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If Labour had defended the working class and if Conservatives had acted responsibly in the public interest Britain would have been much better off. Britain's economy and standard of living has suffered from the long drawn out austerity years under the Tories followed by the Brexit issue raised by the Tories. Behind Brexit were Nigel Farage of the Reform party and Boris Johnson of the Tories. Nigel Farage was brought out of retirement by the lack of effective leadership of Labour under Starmer even after winning a majority in parliament for Labour. Andy Burnham is trying to put Britain's house in order coming in as the man from the North, Mayor of the Manchester region. He has served in positions including at Treasury under Blair and Brown. Compared to every prome minister of the last three decades he brings both the experience and the knowledge of how to implement efforts to improve public services from experiments done in the Manchester region that he can use for the whole of Britain in transportation, infrastructure, delivery of water, electricity, and other essential services in a better way than the privatized companies of the Tories. He pushed back against Reform's revival in the Makerfield by-election. And it is crucial for Britain's economic future that it not waste more years like it did under Cameron and Johnson with a extension under Reform that only delays Britain's economic recovery. ...

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A 'Use Up' day to tackle food that gets wasted after going bad in the fridge, adding to the compost and greenhouse methane gas emissions from burning waste. Picking one day a week to create a meal from food that is already in the kitchen or fridge, that reduces waste.

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Ways to reduce food waste are shown here by making use of food in intelligent ways, food that is otherwise wasted in the kitchen and added to compost.

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Kimura Naoko, designer from Aomori, Japan, draws cabbage with cabbage, that is crayons made of cabbage, in this NHK series Zero Waste Life video.  Kimura uses vegetables, fruits and flowers to make crayons of each that is labeled according to the ingredient, like "apple" or "cabbage." With the help of a crayon craftsman she invented this new type of crayon by trial and error using rice bran as the base instead of wax and oil. It is popular with Japanese parents and adults. Most of the raw materials are from her local region of Aomori and are discards or remainders.

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Between 2016 and 2019 Rocky Mountain National Park in Colorado had 40% increase in visitors. It has only 4 toilets in at Longs Peak 14,000 feet high, a frequently visited spot by hikers, each miles apart. The park is itself 265,000 acres and with Denali, Alaska, Mt. Rainier, Washington state, one of the top frequently visited park areas in America. Some of the worst work in the world is getting the waste in these older abandoned toilets which don't work anymore out of there as this can breed some of the bacteria that could harm people, animals and vegetation.  TecToilet at $4000 a piece has provided a temporary solution being used at some parks. This is to separate the urine from the waste which proves to be a breeding ground for bacteria, and sent the waste separately to a deposit container, which is taken out by helicopter. This solution is very costly. The parks not well funded and having faced cutbacks from a bad staffing situation to begin with end up being behind on needed facilities and maintenance. The 3 decade waste of capital led by Silicon Valley and Wall Street, and cheered by official media, has to take responsibility for this deplorable and absolutely crazy situation in America. More people are visiting national parks and national forests, and open backcountry in the mountains, especially after the pandemic, yet the jewels of America have to justify essential funding?  India is tackling the situation of toilets in a big way for sanitation in the country after centuries of neglect. Millions of toilets are being built at low cost. What is needed is for Indian engineers to come up with a design for India's own national parks, including the parks in the Himalayan regions, which have the same problems facing the national parks of America for toilet waste. Other countries in Europe need to be researched for solutions that may already exist and new designs made at lower cost in India that can tackle the decontamination and disposal of the waste on site without the cost of helicopters taking it out.      ...

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NHK World- Japan's Zero Waste Life video series shows practice of responsible consumption and production for zero waste lifestyle. Since ancient times the Japanese have believed a life force exists in all creation. It is an essential component of climate change action today. This one shows Li Riu's sewing school teaching students how to remake adult clothes into kids wear. Items that could end up in that disposal heap in the Atacama desert in Chile are transformed into clothes for their own children. Her place is full of laughter for mothers and children alike says the author. Click on Original Article for the NHK video.

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Plastic use has increased with the tripling in parcels delivered in the last 4 years, up to 64 billion parcels. As much as 93% of the growth in trash in major cities in China in 2018 comes from this one source- an astonishing 850,000 tons of plastic waste in 2018 from the e-commerce and delivery sector. Food deliveries and Alibaba online deliveries add to plastic waste. The government is cracking down with new rules from the Environment Ministry. By the end of 2020 non biodegradable plastic bags will largely be banned from cities, and single use straws banned in restaurants across China.  This ban will extend to all cities and towns by 2022 and to markets selling fresh produce by 2025. Restaurants will have to cut use of plastic by 30% by 2025. In 2018 China stopped taking imports of plastic waste. China is beginning to realize the costs of letting single use plastic grow. The last regulation was in 2008 banning the giving of free plastic bags at retail markets and banning production of super thin bags. It has taken the sudden jump in use in package delivery and in food delivery for the government to finally act. Experts say China uses too much plastic. India has taken strong action against single use plastic in 2019 under the leadership of prime minister Modi. ...

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Since ancient times the Japanese have believed a life force exists in all creations. Nakahara learned to value all things from an early age, says this NHK Japan video of a woman who settled in a mountain region of Japan thirty years ago after living in the city. In her weaving of cloth, dyeing, and making clothing she practices a zero waste lifestyle that inspires all around her. She uses pampas grass in her backyard for making dyes and makes the cloth using traditional handicraft weaving equipment. Click on Original Article for the NHK video.

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Caste is little understood in the US. In India caste is not seen as a positive thing as it is seen as having made India weaker, creating divisions that led to colonization of India by the British and extraction of capital for the East India Company. Leaving Bharat (India), all Indians including the lowest castes, poor and backward. This is why Gandhi took up the fight against untouchability- the worst form of caste. Since 1947 every government has worked to integrate the lowest castes into the economic mainstream. PM Modi appointed a tribal Santhal caste schoolteacher to president of Bharat (India).

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An example of the insensitivity of tech manufacturers to needs of schools. Chromebooks that were once presented as a low cost option for PC's in schools at about $300 are no longer what they used to be. The expiration dates for hardware that may be working makes them useless in school districts that purchase them only a couple of years before the expiration. They are increasingly being founded in scrap or E-Waste, says this report in WSJ. Macbooks or PC's are a better option because after a few years they can still be worth hundreds of dollars and they can be used and are supported for many years. The cost of sending chromebooks to scrap heaps because of expiration dates could be costing school districts $1.8 billion.

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Caste discrimination laws passed in the California legislature with little opposition. Opponents lobbied the governor to veto the legislation as state law already prohibits discrimination in California. Bharat (India) perspective on caste is for integration of the country and looking back at the lessons of colonization by the British. Caste divided the country and made it easier to colonize for Europeans who extracted capital for the East India Company and later Britain and creating backwardness and poverty. Bharat (India) goal was to create opportunities for integration of tribal communities lower castes Dalits and tribal Santhals into education economic mainstream. A Santhal from Jharkhand/Orissa was made president of India by PM Modi.

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Palantir Technologies offers 200 fellowships with 4 month course on western civilization to high school graduates who skip college. The fellows are offered jobs full time so they end up missing the opportunity to go to college for the necessary maturity to make the right decisions about their future. Parents of the fellows disagree and see college as a better idea. The semester course on western civilization is something that could be taught in high school and made part of mandatory courses similar to math and languages. 

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Scientist Kim Mishra at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology has come up with a method to make chocolate not just from the cocoa seeds discarding the pulp, husk and juice as is done today. This is wasteful. The new method uses the cocoa pulp, the husk and the juice as a way to make chocolate without sugar and use the whole fruit. This will reduce the impact on the climate with more chocolate production and less deforestation for new cocoa planted in South American countries as an addition to production in African countries like Ghana. It will also benefit cocoa farmers in Africa and Guatemala by increasing their income. This report looks at the colonial past of chocolate production by companies such as Lindt as Swiss producers worked with French and British colonies to expand production in the late 19th century.

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A Story of the American West in 2026- at the BLM Bureau of Public Lands Quartzsite site in Arizona offering camping for $160 for 7 winter months. A story that reflects on an alternative lifestyle for people who were laid off during the pandemic in the restaurant or other business, or people recovering from illness looking for less than fulltime work, as well as others with RV's on recreational trips. No economic exchange most of it on barter basis.

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The worst flaw in the health care bill says the Economist is that "fee for service" and doctors billing for each test done continues as before.The whole idea of medical services based on medical necessity and value for money has been left out of the billsin Congress. Alan Meltzer also pointed this out in his discussion of the deficits and debt over the next decade; that the 25% reduction in medical expenditures does not look anywhere closer to reality, worsening the deficits. This is also the view expressed in the discussion of health care reform in the November 2, 2009, issue of Business Week. Never mind said BW that the doctors and hospitals account for one third of medical expenditures and there is waste in Medicare spending. Congress said BW has made no changes in the "fee-for-service" system of medical care that has inflated medical costs, by paying doctors for the volume of services delivered and not the quality of services delivered.

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The protest vote in Uttar Pradesh is just that a protest vote intended to get a message that the work of the Modi government to modernize and industrialize the economy needs to be accelerated to see its effects felt in rural agricultural areas of Indian states. Modi said yesterday- "If you work for ten hours I will work for 18 hours" showing that he sees the need for acceleration, even harder work ahead to modernize and industrialize India.  Disconnect with lower caste untouchable voters called Dalits and economic distress felt from the effects of the pandemic, decades of neglect that take time to correct in one of India's largest and least industrialized states Uttar Pradesh, led to prime minister Modi failing to get most of the 80 of 543 seats as it had done in three previous elections. Lower caste Dalits form 20% of the population, other lower castes another 40% of the population and 20% are Muslim voters. With this mix of voters and the time it takes to modernize and industrialize its economy in a state that was neglected for over 60 years the Modi government's best intentions have not delivered election results in the state in 2024 after the pandemic. Delivery on schemes for sanitation, clean running water, affordable housing, cooking gas for poor households, that have brought 250 million out of poverty nationally and about 40 million in Uttar Pradesh alone, was overlooked by voters, and younger voters. This does not change the path of modernization that countries such as China have taken and which require a strong administration with full public support working with industry and all parts of society to build infrastructure and manufacturing rapidly over 15-20 years. In China this happened from 1990 to 2010. In India this will take 2014- 2030 to achieve. In Bihar, UP, Orissa, Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh, in all these states with large areas of backwardness in development the only path to realize the aspirations of the people is the path offered for modernization by prime minister Modi. The protest vote of 2024 is then a way of saying to prime minister Modi that the level of development needs only to be accelerated to see its benefits for hundreds of million of people in rural agricultural areas. ...

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Very little of the heavy rain and storm runoff from floods is being captured in California which has experienced many dry seasons and shortages of water, says this opinion in the WSJ. California has experienced 2 seven year droughts in the 20's and the 40's. The problem very little investment in public works in a state that was extravagantly spending on tech, starving essential infrastructure of spending. Economic textbooks talked of crowding out of private spending and investment, now we have crowding out of public spending on infrastructure.

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Depleting ground water reserves are leading to water shortages in India's cities. About 40% of India's people lack drinking water by 2030, according to government think tank NITI Aayog 2018 report. Water shortages are hitting cities such as Chennai. This report looks at the water shortage in remote Himalayan region Ladakh. WOrld Resources Institute points out that India is the 13th most water stressed country in the world, with a population three times the combined population of 16 countries that are water stressed. By 2030 water demand will double in India. The government is giving drinking water top priority in its plan for the next 5 years as key to development.  One of the problems is that farmers in the northern plains pay little for gorundwater use resulting in the planting of water intensive crops. The government plans to promote conservation of water as a national priority with education on this subject of water critical to achieving its objective of providing 100%  access to drinking water for Indians. Drip irrigation with minimal water use is also being encouraged to conserve water. ...

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This WSJ report looks at the staggering waste that come from expiration dates on food. A 2019 Harvard-Hopkins study shows over 80% of people occasionally throw out food with expired date and close to 40% do so usually. About 54% think it is unsafe if expired. Where do these dates come from? Contrary to first impressions it is not mandated and it does not mean unsafe if expired. It matters because it means waste, and also adds to climate change and disposal. Over 6 billion pounds are wasted each year from expiration and another 6 billion from leaving it out too long out of about 80 billion pounds wasted each year. Keep the refrigerator at 37  degrees and store food in the refrigerator, suggests WSJ.