We watched the movie The Pursuit of Happyness last night. It's a pretty incredible story and one that really leaves you feeling humbled. You lose perspective on how easy (relatively speaking) it is to be successful if you have the resources to support that pursuit. It takes resources to go to college or continue your education. If you're in the poorer end of the population, how do you invest in yourself? You need both the time and the money, either directly or via access to credit, to break out of that lower-class, paycheck to paycheck lifestyle. That's the economic perspective on the movie. The one that really touches you is what drives people to improve themselves. In this case, it was all about how Chris Gardener was trying to succeed simply to provide a home for his son. I suppose there is no better motivation. Great movie. I highly recommend it.
Read an interesting article a couple weeks back in the WSJ on how biofuels may actually increase carbon emissions in the medium to long-term. Apprently the shifts in land-use necessary to support the production of bio-materials like soybeans, corn, or palm could in fact release more carbon emissions. The time it takes to get carbon-neutral on some of these projects is pretty crazy - 319 years for soybean biodiesel from Brazil (assuming you're clearing rainforest), 93 years for corn ethanol from the U.S. (assuming you're clearing grasslands), 86 years for palm biodiesel from Indonesia (assuming you're clearing rainforest). I suppose biofuels really aren't meant to reduce carbon emissions, but just crazy that they potentially exacerbate the problem so much.
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