Tax Shift: How to Help the Economy, Improve the Environment, and Get the Tax Man off Our Backs

In the other Washington, there's always talk of scrapping the federal tax code. It's no mystery why. The Internal Revenue Code runs to 7.5 million words and occupies, with regulations, one and one-half feet of shelf space. But complexity is not the worst fault of taxdom. The biggest and least-discussed problem is this: We tax the wrong things. Mostly, we tax things we want more of, such as paychecks and enterprise, not things we want less of, such as pollution and resource depletion. Naturally, we get less money and more messes. Doing the opposite would yield double dividends: cleaner air and flusher bank accounts. "Tax Shift" is a blueprint for a revolt that would get taxes off our backs and onto our side

Re-visiting Meltsner: Policy Advice Systems and the Multi-Dimensional Nature of Professional Policy Analysis

10.2139/ssrn.15462511-2

The Science Performance of JWST as Characterized in Commissioning

This paper characterizes the actual science performance of the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), as determined from the six month commissioning period. We summarize the performance of the spacecraft, telescope, science instruments, and ground system, with an emphasis on differences from pre-launch expectations. Commissioning has made clear that JWST is fully capable of achieving the discoveries for which it was built. Moreover, almost across the board, the science performance of JWST is better than expected; in most cases, JWST will go deeper faster than expected. The telescope and instrument suite have demonstrated the sensitivity, stability, image quality, and spectral range that are necessary to transform our understanding of the cosmos through observations spanning from near-earth asteroids to the most distant galaxies.Comment: 5th version as accepted to PASP; 31 pages, 18 figures; https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1538-3873/acb29

The James Webb Space Telescope Mission

Twenty-six years ago a small committee report, building on earlier studies, expounded a compelling and poetic vision for the future of astronomy, calling for an infrared-optimized space telescope with an aperture of at least $4m$. With the support of their governments in the US, Europe, and Canada, 20,000 people realized that vision as the $6.5m$ James Webb Space Telescope. A generation of astronomers will celebrate their accomplishments for the life of the mission, potentially as long as 20 years, and beyond. This report and the scientific discoveries that follow are extended thank-you notes to the 20,000 team members. The telescope is working perfectly, with much better image quality than expected. In this and accompanying papers, we give a brief history, describe the observatory, outline its objectives and current observing program, and discuss the inventions and people who made it possible. We cite detailed reports on the design and the measured performance on orbit.Comment: Accepted by PASP for the special issue on The James Webb Space Telescope Overview, 29 pages, 4 figure

The Car and the City: 24 Steps to Safe Streets and Healthy Communities

Many people recognize that the increasing number of automobiles is choking our cities--polluting our air, endangering our streets, and isolating us from our communities. This book shows how resurgent cities could make cars work again, and even solve problems ranging from oil wars to urban decay, rising seas to violent crime. Not just an analytic approach to economic and environmental urban concerns, The Car and the City is an offbeat journey through three great metropolises. Seattle, Portland, and Vancouver--by car, train, bicycle, and foot. It's a fascinating conversation with people who are quietly, but radically, rearranging the furniture of the modern city

Supporting indigenous peoples. by Alan Thein Durning

Provided by MICAH, Canberra

Green Collar Jobs: Working in the New Northwest

The typical job in the Pacific Northwest is gentler to nature than at any time in decades, thanks to the region's swift uncoupling from timber, mining, and other resource industries. But while jobs are greener, this new economy has a dark side: the gap between rich and poor has widened, and rising consumption is eroding the region's environmental gains. From Ketchikan, AK to Bend, OR to Boonville, CA, the question resonates: If we do what's right for the environment, what is everyone going to do for a living? Green-Collar Jobs takes a close look at timber towns in the Northwest--ground zero in the perceived battle between jobs and the environment

Misplaced Blame: The Real Roots of Population Growth

Misplaced Blame argues that much of the population growth overrunning parts of North America originates from five rarely noted root causes: poverty, sexual abuse, underfunded family planning services, subsidies to domestic migration, and ill-guided immigration policy. Along the way, Misplaced Blame uncovers one revelation after another. Some examples: - The population of the Pacific Northwest is increasing almost 50 percent faster than global population. - 83 percent of American teen mothers come from poor families. - 62 percent of teen mothers have been raped or molested as children. - 36 percent of babies born in the Northwest are conceived by accident. - Long-distance moving is subsidized by taxpayers. - Excessively high national immigration quotas hurt both the North American poor and immigrants' home countries. Read Misplaced Blame and you'll see that when we take care of people, population growth will take care of itself