Month: June 2011

Garbage is USA’s Most Containerized Export

America Chung Nam, the sister company and supplier of wastepaper to China’s largest containerboard manufacturer, was the largest American exporter of containerized goods by volume in 2010 for the 10th year in a row, according to the latest Journal of Commerce Top 100 Importers and Exporters annual rankings.

The California-based company shipped a total of 300,800 20-foot equivalent units from the U.S. in 2010. The volume was 16 percent ahead of the 259,300 TEUs America Chung Nam exported in 2009.

America Chung Nam, founded in 1990, sends recycled paper goods to Chinese paper mills, which are then converted into fiberboard, cardboard, and packaging. The company has their customer base in the U.S., Asia and Europe. In addition to containerboard, they also exports plastic recyclables.

Recycling paper, plastics and scrap metal is good not only for the environment but also for reducing the U.S. foreign trade deficit. Then, it comes back to us, as Wal-Mart remained the No. 1 importer of containerized ocean cargo, increasing its shipping volume into the United States 1.8 percent in 2010. The world’s largest retailer imported 696,000 20-foot equivalent units last year, up from 684,000 TEUs in 2009. The company also was No. 39 on the Top Exporters 2010 list with 28,000 TEUs shipped out of the U.S.

via Wastepaper Giant ACN Was Top US Exporter | Journal of Commerce.

Why Food Will Become the Biggest Security Threat

The 19th century is the century of chemistry and that gets us chemical weapons in World War I. The 20th century is the century of physics and that gets us nuclear weapons in World War II. But the 21st century? That’s the century of biology, and that gets us biological weaponry and biological terror. My point: obsessing over nuclear terrorism is steering by our rearview mirror. If you think people are afraid of radiation (dirty nukes, etc.), that’s nothing compared to their fear of tainted food. My point: if you’re a terrorist looking to sow fear and confusion, disrupt supply chains and ruin crucial industries, you can’t do much better than to work some biological mischief on food networks.

The average farm-to-fork journey in this world is now about 1,500 miles, and it’s getting longer by the week. Global climate change will make it harder to grow food across a thick band of territory (roughly up to/down to the 35th parallel) centered on the Equator. That’s where most of the population growth and water stress problems will erupt in coming decades, and it’s also where countries all tend to be highly dependent on imported food. See your Arab Spring and realize how much of this unrest is caused by rising food prices and you’ll get the overall picture.

Mark my post: this century is all about biology, rising food demand – and thus dependencies exacerbated by climate change (see the buying-up of arable land in Africa by Arab and Asian nations), and thus biological terror comes to the fore. Forget about energy nets, because they all go far more localized with smart grids, co-located generation/distribution, etc. It’s food that will be the most vulnerable global network in the future.

via The future of Fifth Generation Warfare: Follow the food! – Battleland – TIME.com.

The Great Disruption Has Arrived

Why didn’t more of us see it coming? After all, the signals have been clear enough – signals that the ecological system that supports human society is hitting its limits, groaning under the strain of an economy simply too big for the planet. But we didn’t and, as a result, the time to act preventatively has past.Now we must brace for impact. Now comes The Great Disruption.It is true that the coming years won’t be pleasant, as our society and economy hits the wall and then realigns around what was always an obvious reality: You cannot have infinite growth on a finite planet. Not ‘should not’, or ‘better not’, but cannot. We can, however, get through what’s ahead – if we prepare. Continue reading “The Great Disruption Has Arrived”

Decline of Snail Mail Killing U.S. Postal Service

The USPS has 571,566 full-time workers, making it the country’s second-largest civilian employer after Wal-Mart Stores (WMT). It has 31,871 post offices, more than the combined domestic retail outlets of Wal-Mart, Starbucks (SBUX), and McDonald’s (MCD). Last year its revenues were $67 billion, and its expenses were even greater. Postal service executives proudly note that if it were a private company, it would be No. 29 on the Fortune 500.

The problems of the USPS are just as big. It relies on first-class mail to fund most of its operations, but first-class mail volume is steadily declining—in 2005 it fell below junk mail for the first time. This was a significant milestone. The USPS needs three pieces of junk mail to replace the profit of a vanished stamp-bearing letter.

During the real estate boom, a surge in junk mail papered over the unraveling of the postal service’s longtime business plan. Banks flooded mailboxes with subprime mortgage offers and credit-card come-ons. Then came the recession. Total mail volume plunged 20 percent from 2006 to 2010. Continue reading “Decline of Snail Mail Killing U.S. Postal Service”

Boy regrets selling his kidney to buy iPad

17-year-old student in Anhui Province sold one of his kidneys for 20,000 yuan only to buy an iPad 2. Now, with his health getting worse, the boy is feeling regret but it is too late, the Global Times reported today.

“I wanted to buy an iPad 2 but could not afford it,” said the boy surnamed Zheng in Huaishan City. “A broker contacted me on the Internet and said he could help me sell one kidney for 20,000 yuan.” Continue reading “Boy regrets selling his kidney to buy iPad”

Atheists have ‘better sex than religious followers who are plagued with guilt’

Atheists have far better sex lives than religious people who are plagued with guilt during intercourse and for weeks afterwards, researchers have found.

But devoutly religious people rated their sex lives far lower than atheists. They also admitted to strong feelings of guilt afterwards.

Strict religions such as Mormons ranked highest on the scale of sexual guilt. Their average score was 8.19 out of 10. They were followed closely behind by Jehovah’s Witness, Pentecostal, Seventh Day Adventist, and Baptist. Catholics rated their levels of sexual guilt at 6.34 while Lutherans came slightly lower at 5.88 . In contrast, atheists and agnostics ranked at 4.71 and 4.81 respectively.

People who had left their beliefs behind said their sex lives were ‘much improved’ and rated their new experiences on average as 7.81 out of ten.

The findings emerged in the ‘Sex and Secularism’ survey of more than 14,500 people carried out by psychologist Darrel Ray and Amanda Brown from Kansas University.

via Atheists have ‘better sex than religious followers who are plagued with guilt’ | Mail Online.

 

Continue reading “Atheists have ‘better sex than religious followers who are plagued with guilt’”