This is Good News Friday, where we find some good economic, energy, and environmental news and share it with PP readers. Please send any positive news to dd@peakprosperity.com with subject header “Good News Friday.” We will save and post weekly. Enjoy!
Economy
These Dow stocks hold up the most during rough times for the market (Thomas R.)
U.S. stock averages continued to fall on Monday after President Donald Trump threatened to impose sanctions against Iraq on Sunday, shortly after Baghdad called for American and foreign troops to leave the country. With stocks falling and the Cboe volatility index, a fear-gauge, spiking, investors are wondering if markets are in for a tumultuous January. With Iran vowing to retaliate, investors might want to hide out before things get ugly.
Talk Less. Listen More. Here’s How. (jdargis)
It’s not about merely holding your peace while someone else holds forth. Quite the opposite. A lot of listening has to do with how you respond — the degree to which you facilitate the clear expression of another person’s thoughts and, in the process, crystallize your own.
We love to criticise the United States, but guess what? Their public schools are better than ours (exlxq1949)
Public high schools in Arlington also all have their own indoor swimming pools, tracks, baseball and football fields. In other words, they look like private schools in Australia.
At my daughter’s middle school, a counsellor invited her to a club during lunchtime for kids who had recently moved to the area, and she played Ultimate Frisbee as an extracurricular sport and percussion in the band.
The plan is an extension of initiatives already in place, which have seen JetBlue purchase more than 2.6 billion pounds of carbon dioxide offsets since 2008, according to the company’s website.
What if Democrats Tried Real Outreach? (tmn)
This method of deep organizing blows up business-as-usual electoral politics. It threatens the huge paychecks of political consultants and strategists on both sides of the aisle who parachute into communities for elections. The progressive political industry spent $5.7 billion on congressional races alone in 2018. Much of that went to the usual Beltway power brokers who focus on tired attack ads or the vote for so-and-so emails. Our model, however, keeps money and power in the communities whose votes will change the electorate.
Shutdown of US coal power facilities saved over 26,000 lives, study finds (TS)
“When you turn coal units off you see deaths go down. It’s something we can see in a tangible way,” said Jennifer Burney, a University of California academic who authored the study. “There is a cost to coal beyond the economics. We have to think carefully about where plants are sited, as well as how to reduce their pollutants.”
Study reveals what causes type 2 diabetes and how to reverse it (Thomas R.)
The theory proposed that type 2 diabetes results from the accumulation of fat in the liver, which induces insulin resistance and increases blood sugar production.
These effects, in turn, increase plasma insulin levels, precipitating “a self-reinforcing cycle” in which insulin stimulates fat production.
Having A Plant On Your Office Desk Helps Reduce Daily Stress, Study Finds (Thomas R.)
In an effort to produce as accurate results as possible, the study’s authors conducted their experiment in a real-life office setting and with actual employees, instead of a more scientifically traditional lab setting. More specifically, researchers wanted to determine just how much relief workers felt after intentionally looking at an indoor plant whenever they started to feel tired on the job. That being said, passive interaction with the plants were also considered.
I spent half my life on antidepressants. Today, I’m off the medication and feel all right. (Thomas R.)
I pulled myself back inside my apartment, scheduled an appointment with a new psychiatrist and made the decision to get off all the drugs before deciding whether to take my life. I needed to figure out my true baseline. If I didn’t like what I found, well, the window was always open.
Eating in a 6-hour window and fasting for 18 hours might help you live longer (Thomas R.)
Study author Mark Mattson, a professor of neuroscience at Johns Hopkins University, hones in on two types: Daily time-restricted feeding (eating 6-8 hours a day and fasting for 16-18 hours) and 5:2 intermittent fasting (fasting two days a week, usually capping a fasting day at 500 calories).
The catch? Most Americans don’t intermittently fast (the norm is three meals a day plus snacks) and thus physicians are less inclined to consider fasting a solution to a broad range of health conditions, according to the review.
Clever “Flying-V” plane design is more fuel-efficient than today’s most advanced aircraft (thc0655)
Currently, the Flying-V is designed to fly on kerosene. However, the designers believe it can easily be adapted to make use of future innovations in jet propulsion technology, such as electrically-boosted turbofans. Chief Engineer Malcom Brown even states that the final concept for the Flying-V’s propulsion isn’t final yet, and that they are still exploring other possible technologies that could be added to the plane. “If these technologies mature, we can integrate them in the design,” Brown said. (Related: Battery-powered commercial jetliners could eliminate jet fuel entirely, making air travel vastly less expensive.)
Support from the state Department of Agriculture through its Colorado Proud Program, which promotes Colorado-grown products, has been important, said Meza and his partner, 33-year-old Demerling. The two, who’ve known each other since high school in North Canton, Ohio, officially launched Emerald Gardens Microgreens in 2017.
Low Carbon Life: How We Reduced the Environmental Impact of (Almost) Everything We Buy (Kara S.)
Clothes are an excellent example of the myriad ways buying less can improve your life. The most obvious is financial. The average American household has 2.5 people, spends $1,800 a year on clothes and shoes, and carries $5,700 in credit card debt. My family owns smaller, more thoughtful (“curated”) wardrobes; the four of us together spend about $400, we carry no revolving credit card debt, and we’re comfy and satisfied with what we wear, much more so than before we curated it. And that’s including shoes, socks and underwear, with two growing kids and one professional wardrobe.
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The post Daily Digest 1/10 – Good News Friday: How To Talk Less and Listen More, Reducing the Environmental Impact Of What You Buy appeared first on Peak Prosperity.
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