*Climate Change

Greenspace and Gentrification: How to ensure that urban parks & gardens benefit everyone

by Cindy Yoo

In this article we explore the complex question of how to ensure that greenspace and other urban amenities will actually benefit the communities to which they are targeted. We will highlight the many benefits of urban greenspace, explore the lesser-known implications for both nearby house prices and the rents faced by tenants, and discuss ways to ensure that the attractive greenspaces are financed by those households who they benefit most while also making sure that vulnerable tenants also share in their many desirable social and environmental outcomes.

Leveling the Energy Playing Field

by Frank de Jong

The stone age didn’t end because we ran out of stones. Don Huberts After the COVID-19 dip, global oil use has rebounded to 100 million barrels per day and is projected to rise to 104 million bpd by 2026 with no peak in sight. Coal… Read More »Leveling the Energy Playing Field

LVT, the Key to Conservation Biology?

by Frank de Jong

“The Earth is our home. Unless we preserve the rest of life, as a sacred duty, we will be endangering ourselves by destroying the home in which we evolved, and on which we completely depend.” ― E. O. Wilson A mass extinction is underway, we… Read More »LVT, the Key to Conservation Biology?

Mississippi: The Tangled Web of History, Class, Race, and Water

by Joshua Vincent

It’s too easy for a northeastern US observer to have an overbearing and infuriating attitude regarding Mississippi. Unfortunately, Mississippi has a laundry list––or a butcher’s bill if you like, of past sins that stick in the craw of humanists and the respecters of justice alike.

That said, no one is innocent. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. observed (after getting hit with a brick in Chicago), “As long as the struggle was down in Alabama and Mississippi, they could look afar and think about it and say how terrible people are. When they discovered brotherhood had to be a reality in Chicago and that brotherhood extended to next door, then those latent hostilities came out.”

So, we ought to look at the current problems in Jackson, Mississippi, bloodlessly and try to keep emotions out (I’m not saying it’s easy). What happens when a group surrenders political power but economic power remains the preserve of the privileged? Perhaps, it will turn out that political power is often no power at all. Instead, it takes politics and economics for political economy like two elements forming a chemical compound producing different behaviors.

Robert Schalkenbach Foundation Progress of Ideas Grant

by RSF Staff

The Robert Schalkenbach Foundation (RSF) is committed to supporting original research that carries the ideas of 19th century economist and social reformer Henry George into the 21st century and beyond. To this end, RSF supports the conduct of original research into topics of social justice,… Read More »Robert Schalkenbach Foundation Progress of Ideas Grant

Pricing carbon is a magic job machine

by admin

“No army can stop an idea whose time has come” — Victor Hugo Hugo was referring to the French Revolution, but his quote also nails the unstoppable logic of carbon pricing. Recently, the Supreme Court of Canada wrote, “Climate change is a real and existential… Read More »Pricing carbon is a magic job machine

Using a Carbon Fee and Dividend: A Tool to Overcome the Climate Crisis

by admin

This past September, tens of thousands of people, including myself, sheltered indoors. Not just because of COVID mandates, but to escape the forest fire smoke engulfing the west coast. The sky was an eerie blood-orange and the air quality index exceeded 500, an extremely hazardous… Read More »Using a Carbon Fee and Dividend: A Tool to Overcome the Climate Crisis

A Green New Deal Tax Shift

by admin

The “Green New Deal” is a set of proposed laws that are intended to reduce the pollution that contributes to climate change. The term is, of course, adapted from the “New Deal” policies of the Roosevelt administration during the Great Depression. New Deal policies included… Read More »A Green New Deal Tax Shift

Where do we go from here?

by admin

From RSF Executive Director Josie Faass It feels like every time I sit down to write one of these monthly updates, our world has taken any number of strange, disconcerting turns. This month is no different. But rather than get caught up in the dizzying… Read More »Where do we go from here?

Carbon, Climate, and COVID-19 Part 3

by admin