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Dick & Joe vs. Mom & Pop
“Dick vs. Joe!” the headline screamed in Sunday’s paper. As if we are supposed to care about the looming showdown in Oregon between national retail giant Dick’s Sporting Goods, Inc. and the Oregon retail fixture Joe’s Sports, Outdoor & More. Dick’s just opened a store in Portland last week, the first of perhaps 10 across the state. This could spell trouble for Joe’s, we are led to believe by The Oregonian. Coincidentally, this could also spell trouble for the newspaper if Joe’s starts advertising less because of lost sales to Dick’s, and Dick’s doesn’t make up the difference.
While the newspaper attends to the battle between big box retailers, the real victims in the retail wars are the remaining locally owned, independent sporting goods stores struggling to compete. Joe’s is not one of them. Joe’s founder Norm Daniels sold majority interest in his company last year to a private equity firm in San Francisco. The Oregonian says the firm told it a year ago “that it would sell off Joe’s in a few years.” It’s possible the next ownership group could be local, but I doubt it. The article speculated that Dick’s could buy Joe’s, although that was not considered likely. So look for Joe’s ownership to remain out of state.
Dick vs. Joe is simply a battle of two non-local chain retailers for sporting goods supremacy in Oregon. Since Joe’s got its start here, we still think of them as one of us. It would be natural to pull for them over Dick’s. But Joe’s is one of us in memory only. Joe’s majority owners are elsewhere now, and they control Joe’s future. Our choice to spend money with Joe’s may be only less bad than a decision to support Dick’s, from the standpoint of local economic benefit. Better, however, to skip both chains and shop instead at a locally owned, independent sporting goods store. That keeps more of our money in our community, instead of heading to Pittsburgh, in the case of Dick’s, or San Francisco, in the case of Joe’s. With a recession looming, this argument is stronger than ever.
Bottom line: Oregon doesn’t need Dick’s. Dick’s needs Oregon, so it can keep satisfying shareholder demand for growth. Dick’s arrival here is part of the chain retail trend so well documented by Stacy Mitchell in her book, “Big-Box Swindle”:
Consider that in 1996, the top ten retail chains accounted for a remarkable 15 percent of consumer spending. Less than a decade later, in 2005, the top ten captured nearly 30 percent of the more than $2.3 trillion that Americans spend in stores each year. Two or three corporations now dominate each retail sector. As the chains have gained market share, tens of thousands of independent businesses have disappeared.
Dick’s is hell-bent on dominating the sporting goods category and Joe’s will do all it can to protect its turf. But the story isn’t Dick vs. Joe; it’s Dick & Joe vs. Mom & Pop. Local owners of independent, usually small, stores are the big losers in the battle of big box opponents. And so are the communities that watch these stores disappear. I’ll let Stacy Mitchell have the final words:
The effect of mega-retailers on local economies does not end with shuttered local merchants and their laid-off employees. Most local retailers buy many goods and services locally: they bank at local banks, advertise in local newspapers, carry goods produced by local firms, and hire a range of professionals, from accountants to Web designers. Every dollar spent at a locally owned store sends a ripple of benefits through the local economy, supporting not only the store itself, but many other local businesses, which in turn provide jobs — often the sort of well-paid positions that form the backbone of a city’s middle class and the core of its tax base. When chains displace local merchants, all of these economic relationships are severed. Money that used to flow through the community — from a local office-supply store that hires a local accountant, who in turn uses a local bank that lends money to a new entrepreneur, who stocks up at the local office-supply store, and so on — ceases to do so.
Tags: Big-Box Swindle, Dick's, Joe's, local economies, locally owned independent business, Stacy Mitchell, The Oregonian
Posted in Business & Economics, Oregon | No Comments »
How can climate change be non-issue in presidential campaigns?
Are you wondering like me how climate change could fail to be a substantive issue in this year’s presidential campaigns?
One explanation may be the unwillingness of debate hosts to raise the issue. Early this year, the League of Conservation voters released an analysis of the debates in 2007 moderated by hosts of the top political programs on television and found that only 24 questions related to climate change or global warming were asked out of a total of 2,275 questions. I haven’t seen an updated analysis of debates since the first of the year. The debates are (or were) a significant source of campaign news; if an issue isn’t raised in a debate, it won’t appear in the next day’s media summaries.
Another explanation is that climate change, while worrisome to Americans, is not among our top concerns. Last year, polls indicated Iraq was top of mind for voters, at least among Democrats. This year it’s the economy, with health care remaining another huge issue. Among Republicans, immigration is a dominant topic. It appears the news media are taking their cue from polling results and covering the issues voters say are their greatest concerns. That relegates climate change to a non-issue in political coverage.
Yet another possible explanation surfaced this week in a post by Joe Romm, editor of Climate Progress (Romm once worked for the Clinton Administration). Citing Elizabeth Kolbert’s book, Field Notes from a Catastrophe, Romm writes: “How can the traditional media cover a story that is almost ‘impossible to imagine’? I don’t think they can.” One reason, he says, is it’s in the nature of the media to lose interest in a story after telling it over and over again. Climate change, because of its complexity and dimensions, is a story that must be repeatedly explored.
While Romm doesn’t refer specifically to political reporters, his analysis suggests the political media simply aren’t up to the task of covering the climate change story; heck, even one of the best climate reporters, Andy Revkin of the New York Times, is singled out for criticism by Romm. If Revkin can’t do justice to the story, certainly no political reporter can.
Revkin responds to Romm here.
Frankly, I think one could write the perfect story on global warming, or create the perfect documentary, and repeat it over and over, and still not see much movement if the goal is to rapidly shift society out of its coal-fired comfort zone as the world heads toward 9 billion people…
As I’ve said, an energy quest — from the bathroom light fixture to the highway to the boardroom to the classroom — does not begin in a newspaper, but must build from deeper within a society (with a big dose of nonpartisn (sic) leadership).
Revkin is right, of course: The news media can only do so much in moving society away from the brink of catastrophe. And leaders of all stripes (and I would add voters, too) must step forward to place climate change at the top of our political agenda and work to keep it there. But I also agree with Romm that the national media is showing no staying power with this story, which I believe to be easily the most important one of our time and will remain so for years to come. The media, like our politicians, must lead, even when the electorate has its mind on other things.
The good news is there’s still time to make global warming a core subject in this year’s presidential campaign — the general election remains eight months away. And the Democratic race is not over. In case you’re interested, here are Clinton’s and Obama’s energy and climate plans.
Tags: Andy Revkin, Climate Change, Climate Progress, Joe Romm, presidential campaign
Posted in Climate Change, Politics | No Comments »
Spread of fashion undermines sustainability
One of America’s foremost critics of our consuming ways is Juliet Schor, a professor of sociology at Boston College. I had the pleasure of hearing her speak this week in Portland.
Among the many observations that jumped out at me in her lecture was what she called “the aesthetization of American life.” Not sure that’s a word, but the point is fast-changing fashion, long the staple of the apparel industry, is now central to the selling of many retail products. In recent years, furniture, cellphone, home electronics and other manufacturers have joined clothing makers in emphasizing the design — or aesthetic appeal — of their products. A New York Times piece yesterday, appropriately headlined “Hoping to Make Phone Buyers Flip,” helped make Schor’s point:
Like fashion or entertainment, the cellphone industry is increasingly hit-driven, and new models that do not fly off the shelves within weeks of their debut are considered duds.
I like attractive, well-designed products as much as the next person. However, when it becomes industry’s prevailing practice to change product designs with the season and encourage us to discard perfectly good items because they are no longer “fashionable,” then we have a problem. Making more of the products we buy fashion statements only encourages us to purchase more. This may bolster the financial bottom lines of producers and retailers. But it puts the world’s environmental bottom line further in the red.
To illustrate her point, Schor projected a graph from the World Wildlife Foundation’s Living Planet Report 2006. You can access the report here. According to the WWF:
The Living Planet Report 2006 confirms that we are using the planet’s resources faster than they can be renewed — the latest data available (for 2003) indicate that humanity’s Ecological Footprint, our impact on the planet, has more than tripled since 1961. Our footprint now exceeds the world’s ability to regenerate by about 25 per cent…This global trend suggests we are degrading natural ecosystems at a rate unprecedented in human history…Effectively, the Earth’s regenerative capacity can no longer keep up with demand — people are turning resources into waste faster than nature can turn waste into resources.
WWF offers several alternatives to our unsustainable (and potentially catastrophic) “business as usual” course of human development. If you’re wondering what you can do, start by examining your consumption choices. Resist the urge to stay at fashion’s leading edge, no matter the product. Buy less stuff. When you do make purchases, reward producers and retailers who embrace sustainability.
And if it’s aesthetics you value, ask yourself this: What better designer than Mother Nature?
Tags: aesthetization, consumption, Ecological Footprint, Juliet Schor, Living Planet Report, Sustainability
Posted in Business & Economics, Consumerism, Marketing, Sustainability | No Comments »
Getting past ideology to action on global warming
A fascinating article in The New Yorker examines the complex interplay of science, politics, market economics and morality in the global efforts to reduce carbon emissions. Definitely worth the time to read.
In one section that speaks to the emotions running through the debate of how best to dramatically lower CO2 emissions, reporter Michael Specter discusses a proposal by environmental group Carbon Conservation to pay tropical forest landowners not to cut down their trees. The proposal would rely on market-based carbon-trading allowances to make the needed payments, a solution rejected by other environmental organizations.
Environmental organizations like Carbon Trade Watch say that reducing our carbon footprint will require restructuring our lives, and that before we in the West start urging the developing world to do that we ought to make some sacrifices; anything else would be the modern equivalent of the medieval practice of buying indulgences as a way of expiating one’s sins. “You have to realize that, in the end, people are trying to buy their way out of bad behavior,” Tony Juniper, the director of Friends of the Earth, told me. “Are we really a society that wants to pay rich people not to fly on private jets or countries not to cut down their trees? Is that what, ultimately, is morally right and equitable?”
Specter refers this argument back to Richard Sandor, chairman and CEO of the Chicago Climate Exchange, whose members buy and sell the right to pollute.
“Frankly, this debate just makes me want to scream,” he told me. “The clock is moving. They are slashing and burning and cutting the forests of the world. It may be a quarter of global warming and we can get the rate to two per cent simply by inventing a preservation credit and making that forest have value in other ways. Who loses when we do that?
“People tell me, well, these are bad guys, and corporate guys who just want to buy the right to pollute are bad, too, and we should not be giving them incentives to stop. But we need to address the problems that exist, not drown in fear or lose ourselves in morality. Behavior changes when you offer incentives. If you want to punish people for being bad corporate citizens, you should go to your local church or synagogue and tell God to punish them. Because that is not our problem. Our problem is global warming, and my job is to reduce greenhouse gases at the lowest possible cost. I say solve the problem and deal with the bad guys somewhere else.”
Remember, all of these people agree that we need to eliminate greenhouse gas emissions as much as we possibly can. I suppose it’s a sign of progress that the raging debate now is how — not whether — to do that. Unfortunately, the window of time for debate is rapidly closing and decisions need to be made by government, business and activist leaders on how to proceed. Mistakes are likely to be made, but the greatest mistake of all is allowing our ideological differences — such as social justice vs. capital market efficiencies — to stand in the way of action.
Tags: Carbon Conservation, carbon emissions, Michael Specter, Richard Sandor, The New Yorker
Posted in Climate Change | No Comments »
The price of our Google addiction
Head out east from Portland about 80 miles on I-84 along the Columbia River and you’ll come to The Dalles. Otherwise known as the secretive home of two Google computing centers, each the size of a football field. Google is on my mind today because of a feature piece in the local newspaper yesterday on Google’s green energy initiatives. It is said Google is investing tens of millions of dollars to promote renewable energy development and other earth-saving programs. Why is that, the article asks:
Along with being a big investor in energy research, Google is a very big user of energy. Its massive data centers, which in the United States alone stretch from Atlanta to The Dalles in Oregon, suck up enough power each year to keep the lights on in a small country. “It’s in our best interest to find cheap electricity to use,” said Robyn Beavers, Google’s director of green business operations.
And cheaper energy is what’s generally available near the Columbia River, courtesy of its hydroelectric dams. One Google watcher speculates that the firm’s founders are motivated in part by guilt. Whatever works, I guess. Companies like Google need to do all they can to stem the non-renewable energy demands of their data centers. A study released last year said “energy consumed by data center servers and related infrastructure equipment in the United States and worldwide doubled between 2000 and 2005.”
What’s driving this consumption? From users, it’s their hunger for everything Web, from video on demand and music downloads to Internet telephony and more…The spike in power consumption was also caused by a number of other trends, especially the proliferation of “lower-end servers” costing less than $25,000 in the United States and worldwide…A jump in the volume of servers in data centers is accountable for 90% of the growth in power consumption.
According to a new article in Harper’s Magazine, no one outside of Google knows how many servers are housed in The Dalles and fed by cheap hydroelectric power. Worldwide, Google may own as many one million servers. Harper’s says by 2011 The Dalles plant (known in the tech industry as server farms) “can be expected to demand about 103 megawatts of electricity—enough to power 82,000 homes, or a city the size of Tacoma.”
That’s just Google’s server farm in The Dalles. It has at least 25 data centers around the world, according to the New York Times. On top of that you have Microsoft and Yahoo trying to play catch-up to Google with giant data centers of their own, including near The Dalles. And mega-corporations, governments and higher ed the world over with ever-growing data centers that store and process enormous amounts of information. I saw this digital transformation up close and personal in my 20 years in high tech.
The energy source for most computing continues to be fossil fuels; Google’s hydropower in The Dalles is an exception to the rule. Of course, fueling the demand for more computing power and energy consumption are people like me. Here I sit with my laptop connected to the Internet. All my sources for this post courtesy of Google searches. Millions like me everywhere are virtually addicted to the convenience of information at our fingertips. And as I type this sentence, I’m thinking of the price in greenhouse gas emissions this convenience is costing Earth and those who live here. Like Google, we computer users also have an obligation to do our part.
Tags: cheaper energy, data center energy consumption, Google, green energy, Harper's, The Dalles
Posted in Climate Change | No Comments »
Consuming our way out of poverty?
An economist and writer at the Federal Reserve Bank in Dallas tell us household consumption — not income — is the best measurement of “financial well-being.” The incomes of the top 20 percent of US households may be 15 times greater than the bottom 20 percent, but the top group’s consumer spending is only four times greater than the bottom group’s. And on a per person basis, the richest household only outspends the poorest by 2.1. to 1 (because richer households are larger on average). Writing in the Sunday New York Times, the bankers explain:
To understand why consumption is a better guideline of economic prosperity than income, it helps to consider how our lives have changed. Nearly all American families now have refrigerators, stoves, color TVs, telephones and radios. Air-conditioners, cars, VCRs or DVD players, microwave ovens, washing machines, clothes dryers and cellphones have reached more than 80 percent of households.
So there you have it. Because nearly all of the poorest households have all or most of the “conveniences we take for granted,” they really aren’t that poor. In fact, the bankers tell us, “the abstract, income-based way in which we measure the so-called poverty rate no longer applies to our society.” By their definition, the truly poor are those who don’t have the modern conveniences nearly everyone else has. In which case, that odd millionaire couple that opts out of a consumerist lifestyle would be poor. They say no to the so-called conveniences because they don’t want to add to the human and ecological toll our consumer economy extracts.
The bankers praise “a capitalist system that has for generations been lifting American living standards.” Yes, if you define standard of living by material things. We certainly do have more material things in the average rich and poor households. And I suppose that means all of us — rich and poor — are happier than generations before us? And Earth has infinite capacity to lift the world’s material living standards for generations to come? Just wondering.
Tags: economic prosperity, Federal Reserve Bank, household consumption, New York Times, poverty, standard of living
Posted in Business & Economics, Consumerism, Sustainability | No Comments »