New York Times (September 5)
The United States Postal Service (USPS) stands on the verge of bankruptcy. Volume has been shrinking in the digital age and the USPS deficit is expected to reach $9.2 billion by the end of the current fiscal year. The postmaster general, Patrick R. Donahoe, is seeking Congressional approval of his plan for “eliminating Saturday mail delivery, closing up to 3,700 postal locations and laying off 120,000 workers.” Without drastic measures, the USPS will default on pension payments this month and “sometime early next year… run out of money to pay its employees and gas up its trucks… forcing it to stop delivering the roughly three billion pieces of mail it handles weekly.”
The Wall Street Journal (September 3)
There’s only one way the world can feed 9 billion people and provide them with fuel and water. According to Nestle’s Chairman Peter Brabeck-Letmathe, politicians around the world must decide “no food for fuel.” Increasingly food has been diverted for biofuel production. About one half of corn production in the U.S. and rapeseed production in Europe already goes to biofuels, which are also water intensive (producing a liter of biodiesel can require over 9,000 liters of water). While the result of rising food prices from this diversion is merely “annoying” in rich countries, it means people “go hungry” or thirsty in the Third World.
The Economist (September 3)
Japan’s not alone in living with an overvalued currency. The commodities “boom has lifted the Australian dollar by more than 43% since the start of 2009” and “pushed up Brazil’s real by even more.” Switzerland escaped this boom, but it’s blessed (or cursed) “with a commodity prized more than iron ore or soyabeans in uncertain times: safety.” As a result the Swiss franc has shot upward. Policymakers in all three countries are concerned, but efforts to weaken their currencies have born little fruit. “Instead of trying to prevent a rise in the currency, countries can, of course, learn to live with it.”
The Independent (August 30)
The second generation of biofuels may be drawing near. By using enzymes that allow elephants to digest “sugars which normally remain locked up in the cellulose structure of plant cells,” Swiss researchers were able to “convert 90 per cent of bio-mass, such as maize stalks or wheat straw, into ethanol—about double the rate until now.” This second generation technology would make it possible to “to mass-produce eco-friendly gasoline for the first time without relying on food crops.”
The second generation of biofuels may be drawing near. By using enzymes that allow elephants to digest “sugars which normally remain locked up in the cellulose structure of plant cells,” Swiss researchers were able to “convert 90 per cent of bio-mass, such as maize stalks or wheat straw, into ethanol—about double the rate until now.” This second generation technology would make it possible to “to mass-produce eco-friendly gasoline for the first time without relying on food crops.”
Tags: Biofuel, Food crops, Gasoline, Switzerland, Waste
The Telegraph (August 30)
In a finding unlikely to shock many, an international study reveals “the UK is the worst nation in Europe for the teaching of foreign languages.” The best nations are Luxembourg, Finland and Iceland where the average schoolchild learns more than 2 foreign languages. In contrast, children in the UK learn just 1, down from 1.3 in 2002.
