Originally Published: June 24, 2013 2:12 PM
Modified: June 25, 2013 3:27 PM
EDITOR'S CHOICE -- SCOTT SUTTELL
It would be nice if we reaped more economic benefit from our carbon emissions
North American cities, including Cleveland, are getting a relatively low return on their greenhouse gas emissions as measured by their annual economic output, according to this story
The story is based on data from the Carbon Disclosure Project
, which ranked regions of the world based on their annual economic output per ton of greenhouse gas emissions.
Leading the way was Europe, where 24 cities measured in the study produced output of $12,502 per ton of emissions, according to the website. Latin America was next, at $6,816 per ton, followed by East Asia ($5,831) and North America ($5,550).
North American cities that were part of the study were Atlanta, Baltimore, Chicago, Cleveland, Dallas, Denver, Los Angeles, Miami, Minneapolis, Montreal, New Orleans, New York, Philadelphia, Portland, San Diego, San Francisco, St. Louis, Toronto and Vancouver.
The Asian sample did not include any of China's megacities, “where economic growth and emissions are rapidly on the rise,” according to TheAtlanticCities.com. “But it's a worthwhile comparison to note that North American cities are producing substantially less wealth per ton of carbon emissions than European cities are. Undoubtedly, this has as much to do with the particular form of sprawling, car-dependent U.S. cities as the kinds of economies they have.”
The website notes the full report “argues for how climate action can help make cities healthier and wealthier at the same time (as they save money on LED light bulbs, or expand bike lanes that also get people active).” It also demonstrates that “the goal can no longer be mere economic growth. Instead, it should be efficiency, a metric on which European cities are outclassing virtually everyone else.”
A little help here
Bloomberg does a nice job exposing
the ethical murkiness of the student-loan debt-relief business, in a story that begins with an anecdote from Polly Williams, a single mother in Cleveland who recently lost her job.
Desperate to lower the payments on her $23,000 in student loans, she called “one of the many companies advertising debt relief online,” according to Bloomberg.
“For a $250 fee, the University of One, now known as Student Consulting Group Inc., offered to help,” the news service reports. “To come up with the money, Williams skipped an electric bill and lost power, forcing her to throw out $150 of food in her refrigerator, she said.”
Ms. Williams “could have avoided the fee because the government offers borrower assistance programs entirely for free,” according to Bloomberg. But Student Consulting Group is part of an industry that's “profiting from consumers' confusion and desperation, charging as much as $1,600 to sign them up for these repayment plans,” the story says, citing a report from the Boston-based National Consumer Law Center
, a nonprofit advocacy and research group.
“It's disgusting, it really is,” Ms. Williams, 54, who earns $26,000 a year as an executive assistant for a Cleveland nonprofit helping the terminally ill, tells Bloomberg. “I can only imagine how many other people they are taking advantage of.”
Such companies are proliferating because borrowers “are buckling under the weight of student loans, which now total $1 trillion, exceeding all other consumer debt aside from mortgages,” the story notes. “Former students are also struggling to navigate the government's often complicated assistance programs.”
Student loans, according to Bloomberg, “are among the most onerous forms of debt because they can rarely be canceled through bankruptcy.”
For their part, the student-loan debt relief companies say they are comparable to organizations that help taxpayers file their returns — something customers could also do for free.
This and that
7.6 million and counting:
billionaire Cavaliers owner/Quicken Loans founder Dan Gilbert's efforts to snap up property in Detroit, noting that last week's purchase of two buildings on Woodward Avenue near the Detroit River gives him control of 30 buildings there with 7.6 million square feet.
“Gilbert, who repeatedly has expressed his belief in Detroit's potential, has snapped up some of that space for as little as $5 a square foot, rehabilitating a number of properties in the once-empty downtown corridor,” according to Forbes.com.
The two Woodward buildings have a combined 40,000 square feet of office and retail space. Mr. Gilbert “is expected to use the ground floors for retail space (one building currently houses a Thai restaurant) and the upper floors for office space,” according to the website.That's entertainment: Cleveland Indians
fans are getting a good value
for their ticket dollars so far this year.
MarketWatch.com reports that a new study from TicketCity
, a Texas-based ticket reseller, ranks the Indians fifth out of the 30 major-league clubs when it comes to the “bang for your buck” fan factor.
TicketCity bases its rankings “on a complex formula that factors in three key areas for each club at home: the median price for tickets on the resale market, the winning percentage, and the skill level of opponents,” according to MarketWatch.com. (Essentially, a team that costs less, wins more and faces stiff competition generally ranks higher.)
The Pittsburgh Pirates are on top of the rankings through Sunday, the result of their good home record in the strong National League Central division and a median resale price ($15) that's the lowest in the majors.
Cleveland trails only the Pirates, the Detroit Tigers, the Washington National and the Arizona Diamondbacks in giving fans their money's worth at the ballpark.
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