional classes on Saturdays for children who need remediation ... Our rough estimate is that Promise Academy students that are behind grade level are in school for twice as many hours as a typical public school student in New York City. Students who are at or above grade level still attend the equivalent of about fifty percent more school in a calendar year.

Both schools emphasize the recruitment and retention of high-quality teachers and use a test-score value-added measure to incentivize and evaluate current teachers. The schools have had high turnover as they search for the most effective teachers...Each teacher...is supported by myriad behind-the-scenes efforts to make sure their time is spent primarily on teaching and not administrative tasks.

The schools provide free medical, dental and mental-health services ... student incentives for achievement... high-quality, nutritious, cafeteria meals, support for parents in the form of food baskets, meals, bus fare, and so forth, and less tangible benefits such as the support of a committed staff. The schools also make a concerted effort to change the culture of achievement, surrounding students with the importance of hard work in achieving success.

A mouthful, right? There's a whole lot of programs, policies, and resources mentioned in there that are proven engines of educational achievement. It's really an extraordinary program. So, of course, what does Brooks harp on?

To my mind, the results also vindicate an emerging model for low-income students. Over the past decade, dozens of charter and independent schools, like Promise Academy, have become no excuses schools. The basic theory is that middle-class kids enter adolescence with certain working models in their heads: what I can achieve; how to control impulses; how to work hard. Many kids from poorer, disorganized homes don’t have these internalized models. The schools create a disciplined, orderly and demanding counterculture to inculcate middle-class values....
Basically, the no excuses schools pay meticulous attention to behavior and attitudes. They teach students how to look at the person who is talking, how to shake hands...
The approach works. Ever since welfare reform, we have had success with intrusive government programs that combine paternalistic leadership, sufficient funding and a ferocious commitment to traditional, middle-class values. We may have found a remedy for the achievement gap.

Italics mine. Look, I'm not going to sit here and say that cultivating a culture of achievement isn't an important part of transforming inner-city education; it is. It's just that, it's not the whole story. Sure, Brooks mentions the longer hours, the relentless hunt for the right teachers and rigorous analysis of their performance, as well as the comprehensive medical and nutritional care offered to the children and their families; all these issues get a sentence or two. But his constant evocation on 'middle-class' (think Cleaver family) values is disingenuous and irresponsible. Does he really think other schools don't want their students to respect learning? Of course they do! HCZ and the Promise Academy have far more time with their students to inculcate these values, not to mention the fact that the students had to win a lottery to get in, so they're easier to motivate/guilt. The public school system is committed to cultivating respect for others and respect for achievement among the student body. It's just a far harder challenge without a ferociously dedicated staff, a full-time committment from students and families, and the resources to innovate.

This is the problem with David Brooks. He hits on great ideas and extraordinary people, but can never resist trying to frame the world in his stale sociological construction where everything would be better if we all lived like the Nelsons. If David Brooks suddenly got an extra billion dollars to spend in the New York City public schools, would he really spend it on traditional-middle-class-value training? What does he think Roland Fryer would spend it on?

What Do Communities in Need Actually Need?

noreply@blogger.com (Ryan) — Thu, 14 May 2009 04:00:00 +0000

Via Andrew Sullivan, Matt Steinglass makes an excellent request - Please stop building schools in Iraq & Afghanistan:

Here’s a general rule that applies to basically every development program in every poor country in the world, including Iraq and Afghanistan: want to do something nice and useful for these people? Don’t build them a school. Believe it or not, people in poor countries actually have buildings. And they are capable of building more of them. They know how to do it, and it usually, for fairly simple economic reasons, does not cost more in any country to build a building than local people can afford. You know what they don’t know how to do? Teach science and math and English. And often, employing a trained teacher does cost more than they can afford in a small village, because such people are scarce, and it’s hard to spare extra labor in subsistence economies. If you want to spend your money on education, don’t build them a school; pay to train some teachers, and then pay the teachers’ salaries.
Development is not about buildings. It is not about objects. It’s about people.

Aside from the slightly jarring use of the phrase 'these people,' this post struck all the right chords. Too much of the development industry in the developing world translates into construction, raw materials, and any number of tasks that members of underserved communities are perfectly capable of completing. The real 'needs' in 'needy' communities are capacity-building, information, and other non-rival goods from which these communities are isolated. Not only is it repetitive to help communities do the things they could just as easily do themselves (but haven't chosen to), but building one building is far less efficient than helping create an incentive system where a functional educational system can flourish. Like Matt says, it's not a lack of buildings holding back education in the developing world; it's the lack of an effective system of educational delivery.

This idea isn't brand new of course, and the Provincial Reconstruction Teams in Iraq and Afghanistan are tasked more with capacity-building and governance improvements than simply building buildings. Still, the fact that some organizations are still building buildings instead of figuring out more effective uses of donor dollars is a huge concern.

Multilateralism Matters

noreply@blogger.com (Ryan) — Tue, 04 Nov 2008 02:23:00 +0000

UNESCO via New Scientist

This map of global groundwater stocks [pdf] from UNESCO, the result of an ambitious international scientific and diplomatic effort, goes a long way towards underscoring one of the global environment's (and economy's) fundamental truths: water is a scarce shared resource. This collection of underground water supply, which holds more than 100 times the volume of freshwater than all of the surface water on the planet, doesn't respect national boundaries any more than the rivers, lakes and springs on the planet's surface; in fact, since they're hidden underground, the aquifers are even more disconnected from land boundaries. UNESCO's map, which will be further refined in the spring of 2009, includes 273 trans-boundary aquifers. Many of these aquifers are depleted more quickly than they are recharged, and some aren't recharged at all (Like this almost-a-million-year-old water under the western Sahara).

UNESCO's hope in collecting and distributing all this information is to kick-start a move towards collective responsibility for our groundwater resources, the pillars of which are laid out in their draft Convention on transboundary aquifers, submitted to the General Assembly last week. While bilateral agreements concerning aquifers are beginning to emerge, this convention would standard a multiateral approach to transboundary aquifer management, something's that's been sorely lacking until now.

With 68 cross-border aquifers in the Americas alone, this issue could be just the way for the United States to shed its image as the cynical, useless bystander in environmentally meaningful international negotiations. With a new president on the way, whoever it may be, this could be just the opportunity to lead on a critical, if unglamorous, global issue.

How is Bottled Water Like Cigarettes?

noreply@blogger.com (Ryan) — Mon, 03 Nov 2008 22:52:00 +0000

Reuters via FP:

The world's top sellers of bottled water are trying to stop western consumers turning back to the tap by addressing environmental issues and trumpeting health benefits, while expanding aggressively in emerging markets.

Ah yes, the old "the first world doesn't like it anymore, so let's try the developing countries" trick.

Forbes Special Report on Water

noreply@blogger.com (Ryan) — Wed, 25 Jun 2008 01:20:00 +0000

I will need to read this. I'll report back soon.

John McCain's Prize Idea

noreply@blogger.com (Ryan) — Wed, 25 Jun 2008 00:49:00 +0000

I'm a big fan of the potential for prizes for making real progress on issues that private enterprise hasn't embarked upon. By offering a huge payoff for achieving a certain goal, whether it be solving really hard math problems, getting to space with private money, reducing global warming, or whatever, high-payoff prizes can bring the efficiency and ingenuity of - gasp! - private companies to bear on problems they might not otherwise attack. A cure for malaria all of a sudden worth a few billion dollars up front? I'm sure you'd get more takers than you have right now. Sure it's not the end-all be-all, but it seems to me like a damn fine way to get good, new eyes on tough and important questions.

So imagine my surprise when John McCain announced a $300 million prize for a better car battery. "One dollar for every man, woman and child in the U.S. [is] a small price to pay for helping to break the back of our oil dependency," he said at the announcement. And he's probably right, although completely missing the point of prizes.

I'll let Tom Lee, via Free Exchange, explain:

Prize funds have proven helpful in producing some technological achievements, often generating investments far greater than the amount of the prize. But what about the battery situation? Tom Lee comments:
But if someone were to invent a better [battery] they'd already be poised to make a huge amount of money through its commercialization. Offering prizes for innovation isn't always a terrible idea — for pharmaceuticals with a limited market of potential users it can make sense due to the huge costs associated with developing and testing a new drug. But everyone in the developed world needs better energy storage technology, and they need it right now. And while it's important to make sure your new batteries are safe and robust (e.g. they don't explode too much), that's still much easier and cheaper to do than it is to conduct a set of double-blind human trials. So sweetening the pot is unnecessary. Anyone who has a good idea about how to build a better battery is already working on the problem.

Put another way, we didn't need a buck from every man, woman and child to discover this, these, these or this, since deep-pocketed Americans were more than willing to shell out for the eventual product (okay, maybe not the last one (yes, i went there again)). A super-efficient car battery is no different.

Leave it to John McCain to take an important problem in one hand, a clever solution in the other, and smash them together to create a cynical, pandering, useless idea.

The most-hyped water bottle ever.

noreply@blogger.com (Ryan) — Tue, 24 Jun 2008 02:44:00 +0000

KOR ONE
KOR YOU
KOR EARTH
KOR WATER!

BPA-free, sexy-looking, 30 bucks. This is one personal hydration solution that is taking the world by storm. Comes out August 1st and has already been featured on uncrate, treehugger, and gizmodo. Could this be the first salvo in a war to fill the vacuum left by nalgene?

Of course, I'll be buying one.

Courtesy the KOR WATER blog, a Penn & Teller "Bullsh*t" episode on bottled water:

trout genetically modified to lack will to live

noreply@blogger.com (Ryan) — Wed, 07 May 2008 20:45:00 +0000

this is a great story...

NOW there’ll be no excuse for the one that got away. Britain’s rivers and lakes are to be restocked with trout carrying genetic modifications that make them easier to catch.

Apparently, the British Environmental Agency is releasing genetically modified brown trout for anglers to catch. the fish are given an extra sex chromosome to render them infertile, so that they don't interbreed with the native population. According to Dylan Roberts, the head of fisheries at the Game & Wildlife Conservation Trust, "Releasing farmed fish is a bit like letting battery chickens into the jungle...They are bred for eating and have lost many of the genes vital for survival. We don’t want them giving those genes to native populations."

A side effect of this treatment, though, is making the trout easier to catch. These three-gened fellows have no interest in breeding, and so do little except eat. Yes, trout apparently live what i call "the perfect life," just eating and mating. take the sex drive out of the equation, and all they do is eat, good news for lousy fishermen.

This new tactic has its share of controversy, though:

Some critics argue that the mass release of farm-reared brown trout simply for capture is akin to releasing cows into the woods and then shooting them.

I'm not sure whether to be impressed or horrified by this new development. Not only are you catching genetically modified freak fish that were bred just to be caught, they're also depressed and lonely. How much fun would The Most Dangerous Game be if General Zaroff only hunted hungry eunuchs?

(h/t: HTWW)

a waterblog ahead of the game yet again

noreply@blogger.com (Ryan) — Tue, 29 Apr 2008 01:30:00 +0000

Me, eight months ago:

As for me, i'll stick with my narrow-mouthed Nalgene, bisphenol-A be damned. It saw me through two months in india with minimal (read: still pretty annoying) intestinal damage. The risks for a lot of these chemicals are probably worse for women anyway.

The New York Times, ten days ago:

Nalgene, the brand that popularized water bottles made from hard, clear and nearly unbreakable polycarbonate, will stop using the plastic because of growing concern over one of its ingredients.
The decision by Nalgene Outdoor Products, a unit of Thermo Fisher Scientific, based in Rochester, came after reports that the Canadian government would declare the chemical bisphenol-a, or BPA, toxic. Some animal studies have linked the chemical to changes in the hormonal system.

"Animal studies"????? Come on! When will the mainstream media admit they get all their news from thirstyworld?

Fun with homeless (numbers)

noreply@blogger.com (Ryan) — Tue, 29 Apr 2008 01:25:00 +0000

From Andrew Leonard at Salon (emphasis mine):

As of the end of March, 2008, there were 129.4 million "housing units" in the United States. According to a report released by the Census Bureau on Monday, 18.6 million of those homes are unoccupied -- an increase of one million over the first quarter of 2007.
...
The key figure is 2.3 million -- the total number of homes that are empty and for sale. That adds up to a vacancy rate of 2.9 percent, which is the highest, reports Bloomberg, "since the bureau started keeping count in 1956." 2.2 million homes were vacant and for sale one year ago.

According to the Department of Housing and Urban Development's Second Annual Homeless Assessment Report to Congress, released in March 2008, "the total number of homeless persons reported on a single night in January 2006 was 759,101."

Assuming that number bears some reasonable relation to reality, that
would mean there are 24 unoccupied homes for every homeless person in
the United States.

It's a bit of fun with numbers, sure; the unoccupied houses and the homeless aren't all that close to each other (except in Southern California [warning: chintzy]?), and suburban sprawl isn't exactly the ideal spot for homeless people. Not to mention the fact that the 760,000 number is probably an understatement.

Still, you have to wonder how many other countries have too many houses and not enough homes at the same time.

dean kamen's magic water machine

noreply@blogger.com (Ryan) — Mon, 24 Mar 2008 00:27:00 +0000

Sex, Drugs & Water Utilities takes us to Thursday night's Colbert Report, where Dean "Future of Transportation" Kamen unveiled the much awaited vapor compression distiller.

Kamen claims 1,000 liters a day, no refills of anything needed ever, and minimal power consumption; in fact, SDWU (which i hope is an acceptable abbreviation) sends us to this story, which suggests that, using a Stirling Engine, the distiller could operate at a net energy surplus.

I'm eagerly awaiting the refinement and adoption of this machine. I give him a lot of credit for his ability to identify important problems and try to figure out a solution. Inventors are typecast as wild-eyed kooks, but Kamen, thanks to his Long Island accent and blue-collar demeanor, really breaks the mold.

Nonetheless, since we're on the subject of comedy and Dean Kamen, i have to post this video, which i think is pretty brilliant:

[UPDATE: the embedded videos aren't showing up in google reader. click on the link to see them, since they're pretty much the entire post]

tales from agricultural subsidy-land

noreply@blogger.com (Ryan) — Wed, 19 Mar 2008 02:25:00 +0000

From the AP:

Because farmers get their water at subsidized rates, some of them see financial opportunity this year in selling their allotments to Los Angeles and other desperately thirsty cities across Southern California, as well as to other farms.
"It just makes dollars and sense right now," said Bruce Rolen, a third-generation farmer who grows rice, wheat and other crops in Northern California's lush Sacramento Valley.
Instead of sowing in April, Rolen plans to let 100 of his 250 acres of white rice lie fallow and sell his irrigation water on the open market, where it could fetch up to three times the normal price.

You can't really blame Bruce and his fellow farmers for letting their land fallow; it's the product of a flawed government subsidy program(certainly not the only one) that thinks it can always create better outcomes by screwing with the market.

The other day, my friend and i were discussing these dumb subsidy programs, and he made the oft-repeated point that government should just stop meddling altogether: they will always be too dumb, too corrupt, or too beholden to "factions" to make sound decisions.

i realized i had to agree with him, at least if the two choices were no government intervention, or incompetent government intervention. but the truth is, every time i listen to barack obama talk[transcript] and i'm not the only one), i can't shake the feeling that those aren't the only two choices, and that giving up on government is as stupid as delivering it to incompetent people.

information and the "free" market

noreply@blogger.com (Ryan) — Wed, 12 Mar 2008 23:20:00 +0000

when you talk about rationality and the free market, most people think of drones making purchasing decisions based solely on the (money) prices of goods, just looking out for the pocketbook of old number one (not Number One). opponents of this sort of free market talk about a "race to the bottom," where the rush to lower prices leaves environments devastated, more people living in poverty, and the world swimming in shit.

This shit-drowning world, though, isn't the world of the free market economists talk about so glowingly. In the economic model, consumers make their decisions based on the entirety of the factors that went into producing the good, and that will come out of consuming the good. This is what we call "perfect information." The fact is, that in order for the idealized free market to work properly, all actors must have access to perfect information. Joe Stiglitz won a Nobel Prize for proving that the lack of perfect information can drive an unregulated market towards an unfavorable result. It's not about banning products that pollute or otherwise screw up the world; just make sure the consumer knows the whole story before they reach the register.

No surprise, then, that large corporations whose prices make their products a whole lot more desirable than the story of their production would, are against educating the consumer. From Sex, Drugs & Water Utilities:

Monsanto, an unloved agricultural biotechnology company, is behind a "grass-roots" organization dedicated to preventing consumers from knowing if their milk is free of the synthetic bovine growth hormone (rBST), which Monsanto sells as Posilac.

This case is a sad example of corporate PR masquerading as citizen activism -- and trying to get politicians to pass laws banning labels that state "rBST-free." Believe it or not, "evil" WalMart is one company that wants to serve consumers by using accurate labeling.

Looks like Monsanto is going to lose this one.

Let's hope. On the other hand, movements by stores like Whole Foods to tell the whole story of their products actually makes their higher prices seem a little more within reach.

Of course, lest we forget, these types of foods are only more expensive due to totally reversible[pdf] government policy.

eat out. drink tap water.

noreply@blogger.com (Ryan) — Wed, 12 Mar 2008 04:55:00 +0000

that blog post title contains two good pieces of advice for just about any situation (unless you have a filthy mind). they're even more important to keep in mind next week, though, just in time for the run-up to world water day 2008.

it's called the tap project: at restaurants in cities around the country, unicef is asking that, when you order your (normally free) tap water, you donate a buck to help fund efforts to bring clean water to everywhere in the world. unicef says that each dollar will get one child clean water for 40 days. to those of you who usually order bottled or sparkling water when you go out to dinner, i can only say 'stay at home all week and think about what a snob you are. hey, while you're at home doing nothing, send some money to unicef.'

the theme of this year's world water week/day is sanitation; not the most pleasant topic in the world, but the fact is that nearly a billion more people lack adequate sanitation on top of the billion who lack water altogether. access to water is irrelevant if dirty water is keeping you sick.

this whole thing is a little gimmicky, to be sure, but the more eyes on the water crisis the better, i say. so get off your ass (or at least this site) and find a tap project restaurant near you

if you want some more gimmicky stuff ($20 water bottles!), here's another site for you. i'm conflicted now that it seems like water is becoming chic (like so many other things), but i think i'm cool with it because it's such a no-brainer. what a stupid reason for people to die, not enough water. give me a break.

Farm Bill Continues to Destroy America

noreply@blogger.com (Ryan) — Wed, 05 Mar 2008 18:31:00 +0000

As those who have talked to me about politics/health/the world know, I think the worst law on the books in the United States is the Farm Bill, a collection of misdirected and distorting subsidies that keep americans fat and unhealthy, and ensures poor countries will remain mired in poverty. For more, see here, here and here.

On Saturday, the New York Times featured an op-ed from a Minnesota farmer who lets us know that things are even worse than we thought. Farmers trying to increase the supply of locally grown produce like fruits and vegetables have found the Farm Bill standing in their way. As David Zetland explains,

[H]e cannot increase production of garden crops by growing them on former-program crop land because these acres will lose their corn subsidy forever if non-program crops are grown on the land for a year.
Why? Because national fruit and vegetable growers based in California, Florida and Texas fear competition from regional producers like myself. Through their control of Congressional delegations from those states, they have been able to virtually monopolize the country’s fresh produce markets.
He cannot expand, the market for "local food" stays small, and farmers from California, Texas and Florida maintain their dominance.

The sad fact is that the food system that has developed in the United States is unhealthy, inefficient and a total market failure. We pay less for food that gets industrially processed until it doesn't resemble the plant or animal it used to be (but boy can it last on a shelf) than we do for the plant or animal it used to be. And it's all because of government subsidies we pay the taxes to fund! Talk about getting it both ways.

(h/t: Alex Tabarrok)

Can't we all just get along?

noreply@blogger.com (Ryan) — Wed, 05 Mar 2008 16:44:00 +0000

Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne acknowledged Saturday that White House-brokered water negotiations among Alabama, Florida and Georgia have failed.

That's from the AP, via env-econ. Recent drought in the region has brought a two-decade conflict to a head. Georgia, the upriver state for both basins in questions, says it needs more water for a booming Atlanta; Florida and Alabama say tough nuts, that's our water too.

President Bush sent Secretary Kempthorne to broker a negotiation last fall, but no such luck. In the meantime, the Army Corps of engineers will design and enforce a water-sharing plan of their own, kind of like martial law over the water.

Of course, if martial law doesn't get the job done, there's always Martial Law.

agriculture, water, the market

noreply@blogger.com (Ryan) — Mon, 03 Dec 2007 00:32:00 +0000

“The rest of the world is fed because of the use of good seed and inorganic fertilizer, full stop,” said Stephen Carr, who has lived in Malawi since 1989, when he retired as the World Bank’s principal agriculturalist in sub-Saharan Africa. “This technology has not been used in most of Africa. The only way you can help farmers gain access to it is to give it away free or subsidize it heavily.”

That's from the New York Times today, in a great article on Malawi's bumper crop, which is a product of good rains, and, more interestingly, high subsidies for fertilizer from the central government. The article makes the point that this, probably the greatest agricultural success in sub-Saharan Africa happened thanks to a policy that flew in the face of the strict prescriptions of the global financial institutions.

Of course, defenders of the washington consensus are quick to point out the record rainfall Malawi received this year, which obviously played its part in the yield improvement. However, as the article puts it, "Bingu wa Mutharika, Malawi’s newly elected president, decided to follow what the West practiced, not what it preached." The west has used agricultural subsidies for years to achieve their own goals, and if improving yields is a worthy goal (i think the argument can be made that it is), then it's the height of hypocrisy to take issue with Malawi's policy.

If i can take a second and prove i'm an econ student, i still think the "free-market" capitalist system is the best way of maximizing wealth within a given set of rules. As recent books from Robert Reich and Paul Krugman point out though, it's the role of democracy, of the people, to determine the rules in which that wealth is generated. Government subsidies, on paper, have a "deadweight loss." But given that getting fertilizer on the fields as soon as possible is a critical priority in a starving state, not to intervene would be criminal.

Tangential, maybe

noreply@blogger.com (Ryan) — Wed, 17 Oct 2007 22:29:00 +0000

a vision of the past, hopefully not the future

The problem right now is there is no philosophy, no direction, no energy to shape the waterfront. As a result the Delaware has languished more than any big city waterfront in America.

That's from Inquirer Architecture critic – and inspiring voice of Philadelphia's future – Inga Saffron's latest blog post. The post comes on the heels of Penn Praxis' unveiling of their plans for the Delaware waterfront, not to mention the subsequent shrill, self-serving objections of local developers, whose idea of development is gated communities, private, view-destroying towers, and the wholesale privatization of this city's largest waterfront.

Saffron's column from last week is a must-read for anyone who cares about the future of the city. She makes the case that the Praxis Plan, which calls for extending the city grid all the way to the river, gives us the best chance of reclaiming the waterfront for all the citizens of our city. By creating real neighborhoods, accessible to everyone, along the river, we can finally put the grimy, industrial history of the delaware behind us, and make our city into the waterfront town it's destined to become.

I know this post isn't all that related to water, at least the kind of water this blog usually concerns itself with. But this blog is concerned with poverty, not just internationally, but in the US too. I believe strongly that any chance Philadelphia has at ridding itself of poverty must start with big ideas. The plan for redeveloping the Delaware is one of the most important.

I hope, more than anything, that Michael Nutter comes into office ready to face this issue. It's only when Philadelphians can see their city as great that we can start to go about making it one.

A cool statement

noreply@blogger.com (Ryan) — Tue, 25 Sep 2007 04:16:00 +0000

In his illuminating book, Wellsprings: a Natural History of Bottled Spring Waters, the American hydrologist Francis Chapelle, says the chlorination of public drinking water “has probably saved more human lives than any other technological advance in public health history.”

That's from this column by Michael Skapinker at the Financial Times, courtesy Greg Moran. The article suggests that the explosion in bottled water is, while partly a response to peoples' unease about public water quality, "all about the image." This hypothesis has grown up in response to the revelations that Dasani and Aquafina, among others, are merely rebottled municipal water.

If you ask me, suggesting it's all about the image is a cop out. Is there really an image associated with the container you drink your water out of? If i had to come up with a phrase to describe the bottled water phenomenon, I would say "people are sheep" and leave it at that.

One more

noreply@blogger.com (Ryan) — Thu, 13 Sep 2007 01:56:00 +0000

This is from the New York Times:

For us, language is everything because we know ourselves in it.

It's from a short op-ed by Verlyn Klinkenborg of the NYT Editorial Board, talking about the death of Alex, a parrot who was remarkably adept at learning english words and phrases, not to mention the ability to communicate somewhat coherently.

His last words? “I love you.”

of course, by training, alex said this before he went to sleep every night. false romanticism aside, the story of alex does make us consider the value and the meaning of language. "i love you" is easy for a parrot to say, and plenty of shallow valley girls who say it to the valet guy.

but to others, it means everything. the real power of language is the power to shape the way that others think, simply by tossing words at them. alex had that power without even knowing it. hopefully his death can help the rest of us embrace and respect that power.