Being “rich“. Is that really the best we can hope for our children?

Recently, my husband emailed me a link to an article, “Will Your Child be Rich or Poor? 15 Poverty Habits Parents Teach Their Children” by Tom Corley. It’s uncommon for him to send me whole articles, as he usually prefers to text me inappropriate pictures or screen shots of Tweets he considers gut-busting, but he’s not alone in his enthusiasm. The article boasts 398k likes on Facebook. The title was somewhat off-putting to me; I figured it might be a case of click-bating and dove in with eagerness.

But the article left me feeling fairly queasy. I don’t really care about the writing style, or the heavy reliance on the statistics from the self-conducted study. What was so unpleasant was the tone. The simplistic and childish assumption that all rich people are happy and classy, and all poor people are miserable and gross.

I can only assume that this article is a very brief summary of the kinds of things Mr. Corley discusses in his two books: “Rich Kids – How to Raise Our Children to be Happy and Successful in Life” and “Rich Habits – The Daily Success Habits of Wealthy Individuals.” The books were written using data from a study that Mr. Corley’s website (richhabits.net) says he culled by the following method: “For five years, Tom observed and documented the daily activities of 233 wealthy people and 128 people living in poverty. During his research he identified over 200 daily activities that separated the ‘haves’ from the ‘have nots.’ ”

After a brief introduction, the article lists some depressing statistics from Mr. Corley’s study. Things like, “72% of the wealthy know their credit score vs. 5% of the poor”, “62% of the wealthy floss their teeth every day vs. 16% of the poor”, “79% of the wealthy believe they are responsible for their financial condition vs. 18% of the poor”, etc.

Mr. Corley then goes on to explain to parents how to structure children’s lives so that they can avoid falling into the heinous and irreversible trap of becoming poor. To prevent such ruination, Mr. Corley provides us with 15 bullet points.

I readily acknowledge that I agree with a lot of the suggestions. In my opinion, many of the things he says are just good common sense ways to help your kids develop into nice and healthy grown-ups. Mr. Corely urges us to limit screen time and junk food, let our kids know that it’s ok to make mistakes, set aside one hour a day just to chat, have them exercise daily, help your child open up a bank account, and have kids write thank-you notes.

But much of the list seems stifling and wrong-footed. I’m not sure if Mr. Corley has any children of his own, but it seems as if he hasn’t ever met an actual child. Also, I’m not sure what age group he’s suggesting these tactics be unleashed on. The list doesn’t seem appropriate for younger kids, but it doesn’t seem right for teenagers either.

Mr. Corely wants our kids to set monthly, annual, and five-year goals, work or volunteer 10 hours a week, save 25 percent of their earnings and gifts, read two “educational” books a month, create daily to-do lists that must be monitored by parents, require kids to participate in two non-sports related activities, have parents punish children when they lose their tempers, and have parents teach their children that wealth is good and it’s important to pursue the “American Dream”.

My husband and I have two boys. I like to think we’re raising them to be kind, polite, empathetic, hard-working, and happy. Does anyone really think that being rich automatically makes them happy? As long as we’re somewhat responsible, shouldn’t we focus on being fulfilled, rather than wealthy? It surprised me that my partner would want to enforce this money-hungry, Gestapo-like regime on any person, much less our own children.

And I can’t imagine a more perfect breeding ground for intense resentment and rebellion than the schedule prescribed by Mr. Corley.

A Day in the Life 

• 5:30 am: Wake up. Write up daily to-do list and submit it to Mom for approval.
• 6:30-7:30: Have breakfast, and get ready for school. Make sure khaki pants have perfect pleats.
• 8:00-3:00: School (think he’s allowed to have fun or just, you know, suffer?)
• 3:30-4:30: Homework (which Mom has to help with)
• 4:30-5:30: Non-sports related activity, pottery making. Mom will drive him, of course.
• 5:50-6:30: Soccer practice, because we need to squeeze in that daily exercise. Mom continues to chauffeur.
• 6:30-7:30 It’s time to volunteer. Mom carts the little guy over to the local nursing home where he empties bed pans for an hour.
• 7:30-8:30: Dinner. Mom still has to make a healthful meal.
• 8:30-9:30: Chatting. Not sure what there is to discuss since kid had spent most of the day driving around with Mom.
• 9:30-10:45: To-do list. Oh, man! He didn’t take out the garbage, write a thank you note to grandma, balance his check book, or read a chapter in his educational tome, “The Youngest Millionaire in the World.”
• 11:00 pm: Floss the crap out of his teeth and go to bed. Hopefully, this little man is so worn out he falls asleep quickly, because 5:30 comes awful early.

And I sincerely hope Mom doesn’t mind having zero time for a life, job, partner, or other children.

Like I said above, I’m not in favor of letting kids do whatever they want or fostering a completely self-centered existence. But when you force a kid to do anything, it sucks. They hate it and a ton of your parental interaction time is spent on tedious nagging. As a parent sometimes you have to insist. But this is an ENTIRE DAY of forced labor and boring busy work. Whether they end up rich, poor, or something in-between, how can such a parent involved, over-scheduled childhood make a happy, self-sufficent adult?

Instead of teaching kids how to become wealthy, a specious goal at best, how about we give them some room. Sometimes, kids and teens need to be alone, or do nothing, or go lay in the grass and daydream. Sometimes they need to be selfish, go play, stare in the mirror, or waste time. More than sometimes, really more like a lot of times. How about they read books because it’s fun, or we talk when we feel like it? Why not take the that twenty dollars from Grandma and blow the whole thing on bulk candy and a video game? Why not enjoy being young? It’s such a short and precious time.

And what happens when you release this carefully controlled animal into the wild? Will he be able to navigate college without you and your incessant nagging? Will he call you every night crying to come home? Or will he dive headfirst into the fun he’s so long been denied and never call you again?

If kids never have a chance to stop and let their minds wander, how will we they discover who they are and who they want to become? If they’re always working, how will they ever know that yucky feeling that comes from too much lolling around? How can a child or teenager so tightly harnessed ever make the mistakes that we’re supposed to teach them are ok?

Here’s a fantastic essay from Motherlode, the parenting blog on the New York Times site. It’s called, “What’s Your Teenager Doing This Summer? In Defense of ‘Nothing’ “by Julie Lythcott-Haims. Mrs. Lythcott-Haims spent a decade as the dean of freshman at Stanford University and saw first-hand how crippling over-scheduling and over-parenting can be. I suggest that you give it a read. It’s very well-written and definitely something that’s actually worthy of being shared on Facebook. I plan on sharing it with my husband tonight.

Follow Sarah on Facebook: This Fit Mom

Related on EcoSalon

Is Eco Fashion Too Expensive?

Foodie Underground: Appreciating What You Have

5 Fabulous Furnishings That Grow With Your Kids

Image: Shutterstock Piggy Bank Photo

The post Why I Don’t Want My Kids to be ‘Rich’ appeared first on EcoSalon.

As a nation, we are losing our ability to feed ourselves. One in 5 Americans won’t eat dinner tonight and the greatest percentage of them live in rural America. In fact, 15 percent of rural households use food stamps to survive. How could it be that the places that provide most of our food can’t even feed their own?

Michael Olson of Food Chain Radio explored the issue of hunger in rural America.

“The grandparents farm never did make much money, but it did produce the best kind of food imaginable,” he said. “When the children grew up and left the farm, the grandparents sold out to those who wanted to grow government-subsidized sugar beets, and moved into the little farm town down the road.”

Today rural America looks much different than it did when our grandparents farmed the land. Farmers have been replaced by machinery and pesticides and farm houses are collapsing in disrepair. As a result, the small farmers that worked the land and ran the community have no place to work and no food to grow.

“Today there is little left of grandparents’ farm but a collapsed barn midst acres of government-subsidized crops.  Nor is there much left of the little farm town but boarded up storefronts and residents wondering what to do with their time,” Olson said on Food Chain Radio.

It all started with good intentions. During the Dust Bowl, the Great Plains were ravaged by drought in a country already devastated by the Great Depression. Farmers were going hungry so the government stepped in to subsidize their crops. Who knew that those same subsidies would result in huge factory farms.

This coupled with the fact that the next generation didn’t want to stay on the farm and work. Instead, they wanted to move to the glitz of the big city. With no one left to work the farm, many ended up being sold to mega farmers. And even if there was employment on these huge factory farms, corn, sugar beets, and soy aren’t real food, they have to be processed first.

This all left rural poverty like our country had never seen before. Show your distaste for these factory farms by eating local, unprocessed foods from small farmers as much as possible. Support self sustaining communities so they don’t disappear completely.

Related on EcoSalon

Support a Small Farm

Wake Up to the Secret Farm Bill

10 Infographics on Farming and Culture

Image: Don Graham

The post Why Is Rural America’s ‘Farm Country’ Going Hungry? appeared first on EcoSalon.

New York City has a big problem with trash, especially food waste. An innovative new program aims to up composting rates by allowing families to exchange food waste for locally grown produce.

As the most populous city in America, it’s no surprise that New York City produces a lot of trash. Just walk down any street in Manhattan after dark, and you’ll see much of it, stacked in miniature mountains up and down the sidewalk. Of the 12,000 tons of trash produced every day in the Big Apple, more than 35 percent is organic waste–vegetable peelings, eggshells, and other once-edible food that’s perfect for composting.

The problem is, almost no one in NYC composts. Although the city is launching a composting program this fall, it will only be voluntary. And if New York’s abysmal recycling rates are any indication, the vast majority will ignore it.

The key to getting people to compost (or any environmentally-responsible behavior for that matter) is providing the right incentive. When around 46 percent of a population is living near the poverty line, however, it better be a pretty darn good incentive. For those struggling to feed their families, what happens to an orange peel is not high on the priority list.

Luke Keller and Aly Blenkin, two students at Parson’s School of Deisgn, may have found the perfect way to address both the food waste and food poverty issuesin New York. The pair recently founded Hello Compost, a service that will work with Project EATS (a New York-based nonprofit focused on urban agriculture) to allow low-income families to trade their food scraps for locally-grown fresh food.

Here’s how it would work: Families put food waste into freezable, odor-blocking collection bags. The bags are designed by local students, made from canvas and feature bright colors. The bags are then delivered to Project EATS, where they are weighed and assigned a value that translates into credits for fresh produce, grown by local farmers. “Project EATS uses an iPad app to track progress–and appeal to the human drive to compete, similar to the gaming psychology that makes the Nike FuelBand so successful.”

The idea is brilliant in its simplicity. There’s no outdoor composter to build or stinky indoor compost to content with. The rewards are instantaneous and meet a real need for many New York City families. Once engaged, it’s hard to see why New Yorker’s wouldn’t want to trade their trash for edible treasure, but it’s getting them engaged that will be the challenge.

“We need to re-imagine the role of food waste from being a smelly, unattractive side effect of eating to an attractive resource for residents to positively impact their community and to help put fresh food on the table,” Blenkin told Fast Co. Design.

Pending approval from the New York City Housing Authority, Project EATS will launch the Hello Compost service this fall. Find out how you can participate or support the project by liking their Facebook page.

Related Reading:

Food Waste: The Average American Throws Out Every Other Piece Of Food

Frozen Assets: 10 Ways To Stop Wasting Fridge Food

Images: Hello Compost/Project EATS & Fast Co. Design

The post Hello Compost Turns Food Waste Into Fresh Food For NYC Families appeared first on EcoSalon.

Academy award winning actor and director Ben Affleck is eating “like a poor person” to help shed light on the world’s poverty issues.

Living on $1.50 a day is unthinkable for most of us. But what if you were a multimillionaire actor? That’s the commitment Ben Affleck made to The Global Poverty Project, an organization that aims to to “increase the number and effectiveness of people taking action to see an end to extreme poverty,” according to its website. The organization says that $1.50 a day illustrates the issues accurately that nearly 1.5 billion people around the world face every day.

Affleck tweeted about the challenge a few weeks ago, and is joined by other celebrities including Sophia Bush, Josh Groban, Debi Mazar, and Hunter Biden, reports US Weekly.

What exactly can Affleck eat on $1.50 a day? That’s a pretty darn good question, as you can’t get find too much out of a vending machine for much less than that, let alone a legitimate meal. Hopefully he’ll use his skills to track down some cheap beans and rice that he can portion out according to his budget. We’re not sure if he’s allowed to glean fruits and vegetables from neighborhood fruit trees or gardens in order to add free nutritious food to his diet. That would certainly help. But, if he’s looking to emulate the daily experience in many impoverished parts of the world, their aren’t too many lush fruit trees or gardens, so he’ll probably skip the fruit-hunting.

But what he does have, is the reality that after his few days of living on next to nothing are up, he can go back home, open up his fridge and eat most anything he likes. That certainly isn’t the case for the world’s poorest communities. The project hopes to raise awareness as well as funds. Last year, more than $3 million was raised.

And it’s not just third world countries where hunger is an issue. Right here in the U.S. millions of Americans face food challenges. One of the biggest ways to help is to decrease your own food waste. Professional estimates indicate that as much as 40 percent of the edible food in the world goes uneaten due to factors including poor transportation, expiration and home waste. Do your part and be conscious about your food intake and help route edible food to shelters, food banks and soup kitchens.

Keep in touch with Jill on Twitter @jillettinger

Image: Erin Lassahn

The post Oscar Winner Ben Affleck Eats on $1.50 a Day appeared first on EcoSalon.

Tommy Hilfiger’s new capsule collection aims to bring attention to extreme poverty in Africa. But what about the poverty that exists in the third-world garment factories where he manufactures?

Tommy Hilfiger has a reputation for producing classic, casual, on-trend fashion. But with its new Promise Collection, Tommy is making a foray into the world of social enterprise. The 30-piece capsule collection features “American design classes reinterpreted with African colors, prints, and motifs,” says the release, and 100 percent of all proceeds will benefit Millennium Promise, an international nongovernmental organization co-founded by economist Jeffrey Sachs that intends to halve extreme poverty worldwide by 2015.

The Collection debuted in April, with much fanfare and a look book featuring warm-fuzzy photos of Katie Holmes, the collection’s global ambassador. But with a fashion collection benefiting global poverty, one has to ask – how does Tommy Hilfiger’s business practices support – or perpetuate – conditions of poverty in the places that he manufactures?

Tommy Hilfiger blazed on the scene in 1985 with a youthful line of classic American sportswear. The brand has grown with much the same casual but classic aesthetic, with a Hilfiger denim spin-off label that focuses on the 18-28 demographic. With distribution in over 90 countries and $4.6 billion value, Tommy Hilfiger is one of the world’s leading apparel and retail brands.

The Good

Founded by philanthropist Ray Chambers and Sachs in 2005, Millennium Promise’s main purpose is to accelerate the United Nations’ Millennium Development Goals, an ambitious set of aims – like reduce maternal mortality by three quarters and achieve universal primary education – that 189 member states signed on to achieve by 2015.

The MDGs reflect an understanding of the many interconnected factors that contribute to extreme poverty and include time-bound and measurable targets to address income poverty, hunger, disease, lack of adequate shelter and exclusion—while promoting gender equality, education and environmental sustainability. Bill Gates has called them “the best idea for focusing the world on fighting global poverty that [he has] ever seen.”

Millennium Promise focuses its efforts on Africa, and through the Millennium Villages project, it attempts to fight poverty at a local level by addressing issues in agriculture, education, health, infrastructure, gender equality, and business development.

According to press materials, Tommy Hilfiger was first introduced to the work of Millennium Promise in 2009, and he made his first visit to Millennium Villages in Ruhiira, Uganda, in 2010.

When I first visited Ruhiira in 2010 I was deeply affected by the level of poverty. Millennium Promise had already started to work towards improving basic health care, food supplies and access to water, but there was still a lot to achieve. It was an eye-opening experience and I knew, after that visit, that I had to be involved even more in putting an end to poverty on this level.

Full proceeds from The Promise Collection will benefit Millennium Promise projects in Ruhiira, a cluster of six villages spread out over several hundred square kilometers of southwestern Uganda. Through a digital campaign, customers will also be able to track how purchases have a direct impact on life in Ruhiira, in areas like food, health, education, environment, and technology. As of June 1, $1,466,929 had been earmarked for projects.

The Bad

While creating a capsule collection to raise awareness and funds is one way to go about addressing extreme poverty, it takes only a little bit of probing to see that Tommy Hilfiger’s global manufacturing practices aren’t exactly the most ethical. The hourly wage for workers producing Tommy Hilfiger garments ranges from 23 cents to $1.75, according to a PBS documentary on the denim industry. And sweatshop conditions have been reported in factories everywhere from Mexico to Thailand to the tiny Pacific island commonwealth of Saipan.

But perhaps one of the most disturbing recent reports came from Bangladesh, where a 2012 garment factory fire killed 29 people. It was later found that hazardous electric wiring, lack of safety equipment, and padlocked gates were to blame for the deaths, according to an ABC News investigative report. Details of the incident were oddly reminiscent of the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire in New York City in 1911, which killed 146 garment workers, exposed sweatshop-like conditions in garment factories, and jumpstarted the American worker’s rights movement.

Confronted about the incident before his show at New York Fashion Week, Hilfiger initially said that he upheld a “gold standard” for worker safety, and that the company was no longer working with the Bangladeshi factories. However, shipping records procured by ABC News said otherwise. Later, Hilfiger and Emanuel Chirico, CEO of parent company Phillips-Van Heusen, agreed to a television interview with ABC News, in which they admitted that Tommy Hilfiger still works with factories in Bangladesh.

According to Scott Nova, executive director of the Workers Rights Consortium, Bangladesh is one of the cheapest places in the world to manufacture. “It has the lowest wages – 21 cents an hour – the weakest regulations, the weakest attention to workplace health and safety,” he told ABC News.

Hilfiger and Chirico maintain that the only way to create change in Bangladeshi worker conditions is to continue working with factories to improve their conditions. In the meantime, three other Hilfiger factory employees have died in recent safety-related accidents, one when a frayed elevator cable snapped and two others when workers rushed to open padlocked gates after a boiler explosion.

The Questionable

In press materials for the Promise Collection, Tommy Hilfiger said that he was “moved” by the challenges facing impoverished people in Africa and inspired to do something about it.

It was a lifechanging experience. The trip inspired me to raise even more awareness–as well as funds–in order to help this cause. As a designer the best way to do that was, naturally, to design a collection and donate 100% of all proceeds to the important work that is being done to eradicate extreme poverty.

As a designer, that may be one way to address poverty. But as the head of one of the world’s leading apparel brands, Hilfiger also has the power to address global poverty by simply doing better business – paying fair wages, insisting on improved conditions, and contributing to the communities in which they manufacture. While Bangladesh’s garment industry has provided that necessary first step out of extreme poverty, it is still a place where 50 percent of the population lives under the international poverty line of $1.25 per day. Before Hilfiger attempts to combat conditions in Africa, he needs to first look at the poverty that exists right under his nose, in the communities that produce his polo shirts, cabana shorts, and beach towels.

SEE ALSO:

Behind the Label: H&M’s Conscious Collection

Behind the Label: Levi Strauss’ E-Valuate Program

Behind the Label: TOMS’ One for One Campaign

Behind the Label: Puma’s Vision and Clever Little Bag

Behind the Label: Anthropologie’s Made In Kind

Behind the Label: Is Stella McCartney A Sustainable Brand?

Read more Behind the Label here.

The post Behind the Label: Tommy Hilfiger’s Promise Collection appeared first on EcoSalon.

A film about entrepreneurial solutions to social issues.

The statistics surrounding the state of public health in the United States are overwhelming. Today, 72.5 million Americans are obese, resulting in $146 billion dollars per year in obesity-related costs. That number is estimated to jump to $343 billion by 2020.

This is how the documentary film Apple Pushers begins, with a strident reminder of the food and health crisis we’re currently in. We live in a country where the disparity between communities that have access to fresh food and those that don’t is shocking. In fact, 23.5 million Americans don’t have a supermarket within one mile of their home, putting these Americans in the heart of food deserts, and while convenience stores and fast food may abound, getting healthy and affordable food is difficult and inconvenient.

In response to food deserts in New York City, in 2008 the Laurie M. Tisch Illumination Fund gave a $1.5 million grant to launch the Green Carts initiative, creating 1,000 permits for green carts, mobile food carts that sell raw fruits and vegetables. The grant funded micro-loans and technical assistance for Green Cart operators to ensure that low-income communities would have the access to healthy food they so desperately need.

The story of the Green Carts initiative and its positive effects is the subject of documentary film, Apple Pushers, screening online April 22-30 as a part of Whole Foods’ online documentary film festival Do Something Reel, featuring a variety of documentaries on food and environmental issues.

First approached by Laurie Tisch, filmmaker Mary Mazzio launched herself into telling the story of four immigrants positively impacted by the initiative, all starting their own mobile food cart businesses, and the effects that this kind of philanthropic effort can have. In the process, she was immersed in the world of food politics and the importance of access as it relates to healthier communities.

“When these low income residents can use their food stamp cards, demand skyrockets, whether it’s farmers markets or pushcarts… [it]has to be a price point that makes sense. Low income communities want access to food too,” says Mazzio.

Providing access to good food might seem like a no-brainer, but watch the film and you soon learn that getting Green Carts launched was not a path without obstacles. A contentious issue when it came to City Council, politicians were concerned about the effects on local business that such a model would have, contending that mobile food carts would pull consumers away from local establishments. In the film, we see the heated debate that ensues. “I waded through all the 100s of pages of testimony… what was really interesting was, yet another universal concept, whether you have a 2×4 cart or you’re Walmart, people go ballistic because it means change,” says Mazzio.

But the launching of a program that would support mobile food carts wasn’t just an economic question. “What did surprise me were some of the arguments, like ‘those people don’t eat fruits and vegetables.’ I think that is a misguided notion of how you look at the issue. That’s like saying ‘oh, those people don’t have checking accounts’ Well guess what, where are the banks? It’s an issue of red line food districts,” says Mazzio.

Put good food into these places and people will buy it. “Low income communities want access to food, too,” says Mazzio. (That this should even be a matter of debate says much about our current cultural climate.) When we’re talking about public health and eating habits, we have to start with infrastructure and equality.

And the stakes are high. As Mazzio points out, obesity alone “is a problem that could bankrupt our children if we don’t keep it in check. It’s going to overshadow almost every other problem we have financially. Really? This is a problem we can fix.”

And that’s where the idea of mobile markets comes into play. From mobile grocery stores in Nashville to a mobile supermarket in New Mexico to a $25,000 grant to fund a mobile farmers markets in Houston, initiatives similar to Green Carts are popping up around the country, providing a grassroots solution to an overwhelming problem. Beyond providing access to good food, as they are “rooted in micro entrepreneurship” as Mazzio says, these programs are also economically empowering.

For Mazzio, if we’re going to solve the obesity crisis we need more programs like this. Not just government subsidies, but the kind of micro loans and programs that bring long lasting returns. Ultimately, programs like Green Carts are “entrepreneurial solutions to social issues,” says Mazzio. Because when it comes to food, we all need to eat, and we all deserve the access to the food that is good for us.

“This is basic human rights. That’s kind of overstating it, but this is food justice,” says Mazzio.

“The Apple Pushers” theatrical trailer from Paul Gattuso on Vimeo.

Do Something Reel festival opens April 22, with a live screening of “The Apple Pushers,” followed by a panel discussion with the film’s writer and director, Mary Mazzio; executive producer, Laurie Tisch; and celebrity chef, food policy advocate and founder of Wholesome Wave, Michel Nischan. The event will take place at Alamo Drafthouse’s Slaughter Lane Theater in Whole Foods Market’s hometown of Austin. Additionally, theaters in Boston, Detroit, Pittsburgh and San Francisco will host simultaneous screenings and will stream the panel discussion. For more information click here. To learn more about Apple Pushers visit the film’s website. 

Image: Apple Pushers

The post Solving the Food Crisis: An Interview with ‘Apple Pushers’ Filmmaker Mary Mazzio appeared first on EcoSalon.

How a film about children sold into slavery reveals the plight of those working daily to restore broken lives.

“I realize what I’m doing is just a ripple in the larger scheme of things,” says filmmaker Jody Hassett Sanchez, who is traveling the world to promote her documentary Sold. The film is a horrific yet hopeful window into adults who sell and traffic children and the modern day abolitionists  risking life and limb to end the $27 billion-a-year industry.

A ripple perhaps, but the small film is leaving audiences devastated in its wake at screenings across the globe, from formal showings to the British Parliament to warm meet and greets at St. Luke Presbyterian Church in San Rafael. It poses the question: Can one person make a difference when it comes to ending child slavery today? Three inspirational activists including a Hindu in India, a Christian in Africa and a Muslim in Pakistan are each doing their part to combat the buying and selling of humans, which has flourished under globalization. We see what they are up against in the harshest of settings where blood is not always thicker than water when faced with starvation.

Desperate parents must make a Sophie’s Choice of sorts in allowing a trader in their village to whisk away one of their children with the promise of a reunion in four years or so. The parents are reassured the children will be treated well, a delusional bargain at best.

In reality, boys as young as three have been ripped from their homes in Pakistan and sold to the UAE as camel jockeys for sport and entertainment. Fed water and crackers to stay underweight, the boys have suffered permanent genitalia damage when strapped on the camels and forced to ride 14 hours a day on desert racetracks.

But because of the political and diplomatic rescue efforts of attorney Ansar Burney in Karachi, the Saudis have enacted new laws to outlaw the brutal practice pledging to only use riders age 18 or over. Burney is one of three abolitionists starring as the main characters of the film and emerges a hero as he reunites the boys with their families and to repair their broken spirits.

“I’m not sure if they can be totally restored because of what they have been through and the idea of therapy is a western notion,” says Sanchez about what happens to these children once returned to schooling or household duties back home. “But there is a feeling of hopefulness and they do receive a great deal of love from the people around them.”

It seems no one is more loving than former Hindu nun Dr. Sunitha Krishman, a social activist and co-founder of Prajwala, an institution rescuing trafficked women and girls and helping them find shelter.  She organizes brothel raids and oversees 17 schools for young girls she rescues from forced prostitution in India. The film has us cringing when describing how the youngest virgins reap the highest prices. Krishman evokes the image of Mother Teresa as she embraces the girls who are given new identities and a fresh start. The brave crusader admits she has been shot at several times and is deaf in one year from the violence inflicted by traffickers.

And in rural Togo, Symphorienne Kessouagni gently helps to re-socialize and educate former slave children. Most tell the story of their parents sending them away to live with distant relatives only to end up in the hands of brokers who smuggled them across the border to do heavy labor, doing work even strong adults would find grueling.

The film is clearly faith-based, relying on religion as a healer and unifier as witnessed in the first Abolition Movement and throughout history. What’s missing from the film is the exposure of the sinister elements, ambush interviews with brokers or underground footage of rich Saudis delighting in child jockeys. Sanchez, a former ABC News producer, explains she made the deliberate choice to omit the “other side to the story,” arguing it wouldn’t add a thing.

“This is not another movie about what is wrong in the world but one that focuses on those who are making a difference trying to solve the problems,” she says. “We want our audiences to be outraged that there is more slavery than ever before in history, but we also want them to move from anger to action.”

Images: Emirates 24/7: Hyderabad Burpp; Jodyhassettsanchez; Ansar Burney

The post Sold: New Film on Ending Brutal Child Slave Trade appeared first on EcoSalon.

7 truths you need to know about China’s environmental notoriety.

As I’m writing this, I’m preparing for my return trip to Chongqing, China after a two-month vacation living at home with my parents in beautiful (albeit morbidly freezing) Fargo. While I’m reveling in the fact that I’ll be going to a place with weather over zero, I’m a little less psyched than last September when my boyfriend and I first left for China, with hearts full of hope and three suitcases full of dreams.

Hope and dreams aside, it’s principally the glamor of living in a foreign country that was crushed in the months that ensued after my arrival, during which I studied my brains out, Chinese style (I’m studying Mandarin – learning 30 completely different hieroglyphs daily and being tested on them the next), got to do my laundry by hand, and slept “comfortably” each night with my boyfriend on a lovely spring-loaded twin mattress.

The great thing about international travel is that you learn what you can truly live with (and without). In this case, I learned I can live with all of the aforementioned, plus long layovers, 14-hour flights, ten-times-crazier-than-New-York cab drivers, and much much more. In retrospect, I can even laugh about most things.

But this is what I can’t laugh about: pollution boogers.

I’m sorry, dear reader, but the thing I am dreading above and beyond all else, is waking up with my nose plugged full of black, coal-sooty, shall we say, “organic matter”.

You may have heard all about China’s pollution problems. You may know that China is the biggest net CO2 emitter, having overtaken the U.S. in 2007. You may have even heard that 16 of the world’s 20 most disgustingly grimy, unlivable, unbreathable cities in the world are in China. But nothing compares to actually waking up to the lovely smell of pollution.

Here are seven things you need to know about China’s environmental problems, from an un-seasoned, non-scientist, pollution-breather. For these purposes, forgive me if I wax a little more serious, but let’s be honest: this is serious stuff.

1.  The human cost of China’s pollution woes is concretely and directly related to astronomical cancer rates and unforgivably low quality of life in many areas.

Take a look at China’s infamous “cancer villages,” villages and towns in China where the entire population has experienced the effect of pollution-linked cancer either personally or inter-personally. These horrifying areas of China reflect the degree to which pollution has directly harmed not just the land and the air, but the people as well. Cancer is China’s #1 cause of death. Only one percent of China‘s 560 million urban dwellers breathe air that the European Union’s standards would consider breathable. While Cancer Villages are poor examples of the whole, they are microcosms of the thousands if not tens of thousands of towns and cities where China’s coal reliance, unclean industry and waste practices have left their mark by a layer of soot and grime that most Chinese treat as a standard feature of the urban landscape.

2. When individuals speak up about this human cost, especially if they tackle environmental problems as a human rights issue, they put themselves at great risk.

One risk is being targeted by rich factory owners and industrial moguls whose wealth is a powerful tool for bribery and an incentive to all around thuggery. The other, more remote but very crushing risk is being deemed subversive and inimical to state stability and becoming a political prisoner for it. It’s downright sad that the greed and corruption underpinning the risk of pissing off the powerful, undermines and reduces environmental advocacy and results in little to no change. It’s even sadder that beneath the risk of becoming a political prisoner there’s a fundamental irony: stifling the voices of people who don’t want heavy metals in their children’s food or have no desire to see their neighbors drop dead from pollution-caused cancer could, even more than letting people advocate for human and environmental rights, become a truer risk of social breakdown.

3. Most of the worst pollution is concentrated in comparatively poorer Northern and inland areas.

Collectively, these areas are the engine that is moving total economic progress forward. They are where coal (China’s life support) is mined, heavy metals are extracted, heavy industry is booming, and domestic goods are produced. They are also the nexus of growing inland-coastal inequality that correlates to urban-rural and poor-rich disparities. Heavily polluting industry is kept away from the wealth and health of coastal poster cities like Shenzhen, not to mention from the newly rich who live there and the tourists who come to see the glossy side of China. There are no aforementioned “cancer villages” on the Southern coast.

4.  The U.S. and China are both part of an import-export machine that drives the global economy, but goods aren’t the only thing we trade.

While the U.S. exports more and more black money-making chunks of carbon to fuel China’s coal dependence, China exports its fair share: acid rain and particulates. If you take a look at this graph, you can see that coal exports from the United States into China sky-rocketed from 386,950 tons in 2009 to 4,071,837 tons in 2010. That’s more than 10 times in one year, proof that pushing to green public policy is not enough- we need to be global. That’s not all, if you’re reading this in Los Angeles, you’re breathing multinational pollution, and some of it is from China. As the New York Times put it, “China’s problem has become the world’s problem. Sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxides spewed by China’s coal-fired power plants fall as acid rain on Seoul, South Korea, and Tokyo. Much of the particulate pollution over Los Angeles originates in China, according to the Journal of Geophysical Research.” 

5. The central government actually has some comparatively brawny environmental regulations, hefty fines for non-compliance, and significant investments in green technology, and to a degree, it’s helped. But it’s not the whole story.

While a degree of mistrust is certainly appropriate, for the most part media reports about China’s greening efforts are reporting the truth. In 2009, China’s state council ambitiously stated that it plans on reducing its carbon intensity by 40 to 45 percent by 2020 (from 2005 levels). Its newly released 12th, five-year plan  (China’s centrally-designed map toward continued progress in 2011 to 2015), clearly indicates a continuing commitment to reducing its environmental issues, including big investments in green energy aimed at kicking its carbon habit and expanding what’s now in place. For example, China has not only overtaken the U.S. in carbon emissions, but according to the Guardian, it has also left the U.S. in the dust with its wind-power generating capacity. 

Here’s the part where we tend to fall prey to China’s image machine: While the central government is by all appearances trying, it isn’t trying that hard. The problem is that centrally designed incentives for local governments are structured around the economy not the environment. Social (re: economic) stability (re: growth) trumps environmental concerns. If a regulation will harm the local economy–say the expense of alienating factory owners by forcing them to put caps on a factory’s smokestacks, a local official just won’t follow it. And the central government, big investments aside, just isn’t willing to change its incentives.

6. Most Chinese feel for the environment and recognize that its destruction is a bad thing, but hope for continuing economic ascension trumps the fear of environmental decline.

Just as in the United States, when it comes to daily decision-making, whether it be by average, everyday people or by high level local officials and factory owners, “the bottom line” is what most people think about. And the bottom line in China is this: Now is the time to get rich (er, “moderately prosperous“) or die trying.  While the die trying part will likely come from destroying the environment, the reward is success in a society that desperately wants to prove its global clout after a century and a half of humiliation by Western powers. 

It’s also important to know that there’s just not the same level of “green” awareness in China as there is in the West and Japan right now. For example, in Chongqing there is a series of slogans run by the charismatic and well-connected mayor called “the Five Chongqings,” which are five visions of Chongqing’s future that are meant to guide its development into a global metropolitan city. One of them is translated into English as “Green Chongqing,” that is, a Chongqing with more trees. More trees is good, but the goal is not necessarily undertaken from an environmental standpoint. In this case, the vision is aesthetic. More trees means a prettier city that more people will want to visit, which means more tourism, and more inflow of capital.

While an expanded notion of “green” and an expanded sense of responsibility toward the environment would be great, most Chinese don’t see themselves as having the luxury to place that above its long economic project that has to date raised millions and millions of people out of abject poverty. And as far as they’re concerned, that project is nowhere near complete.

7.   We are implicated, and in a more complicated way than you may think. It goes without saying that China’s industry produces our products and supports our consumption. There’s no denying it. Just go to Wal-Mart and check every plastic thing you can find. But while we cannot escape this fact, self-flagellation isn’t quite the right response either. Our imports from China have been the linchpin in China’s export machine, the very mechanism that has supported the incredible feat that some call China’s miracle; its aforementioned poverty-elimination project. 500 million Chinese escaped poverty between 1981 and 2004, and in just the 3 years after China joined the World Trade Organization in 2001, poverty was cut by another 3rd. Our consumption, while we often lament its destructive facets, is a huge part of China’s ability to make that happen.

Let me put it in real terms: Tomorrow I may wake up with black boogers, but in a few months I’ll go home to my country, go to Target, and buy a Chinese-made plastic storage bin so I can organize all of the crap I bought while I was in Chongqing. And while I’m fueling the environmental cause of the current source of my sticky goober dread, I’ll be contributing to a global supply chain that is exploitative, harmful, and has performed the previously unimagined feat of building for my Chinese friends a system in which they can support themselves economically without the need of a communist leadership to give them an “iron rice bowl.” Oh, the ambivalence.

Images: Justin D, Lance Webel, Robertg6n1, blacksmithinstitute, malouenfrankinchina, J_Ensley

The post 7 Things You Should Know About China’s Pollution Problem appeared first on EcoSalon.

You know when your friends tell you, “Don’t worry, it will get better, just give it some time?” Well, that’s good and kind and well-intentioned, but actually, and I’m sorry to be the one to burst the bubble, a lot of things don’t get better. In fact, sometimes things get worse – certainly right now, for many people.

I’m thinking specifically right now about food and hunger. And even if we keep our conversation local, the facts are not good. 14 percent of the U.S. population is on food stamps today. That’s 1 in 7 Americans. It is also an increase of 16 percent from last year. That’s significant.

Given that such a significant number of people are on them, I decided to take a look at the food stamp system. First, I learned that since October of 2008, the program has been officially called the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP). I also learned that the average recipient gets $133 in stamps per month, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA).

It seems logical that the system would help low income and unemployed people buy nutritious foods. Right?

Sadly, no. Do some digging, and you soon learn the entire system is depressingly vague. There are no guidelines around the types of food one can purchase with the stamps, other than the exclusion of tobacco, alcohol and hot foods. A person can take their Electronic Benefit Transfer (EBT) card to CVS and spend their monthly stipend on Halloween candy or potato chips or Pop Tarts. Or all three.

It’s quick and painless to apply for food stamps, which may come as a surprise. You don’t have to be homeless or unemployed. You can own a car and get food stamps. You don’t even have to stand in a long line at a government agency to get food stamps. You can even be hip, young and broke and fill your belly with food stamp food.

It seems any middle class, employed person can qualify if they just take the time to apply. Some universities are even encouraging their students to apply for food stamps. (I’m still trying to wrap my head around that one.) Rules are rules, and if a person meets the eligibility requirements, they can receive food stamps.

Image: WPS

The post Anatomy of a Food Stamp: 5 Facts You Didn’t Know appeared first on EcoSalon.

You can forget the familiar argument about whether or not sustainable, organic agriculture can feed a growing population, or whether we need genetically modified foods to increase production.

It’s nothing more than a Red Herring.

It’s not that we don’t have enough food to feed the world. The problem is that there is a wealthy class of speculators who think nothing of gambling with people’s stomachs and lives in an effort to make a profit on the world food commodity markets.

Remember back in spring of 2008, before the economy completely imploded but things were looking shaky? Food prices that had been rising for a couple of years peaked and then suddenly dropped again. Nobody could figure out exactly what happened. Even here in the U.S. – the land of plenty – Costco began rationing rice when food prices reached their height.

I even wrote a post about it. Turns out I didn’t know the half of it.

What happened were two things:

The creation of derivatives in food commodities and the collapsing U.S. real estate market.

Are you prepared to get really angry? This opinion piece in The Independent details how powerful investment banker lobbyists fought hard to repeal regulations that once ensured only those people directly involved in agriculture could invest in food commodity markets. These lobbyists wanted the food commodity markets to be open to trade by anyone by creating derivatives.

What are derivatives you ask? They are contracts that act as stand-ins for an actual physical item being sold. They provide investors with more leverage for a smaller investment. So when a farmer contracts to sell her wheat to a trader, that trader can turn around and sell the contract to other traders. And so on. Pretty soon, the price is based entirely on market psychology, rather than the actual value of the wheat. And the investor makes more money by gambling on prices going up, which causes prices to go up. When food prices go up, poor people with incomes of $1-$2 a day simply starve.

The mortgage derivatives that brought down our housing market (and economy) worked the same way. Mortgages that were worth much less than the physiology of the market said they were worth more, and therefore sold and resold. In such cases, somebody is always left holding the empty bag. In all cases, it’s the people without the power. In the case of the toxic mortgages, it was homeowners with no financial leverage or renters living in homes that were foreclosed on through no fault of their own.

Here is the definition of a derivative from Investopedia: “A derivative is a security whose price is dependent upon or derived from one or more underlying assets. The derivative itself is merely a contract between two or more parties. Its value is determined by fluctuations in the underlying asset – derivatives are generally used as an instrument to hedge risk, but can also be used for speculative purposes.”

Ironically, the laws that led to mortgage derivatives are what ended up causing the food price spike that, according to the above referenced piece in The Independent, caused the price of wheat to go up by 80 percent, maize by 90 percent, rice by 320 percent, and 200 million people globally to starve.

That’s because, back in 2006, while urban dwellers in areas like The San Francisco Bay Area were continuing to outbid one another for 2 bedroom shacks, the rats-in-suits at Goldman Sachs and Merrill Lynch knew that the housing market was going to collapse. So they got out.

They pulled out of the real estate market and invested in food commodities, causing prices to rise astronomically. They made money. Oh yes they did. All while bringing the world economy to its knees. Then we bailed them out.

As the financial reform package winds its way through Congress, with mixed results when it comes to real reform, it might be a good idea to contact your representatives and let them know how you feel about the big bankers causing people in distant countries to starve.

Or as the writer of the piece in The Independent urges, get involved in The World Development Movement.

This is the latest installment in Vanessa Barrington’s weekly column, The Green Plate, on the environmental, social, and political issues related to what and how we eat.

Image: othermore

The post How Investment Bankers Cause Starvation appeared first on EcoSalon.