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Tesla Motors CEO Elon Musk hit back hard at allegations of unsafe working conditions at the company’s assembly plant in Fremont, California. In an email sent to Tesla’s employees that was posted on the automotive blog Electrek, Musk claimed he was “distraught” over recent accusations publicized by a Tesla employee.

Earlier this month, Jose Moran, an assembly worker at Tesla’s Fremont plant, wrote a blog post on Medium that lauded the company’s vision, yet he said believed he was “working for a company of the future under working conditions of the past.” Moran claimed that many of Tesla’s 5,000-plus employees worked well over 40 hours and even up to 70 hours a week, logged excessive overtime, suffered too many preventable injuries and, in sum, work for a company where the pay ranks amongst the lowest within the automotive industry. Moran suggested that Tesla consider allowing its assembly line employees, who make an average hourly wage of $17 to $24, to join the autoworkers union UAW.

Musk certainly wasn’t having it.

In the email, the contents of which were authenticated by Business Insider, Musk accused the UAW of “underhanded attacks” and painted his company as the “David” against the “Goliath” comprised by the Detroit-based automakers.

To his credit, Musk acknowledged that the compensation at Tesla was lower than that of the Big 3 U.S. automakers – unless stock equity grants were factored in. But then Musk became rabidly defensive on the subject of workplace safety as he took issue with Moran’s claim that at one point 6 out of 8 of his team members were on medical leave. Assuming Moran meant that same rate of missing work applied to the entire company, “That would mean something like 80 percent or more of the factory would be out on injury, production would drop to virtually nothing and the parking lot would be almost empty,” Musk wrote.

Musk emphasized the benefits of working at Tesla by pitching the company’s ability to “afford more and more fun things” as it becomes more profitable. Promises include “a really amazing party” once the company’s much-anticipated Model 3 accelerates production later this year, as well as free frozen yogurt stands and an electric pod roller coaster on the premises. (No mention was made, however, of a foosball table, the ubiquitous Silicon Valley tech company perk.)

Meanwhile, the UAW has pushed back against any allegations that Moran, who has reportedly worked at Tesla for four years, was a UAE employee. Adopting the two famous words that are now part of today’s discourse, the labor union said in a statement, “We would hope that Tesla would apologize to their employee, Mr. Moran, for spreading fake news about him.” The California branch of UAW, however, made it clear that Tesla is in its crosshairs, confirmed that Moran and other Tesla workers approached the union, and said its membership would "welcome them with open arms.”

The war of words between Musk and the UAW comes at a time when rents in the Bay Area are still hovering around $2,500 a month for a one-bedroom, making the cost of living difficult for anyone earning wages in the range of $20 an hour. And during an era when more middle- and working-class Americans wonder if they can find gainful employment, the latest controversy comes at a time when the hiring practices and working conditions at technology companies, ranging from Uber to Amazon, raise questions over whether their business models enrich the few while exploiting the many.

Image credit: Steve Jurvetson/Flickr

As companies seek to improve their bottom line, many examine worker productivity as a means of cutting costs and boosting revenue. Worker productivity, measured by the goods and services produced in an hour, is on a downward slide, according to recent reports.

Indoor pollutants are increasingly recognized as affecting overall health, but studies also link indoor air quality to cognitive function and mood. Inadequate ventilation, elevated levels of carbon dioxide (CO2), and indoor pollutants can hinder one’s ability to focus, concentrate and respond to crises.

Harvard study links productivity, indoor air quality and ventilation

The Harvard T. H. Chan School of Public Health’s Center for Health and the Global Environment, SUNY Upstate Medical University, and Syracuse University conducted a groundbreaking double-blind study in 2015. Half the participants, including architects, engineers, designers, programmers and marketing professionals, continued their regular work for six days while some were exposed to elevated levels of volatile organic compounds and CO2. The others, the green+ participants, had lower volatile organic compound levels and enhanced ventilation. All participants completed cognitive tests at the end of each day.

The green+ participants' cognitive function scores were twice as high on average as those of the employees in conditions with elevated levels of contaminants. When examining nine cognitive domains, researchers found the largest differences in crisis response, with scores 131 percent higher in the green+ group; the group also scored 288 percent higher in strategy and 299 percent higher in information usage.

“People who work in well-ventilated offices with below-average levels of indoor pollutants and CO2 have significantly higher cognitive functioning scores — in crucial areas such as responding to a crisis or developing strategy — than those who work in offices with typical levels,” the researchers led by Joseph Allen wrote in their study.

Poor indoor air quality is frequently overlooked

As buildings become increasingly energy efficient, they are also becoming more airtight. This means that less air is exchanged through the building envelope and air pollutants can be trapped inside the building. Ventilation is a leading strategy for boosting indoor air quality, but its importance is often overlooked.

“We have been ignoring the 90 percent,” said Joseph Allen, director of the Healthy Buildings Program at the Harvard Center for Health and the Global Environment, and lead author of the study. “We spend 90 percent of our time indoors, and 90 percent of the cost of a building are the occupants, yet indoor environmental quality and its impact on health and productivity are often an afterthought. These results suggest that even modest improvements to indoor environmental quality may have a profound impact on the decision-making performance of workers.”

Building-related illnesses, such as sick building syndrome, initially gained attention in the 1980s. In response, the healthy building movement is addressing issues such as indoor air quality and other aspects of the indoor environment.

Ventilation solutions reduce contaminant levels

“Formaldehyde, mold, stale air: the best solution for indoor air pollution is dilution,” said Larry Ponziano, Midwest technical sales representative for Zehnder America. “Indoor air pollution is a sad but true fact in our world. I’ve seen it first-hand that [heat recovery ventilators] have lowered the formaldehyde levels in the air by a factor of 10 and mold counts by a factor of 12.”

Zehnder heat recovery ventilators provide continuous ventilation and replace a third of the air volume in a space each hour with fresh, filtered air. As a balanced ventilation system, it supplies and exhausts an equal amount of air. The most energy-efficient heat recovery ventilation systems on the market, Zehnder systems capture heat from the exhaust air and transfer it to the intake air.

“Diluting sick air with fresh air is a great solution,” Ponziano explained. “Our systems also capture a high percentage of the energy that is otherwise dissipated in the atmosphere.”

Unlike in the 1980s, ventilation solutions exist that both dramatically improve indoor air quality and save energy. Although the energy savings may be easy to calculate, the advantages of being able to form effective strategies and respond to crises are priceless and can have a dramatic impact on a company’s bottom line.

Image Credit: Flickr/WOCinTech Chat

American life expectancy is now the lowest among high-income countries, according to new research.

The typical American can now expect to live as long as someone in Mexico or Croatia. Our increased weight, along with infant mortality and high homicide rates, were statistically identified as reasons why Americans have a significantly shorter life expectancy than those living in South Korea or France.

The journal Obesity published new research linking stress to weight gain the same week the life expectancy study was published. This is not just coincidence. Professional awareness is growing about the role stress plays in our national weight crisis and our diminished life expectancy compared to other high-income nations.

Moving more, eating less fails at achieving sustained weight loss

We have all tried and failed at weight loss plans centered on moving more and eating less. Here is what my research has documented on why we are failing:

Eating less rarely achieves sustained weight loss. Our bodies are not designed to go hungry. Going hungry is painful and stressful. We then rebound against this stress and pain by breaking our eat-less diets. Too often we end up loading up on sugary foods and drink. Counterintuitively, my research concludes that eat-less dieting results in weight gain.

Eating healthy rarely achieves sufficient weight loss. Eating more vegetables, fruits and fish is documented to advance human health. But as a stand-alone action, it is typically insufficient in achieving meaningful weight loss.

Play, not exercise, promotes sustained weight loss. Exercising will burn off calories. It can also be stressful and painful. So we stop exercising. Playing, like riding a bike or aerobic dancing, is fun. Because it is fun we will keep doing it.

Less stress means less weight. Figuring out how to reduce stress was the real breakthrough in my weight loss journey. Eating better, playfully burning calories and reducing stress is the winning formula for sustained weight loss.

How to reduce stress

Reducing stress is easier said than done. The very idea of setting a goal to reduce your stress can be stressful! The following are best practices for reducing stress. The key is to do all of them!

Play outside. Playing outside was my breakthrough first step in stress reduction. I discovered that I loved riding a mountain bike. There was something about pedaling away in a location with natural beauty that just melted my stress away. My typical ride is about 45 minutes. Most days I get on my bike worrying about something. I get off feeling relaxed and thankful. The cause of my stress didn’t change. But my reaction to it improved. Figuring out how to play, most especially outdoors, is a huge first step in reducing stress.

Prayer/mindfulness. I actually pray while pedaling. It usually happens after the first 15 minutes of my ride. That much exercise relaxes my body which enables me to think spiritually. A lot of my prayer time is spent thanking God for my blessings. Research finds that most of us are touched by depression and anxiety caused by looking at ourselves based on what is wrong or missing. Focusing on what is right about our lives can sooth our spirit. It can brighten our perspective. Combining that with playful exercise has been my recipe for reducing stress and weight.

Sleep more. Research is confirming that at least seven to eight hours of sleep is key to achieving sustained weight loss. It is not that sleep reduces weight. It is that a lack of sleep is tied to weight gain.

Try this new formula for sustained weigh loss

The fact you have not achieved sustained weight loss is most probably linked to using a diet-plus-exercise formula.

Try this formula instead:

1. Figure out what healthier foods tastes great to you, and then eat all you want so you never go hungry.


2. Learn to play, and enjoy what life has given you.


3. Sleep at least seven hours a night.

What I found is that this formula will help you lose weight, have fun and live more. It is the reason I have lost 30 pounds and have kept them off for years.

By Meghna Tare

Keith Sawyer, author of the book "Group Genius" wrote: "All inventions emerge from a long sequence of small sparks. Collaboration brings small sparks together to generate breakthrough innovation."

Crowdsourcing, a term first coined in 2006, basically means groups of people coming together to solve a common problem. By enabling people with similar interests to collaborate, crowdsourcing initiatives offer an opportunity to help others, learn something and gain recognition.

With crowdsourcing, ideas are generated from multiple contributors, including experts. With these practices, community-based projects become exercises in collective problem-solving. The principle of crowdsourcing is that more heads are better than one. By canvassing a large crowd of people for ideas, skills or participation, the quality of content and idea generation is superior.

Working together is vital in any successful endeavor, and sharing ideas is especially important in education. UNESCO tapped into online crowdsourcing to help achieve Education for All. The project on crowdsourcing girls’ education in Ethiopia and Tanzania launched in July 2011 took a community-based approach to lowering drop-out rates in secondary schools in those countries.

Funded by the Packard Foundation, within the framework of UNESCO’s global partnership for girls’ and women’s education, it encouraged girls and their communities to propose solutions to obstacles preventing girls from completing secondary education. The process introduced a fresh approach to designing education policies

One of the groups that benefits tremendously from crowdsourcing in education is the faculty. Teachers and professors can share lesson plans with each other and find new and innovative ways to share material with students. They can brainstorm together to create a database of resources and best practices that benefit their institution – and then share that information with other schools as well. They can give feedback and offer assistance in further developing curriculum. Finally, faculty can use peer evaluations to help with grading practices and to receive feedback on their teaching styles

Crowdsourcing is also an important method to improve the way education is conducted by teachers and received by students. With crowdsourcing projects, colleges and universities can use collective brainpower and energy to complete what they can't do on their own, going beyond their budgets and time constraints.

From transcribing ancient documents and increasing class participation to collecting data for research and documenting campus crime, these college crowdsourcing projects are downright awe-inspiring.

• Columbia University used crowdsourcing of ideas to dramatically enhance the student experience. By allowing students to suggest ideas in the “What to Fix Colombia” community, the school received feedback and implemented changes that made a significant difference in how students operate at school. Some of the low-hanging fruit ideas included small things like revised gate hours and a new mailbox notification system.


• Through the Human-Computer Interaction Institute, researchers at Carnegie Mellon University were able to conduct CrowdForge, a writing experiment in which authors came together to each write a small part of an informational article. The experiment was done to break down complex tasks into smaller and simple independent tasks. With some authors creating an outline, others gathering facts and others doing the writing, a group of people who had never met created a cohesive Encyclopedia article.


• San Francisco State University associate professor of biology Gretchen LeBuh created the Great Sunflower Project with leftover grant money in 2008. Hoping to grow this honeybee study project started in Napa Valley, she emailed gardening groups across the country and offered to send sunflower seeds to volunteers who would catalog how often honeybees came to visit the plants. An army of volunteers she hoped would reach 5,000 has now grown to 80,000, creating a honeybee census that takes her project way beyond just a local survey.


• Carleton University is using crowdsourcing tools, including text messages, voicemail, and the Internet to capture the local history of the Pontiac region of West Quebec through the people of the Pontiac. Through HeritageCrowd, the project is creating a database to create online historical exhibits, using information from the people who actually live in the area. They've found that people love to "play a role in how people define their own local history," contributing to academic work as a community.


• Students from the University of Southern California came together to save summer school for LAUSD, after the district first scaled back. USC students came together to collect, organize and share free online educational resources that could be used for instruction. Through the crowdsourcing of resource tagging, these students created an organized and easy to access collection of educational resources for students, teachers, and families to use.

George Bernard Shaw once said: “If you have an apple and I have an apple and we exchange these apples then you and I will still each have one apple. But if you have an idea and I have an idea and we exchange these ideas, then each of us will have two ideas.” Sharing ideas through crowdsourcing gives everyone a chance to gain from the process – faculty, students, and the schools themselves.

Image credit: Pexels

Meghna is the Executive Director, Institute for Sustainability and Global Impact at the University of Texas at Arlington where she has initiated and spearheaded many successful cross functional sustainability projects related to policy implementation, buildings and development, green procurement, transportation, employee engagement, waste management, GRI reporting, and carbon management. She is a TEDx UTA speaker, was featured as Women in CSR by TriplePundit, has done various radio shows on sustainability, is an active blogger, and graduated with an MBA in Sustainable Management. You can connect with her on LinkedIn www.linkedin.com/in/meghnatare/ or follow her on twitter @meghnatare

The eyes of the world will be on the red carpet tonight for the 89th annual Academy Awards. What many viewers might not realize, however, is that the world's most glamorous secret — the names of the awardees — are known only to a small cadre of one of the world's least glamorous professions: accountants. 

PwC, one of the so-called "Big Four" accounting firms, has overseen the awards' balloting process for the last 83 years. This year — in a departure from the typical "what are you wearing?" awards coverage — the firm plans to use its influence to highlight the causes that matter to celebrities ranging from Hamilton's Brandon Victor Dixon to Julia Ormond ("Legends of the Fall," "Mad Men," "Witches of East End").

"This year, we wanted to put purpose center stage," said Shannon Schuyler, chief purpose officer for PwC. "Hollywood is not just about glamour. The movies also can take issues that maybe have never touched us and make them real to us. We want to make sure these stories continue to be heard, certainly through the movies, but also by lifting up the voices of impassioned advocates like Julia."

Schuyler will be broadcasting live from the red carpet tonight. (Tune in here.) To get an idea of what to expect, we sat down with Ormond to talk about the purpose that motivates her: fighting forced labor and human trafficking.

TriplePundit: Why did you get involved with this event, and how does a sense of purpose inform your work?

Julia Ormond: What I love about this event is that it enables actors to shine a light on the things that you feel really need attention. For me that purpose has very much been about driving a message around the state of human trafficking and our need to ensure that people all over the world have access to human rights in order that we can claim a legitimate freedom.

3p: When and how did you first become aware of this issue?

Julia Ormond: I had heard about the problem (for a while), and I was stunned by the figures. We're talking about 21 million people who are in forced labor ... and the numbers appear to be rising. There's more of this than ever before in history, but I didn't connect with it until I started traveling the world and looking at it more deeply, and that happened as a result of being asked to become a United Nations goodwill ambassador against trafficking and slavery in 2005. `

3p: Could you tell us about that experience?

Julia Ormond: My first trip was to Lake Volta, in Ghana, where they discovered a form of child slavery in fishing because of the number of children whose bodies were washing up on the shore … I met with these kids who had been beaten and abused and famished and raped and who had witnessed someone else dying or drowning. They were clearly traumatized, and what I walked away asking myself was: “Have I ever eaten that fish? Have I ever, as a mother, fed fish from Lake Volta to my child?”

That possibility filled me with horror, but traveling around other parts of the world, I began to realize that slavery was also in coffee; it's in carpets; it's in sugar; it's in chocolate; it's in our cars, our computers, our cell phones. The list is endless. It's pretty much in every part of the world in every product. When I would come home, I would realize my connection to it, and I would realize the state of denial that was enabling companies (to continue with the status quo) because there was no legal requirement for them to talk about the issue.

3p: And that led you to found the Alliance to Stop Slavery and Trafficking?

Julia Ormond: Yes. We decided what was needed was a complete change of our system and that the first step would be breaking that denial and creating a level playing field so the companies that did want to do good work would be able to start talking about the problem and sharing the best practices they were working on so that, as a consumer, you could start having information about which companies to support.

3p: Your nonprofit, Asset, was instrumental in passing legislation in California (in 2010) and the United Kingdom (in 2015) requiring that companies disclose their efforts to weed out forced labor in their supply chains. In the years since, you’ve advocated for similar, national legislation in the U.S. How do you foresee the changing political climate in America affecting these efforts?

Julia Ormond: I think the federal efforts will shift. What we're seeing across different transparency laws is an effort to repeal what is seen as excessive regulation, in particular with Dodd Frank and the conflict minerals legislation, which is another transparency law that intersects with slavery and forced labor in conflict mines.

That said, there's been a definite shift, globally, in the number of countries that are engaging on the issue. Now, we're focused on building on our accomplishments and using transparency as a tool to come up with simpler and simpler engagement points for the consumer, so that, at the end of the day, they can know very simply who to support and who not to support.

We're also looking to continue and upgrade our policy efforts. We now have the chance to come back and say what we’ve learned in the last five years. We're no longer discussing hypotheticals. We know concretely what works and what doesn't, and we learnt a lot from the first time around. So we're looking at building the policy out, not just in different states in the U.S. but in other countries, as well. The big thing for us is to make sure that there's an alignment as we scale, so that we don't end up with contradictory legislation.

3p: How does your work as an actress inform your advocacy work, and vice-versa?

Julia Ormond: I'm always drawn to projects that have some sort of human rights focus, but I'd like to believe as an actor that I can also escape into something that's completely disconnected from my other work. I also can do things as an actress that have nothing to do with my advocacy and use the attention they garner to drive the social impact, so I think it's important to me to maintain this work, also.

3p: You must have a lot of empathy to be a successful actor, to be able to get inside a character's head and embody their story. Does this capacity help you to be a better advocate, by equipping you to be a better listener and more empathetic storyteller?

Julia Ormond: I do think empathy is a muscle that you build. Definitely, as an actor, your job is to put yourself in someone else's shoes and to walk their walk and talk their talk, so you have a natural affinity for that, and people sense that and open up to you with their story very quickly.

3p: What can private companies do to help combat trafficking?

Julia Ormond: We are trying to shift the conversation from the negative language of “slavery” to a conversation about freedom, and I think the greatest articulation of this is “social impact.” Social impact to me is our equivalent of “organic” versus “pesticide-free.” I think that, as a movement, we're presenting business with a huge stumbling block when we talk about slavery instead of social impact.

On the other hand, we need businesses to commit to investigating their own supply chains, implementing best practices and sharing successes. But we need people to sign up for 100 percent social impact, meaning zero slavery. If that can happen, I think we can all have a different conversation, built on common ground and a better understanding of each other's needs. But we need to know businesses are putting solid resources behind this effort, instead of getting their to wet and stopping there.

3p: Do you see this shift happening?

Julia Ormond: The change is definitely coming. We are getting ready to release a big report in March that tracks how businesses are complying with the California law. Companies that are doing great include Burberry, American Eagle, Gap, Patagonia, HP and Apple. There are clearly leaders in the space. We want more of that, but we also want them to share their lessons that they've learned, so that others can come on board. I also think companies need to understand that this is everywhere, so I’d encourage them not to be so fearful of having this as a problem and to just get engaged in the solution.

Image credit: Alliance to Stop Slavery and End Trafficking

To characterize the early days of the Donald Trump administration as divided would be a massive understatement. A litany of controversial executive orders sparked protests, and tensions flared between political parties from Capitol Hill to kitchen tables across the country.

In a time when we seem more divided than ever before, it's easy to doubt whether bipartisan collaboration is even possible. But a few glimmers of hope crossed our newsfeeds these past six weeks, and we think they're just as noteworthy as the fire and brimstone. Let's take a closer look.

Governors urge Trump to invest in renewables

Earlier this month, the bipartisan Governors Wind and Solar Energy Coalition struck back at the Trump administration's “America First” energy plan, which makes no mention of renewable power. Led by Democratic Gov. Gina Riamondo of Rhode Island and Republican Gov. Sam Brownback of Kansas, the group includes eight GOP and 12 Democratic leaders.

In an open letter, the governors urged Trump to reconsider his position on clean power. They say a renewable energy boost will offer immense benefits to the rural voters who overwhelmingly supported Trump in the November election.

"The nation’s wind and solar energy resources are transforming low-income rural areas in ways not seen since the passage of the Homestead Act over 150 years ago," the governors wrote in their letter.

And they're not wrong: The wind energy industry alone paid out at least $222 million to rural landowners and farmers last year, according to the American Wind Energy Association.

Infrastructure: Catalyst or stumbling block?

Some analysts positioned Trump's proposed $1 trillion infrastructure package as a rare opportunity for bipartisan collaboration. That looked more likely when word broke that the package could include renewable energy and transit investments. But other insiders said the plan may drive a rift between the Trump White House and a fiscally-conservative Republican Congress.

Fast-forward to today.

The National Governors Association met in Washington, D.C. this week. And some governors reportedly spent time compiling infrastructure wish-lists for the administration.

The meeting runs through Monday. And it's "expected to showcase rare bipartisan agreement on the need for more federal help in upgrading roads, bridges and airports," Scott Pattison, the group's executive director, told Reuters.

The meeting got governors talking about big-ticket items like high-speed rail lines and statewide broadband Internet, Ian Simpson of Reuters reported today. But they may have to wait. Multiple news outlets, including The Hill, reported that the Trump administration may put off infrastructure spending until 2018.

Cities come together around clean power

Twenty-three American cities have passed resolutions to adopt 100 percent clean power. Take a moment to think about these cities, and you likely conjure visions of patchouli-soaked millennials scooting around in bike lanes and carrying reusable shopping bags made from GMO-free hemp. But that's only part of the story.

Yes, historically-Democratic cities like Los Angeles and San Francisco make this list. But so do Republican-run cities like Greensburg, Kansas.

“The federal government is moving backward on clean energy, so the states must lead,” one long-time utility CEO told 3p contributor Leah Parks.

Massachusetts is now planning the nation's most ambitious state-wide clean power goal to date. So expect clean-energy momentum to continue at the local level, despite what's going on in Washington.

U.S. Conference of Mayors calls for bipartisan immigration reform

In the days leading up to President Trump's inauguration, the U.S. Conference of Mayors came together around immigration reform.

In an emergency resolution on Jan. 18, they asked the incoming president to "take a bipartisan approach to immigration," North Carolina public broadcasting station KQED reported.

"We see that the strength of our cities in America rests on making sure that we have pathways towards full participation and inclusion of all Americans," said Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti, as quoted by The Hill.

Given Trump's recent immigration crackdown -- which this week he called a "military operation" -- it's clear this never came to pass.

But don't expect Republican mayors like Tom Tait of Anaheim, California, to go quietly. Citing the economic benefits immigrants bring to their cities, Tait and his cohorts have a lot riding on common-sense reform. Seattle Mayor Ed Murray, a signatory to the January resolution along with Tait, has already publicly denounced the recent crackdown.

Republican and Democratic neighbors are just as likely to go solar

One might think far-left Democrats of the granola-chomping, tree-hugging persuasion would be most likely to go solar. But it turns out that's not the case.

Last month, the startup PowerScout set out to determine if residential solar crosses party lines. Researchers pulled the addresses of 1.5 million Democratic and Republican party donors in the top 20 solar states. They then analyzed their rooftops using satellite images and an image-recognition model.

“We went in with an open mind,” Kumar Dhuvur, co-founder of PowerScout, told TriplePundit's Gina-Marie Cheeseman. “We wanted to really look at the hard data.”

The results? Republican and Democratic homeowners adopt solar power at more or less the same rate. In some areas, Republicans were even more likely to have solar installed than their Democratic neighbors.

GOP elders make the case for 'climate dividends'

“On-again, off-again regulation is a poor way to protect the environment.” That's the argument presented by a group of GOP mainstays earlier this month.

That's right: Eight veterans of previous Republican administrations met with White House officials to float the idea of a revenue-neutral carbon tax. Their ranks include a former Treasury Secretary from the Ronald Reagan administration and a senior economist hailing from Dwight Eisenhower’s day.

In an op/ed in the New York Times, three of the elder statesmen said a carbon tax could “send a powerful signal to businesses and consumers to reduce their carbon footprints.”

But that's not all. Befitting of these leaders' fiscally-conservative stance, their proposal wouldn't send all that tax revenue to the federal government.

Instead, the proceeds would be returned back to the American people in the form of quarterly 'climate dividends.' Under a modest $40 per ton tax, a family of four would receive about $2,000 annually. Not too shabby.

Of course, not everyone in the environmental community was sold on the plan -- especially since it calls for a roll-back of environmental regulations, including the Obama-era Clean Power Plan, in exchange for the tax.

Image credits: 1) Flickr/DonkeyHotey; 2) Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti's Office via Flickr

As President Donald Trump increases his effort to restructure and narrow the country's immigration laws, cities big and small are stepping forward with a message for the administration: Immigrants make our communities strong. We need them, and we are willing to protect their rights.

On Friday lawyers for the city of New York filed papers on behalf of more than 30 U.S. cities asking the federal court to maintain an injunction against the Trump administration's controversial limits on immigration and travel. The initial executive order, which saught to block immigration and travel from seven predominantly-Muslim countries, was later ruled unconstitutional by the courts this month.

But for cities like New York, San Francisco and Los Angeles -- which are often seen as resettlement destinations for refugees, temporary workers and permanent residents -- a newly-restructured order banning immigration could still destabilize local economies and make it harder for small businesses to survive.

And just as concerning, said New York Mayor Bill de Blasio, it would send a “horrible message” to the world: That the U.S. doesn’t intend to respect and uphold the values and contributions of neighboring communities.

“The president’s ban violates both our Constitution and the values we hold dear,” said New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio.

The initial ban, the claimants say, “stranded students, separated families, disrupted travel and commerce, spread fear among our residents and visitors, and projected a message of intolerance and distrust toward members of our communities.”

But it isn’t just large cities like New York and Minneapolis that have felt the impact of Trump’s restrictive view on immigration. It’s also small towns and cities in areas like upstate New York, where immigrants are often the glue that holds small, shrinking communities together.

Places like Utica, where declining property values gave way to a resilient immigrant community and people witnessed the changes that can come by opening international doors. Iranian students who could afford to pay the tuition fees of upstate New York’s prestigious schools moved in, fixed up and built a new community for foreign nationals. And best of all, as New York Times writer Jesse McKinley points out, they didn’t leave.

“My kid and every other kid here graduates from college and moves somewhere else. Refugees stay,” Hamilton College Professor Paul Hagstrom told the New York Times. Hagstrom has spearheaded research for Hamilton focused on the impact refugee immigration has on New York’s northern cities.

In Toledo, Ohio, you see a similar story. Toledo’s small but growing Arab community has been around since the 1800s, but its support network for newly resettled refugees from Arab-speaking countries is considered a model for building cohesiveness in cities forged by diverse backgrounds.

In Toledo, new Arab residents aren't alone as they struggle through the disorienting challenges of figuring out a brand-new home and language. A network of nonprofits work together to help resettle families and get breadwinners up and running as fast as possible. One organization offers language classes; another finds the basic amenities needed for a new home. Another volunteer fills in the gaps for getting a driver’s license, finding a new doctor or getting to a new job. Others provide companionship, potlucks and camaraderie.

In the process, Toledo’s Arab-American community has not only grown stronger, but it’s also forged bonds with other communities. Many of the nonprofit services that help refugees get on their feet are provided by Christian organizations with a mission to “aid the stranger” irrespective of religious affiliation. Along the way though, their assistance has helped to cement friendships between Arab Muslim and Christian refugees who now call Toledo their home.

And as one writer who grew up in the Muslim faith in Toledo and earned his diploma from a Jewish academy in the same city describes, those multicultural values are reflected in other neighboring faiths as well.

“The embrace that my parents felt from the Arabs when they arrived to America found its echo for me within the Jewish community, which welcomed me in as family, ensuring that I always had a kitchen in which to break matzah, and a sukkah in which to shake the lulav,” Zeba Kahn wrote in Common Ground News, a publication focused on Muslim-Western relations.

That isn’t to say the Trump administration’s scuttled immigration ban didn't have a discouraging effect on Arab resettlement programs. Small, predominantly-white towns like Rutland, Vermont, have discovered that emotions run high when it comes to treading into unknown territory. And a contentious presidential election that has immigration at the center of debate doesn’t help.

For Rutland Mayor Christopher Louras, however, opening a resettlement program for Syrian and Iraqi refugees in need of work and a home has always made perfect sense. The son of Greek immigrants himself, Louras knows communities can be a welcoming place for newcomers with a shared value of community growth.

And many in Rutland agree. As the plan moved forward last year, residents stepped up to volunteer assistance. One who had lived overseas and speaks Arabic volunteered to teach Arabic-language classes to neighbors. Others put together plans to teach English to the city’s new residents. Still others offered transportation and manpower. Academic scholars familiar with issues faced in such an undertaking volunteered their time and expertise.

The first two families, approved by the federal government in September, were due to arrive in January. Community members who saw the program as a way to both help refugees and inject new life into their aging town were ecstatic when the first two families stepped off the plane – right before, that is, the Trump ban took effect.

Resettlement programs in small cities like Rutland depend on federal funding to survive – federal funding that not only bolsters immigrant programs, but also state programs that Trump has vowed not to fund if cities and states do not go along with his immigration reform policies.

"People who are fleeing for their lives [in Syria] now have no place to go. This community that was welcoming them with open arms now has no one to welcome and that is a tragedy for them and that's what is going to be devastating for the community,” Louras told local Rutland news affiliate WCAX.com. He admitted that the first two families “will probably be the last.”

Still, cities like Rutland haven’t really lost. Rutland's story, which made national news, has already become a narrative to counter the fears and distrust that has historically been part of this country's growth pains.

Let's be honest: America has a long and successful immigration history. Immigrants from Italy helped build the labor force in construction industries during and following World War II. Jewish refugees from Europe injected needed labor in New York's Lower East Side during the 20th century and helped fuel the growth of West Coast cities as well. Mexican farm workers nurtured the growth of the Northwest's vital fruit industries, changing attitudes and demographics in the process. Irish immigration during the 19th-century potato famine didn't just help to transform the workforce in blue-collar cities like Boston; its history and success became an election-winning legacy for the country's 35th president, John F. Kennedy.

New immigrant communities often face untold distrust and discrimination. But as many of the country's largest metropolises prove, cities that maintain open harbors to global communities win.

Flickr images: 10 Keoni Cabral; 2) Fibonacci Blue; 3) NealeA; 4) Phil Roeder; 5) Narith5

Tesla Motors’ first 'gigafactory' may not be completed until next year. But the company is still bullish on the manufacture of lithium-ion batteries, solar panels and its anticipated Model 3 electric cars.

In a form 8-K filed Wednesday with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, Tesla announced that it has three new gigafactories on the drawing board as it continues to bet all of its chips on electric vehicles and renewable energy.

The company’s much-hyped gigafactory is located outside of Reno, Nevada, and started manufacturing batteries for energy storage last month. This massive factory, which motivated several states to pull out all the stops in order to score those coveted manufacturing jobs, is slated to operate at full capacity next year.

Tesla claims that by the end of 2018, the Nevada factory will assemble more lithium-ion batteries than what were produced globally in 2013.

The second gigafactory, announced by SolarCity before its merger with Tesla, will be constructed in Buffalo, New York. Once it is fully operational, the company says it will be the largest solar panel factory in the Western Hemisphere. Local press reports estimate the Buffalo gigafactory will go online in 2019. Along with the Nevada facility, the upstate New York factory is a partnership with Panasonic.

But it is the cryptic announcement that Telsa plans to build three new gigafactories that turned heads, and it appeared to leave CNBC’s Jim Cramer close to yet another near aneurysm. Tesla's total revenues soared to over $7 billion, a huge jump over the previous fiscal year, when the automaker reaped just over $4 billion.

But the company still posted losses that were wider than expected to the tune of $121.3 million, or 69 cents a share. Those red lines in its financial statements, coupled with Tesla’s determination to buck conventional wisdom and expand the manufacture of technologies that many in Wall Street still do not view as viable, rattled some investors. The company’s stock price has fallen over 6 percent as of press time.

Tesla is mum when it comes to disclosing where gigafactories three, four and five will be located. But look for municipality and state governments to fall over each other as they seek both the brand’s prestige and, more importantly, the manufacturing jobs that keep on disappearing due to automation. The company says it will finalize those locations later this year.

In Tesla’s view, such growth is necessary as the company expects deliveries of its Model X and Model S to tally as high as 50,000 units by the middle of this year, which would result in as many as 71 percent more cars rolling off its assembly lines than during FY2015.

The company also promised that the highly anticipated Model 3 will begin in limited production this July. At some point in 2018, Tesla expects to produce 10,000 vehicles weekly – which the company claims is made possible by increased automation within its assembly lines.

Between its cars’ popularity, the long waiting list for the Model 3 and solar power’s projected growth, watch for Tesla’s chutzpah to gobsmack Wall Street analysts even more, its products to surge in popularity despite the current administration’s affinity for fossil fuels, and most importantly, continue to disrupt the automotive and energy sectors.

Image credit: raneko/Flickr

Uber may be crushing it in the ride-sharing sector, with revenues over twice that of Lyft’s, but the latter is hardly backing down.

On Thursday the on-demand transportation service announced an expansion in over 50 American cities – just one month after the company launched in 40 new communities. This week’s expansion is happening nationwide, though the bulk of these new cities and towns are in the Midwest and Northeast.

Lyft’s aggressive expansion comes at a time when Uber keeps finding itself in the midst of public relations stumbles.

First, the company appeared to to advertise its services out of New York’s JFK International Airport while transportation unions urged a general strike in protest of the Donald Trump administration’s travel ban. The company apologized, but “app-tivism” caught on as #DeleteUber trended all over social media. And last weekend accusations of sexual harassment in the workplace ended up making headlines, embarrassing the company for several days.

On the revenue front, Uber’s financial losses during 2016 appeared to fade in the background, only for the company to make news again with assertions that it is avoiding the payment of taxes in the United Kingdom.

Lyft is also a big money-loser, but the company is bullish on its future as it debuts in small cities such as Manhattan, Kansas, and Janesville, Wisconsin. This week’s announcement boosts Lyft’s presence in at least 300 U.S. cities. That's still far behind Uber, which claims 560 cities worldwide, but Lyft’s growth could not come at a more prescient time for the company.

Lyft broadened its reach as some analysts are beginning to see ride-sharing companies as more of a killer of public transportation than a complement. Some of Lyft’s new cities, such as Worcester, Massachusetts, are cutting budgets and bus routes as competition from Uber and Lyft add to woes already stemming from cheap gasoline and the proliferation of sub-prime automobile loans.

Furthermore, the industry is becoming even more crowded as Google plans to make a push into the space with its pilot launch of ride-sharing on Waze in several American and Latin American cities. Alternatives such as Juno and Gett are also holding their own as more consumers avoid what they see as the dubious practices of both Uber and Lyft.

And while many locals will hail the arrival of Lyft, regulators are not necessarily thrilled. As Lyft drivers revved up their cars in cities and college towns across Iowa yesterday, the state’s transportation department suggested the company may be operating illegally -- claiming Lyft was not yet legally registered and licensed within the Hawkeye State.

Last year, the Iowa Legislature passed a law establish rules for ride-sharing companies, which include proof of liability insurance and criminal background checks for drivers – requirements to which Lyft and Uber have objected in the past, resulting in backlash that even sparked a vote to kick the companies out of Austin, Texas, last year.

Nevertheless, Americans' desire to make extra cash, paired with commuters’ desire to have a backup transportation plan for the office or a night out on the town – or just eschew car ownership all together, still make ride-sharing companies an attractive prospect to investors.

Yesterday on CNN, Lyft’s co-founder and CEO John Zimmer expressed optimism that the company will soon become profitable. “$2 trillion are spent every year on car ownership, and it’s really inefficient,” he told the news network yesterday. “Cars are only used 4 percent of the time, so the whole industry is growing.”

Image credit: nrkbeta/Flickr