World Getting Better? Depends

I finally finished Charles Kenny's "Getting Better: Why Global Development Is Succeeding – And How We Can Improve the World Even More".  We bought the book when he spoke at the "Confronting Global Poverty" lecture Series of the Alworth Center for Peace and Justice at St. Scholastica in Duluth on Nov. 13, 2012.  You can watch his lecture here.

Many were disappointed in his talk and book because they thought he was painting a rosier picture than reality.  Kenny's thesis is that we should concern ourselves less with increasing GDP and look more at quality of life measures.

These include health, longevity, education, child mortality, and family size.  He claims that throughout the world with a couple of notorious exceptions, the first four measures are getting greater and the last less.  Rather than look at the number of roads and dams, we should look at how people are living day-to-day and what they and we can do to improve daily life.

For an example of a low-tech solution that improved the lives of trash pickers in India, see "Out of India's Trash Heaps, More Than a Shred of Dignity", Sarika Bansal, New York Times, 2013-06-12 .  Do read some of the comments.

The green is not grass, the green is trash

As we were driving I-90 through Montana and my wife looked out over the brown landscape, she said, "I see a bit of green." I looked out and saw a green pop bottle and said, "The green is not grass, the green is trash!"

I hadn't really paid much attention before, but the amount of trash along the side of the highway was appalling. There must have been at least one bottle or can every two feet. I don't think I've seen as much trash along the more heavily traveled I-35. Either many Montanans are bigger slobs than some Minnesotans, or Minnesotans pick up trash more often.

Using oil to save oil

Many are saying that plastic bags should not be used because they are made from oil and that they do not decompose readily in landfills. Some of these people either use paper bags for trash or buy bio-degradable plastic bags.

We tried bio-degradable bags years ago but they were flimsy and ripped easily. We gave them another try this week. They do seem sturdy enough for waste-basket liners. However, as I read the label I found out they were made in Norway! I wonder how much oil it takes to ship them from Norway to Minnesota. Also, the bags are corn-based; corn supposedly takes a lot of oil to raise.