Saturday, August 29, 2015

In the US, the yellow school bus is #autosprawlsubsidy

The Economist: "Fort Wayne expects to lose $2.5m from its school-transport budget in the coming year (and is forbidden to spend money from other funds on buses, or to charge fees for school transport). Local officials further reduce funds for schools by offering tax breaks to attract businesses, and by diverting property taxes to economic-development schemes. Four other school districts in Indiana have served formal notice that they may scrap bus services."
In the US suburbs there is no public transit. Outside the housing development, suburbs are unwalkable. But "good schools" are one of the main attractions of sprawl. So, for safety, with few exceptions, children have to ride a yellow school bus. Now, there is no money left. Sprawl subsidy is unsustainable.

Tuesday, August 25, 2015

Half of corporate profits directly stolen from the biosphere

CleanTechnica: "It estimated annual environmental costs from global human activity at 11% of global GDP (2008). The world’s 3,000 largest publicly listed companies were responsible for about one-third of this environmental damage. The proportion of company earnings possibly at risk from natural capital costs in an equity portfolio weighted according to the MSCI All Country World Index exceeds 50%."

Saturday, August 1, 2015

Welfare for #autosprawl is draining government budgets

The Economist explains: The global addiction to energy subsidies | The Economist: "IMF number-crunchers reckon that if the subsidies were cut, global carbon-dioxide emissions would fall by over 20% and government revenues would increase by $2.9 trillion, or 3.6% of GDP."