The long run is a misleading guide to current affairs. In the long run we are all dead. Economists set themselves too easy, too useless a task if in tempestuous seasons they can only tell us that when the storm is past the ocean is flat again.
John Maynard Keynes, A Tract on Monetary Reform
Worth the 7 minutes. Let me know what you think!
Poodwaddle.comAnother day in the market, on a similar ash heap above an inlet that flushes to the Atlantic after a downpour, Israel Mensah, an incongruously stylish young man of about 20, adjusts his designer glasses and explains how he makes his living. Each day scrap sellers bring loads of old electronics—from where he doesn't know. Mensah and his partners—friends and family, including two shoeless boys raptly listening to us talk—buy a few computers or TVs. They break copper yokes off picture tubes, littering the ground with shards containing lead, a neurotoxin, and cadmium, a carcinogen that damages lungs and kidneys. They strip resalable parts such as drives and memory chips. Then they rip out wiring and burn the plastic. He sells copper stripped from one scrap load to buy another. The key to making money is speed, not safety. "The gas goes to your nose and you feel something in your head," Mensah says, knocking his fist against the back of his skull for effect. "Then you get sick in your head and your chest." Nearby, hulls of broken monitors float in the lagoon. Tomorrow the rain will wash them into the ocean.
http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2008/01/high-tech-trash/carroll-text
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Love the world clock...
ReplyDeleteLooks like it will only take a year or two for the number of spam emails to surpass the US National Debt. HA!
The electronics video was also very interesting, too. Not really new info, but something I certainly try not to think about. I would welcome a 'disposal tax' on 'toxic' items - and/or a GHG fee on imports (even if I don't believe in GW). Something that tries to capture the true lifetime cost of goods & services. It always baffles me how the strawberries from Chile can be cheaper than the ones grown up the street... even the u-pick ones! There are definately some costs missing from the per-unit pricetag...