Freedom

The Ideal 25 Hour Work Week

- Adam Clare

The currently popular 40 hour work week is a fairly modern notion and it’s thanks to unions that we don’t have something like an 80 hour work week. Times have changed and now scientists in the field of biodemography have suggested that a 25 hour work week is optimal. It allows people to spend more time living life than working in exchange for working later than the currently popular age of retirement.

“In socio-economic terms it makes a lot of sense. The important thing is that we all put in a certain amount of work – not at what point in our lives we do it. In the 20th century we had a redistribution of wealth. I believe that in this century, the great redistribution will be in terms of working hours.”
…
”We know that elderly people are prepared to continue working if they’re capable of doing so. And I’m guessing that young people would prefer to work less while they’re young if they have the option of working more when they get older.

Read more at ScienceNordic.

Marijuana Decriminalization Lowers Youth Crime Rate

- Adam Clare

Marijuana has been recently decriminalized in a few states in the USA, and based off of data from California the overall rate of youth arrests will drop dramatically. This is good news because now so many young lives won’t be destroyed for participating in using a drug that has negligible health effects (way less than alcohol) and is an insanely costly law to enforce. In Canada, the majority of Canadians encourage decriminalization for similar reasons.

The San Francisco-based Center on Juvenile & Criminal Justice (CJCJ) recently released a policy briefing with an analysis of arrest data collected by the California Department of Justice’s Criminal Justice Statistics Center. The briefing, “California Youth Crime Plunges to All-Time Low,” identifies a new state marijuana decriminalization law that applies to juveniles, not just adults, as the driving force behind the plummeting arrest totals.

After the new pot law went into effect in January 2011, simple marijuana possession arrests of California juveniles fell from 14,991 in 2010 to 5,831 in 2011, a 61 percent difference, the report by CJCJ senior research fellow Mike Males found.

Read more at AlterNet

LA Bans Puppy Mills; Pet Stores to Sell Only Rescued Animals

- Adam Clare

LA joins quite a few other cities in North America to ban the sale of animals from puppy mills. Puppy mills are horrible breeding facilities focused on profit at the expense of animal welfare and many people buying a pet don’t realize that pet stores get their puppies from such morally bankrupt places. Bans on puppy mills help cities deal with the vast quantity of rejected animals from people’s homes that need to be taken care of in city shelters.

The city council voted 12-2 in favor of a law that would require pet stores to sell only rescued animals. In addition to reducing euthanizations, the law seeks to put an end to puppy and kitten mills that keep animals in poor conditions and then ship them to pet stores.

The law would still allow individuals to buy directly from breeders.

If you’re going to take care of another being please think about all the ramifications it could have on your life.

Read more at the Huffington Post.

In New York City Gay Marriage is Worth $259 Million

- Adam Clare

You read that correctly, a $259 million (USD) boom in New York City’s economy is thanks to respecting human rights! Changing the law to reflect reality and letting homosexuals marry one another has generated some needed economic growth for the local economy. All of this in just one year!

“Marriage equality has made our City more open, inclusive and free — and it has also helped to create jobs and support our economy,” Mayor Bloomberg said in a statement.

More than 8,200 same-sex marriage licenses have been issued over the past year, representing more than 10% of the 75,000 licenses issued in the city, according to a survey conducted by the City Clerk’s Office and NYC & Company, the city’s tourism and marketing organization.

Read more at CNN.

Mobile Devices for Development

- Adam Clare

The use of mobiles in development is nothing new; however, it’s always good to remind ourselves how useful this technology can be. Mashable has a list of five reasons mobile devices are good for international development (and in developed nations too).

4.
Preserving the Rainforest
Brazil’s Surui tribe, a group native to the Amazon Rainforest, has been subject to the devestating effects of logging on its ancestral lands. Google helped the Surui devise a solution, through the use of Android phones, to monitor one of the land’s most valuable resources, its carbon stock.

Carbon offsets are sold to companies to counterbalance the negative toll their manufacturing, transportation or electricity are having on the globe.

While it may seem antithetical to use smartphones to help preserve the tribe’s traditional culture and lands, the Surui’s leader, Chief Almir, believes technology is a tool with great power to do good. As a testament to his work with Google, he hopes to open a center for technology and culture on the tribe’s ancestral lands.

Read more.

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