Posted on

Food as Medicine

Touch the Soil News #1047 (Feature photo – Vegetables – CCA 2.0 Generic) The debate has been going on a long time. Recently a couple of studies have revealed that eating your fresh veggies helps lower depression. It is hard to imagine that in 1960, Americans spent $74 billion on food and $27 billion on health care. Those numbers were reversed after 1983. Estimates for 2017 reveal that for the year, Americans spent $1.6 trillion on food and $3.6 trillion on health care. The question must be asked, are we eating too much processed food and meat? In the following video clip, Phil Lempert discusses the new findings on the…

Read more

Posted on

NextEra Energy – Puts America on the Renewable Energy Map

Positive Future #182 (Feature photo – A NextEra Energy Wind Project – CCA 2.0 Generic) NextEra Energy, a Florida energy company, is the world’s largest operator of wind and solar farms. While the company also has gas and nuclear facilities, its renewable portfolio is growing. The company has a combined generating capacity of approximately 46 gigawatts – enough to power 34 million homes under ideal conditions. With over 14,000 employees, the company is making a difference in America’s global competitiveness in renewal technology. Want More? – Sign up below Special Deals Ahead…Sign up!

Read more

Posted on

More on Trade Wars

Touch the Soil News #1046 (Feature photo – Container Ships at the heart of Global Trade – NOAA) In a press release dated 6/18/2018, the National Retail Federation (NRF) has stepped forward in response to the White House threats of adding tariffs on an additional $200 billion in Chinese goods. NRF CEO Matthew Shay is asking Congress to intervene and exert authority on trade policy. The NRF sponsored a study earlier this year which found that tariffs of an additional $100 billion would result in the loss of 455,000 jobs. Using this math, tariffs on an additional $200 billion would result in the loss of almost 1 million jobs. What…

Read more

Posted on

Surging Global Electric Car Sales

Positive Future #181 (Feature photo – Apple Park – Electric Car Charging – CCA SA 4.0 International) Electric car sales include all cars that have a plug-in feature. According to InsideEVs, global electric car sales for May, 2017 totaled 71,762. For May, 2018, electric car sales totaled 128,450. This gain of 56,688 units represents a market gain of 79 percent. 2018 year-to-date sales of electric cars are 432.450, up 65 percent from 2017 numbers. At these levels of increases, the world is on course to sell over 2 million electric cars in 2018. Want More? – Sign up below Special Deals Ahead…Sign up!

Read more

Posted on

Trade War Jitters

Touch the Soil News #1045 (Feature photo – International Trade – Public Domain) Unfortunately, adding tariffs to the cost of goods China imports from America and adding costs to the goods America imports from China, will hurt the less affluent in both countries – hurting people in both economies. One cause of trade imbalances is a strong American dollar. A strong dollar makes it difficult for other countries to buy what America has to sell because it makes American goods and services too expensive for poorer populations. Unfortunately, one of the largest forms of exports from American is agricultural goods. A drop in demand that Chinese tariffs on soybeans and…

Read more

Posted on

This Man is Launching the Diesel Car Ban

Positive Future #180 (Feature photo – Guiseppe Sala, Mayor of Milan, Italy – photo Presidenza della Republica) Milan, Italy is one of those international cities of around 1.4 million people. It is the middle of a much large metropolitan complex of 5.3 million people. The mayor of Milan – Guiseppe – just announced that the city is planning to ban diesel cars starting January 21, 2019. At the core of the plan is a low-emissions zone that will include 180 cameras on all entrance routes to the city that will monitor traffic. The new regulation will initially be a Monday-Friday daytime activity focusing first on older and more polluting diesel…

Read more

Posted on

Tesla Inc. – Gotta Make it Work

Positive Future #179 (Feature photo – Tesla Headquarters – CCA SA 2.0 Generic) While the world follows the words and comments of Elon Musk, Elon Musk is beholden to Tesla investors. While Elon Musk has a lot of Tesla Shares, almost 62 percent of Tesla Inc. is owned by large institutional investors who are getting anxious about taking out profits. This may well be one of the reasons that Tesla, Inc. just announced that it was laying off 9 percent of its staff. There is no money for investors when the company is losing money. For the record, here are the losses that Tesla has reported for the following years…

Read more

Posted on

How Important is Your Yard?

Touch the Soil News #1044 (Feature photo – Backyard Garden – GNU Free Doc License) To help put that into perspective, there is value in being sensitive to events overseas. The international forum Farmlandgrab.org just published a short piece on the Great Polish Land Grab. The story has common themes around the world. Local and indigenous farmers are being forced out of business because they cannot afford to buy farmland. The influx of foreign capital is raising the price of farmland beyond what farmers can afford. Often, there are local henchmen that aid foreign interests in acquiring the land out from under a particular nation’s farmers. Polish farmers are complaining…

Read more

Posted on

Artificial Intelligence in the Food Industry?

Touch the Soil News #1043 (Feature photo – Artificial Intelligence – CCA SA 3.0 Unported) Most of us have become used to (or annoyed) at how artificial intelligence follows us around on the internet and our e-mail boxes. If you look something up, related ads follow you for days – often ignoring the fact that you weren’t interested in the first place. Supermarket Guru Phil Lempert explains how artificial intelligence is being harnessed by food companies. Is it really a service that we will enjoy? Is it possible that the real reason for artificial intelligence is perhaps not the customer experience, but monetary driven as companies must cut costs and…

Read more

Posted on

Renewable Energy for 170 Million Homes?

Positive Future #178 (Feature photo – Solar Panels – Apple Computers New Headquarters – CCA SA 4.0 International) CleanTechnica just reported that India is planning to increase its renewal energy from the existing 70 gigawatts of installed renewable power to 227 gigawatts by 2022. Estimates are that 227 gigawatts (under ideal conditions) can power 170 million homes in first-world nations. One wonders how many modest homes in India this amount of renewable energy can power? At a cost of $50 billion to achieve this milestone, the vision is certainly lofty. You can read the full story here: https://cleantechnica.com/2018/06/12/indias-new-227-gigawatt-renewable-energy-target-is-ambitious-challenging-but-possible-says-ieefa/ Want More? – Sign up below Special Deals Ahead…Sign up!

Read more