S Q's List: Research/Articles

• Charlotte  rose 36% in 2010 -- the second-largest leap in the natio
• In  2011, homelessness in the city rose 21%, followed by 23% in 2012

• change
• national life—economic, social, political, and environmental. Indeed, America can be sa
• id to be in crisis in e
• ach of these four areas.^{1, 2}
• economic crisis
• stripped tens of millions of middle class Americans of their jobs, homes, and retirement assets and plunged many into

  poverty and despair
• poverty has risen to a near 30-year high
• Social mobility has declined, record numbers of people lack health insurance, schools are failing, prison populations are swelling, employment security is a thing of the past, and American workers put in more hours than workers in other high-income countries
• All that human societies have to do to destroy the planet’s climate and biota and leave a ruined world to future generations is to keep doing exactly what is being done today, with no growth in the human population or the world economy. Just continue to release greenhouse gases at current rates, just continue to impoverish ecosystems and release toxic chemicals at current rates, and the world in the latter part of this century
• won’t be fit to live in. But, of course, human activities are not holding at current levels—they are accelerating dramatically
• At typical rates of growth, the world economy will now double in size in less than 20 years
• About half the world’s wetlands and a third of the mangroves are gone
• estimated 90 percent of the large predatory fish are gone, and 75 percent of marine fisheries are now overfished or fished to capacity
• Twenty percent of the corals are gone, and another 20 percent severely threatened. Half the world’s temperate and tropical forests are gone
• The rate of deforestation in the tropics continues at about one acre per second
• Species are disappearing at rates about 1,000 times faster than norma
• The planet has not seen such a spasm of extinction in 65 million years, since the dinosaurs disappeared
• Each year, human actions already consume or destroy about 40 percent of nature’s photosynthetic output, leaving too little for other species. Freshwater withdrawals doubled globally between 1960 and 2000 and now represent over half of accessible runoff. The Colorado, Yellow, Ganges, and Nile Rivers, among others, no longer reach the oceans in the dry season.
• It is thus up to us as citizens to inject values of fairness, solidarity, and sustainability into this system, and government is the primary vehicle we have for accomplishing this
• government is excessively under the thumb of powerful corporations and concentrations of great wealt
• o take dangerous risks for the sake of great profit.
• growth is worth the price that must be paid for i
• Economic growth may be the world’s secular religion, but for much of the world it is a god that is failing—underperforming for most of the world’s people and, for those in affluent societies
• now creating more problems than it is solvin
• Psychologists have pointed out, for example, that while economic output per person in the United States has risen sharply in recent decades, there has been no increase in life satisfaction, and levels of distrust and depression have increased substantially
• the American paradox.” He observes that at the beginning of the twenty-first century, Americans found themselves “with big houses and broken homes, high incomes and low morale, secured rights and diminished civility. We were excelling at making a living but too often failing at making a life. We celebrated our prosperity but yearned for purpose. We cherished our freedoms but longed for connection. In an age of plenty, we were feeling spiritual hunger. These facts of life lead us to a startling conclusion: Our becoming better off materially has not made us better off psychologically
• deal generously with compelling social needs
• litical
• advocates for change have worked within the current system

  of political economy, but in the end, this approach will not succeed when what is needed is transformative change in the system itsel
• decline in legitimacy as the system fails to deliver social and environmental well-being, together with a mounting sense of crisis and loss—both occurring a

  t a time of wise leadership and accompanied by the articulation of a new American narrative or story and by the appearance across the landscape of new and appropriate models—were all these to come together, real change would be possible
• new social movement, powerful and inclusive
• The watchword of the sustaining economy is caring: caring for each other, for the natural world, and for the future.
• growth in good jobs and in the incomes of the poor; growth in the availability of health care and the efficiency of its delivery; growth in education, research, and training; growth in security against the risks of illness, job displacement, old age, and disability; growth in investment in public infrastructure and in environmental protection and amenity; growth in the deployment of climate-friendly and other green technologies; growth in the restoration of both ecosystems and local communities; growth in non-military government spending at the expense of military; and growth in international assistance for sustainable, people-centered development for the half of humanity that lives in poverty, to mention some prominent needs.
• policies such as shorter work weeks and longer vacations, with more time for children and families;
• greater income support for the poo
• but our well-being and quality of life would improve.
• High prices are a problem not so much because they are high but because people don’t have the money to pay them and alternative
• technological change alone is not enough.
• t lead to a lasting sense of well-being or satisfaction with life. What makes people happ
• Psychological studies show that materialism is toxic to happiness and that more income and more possessions do n
• y is warm personal relationships
• and giving rather than getting
• things that are possible at a human scale
• In one survey, 83 percent of Americans said society is not focused on the right priorities, 81 percent said America is too focused on shopping and spending, 88 percent said American society is too materialistic, and 84 percent want to spend more time with family and friends.
• community and environment over profit and growth
• Government is the principal means available to citizens to collectively exercise their stewardship responsibility to leave the world a better place
• incorporate advocacy of human rights as a central concern
• the rights of future generation
• lobbying
• developing messages, appeals, and stories that inspire and motivate because they speak in a language people can understand,
• “build the movement
• contribute to the emergence of a powerful citizens’ movement for change.
• • Need to work together!

  • Lack of communication
• environment, domestic political reforms, the liberal social agenda, human rights, international peace, consumer issues, world health and population concerns, and world poverty and underdevelopmen
• • worldwide or general in extent, influence, or application
• e perspectives
• progressiv
• building capacity to promote change.
• mythology
• GDP growth is an unalloyed good. Government regulation and other interference in the economy must meet the test of economic benefit. America is a land of economic opportunity and consumer sovereignty. The poor are poor because they deserve to be. We are well on our way to solving our environmental problems. America is the most democratic nation on Earth, and also the most generous, with the best health care.

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• People looking for jobs that bring satisfaction and happiness should
• concentrate on professions that focus primarily on serving other people
• The most satisfying jobs are mostly professions, especially those involving caring for, teaching, and protecting others and creative pursuits

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• While the U.S. economy was on the mend in 2010, the road to recovery still appears to be a long one. After retr
• eating from double digits, the unemployment rate recently crept back up to 9.8%.

• For the past five years, ONE's annual DATA Report has monitored the historic promises that the G8 and EU made to sub-Saharan Africa in 2005. The 2011 DATA Report gives a final verdict on the commitments that were due in 2010, and calls for a renewed focus on accountability, effectiveness and innovation to meet the Millennium Development Goals by 2015.

• It is estimated that a woman born in South Africa has a greater chance of being raped than learning how to read.