{"id":3053,"date":"2006-12-29T00:26:31","date_gmt":"2006-12-29T07:26:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.amptoons.com\/blog\/archives\/2006\/12\/29\/cut-work-hours-to-help-stop-global-warming\/"},"modified":"2006-12-29T00:26:31","modified_gmt":"2006-12-29T07:26:31","slug":"cut-work-hours-to-help-stop-global-warming","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/?p=3053","title":{"rendered":"Cut Work Hours To Help Stop Global Warming!"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>An interesting, short (12 pages) <a href=\"http:\/\/www.cepr.net\/documents\/publications\/energy_2006_12.pdf\">.pdf paper <\/a>, from a liberal think tank, argues that there would be significant environmental benefits if Americans lowered our work hours to match that of the wealthy European countries. From the paper&#8217;s conclusion:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>If Americans chose to take advantage of their high level of productivity by shortening the workweek or taking longer vacations rather than producing more, there would follow a number of benefits.<\/p>\n<p>Specifically, if the U.S. followed the EU-15 in terms of work hours, then:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Employed workers would find themselves with seven additional weeks of time off.<\/li>\n<li>The United States would consume some 20 percent less energy.<\/li>\n<li>If a 20 percent energy savings had been directly translated into lower carbon emissions, then the U.S. would have emitted 3 percent less carbon dioxide in 2002 than it did in 1990.9 This level of emissions is only 4 percent above the negotiated target of the Kyoto Protocol.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>On the flip side, there is political pressure within European countries to adopt a more American labor model. If Europeans did in fact give up their shorter workweeks and longer vacations, they would consume some additional 25 percent more energy. Translated into carbon emissions, this would have enormous consequences&#8230;.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Shorter hours and fewer emmissions sounds like a good deal to me. No one is suggesting that shorter work hours are a stand-alone solution to the need to reduce negative impacts on the environment, but it could be part of a larger package of approaches.<\/p>\n<p>Curtsy to <a href=\"http:\/\/maxspeak.org\/mt\/archives\/002749.html\">MaxSpeak<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>An interesting, short (12 pages) .pdf paper , from a liberal think tank, argues that there would be significant environmental benefits if Americans lowered our work hours to match that of the wealthy European countries. From the paper&#8217;s conclusion: If &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/?p=3053\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[106,28],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3053","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-class-poverty-labor-related-issues","category-environmental-issues"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3053","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3053"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3053\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3053"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3053"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3053"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}