Going Green In The Mahoning Valley

As you can see by the picture to the left and the badge added to the right side of the blog, the Mahoning Valley is doing a good job of conserving energy by switching from incandescent light bulbs to the newer, more energy efficient compact flourescent bulbs (CFL). The site is 18Seconds.org. It was set up by Yahoo! in order to promote the use of these CFL bulbs (18 seconds is how long it takes to change a bulb). According to the site and other sources switching to CFL's are a good idea for the following reasons:

• Incandescent bulbs waste 90% of the energy they use as heat. Only 10% is used as light. CFL's produce 70% less heat.
  
• One CFL can prevent the release of more than 450 pounds of greehouse gas emissions over the course of its lifetime. That is the equivalent of 200 lbs of coal not being burned.
• CFL's reduce the amount of coal burned to generate electricity.
• Replacing just the 5 most used bulbs in your house with CFL's can save about $60.00 in electricty over the course of a year.
• If every home in America swapped out one 60 watt bulb with a CFL bulb enough energy would be saved to power a city of 1.5 million people.
  
  Personally, I like CFL's because they last longer than normal bulbs, up to 8,000 hours versus about a 1,000 hours for an incandescent bulb. They are also much, much cheaper to operate. A 20 watt CFL bulb is equivalent to a 75 watt incandescent bulb. If you replace all of the 60 watt lamps in your home with 20 watt CFL's you will get 25% more light and use one-third the electricity doing so. This savings in electricty adds up, too. A CFL can save as much as $36.00 per bulb over the course of its life. That's $36.00 per bulb. And you may not have to change light bulbs again for years.
  
  The drawback in the short term is the price of the CFL's. They vary in price depending on where you buy them but the cost is being reduced as more and more of them are sold. In this area I bought 4 GE's for about $16.00 at Target and they were similarly priced at K-Mart. However, Wal-Mart had a pack of three for sale for under $8.00 this weekend. Wal-Mart is trying to improve its public image by selling one CFL bulb to each of its 100 million customers. It definitely pays to comparison shop.
  
  Changing these bulbs is easy. It's something that everyone can do and it's good for all of us. We can't all afford hybrid cars or put solar panels on the roof but just about all of us can afford to change one light bulb. If we all pulled together we could move the region's ranking up to number one at 18seconds.org. It would be great to be number one on a list for a positive reason.

The Bright Side Of Being 98th On Forbes "Best Cities To Get A Job" List

Forbes published a list ranking the 100 largest metroploitan areas in the United States by how easy it is to get a job. They took into account unemployment rates, cost of living, median household income, job growth and income growth. On the surface, ranking 98th out of 100 and having only New Orleans and Detroit behind the Mahoning Valley may look terrible. However, they say devil is in the detail and if you examine Forbes' methodology you can find some things to be excited about.

First, despite a shrinking population in Youngstown city proper, the area included in this list still qualifies as one of the 100 largest metropolitan areas in the country. Forbes included Youngstown, Warren and the surrounding communities in it's rankings. The strength of the Valley has always been it's sense of community. You can drive from a downtown urban area, through the suburbs and into rural farm country in less than 30 minutes. That gives the area comfortable room for growth if the opportunity arises.

Second, the area was ranked number 1 in cost of living. Living here is cheaper than anywhere else on the list.

The Mahoning Valley did not fare as well in the other criteria that made up the list; 87th for unemployment, 95th for median household income, 100th for income growth and 91st for job growth rank.

It would be difficult to put a positive spin on numbers that bad. Anyone living in the area knows about the unemployment issue and the stagnant growth of new job opportunities. Once you've hit bottom though, there is nowhere to go but up, and that's what the Valley needs to focus on.

It will be an interesting test of our local leaders to see how they respond to this negative coverage. Late last year the Morgan-Quitno ranking of Youngstown as the 9th most dangerous city in the country was met with skepticism and disbelief. This ranking should be a sobering wake up call to government leaders, educators and anyone else who wants to see the Valley succeed.

The proper response to this ranking would be to look at this list and determine how the positive qualities of the area can be leveraged to encourage growth. A low cost of living and great housing prices can be a factor in people moving here but they are not draws by themselves. We need to eliminate the pervasive crime that keeps us on lists of the most dangerous cities in America. Mayor Williams' recent zero tolerance crackdown needs to be extended as long as it takes to move Youngstown statistically in line with the rest of the country. The positive press that could be generated by falling to the bottom of the Morgan-Quitno rankings would be the best selling point this area has ever had. This reduction in crime needs to be an ongoing commitment.

Next, education needs to be a priority. Not in the sense that we add more levies to beleagured property owners but with a focus on results. It is inexcusable that the Youngstown City School District graduates just over 50% of it's students. That large number of drop outs translates into too many unskilled workers who turn to crime to earn a living. There needs to be a region wide emphasis on passing standardized tests and improving graduation rates. New ideas need to be implemented to gain the results needed. Year round schooling is one such idea. Close the summer knowledge gap by holding classes year round with more frequent and shorter vacations. Emphasize college preparation as well as skilled trades training. We need to make it clear to parents and students that high school graduation and higher education are mandatory for life in this century. In order to be desirable to companies we need to have an educated workforce.

Finally, we need to realize that there is no magic bullet to fixing the economy in this area. It will take innovation, hard work and long term planning. We will have to improve things ourselves by electing leaders who share that vision. Legislation is needed to make us attractive to employers. They have to want to come here. The industries that built this area are shrinking or have disappeared all together. Innovation is the key. To encourage growth we need people be entrepeneurs, to be inventors and most of all we need them to stay here. Low crime and an educated workforce combined with a government friendly to business will generate the positive press needed to promote growth.

Representative Tim Ryan Explains the Democratic Surge Resolution...Loudly

Best line? "You go to war with the president you have, not the one you wish you had"

Supporting the Troops Without Supporting the War

There has been a lot of talk lately about those liberals who do not support the war in Iraq being unpatriotic. And by that I mean conservative talking heads like Rush Limbaugh and others claiming that it is impossible to draw a distinction between the troops and the mission. Now I know I shouldn't let ol' Rush get to me like that but now this inane point is being repeated by a lot of people calling talk radio and those filling up blog space. To tell you the truth, I'm sick and tired of conservative commentators having the audacity to explain my position just so they can knock it down. This is what's known as the straw man argument. First you define your opponents position and then you argue against it without benefit of directly debating them. It's clever and effective if your listeners are the sort of people who still believe that Saddam Hussein attacked the United States on 9/11.

This is the careful distinction liberals draw when stating they support the troops but not the war; the troops are our families, our neighbors and our friends. They are the sons and daughters of the people who live in our communities. We understand that these brave souls volunteered for service in the armed forces. Whether they are patriotic, needed money for an education or felt a deep desire to do something after America was attacked, we recognize that they have volunteered to protect this country. We want them to be safe and to never, ever, be put in harm's way needlessly.

And we hate the war in Iraq. Oh, how we hate the war. We didn't believe the evidence when Colin Powell went to the United Nations ( I wrote a letter to The Vindicator stating such) and we cringed whenever President Bush and his cult of personality tried to infer that Iraq had something to do with the attacks on 9/11. I understood attacking Afghanistan. I supported attacking the Taliban there because they aided Al-Qaeda and those were the people that had attacked us. The Taliban needed to go and Al-Qaeda needed to be hunted down. You don't attack this country and then think you can hide anywhere on this planet from us. We'll round up a posse and chase you until you can't breathe anymore. At least that's the way it should be.

Anyway, that's the distinction that Rush and his audience don't understand. Iraq didn't attack us. They didn't support those who did. Al-Qaeda didn't operate in Iraq until after we invaded and screwed up the occupation of the country. So, to summarize; we like the troops and want them safe. We don't think more of them should be sacrificed to achieve whatever definition of victory the White House has thought up this week. Hopefully everyone understands now. If you don't or just don't want to, that's fine. We have some elections coming up that will help you see the error of your ways.

New T-Shirts!

Because we here at Tales From the Rust Belt realize that the best way to help the area is to be as productive as possible, we happily present our brand new T-shirts available at Cafe Press! If you like them, tell your friends and click the links on the right under "T-Shirts & Stuff". The new stuff is under Popkulture 5: