Video and text from the BBC's Hot Cities. Access the web page to see more documentaries on the topic.
The world’s biggest cities are already victims of climate change. There are real economic and social impacts as climate refugees swell urban populations, food and water supplies are threatened and sea levels rise. “Hot Cities” travels the world from Lagos to Los Angeles, from Shanghai to Surat, from Dhaka to Durban to see if our cites can adapt and survive.
Wednesday, November 11, 2009
Sunday, November 08, 2009
November 8, 2009 Wales: Cardiff Castle (Castell Coch)
Text and pictures from Wikipedia.
William Burges was an English architect and designer. The greatest of the Victorian art-architects
William Burges was an English architect and designer. The greatest of the Victorian art-architects
Cardiff Castle
Thursday, November 05, 2009
November 5, 2009 DDB Stockholm Makes Fun of Environmentalism
See full article at link below.
DDB Stockholm Makes Fun of Environmentalism
DDB Stockholm has launched a campaign for Volkswagen based on the belief that the best way to get people to make positive changes in life, including taking care of the environment, is to make it fun. We call it The Fun Theory or Rolighetsteorin.
DDB Stockholm Makes Fun of Environmentalism
DDB Stockholm has launched a campaign for Volkswagen based on the belief that the best way to get people to make positive changes in life, including taking care of the environment, is to make it fun. We call it The Fun Theory or Rolighetsteorin.
Monday, November 02, 2009
Wednesday, October 28, 2009
October 28, 2009 Highway Trust Fund: Senator Kay Hutchison
Simply brilliant. Following can be found at C-SPAN. Note highlights in red. Opting out of the highway trust fund is likely the best alternative for states like Texas. Too bad Texas will not have the experience and seniority of Senator Hutchison as she runs for governor of Texas.
July 30, 2009 - Text from congressional record
Mrs. HUTCHISON. Mr. President, I wish to speak about the transfer of the highway trust fund money. I do, of course, support having the money in the highway fund because so many States need to have this money and we need to assure it is there. I also support the amendments that would use the stimulus money so it would not be new money.
But I do wish to talk about the highway trust fund because I think it is important, as we are talking about this very important transportation issue for our States, that we begin the debate about whether the highway trust fund is now the appropriate vehicle for keeping our Federal highways repaired and also doing the best for every State in transportation. What concerns me is that the first reason for the highway trust fund back in President Eisenhower's day over 50 years ago has been achieved.
Yet we are still continuing to have the same formulas where some States are winners and some States are losers. But every State today has the capacity to determine its own priorities and the capacity to fund those priorities, unlike 50 years ago when there were many States that had very little capacity. They had little property, they had little taxable revenue sources, and therefore there was a need for a national system of highways to assure that we had national security. That was the first reason for it--but also mobility and commerce.
Today, however, I think it is time for us to start all over. I think it is time for us to allow States to opt out of the highway trust fund.
Of course, I am speaking for the largest donor State in America. We give more back to other States than any other State. We are a State that has more highway miles than any other State; therefore, we collect more taxes. Because we are a donor State, we give the most away. If these were States that could not meet their own needs and my State of Texas was a State that had its needs covered, maybe you could argue that would be OK. But, in fact, that is not the case. In fact, Texas is facing a huge shortage in our highway funding. We now have two cities that have mass transit systems that are certainly very successful but very far behind the curve when it comes to the transportation glut on our highways. We need to have the money in Texas to start meeting our great transportation needs.
This also affects our environment, because when we have people clogged in traffic, sitting on freeways hour after hour, of course it is bad for the ability to get where you want to go, but it is also bad for the environment to have the fumes going in the air.
I think today it is time for us to start the debate. Why not let a State opt out, agree to keep in good repair the Federal highway system and allow the States to use their own taxpayer dollars for their own priorities to meet their own transportation and mobility needs? If Texas could keep all the money it raises, rather than toll roads, which are now being contemplated throughout our State, perhaps we could have a mobility plan that would include highways, rapid transit, high-speed rail, and more innovative ideas that are very costly, which we cannot afford at this time.
Obviously, today we are going to go forward with extending the trust fund and replenishing the highway trust fund because that is what people want to do because we don't have time to address the whole issue of reauthorization at this very complicated time. I wish we were not going to consider an 18 month extension in September because I think we ought to have a short-term extension, so we do have the reauthorization of the highway bill, so we can start discussing these priorities--so we can start maybe thinking outside the box. Maybe we can start all over.
The highway trust fund and the highway authorization bill is a mishmash of different projects. I don't think there is fairness in the system at all. You have donor States, you have winner States, and the winner States have all the capacity. The loser States have as much need as the winner States, and the winner States have the ability, I believe, to fund their own options.
Even though I know we are going to extend the highway bill for 18 months by the end of September, and I know we are going to replenish the highway fund today--and I wish it would be from our stimulus package so it would not be yet another deficit-inducing measure from this Congress--I think I am going to lose all the arguments I am making. But I do think it important that we bring this issue to the forefront.
There is no reason in this country today for winner States and loser States. Our States should be able to plan for themselves, make their own priorities, meet their needs, be able to be more efficient, have multimodal systems--which is what I hope for Texas--and be able to use our own tax dollars for our own needs. Were we a State that did not have needs, were we a State that was not growing, maybe we could afford to continue giving 8 cents back for every $1 we send to Washington. Maybe we could afford to leave the 8 cents in Washington.
Instead, we are getting 92 cents back for every $1 we send to Washington. That is hundreds of millions of dollars that we need for our high-growth State that has many traffic problems and congestion problems today. We will repair our highways. We would sign an agreement to repair our highways so there would be no Federal responsibility for that. But I hope this argument will be the beginning of a debate so we can instate a system that will be more in tune with today's times, 50 years after the National Highway System was created--a wonderful system that connects our country but one, now, that is finished. We have our National Highway System. We do have [Page: S8526] connectivity among our States. Why not allow the States to go out from those Federal highway miles and lanes, to go into their States in the best way for each individual State?
I thank Senator Brown for allowing me to speak on this issue. I hope, as we go through, we will have more of a discussion.
I do have a bill introduced that would allow States to opt out. It is something I think the time has come to address.
I yield the floor.
I suggest the absence of a quorum.
July 30, 2009 - Text from congressional record
Mrs. HUTCHISON. Mr. President, I wish to speak about the transfer of the highway trust fund money. I do, of course, support having the money in the highway fund because so many States need to have this money and we need to assure it is there. I also support the amendments that would use the stimulus money so it would not be new money.
But I do wish to talk about the highway trust fund because I think it is important, as we are talking about this very important transportation issue for our States, that we begin the debate about whether the highway trust fund is now the appropriate vehicle for keeping our Federal highways repaired and also doing the best for every State in transportation. What concerns me is that the first reason for the highway trust fund back in President Eisenhower's day over 50 years ago has been achieved.
Yet we are still continuing to have the same formulas where some States are winners and some States are losers. But every State today has the capacity to determine its own priorities and the capacity to fund those priorities, unlike 50 years ago when there were many States that had very little capacity. They had little property, they had little taxable revenue sources, and therefore there was a need for a national system of highways to assure that we had national security. That was the first reason for it--but also mobility and commerce.
Today, however, I think it is time for us to start all over. I think it is time for us to allow States to opt out of the highway trust fund.
Of course, I am speaking for the largest donor State in America. We give more back to other States than any other State. We are a State that has more highway miles than any other State; therefore, we collect more taxes. Because we are a donor State, we give the most away. If these were States that could not meet their own needs and my State of Texas was a State that had its needs covered, maybe you could argue that would be OK. But, in fact, that is not the case. In fact, Texas is facing a huge shortage in our highway funding. We now have two cities that have mass transit systems that are certainly very successful but very far behind the curve when it comes to the transportation glut on our highways. We need to have the money in Texas to start meeting our great transportation needs.
This also affects our environment, because when we have people clogged in traffic, sitting on freeways hour after hour, of course it is bad for the ability to get where you want to go, but it is also bad for the environment to have the fumes going in the air.
I think today it is time for us to start the debate. Why not let a State opt out, agree to keep in good repair the Federal highway system and allow the States to use their own taxpayer dollars for their own priorities to meet their own transportation and mobility needs? If Texas could keep all the money it raises, rather than toll roads, which are now being contemplated throughout our State, perhaps we could have a mobility plan that would include highways, rapid transit, high-speed rail, and more innovative ideas that are very costly, which we cannot afford at this time.
Obviously, today we are going to go forward with extending the trust fund and replenishing the highway trust fund because that is what people want to do because we don't have time to address the whole issue of reauthorization at this very complicated time. I wish we were not going to consider an 18 month extension in September because I think we ought to have a short-term extension, so we do have the reauthorization of the highway bill, so we can start discussing these priorities--so we can start maybe thinking outside the box. Maybe we can start all over.
The highway trust fund and the highway authorization bill is a mishmash of different projects. I don't think there is fairness in the system at all. You have donor States, you have winner States, and the winner States have all the capacity. The loser States have as much need as the winner States, and the winner States have the ability, I believe, to fund their own options.
Even though I know we are going to extend the highway bill for 18 months by the end of September, and I know we are going to replenish the highway fund today--and I wish it would be from our stimulus package so it would not be yet another deficit-inducing measure from this Congress--I think I am going to lose all the arguments I am making. But I do think it important that we bring this issue to the forefront.
There is no reason in this country today for winner States and loser States. Our States should be able to plan for themselves, make their own priorities, meet their needs, be able to be more efficient, have multimodal systems--which is what I hope for Texas--and be able to use our own tax dollars for our own needs. Were we a State that did not have needs, were we a State that was not growing, maybe we could afford to continue giving 8 cents back for every $1 we send to Washington. Maybe we could afford to leave the 8 cents in Washington.
Instead, we are getting 92 cents back for every $1 we send to Washington. That is hundreds of millions of dollars that we need for our high-growth State that has many traffic problems and congestion problems today. We will repair our highways. We would sign an agreement to repair our highways so there would be no Federal responsibility for that. But I hope this argument will be the beginning of a debate so we can instate a system that will be more in tune with today's times, 50 years after the National Highway System was created--a wonderful system that connects our country but one, now, that is finished. We have our National Highway System. We do have [Page: S8526] connectivity among our States. Why not allow the States to go out from those Federal highway miles and lanes, to go into their States in the best way for each individual State?
I thank Senator Brown for allowing me to speak on this issue. I hope, as we go through, we will have more of a discussion.
I do have a bill introduced that would allow States to opt out. It is something I think the time has come to address.
I yield the floor.
I suggest the absence of a quorum.
Tuesday, October 27, 2009
October 27, 2009 San Antonion, Texas: U.S. 281, Loop 1604 toll plans survive vote
Article below was published by mysanantonio.com. It is an interesting exercise of human behavior. Was it all started by the Spanish incursion into lands of Texas for development of tollroads? Perhaps the key is in four areas that need better understanding/solution:
1. The lack of leadership statewide to address funding of "mobility."
2. The lack of understanding by the public on matters of highway funding (can blame the state for this).
3. The current funding process is unsustainable, gas tax that goes to the feds where it is reduced, divided, and redistributed.
4. Tolling of highways is perhaps the most efficient and most sustainable way to maintain roadways and to manage traffic congestion.
Two alternatives (skipping details) not on the table:
1. Stop sending all gasoline taxes to the feds and to the state and send it directly to TxDOT.
2. Eliminate the gasoline tax and make all state/federal highways tolls under state control.
More likely Sadly Sen. Wentworth is correct and Terry Hall does not understand the issues properly. Question is who among all the transportation agencies is/are most at fault for failing to educate the public?
U.S. 281, Loop 1604 toll plans survive vote
By Josh Baugh
1. The lack of leadership statewide to address funding of "mobility."
2. The lack of understanding by the public on matters of highway funding (can blame the state for this).
3. The current funding process is unsustainable, gas tax that goes to the feds where it is reduced, divided, and redistributed.
4. Tolling of highways is perhaps the most efficient and most sustainable way to maintain roadways and to manage traffic congestion.
Two alternatives (skipping details) not on the table:
1. Stop sending all gasoline taxes to the feds and to the state and send it directly to TxDOT.
2. Eliminate the gasoline tax and make all state/federal highways tolls under state control.
More likely Sadly Sen. Wentworth is correct and Terry Hall does not understand the issues properly. Question is who among all the transportation agencies is/are most at fault for failing to educate the public?
U.S. 281, Loop 1604 toll plans survive vote
By Josh Baugh
Near midnight Monday, the Metropolitan Planning Organization shrugged off the pleas of scores of toll road opponents and voted to keep tolls in the mix for U.S. 281 and Loop 1604.
In a striking defeat for MPO Chairman Tommy Adkisson, the panel voted 13-5 to keep tolls in the short- and long-range plans for the two highways. But it also voted unanimously to kill toll road plans for Bandera Road.
The series of votes was the climax of a night in which hundreds of toll opponents packed the Alzafar Shrine Temple on the far North Side to demand that plans for toll roads be stripped from Bexar County's transportation future.
Their message was unequivocal: They vehemently opposed tolling U.S. 281 and Loop 1604. They implored the MPO's 19-member policy board to fix the gridlocked highways — quickly, and without tolling. Throughout the night, speakers reminded the 11 elected officials on the board that they would be up for re-election, and their decision on tolls wouldn't be forgotten in the voting booth.
“It's been loud. It's been clear,” Paula Stoner said. “The majority of the people in this room do not want (tolls).”
They were fighting for Adkisson's proposal to take toll roads off the table in Bexar County.
Several others, including Greater San Antonio Chamber of Commerce President Richard Perez — a former MPO chairman — and Terrell McCombs, asked the board to vote against Adkisson's plans, which they said would only add to congestion in the future.
More than 100 people signed up to address the board, the vast majority of whom said they opposed current plans to toll highways in San Antonio.
Normally, the MPO would have held such a meeting during the day, making in inaccessible to most residents. But Adkisson, a county commissioner, and toll critic Terri Hall wanted a big turnout to bolster board support for the plan. And they got it — or at least they got the big turnout.
State Rep. David Leibowitz, an MPO board member, and Adkisson were heralded as champions for the taxpayers while others on the board were chastised for their opinions that ran contrary to Adkisson's plan.
State Sen. Jeff Wentworth was singled out and attacked for his support of leaving tolls in the MPO's short- and long-range plans. Critics said he wasn't representing his constituents. But Wentworth fired back, saying there are only three options for North Side highways, including doing nothing or increasing the statewide gas tax.
Not addressing the problem is “off the table,” he said, and as long as Gov. Rick Perry is in office, a gas-tax increase isn't politically viable.
“The third option is tolling,” he said to a boisterous round of boos. “Whether you like it or not, I'm speaking the truth. ... What I'm trying to do is reduce congestion. I'm not a toll road advocate. What I am is an advocate against congestion. If we adopt this half-baked plan, it will delay reducing congestion in my district.”
The hundreds-strong crowd responded by holding pink signs high in the air that read: “Vote for toll roads and you're fired!”
Hall, founder of toll-opposing Texans Uniting for Reform and Freedom, received by far the strongest support of anyone at Monday's meeting. One resident suggested that the first overpass on U.S. 281 should be named “Terri Hall Way.”
After speaking for nine minutes about the need to spike toll plans, Hall received a standing ovation and a series of hugs from supporters.
Hall demanded that the MPO board listen to the public about U.S. 281 and Loop 1604.
“We want both of them fixed, and we want it done with the tax money we've already given you,” she said.
Saturday, October 24, 2009
October 24, 2009 Article: The New Untouchables
Article from the New York Times. A good article.
Perhaps American has becomes a nation of wealth-fare recipients. Although our productivity is likely higher than any other country in the world, our individual and social standards are perhaps mediocre at best. American is being polarized by mediocre ideologues and individual fears of global consequences. Regretfully our education has forgotten to teach American the ability to rationalize and society has instigated the value of "winning at any cost."
A nation that in a little more than 200 years has evolved into the greatest nation in the world, an accomplishment that none has achieve even though had 100s of more years, is slowly forgetting its values and giving up its resources, human and monetary, to global terrorism whilst forgetting that the core of America is in its families, family values, and hard work.
Op-Ed Columnist
The New Untouchables
By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN
Published: October 20, 2009
Last summer I attended a talk by Michelle Rhee, the dynamic chancellor of public schools in Washington. Just before the session began, a man came up, introduced himself as Todd Martin and whispered to me that what Rhee was about to speak about — our struggling public schools — was actually a critical, but unspoken, reason for the Great Recession.
There’s something to that. While the subprime mortgage mess involved a huge ethical breakdown on Wall Street, it coincided with an education breakdown on Main Street — precisely when technology and open borders were enabling so many more people to compete with Americans for middle-class jobs.
In our subprime era, we thought we could have the American dream — a house and yard — with nothing down. This version of the American dream was delivered not by improving education, productivity and savings, but by Wall Street alchemy and borrowed money from Asia.
A year ago, it all exploded. Now that we are picking up the pieces, we need to understand that it is not only our financial system that needs a reboot and an upgrade, but also our public school system. Otherwise, the jobless recovery won’t be just a passing phase, but our future.
“Our education failure is the largest contributing factor to the decline of the American worker’s global competitiveness, particularly at the middle and bottom ranges,” argued Martin, a former global executive with PepsiCo and Kraft Europe and now an international investor. “This loss of competitiveness has weakened the American worker’s production of wealth, precisely when technology brought global competition much closer to home. So over a decade, American workers have maintained their standard of living by borrowing and overconsuming vis-à-vis their real income. When the Great Recession wiped out all the credit and asset bubbles that made that overconsumption possible, it left too many American workers not only deeper in debt than ever, but out of a job and lacking the skills to compete globally.”
This problem will be reversed only when the decline in worker competitiveness reverses — when we create enough new jobs and educated workers that are worth, say, $40-an-hour compared with the global alternatives. If we don’t, there’s no telling how “jobless” this recovery will be.
A Washington lawyer friend recently told me about layoffs at his firm. I asked him who was getting axed. He said it was interesting: lawyers who were used to just showing up and having work handed to them were the first to go because with the bursting of the credit bubble, that flow of work just isn’t there. But those who have the ability to imagine new services, new opportunities and new ways to recruit work were being retained. They are the new untouchables.
That is the key to understanding our full education challenge today. Those who are waiting for this recession to end so someone can again hand them work could have a long wait. Those with the imagination to make themselves untouchables — to invent smarter ways to do old jobs, energy-saving ways to provide new services, new ways to attract old customers or new ways to combine existing technologies — will thrive. Therefore, we not only need a higher percentage of our kids graduating from high school and college — more education — but we need more of them with the right education.
As the Harvard University labor expert Lawrence Katz explains it: “If you think about the labor market today, the top half of the college market, those with the high-end analytical and problem-solving skills who can compete on the world market or game the financial system or deal with new government regulations, have done great. But the bottom half of the top, those engineers and programmers working on more routine tasks and not actively engaged in developing new ideas or recombining existing technologies or thinking about what new customers want, have done poorly. They’ve been much more exposed to global competitors that make them easily substitutable.”
Those at the high end of the bottom half — high school grads in construction or manufacturing — have been clobbered by global competition and immigration, added Katz. “But those who have some interpersonal skills — the salesperson who can deal with customers face to face or the home contractor who can help you redesign your kitchen without going to an architect — have done well.”
Just being an average accountant, lawyer, contractor or assembly-line worker is not the ticket it used to be. As Daniel Pink, the author of “A Whole New Mind,” puts it: In a world in which more and more average work can be done by a computer, robot or talented foreigner faster, cheaper “and just as well,” vanilla doesn’t cut it anymore. It’s all about what chocolate sauce, whipped cream and cherry you can put on top. So our schools have a doubly hard task now — not just improving reading, writing and arithmetic but entrepreneurship, innovation and creativity.
Bottom line: We’re not going back to the good old days without fixing our schools as well as our banks.
Perhaps American has becomes a nation of wealth-fare recipients. Although our productivity is likely higher than any other country in the world, our individual and social standards are perhaps mediocre at best. American is being polarized by mediocre ideologues and individual fears of global consequences. Regretfully our education has forgotten to teach American the ability to rationalize and society has instigated the value of "winning at any cost."
A nation that in a little more than 200 years has evolved into the greatest nation in the world, an accomplishment that none has achieve even though had 100s of more years, is slowly forgetting its values and giving up its resources, human and monetary, to global terrorism whilst forgetting that the core of America is in its families, family values, and hard work.
Op-Ed Columnist
The New Untouchables
By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN
Published: October 20, 2009
Last summer I attended a talk by Michelle Rhee, the dynamic chancellor of public schools in Washington. Just before the session began, a man came up, introduced himself as Todd Martin and whispered to me that what Rhee was about to speak about — our struggling public schools — was actually a critical, but unspoken, reason for the Great Recession.
There’s something to that. While the subprime mortgage mess involved a huge ethical breakdown on Wall Street, it coincided with an education breakdown on Main Street — precisely when technology and open borders were enabling so many more people to compete with Americans for middle-class jobs.
In our subprime era, we thought we could have the American dream — a house and yard — with nothing down. This version of the American dream was delivered not by improving education, productivity and savings, but by Wall Street alchemy and borrowed money from Asia.
A year ago, it all exploded. Now that we are picking up the pieces, we need to understand that it is not only our financial system that needs a reboot and an upgrade, but also our public school system. Otherwise, the jobless recovery won’t be just a passing phase, but our future.
“Our education failure is the largest contributing factor to the decline of the American worker’s global competitiveness, particularly at the middle and bottom ranges,” argued Martin, a former global executive with PepsiCo and Kraft Europe and now an international investor. “This loss of competitiveness has weakened the American worker’s production of wealth, precisely when technology brought global competition much closer to home. So over a decade, American workers have maintained their standard of living by borrowing and overconsuming vis-à-vis their real income. When the Great Recession wiped out all the credit and asset bubbles that made that overconsumption possible, it left too many American workers not only deeper in debt than ever, but out of a job and lacking the skills to compete globally.”
This problem will be reversed only when the decline in worker competitiveness reverses — when we create enough new jobs and educated workers that are worth, say, $40-an-hour compared with the global alternatives. If we don’t, there’s no telling how “jobless” this recovery will be.
A Washington lawyer friend recently told me about layoffs at his firm. I asked him who was getting axed. He said it was interesting: lawyers who were used to just showing up and having work handed to them were the first to go because with the bursting of the credit bubble, that flow of work just isn’t there. But those who have the ability to imagine new services, new opportunities and new ways to recruit work were being retained. They are the new untouchables.
That is the key to understanding our full education challenge today. Those who are waiting for this recession to end so someone can again hand them work could have a long wait. Those with the imagination to make themselves untouchables — to invent smarter ways to do old jobs, energy-saving ways to provide new services, new ways to attract old customers or new ways to combine existing technologies — will thrive. Therefore, we not only need a higher percentage of our kids graduating from high school and college — more education — but we need more of them with the right education.
As the Harvard University labor expert Lawrence Katz explains it: “If you think about the labor market today, the top half of the college market, those with the high-end analytical and problem-solving skills who can compete on the world market or game the financial system or deal with new government regulations, have done great. But the bottom half of the top, those engineers and programmers working on more routine tasks and not actively engaged in developing new ideas or recombining existing technologies or thinking about what new customers want, have done poorly. They’ve been much more exposed to global competitors that make them easily substitutable.”
Those at the high end of the bottom half — high school grads in construction or manufacturing — have been clobbered by global competition and immigration, added Katz. “But those who have some interpersonal skills — the salesperson who can deal with customers face to face or the home contractor who can help you redesign your kitchen without going to an architect — have done well.”
Just being an average accountant, lawyer, contractor or assembly-line worker is not the ticket it used to be. As Daniel Pink, the author of “A Whole New Mind,” puts it: In a world in which more and more average work can be done by a computer, robot or talented foreigner faster, cheaper “and just as well,” vanilla doesn’t cut it anymore. It’s all about what chocolate sauce, whipped cream and cherry you can put on top. So our schools have a doubly hard task now — not just improving reading, writing and arithmetic but entrepreneurship, innovation and creativity.
Bottom line: We’re not going back to the good old days without fixing our schools as well as our banks.
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