- Whale watching! on President’s Day! For just $8!. Cybele at blogging.la’s getting a group together for a three hour whale watching excursion out of
Redondo Sportfishing on Monday, February 19th. Sign up by Saturday, Feburary 10th at 10PM for the special deal! - FLO decides not to raise minimum prices for fair trade certified coffee. And FLO’s trying to sell that depressing news as “the way forward.” Ah spin — getting more like Starbucks everyday! (via Just Things)
- How many legislators does it take to change a lightbulb? A new Cali bill that would relace all incandescent lightbulbs with energy-saving compact fluorescent lightbulbs by 2012 is in the works.
- Accidental Hedonist, one of my fave foodies, hates her job and seeks help reconfiguring her life –
I’m not too sure I like the fluorescent idea… I’ve got screwed-up eyes, because of glaucoma I guess, and fluorescents are HELL on my eyes. I’m currently in a dorm with fluorescent lights, and I’ve gone so far as to string up Christmas lights and buy other lamps so that I don’t have a 24-hour headache, the overhead light is almost never on… I mean, I totally get the intent behind this, but I think there may be some unintended consequences here.
Comment by Aaron — February 1, 2007 @ 10:02 am
Are those the long tube style of fluorescents? The ballasts in modern CFLs have a much less flicker than those do.
Comment by don hosek — February 1, 2007 @ 10:38 am
Re: Accidental Hedonist (whom I also love)…must be something in the water, man.
Comment by Jasmin — February 1, 2007 @ 11:22 am
Aaron: I totally grok you about the lights, but they’re making better ones now, you just have to experiment a bit–you can get the “natural light spectrum” type.
Comment by Jasmin — February 1, 2007 @ 11:34 am
You know, I’m usually a pro-regulation environmentalist. But I think the lightbulb ban is a bit heavy handed. Maybe a ban on them in all govt buildings and publically funded projects, perhaps. But CFLs are not an environmentalist’s dream–they contain mercury and produce hazardous waste.
I will wear my republican hat now (which I almost NEVER wear) and say: Let the markets decide! Just charge people an honest (read: unsubsidized) price for electricity, and let them figure out how to keep the costs down. Maybe they will use dimmers, or keep the lights on less often.
Comment by Rafi — February 1, 2007 @ 12:02 pm
Siel,
You’re only seeing FLO’s statement as spin because it’s not the result you wanted. It also does the conversation no good to slap the the evil Starbucks label on FLO. It’s not quite Godwin’s Law ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Godwin's_law ) but come on…
Comment by Anonymous — February 1, 2007 @ 1:00 pm
Dear cowardly anonymous commenter frm TFUSA — Thanks for clarifying my opinion for the readers — I’m sure that many were under the impression that I saw FLO’s statement as spin because it WAS the result I wanted.
I think what you are trying to imply here (and you’re trying to do so in a rather idiotic manner) is that I have an unduly biased opinion on the base price issue. An actual, convincing argument on your part would be to show why this opinion is unduly biased or false. Simply saying that I have an opinion is not an actual argument. Yes, I have opinions. It’s not a secret.
Comment by Siel — February 1, 2007 @ 2:06 pm
Aaron – have you tried LED bulbs? They’re a little more expensive than CFLs … and I don’t think they come in the tubes though. (Okay, I’m no help.)
Comment by cybele — February 1, 2007 @ 7:55 pm
When they outlaw lightbulbs only outlaws will have lightbulbs :)
I’m pretty good at conserving electricity, the electricity bill for my studio apt. is crazy low, but decent light (not that aweful florescent stuff) and some degree of temperature control are things I consider worth paying for. I’d happily get a smaller energy star fridge, switch to clean power, whatever, just leave my lightbulbs and don’t make me freeze to death (my body temp runs cold).
Comment by anon — February 1, 2007 @ 8:51 pm
I am not sure but one of the problems I guess with flouresents is that they flick on and off at twice the mains frequency which can be dangerous to people with epilepsy. The main reason that the are more efficent is that the transmit more light in the visible then normal blubs who transmit mainly in the infra red. AS cybele said LED lights are the future.
Comment by simon — February 2, 2007 @ 2:29 am
CFLs are getting much better in terms of performance, price, availability and mercury. So much so that, whether CA or anyone else likes it or not, they are already the future, at least as a transition to LEDs. Wal-Mart (the world’s largest retailer) is quickly phasing out sale of incandescent bulbs and switching to CFLs.
The new generation of CFLs should be virtually indistinguishable, in terms of light, from incandescents. They are already much cheaper than incandescents – or else Wal-Mart wouldn’t be selling them. The average CFL can save $30 in energy costs, and lasts as long as about 10 incandescent bulbs, which means a few dollars more in savings to the customer. Wal-Mart is about to demand that all their suppliers limit their mercury levels to 5mg per bulb, which is about the lowest anyone has been able to make so far (compared to as much as 20mg in some models). They are also asking for no-PVC in the packaging, and instead recycled fiber paperboard and corn-starch plastic. They will also (hopefully) be collecting used bulbs in their stores in a partial attempt to address the mercury disposal issue.
In short, the market has in fact decided (we won’t get into whether Wal-mart should have that much power over the marketplace in a democratic society).
Comment by Chris 'Beer Activist' O'Brien — February 2, 2007 @ 8:37 am
Hello Siel,
My two cents on the minimum prices debate:
I, too, am disappointed about the decision not to raise minimum prices. However, I think it’s important to keep in mind that minimum price setting is a very, very, long, drawn-out consultative process that can take months. So, after last December’s promise for new prices, we shouldn’t really be surprised the people at FLO weren’t able to determine a new price this fast.
I interned at FLO last year and discussed the issue several times with Standards and Pricing staff… they actually send questionnaires to producers, call them to get answers, try to determine all living, production, environmental and social costs (aka cost of sustainable production). Then, once they have all this, they compare results to industry benchmarks etc. The larger the industry, the greater the number of countries involved, the longer the process… in the case of coffee, collecting representative production cost data for all coffee regions is an enormous undertaking.
I think though there will be a change this year – it’s just a matter of giving a little bit more time to the people there to do it right, instead of doing it haphazardly and setting a random price that we believe is “fairer” (as it was done before in the case of coffee)
I remember hearing from one of the Standards staff how they get insulted all the time by roasters, exporters and producers unhappy about out-of-date or inexistent minimum prices for products. Pricin and Standards staff are in a pretty tough position: they’re trying to get a credible price-setting process off the ground but at the same time they’re under tremendous pressure to set new prices, update old ones for dozens of different products etc. In the end, I think it’s basically an issue of being underfunded.
The fair trade labeling system is very much like the U.N. – if anything, FLO members (such as TransFair USA) should work towards increasing their funding of FLO activities in order to be faster at developing new prices and increasing producer support from there…
Anyway this is just my perspective – let me know what you think.
Comment by Vincent — February 3, 2007 @ 5:36 pm
To build on my response to Vincent on my own blog, this additional delay on FLO’s part really has me wondering if routing the definition of fair trade — or, rather, the certification of fair trade — through a single organization is the best thing for all involved. I hate to suggest that there be yet another certification program, because are already lots, each more watered-down than the last. But there has to be a way for the price to be more responsive to supply and demand.
The coffee growers have made it clear that they need higher prices, and the Cooperative Coffee/Intelligentsia Coffee/Counter Culture Coffee models have made it clear there is demand for coffee priced above the certified price. So… what are we waiting for?
One last question for you, Vincent: do know how we could get ahold of the minutes of the FLO meeting?
Comment by Steve — February 4, 2007 @ 9:34 am
Steve: I’m surprised I wasn’t able to find the minutes on the FLO website, I thought these were public. I’ll try to find them in the coming days… if you have questions about the price setting process, contact directly members of the FLO Board or the Standard committee – you should find lists on the FLO website.
As for the answer to your questions, I’m going to reply here with the response I posted on the JustThings blog:
I think there are two issues we should consider when talking about minimum prices 1) how long it takes to set it right (which I covered in my last post) 2) why hasn’t it been updated in 12 years
1) To add to my previous post, I remember hearing that it usually takes from 3-6 months to set a price. Sometimes there are also different prices in different countries – I suggest browsing the Standards section on the FLO website for more information on that. Basically we should expect probably a year between the moment the FLO Board decides to change the price and the moment the farmer is paid that new price. The process shouldn’t be this long, but again, FLO is underfunded and people there are overworked…
2) The really interesting issue is why hasn’t the price been changed during those years… until very recently (since Jan 1, 2007, FLO members now include producer networks), FLO was overwhelmingly dominated by labeling initiatives (i.e. Max Havelaar France, TransFair USA etc.). Some of these are more business-friendly than others (TransFair USA) while others are much more activist-like (i.e. TransFair Canada, TransFair Italy). There are currently some rumors within the movement suggesting that TransFair USA has been blocking price increases for a while (remember, TF USA has close ties with Starbucks and the like). TransFair USA has also been blocking the 2007 FLO budget – judging its plans for more staff unnecessary… so more and more labeling initiatives and producer groups are dissociating themselves from TransFair USA and some even think there might be major changes ahead in fair trade labeling.
I personally strongly believe in the FLO system – I just think some of its members (TransFair USA) are getting a little too friendly with business and forgetting why they are there in the first place. Anyway, we’ll see what’s going to happen… but I just hope people won’t turn away from fair trade certification to other, watered down schemes (such as Rainforest Alliance or Utz Kapeh) – now I think that would be the worse case scenario for producers.
Comment by Vincent — February 4, 2007 @ 4:25 pm
I found the minutes of the FLO meeting: you can access them here:
http://www.fairtrade.net/fileadmin/user_upload/content/Approved_SC_minutes_Jan_2007.pdf
Comment by Vincent — February 4, 2007 @ 4:57 pm
Vincent, thanks for the link. If you’d be interested in writing a guest blog post and/or article for Just Things, follow the link on my name to the link for my email address.
Comment by Steve — February 5, 2007 @ 8:17 pm