“Would Lowering The Drunk Driving Threshold Make Us Safer?”
Last week, NPR’s Talk of the Nation discussed the National Transportation Safety Board recommendation of reducing the legal blood alcohol limit for drivers from .08 to .05 with LZ Granderson, author of “Don’t Lower Threshold On Drunken Driving.”
Agriculture in the Age of Climate Change
Recently, NPR’s Talk of the Nation discusses how agriculture has been affected by climate change with David Nielsen (Research Agronomist, Central Great Plains Research Station, Agricultural Research Service), David Wolfe (Climate Change Leader, Atkinson Center for a Sustainable Future, Professor of Horticulture, Cornell University), and Sally Mackenzie (Professor of Plant Science at the Center for Plant Science Innovation, University of Nebraska, Lincoln).
Here is a description of the segment:
Scientists say climate change could increase pests and weeds, lengthen growing seasons and turn dry soil to dust. Farmers are already on the offensive, adopting no-till cropping methods to conserve water and experimenting with different seeds. And scientists are using a technique called gene silencing to develop new crops—without tinkering with the plants’ DNA.
Edith: Welfare Queen or Government Success Story
NPR’s Planet Money team recently explored the economic implications of government assistance.
Here is a description of the story:
On today’s Planet Money, we meet a single mother who makes $16,000 a year — and who managed to fund a vacation at a Caribbean resort with an interest-free loan from one of the world’s largest banks.
Edith Calzado gets credit cards with teaser zero-percent interest rates — then transfers her balance before the rate ticks up. She signs up for store cards to get discounts — then pays off her bill on time. She gets food stamps and lives in subsidized housing. Her son is doing well in school.
She may be the single most successful and productive beneficiary of government assistance you’ll ever meet.
The Changing Politics of Climate Change
This American Life recently devoted an episode to the changing politics of climate change. Here is a description of the show:
After years of being stuck, the national conversation on climate change finally started to shift — just a little — last year, the hottest year on record in the U.S., with Hurricane Sandy flooding the New York subway, drought devastating Midwest farms, and California and Colorado on fire. Lots of people were wondering if global warming had finally arrived, here at home. This week, stories about this new reality.
Demand for Bullets: Shooting Up
NPR’s Planet Money recently discussed how there has been an increased demand for ammunition, yet prices have not correspondingly increased. Here is the introduction to the story:
Sales of guns and ammunition rose after President Obama took office in 2008, and they went through the roof starting late last year, when a school shooting led to a push for new gun control measures. That’s led to a prolonged ammunition shortage, even with manufacturers running at full capacity.
A gun owner in Florida told me he has had a hard time finding .380 ammo for a small handgun for the past six months. Customers at Bob’s Little Sport Shop in southern New Jersey told me it’s hard to find ammo for some rifles and for the popular 9 mm. Even .22 rounds, the small ones, have been hard to come by.
An economics textbook would say this shouldn’t happen. It would say that Bob Viden, who has run the shop for almost 50 years, should respond to the increase in demand by raising prices. And some stores and online sellers have done just that. But, Viden told me, “We don’t want to do that. We want to be fair.”