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Years ago, a friend was alarmed to discover $2,000 missing from her bank account. She couldnt imagine how someone had managed to steal from heruntil she had the dawning realization that she was that someone. Over the course of a very stressful six-week period, she had blown two grand in dribs and drabs, never shelling out more than $45 at a time. My friends situation is a textbook example of why understanding your spending is crucial to budgeting. But unless you happen to be the sort of person who actually enjoys spreadsheets (and, yes, they do exist), tracking your spending is probably about as appealing as a colonoscopy. Thankfully, there are ways to keep an eye on your spending that dont require you to track every penny. Heres what you need to know. Why your spending habits matter At its core, a budget is a framework for determining how much money comes and goes each month. To reach your goals, you should be making active choices about your money, rather than simply letting the money flow through your hands without any forethought. And this is why its so important to understand your spending habits, since that is the part of personal finance were least likely to think about before acting. While my friends loss of $2,000 was an extreme example, every single one of us has had a similar experience. Spending money is remarkably easy (especially in the time of one-click purchasing), but keeping a mental tally of our expenses is impossible. There is no shortage of opportunities to spend and overspend and borrow to spend, meaning were fighting an uphill battle in trying to keep our expenses below our income. Tracking your spending is a way to force yourself to know your spending habits and think about your money choicesbut its not the only way. Creating a budget without tracking There are several ways to get a handle on your spending habits without having to track your expenses. Any of these strategies can give you the information you need to make proactive budgeting decisions. Let a robot do it for you Virtually every financial institution now offers a spending analysis tool that will show you where your money is going every month. All that you have to do is set up a regular date with your money to go over what information the banking robot has aggregated for you. For many people, a monthly check-in will be sufficient, although newbie budgeters or anyone who struggles with overspending may want daily or weekly money dates. The good news is that the spending analysis tool is doing all the drudge work. All you have to do is figure out how the information they give you will affect your financial decisions going forward. Limit your ability to spend Tracking your spending is designed to keep you from going over your budgetbut you can also do that by setting and enforcing hard spending limits. Certified Financial Planner Roger P. Whitney developed this system, which he calls the Cash Flow Bucket. Under this plan, youll start by having your paychecks deposited into your savings account, rather than your checking account. From there, youll set a maximum monthly spending limit for yourself, and have that amount automatically transferred to your checking account. Then you can simply spend money without tracking it throughout the month. Just remember, you will need to regularly check your account balance to make sure you havent accidentally overspent. (But remember, the banking robots have your back here, too, since you can set up low-balance alerts when your account balance gets below a certain amount.) The benefit of this system is that it gives you a monthly spending framework without asking you to track your spending. Since your income is deposited into savings, it also makes saving automatic. Only track problem categories Many of us are perfectly capable of making good spending decisions in most casesbut then make it rain the minute we find ourselves in a bookstore (or another den of sin and temptation). If this sounds like your money situation, you could only track the specific categories that consistently cause you to overspend. Instead of having to keep track of every single purchase you make, you will only have to remember to log the purchases in your problem categories, and will still get a good sense of how much extra money youre spending. This strategy also increases the likelihood that you will think twice before making a purchasebecause you know youll have to write it down. If you choose your two or three problematic spending categories to track, you still benefit from reconsidering the purchase before pulling out your credit card. Take control of your spending Despite what you may have learned, you do not have to track every penny to create a budget that works. However, you do need to basically understand where your money goes so you can make the best decisions about your finances. But there are a number of strategies that allow you to do that without becoming a spreadsheet geek. To keep an eye on your money outflow without tracking your spending, consider using your financial institution’s spending analysis tool and setting up regular check-ins. Alternatively, you could have your income deposited into savings and only transfer your monthly spending amount into checking each month to limit how much you can spend. And for would-be budgeters who are generally frugal, only tracking the problem categories can provide the necessary spending insight to stay on budget. Knowing exactly what you spend is less important than making sure you proactively think about your spending habits. Thats because its the active spending decisions, not the tracking, that prevents what happened to my $2,000? panic.
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E-Commerce
After four years of U.S. progress on efforts to deal with climate change under Joe Biden, Donald Trumps return to the White House is swiftly swinging the pendulum in the opposite direction. On his first day back, Trump declared a national energy emergency, directing agencies to use any emergency powers available to boost oil and gas production, despite U.S. oil and gas production already being near record highs and leading the world. He revoked Bidens orders that had withdrawn large areas of the Arctic and the U.S. coasts from oil and natural gas leasing. Among several other executive orders targeting Bidens pro-climate policies, Trump also began the process of pulling the U.S. out of the international Paris climate agreementa repeat of a move he made in 2017, which Biden reversed. None of Trumps moves to sideline climate change as an important domestic and foreign policy issue should come as a surprise. During his first term as president, 2017-2021, Trump repealed the Obama-era Clean Power Plan for reducing power plant emissions, falsely claimed that wind turbines cause cancer, and promised to end the war on coal and boost the highly polluting energy source. He once declared that climate change was a hoax perpetuated by China. Since being elected again in November, Trump has again chosen Cabinet members who support the fossil fuel industry. But its important to remember that while Donald Trump is singing from the Republican Party songbook when it comes to climate change, the music was written long before he came along. Money, lies, and lobbying In 1979, the scientific consensus that climate change posed a significant threat to the environment, the economy, and society as we had come to appreciate them began to emerge. The Ad Hoc Study Group on Carbon Dioxide and Climate, commissioned by the U.S. National Research Councils climate research board, concluded then that if carbon dioxide continued to accumulate in the atmosphere, there was no reason to doubt that climate changes will result. Since then, the concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere has risen by about 25%, and temperatures have risen with it. The report also concluded that land use changes and the burning of fossil fuels, both of which could be subject to regulation, were behind climate change and that a wait-and-see policy may mean waiting until it is too late. But none of this came as a surprise to the oil industry. Working behind the scenes since the 1950s, researchers working for companies such as Exxon, Shell, and Chevron had made their leaders well aware that the widespread use of their product was already causing climate change. And coinciding with the Ad Hoc Study Groups work in the late 1970s, oil companies started making large donations to national and state-level candidates and politicians they viewed as friendly to the interests of the industry. A summary of all global warming projections reported by ExxonMobil scientists in internal documents and peer-reviewed publications, 1977 to 2003, superimposed on observed temperature change (red). Solid gray lines indicate global warming projections modeled by ExxonMobil scientists; dashed gray lines are projections shared by ExxonMobil scientists from other sources. Shades of gray reflect start dates: earliest (1977) is lightest; latest (2003) is darkest. [Image: Geoffrey Supran/courtesy of the author] The oil industry also implemented a disinformation campaign designed to cast doubt about climate science and, in many cases, about their own internal research. The strategy, ripped from the pages of the tobacco industry playbook, involved emphasizing uncertainty to cast doubt on the science and calling for balanced science to sow confusion. This strategy was helped by the creation and financial backing of lobbying organizations such as the Competitive Enterprise Institute and the Global Climate Coalition, both of which played central roles in spreading falsehoods and casting doubt on the scientific consensus about climate change. By 1997, when 84 countries signed the Kyoto Protocol to curb global greenhouse gas emissions, the oil industry had built an effective apparatus for actively discrediting climate science and opposing policies and actions that could help slow climate change. So even though President Bill Clinton signed the treaty in 1998, the United States Congress refused to ratify it. Partisan politics and the psychology of belonging The Kyoto Protocol experience demonstrated that the lobbying and disinformation tactics used by oil companies to discredit climate science could, on their own, be highly effective. But they alone didnt shift climate change from a scientific question to an issue of partisan politics. Two additional ingredients for completing the transition were still absent. The first of these came during the election campaign of 2000. At the time, the coverage of the major news networks converged on dividing the country into red states, which lean right, and blue states, which lean left. This shift, though seemingly innocuous at the time, made politics even less about individual issues and more like a team sport. Rather than asking people to construct their voting preferences based on a wide range of issuesfrom abortion and gun rights to immigration and climate changevotes could be earned by reminding and reinforcing for voters which team they should be cheering for: Republicans or Democrats. This shift also made it easier for the fossil fuel industry to keep climate change off state and federal policy agendas. Oil companies could focus their money, lobbying, and disinformation on Republican-controlled states and swing states where it would make the biggest difference. It shouldnt surprise anyone, for example, that it was a red state senator, James Inhofe of Oklahoma, who brought a snowball to the Senate floor in February 2015 to prove that the planet was not warming. The final ingredient had everything to do with human nature. Building on the analogy of a rivalry in sports, the red vs. blue state dynamic tapped into the psychological and social forces that shape our sense of belonging and identity. Subtle but powerful social pressures within groups can make it harder for people to accept ideas, evidence, and arguments from those outside the group. Likewise, these within-group pressures lead to preferential treatment for members who are in alignment with the groups perspectives, up to and including placing greater trust in those who appear to represent the groups collective interests. Within-group pressures also create stronger feelings of belonging among those who conform to the groups internal norms, such as which political positions to support. In turn, stronger feelings of belonging serve to further reinforce the norms. Where to from here? Opposing or supporting action on climate change has become part of millions of Americans cultural identity. However, doubling down on climate policies that are in lockstep with our own political leanings will serve only to strengthen the divide. A more effective solution would be to set aside political differences and invest in building coalitions across the political spectrum. That starts by focusing on shared values, such as keeping children healthy and communities safe. In the wake of devastating fires in my own city, Los Angeles, these shared values have risen to the top of the local political agenda regardless of who my neighbors and I voted for. Its clear to all of us that the consequences of climate change are very much in the here and now. Natural disasters across the U.S. have also brought the risks of climate change home for many people across the country. This, in turn, has led to bipartisan action on climate change at the local and regional levels, and between government and the private sector. The U.S. Climate Alliance, a coalition of 24 governors from both parties who are working to advance efforts to slow climate change, is one such example. Another example is the many U.S. companies with ties to government that participate in the First Movers Coalition, which aims to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from industries that have proven difficult to decarbonize, such as steel, transportation, and shipping. But, unfortunately for climate action, examples like these are still an exception rather than the norm. And this is a problem because the current climate challenge is much bigger than a single city, state, or even country. The past year, 2024, was the hottest on record. Many parts of the world experienced extreme heat waves and storms. However, every movement has to start somewhere. Continuing to chip away at the partisan barriers that separate Americans on climate change will require even more coalition building that sets an example by being ambitious, productive, and visible. With the new Trump administration poised to target the recent progress made on climate change while preparing executive actions that will increase greenhouse gas emissions, theres no better time for this work than the present. Joe Árvai is the director of the Wrigley Institute for Environment and Sustainability and a professor of psychology, biological sciences, and environmental studies at USC Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences. This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
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Incarcerated people in Colorado are exposed to climate-related extreme heat and cold, plus flooding and wildfires. Because theyre unable to escape these hazards, their health suffers and some die. I remember it being summer, and theres no way to get away from the sun. And I remember people just burning, said one formerly incarcerated person. My [cellmate] at the time, . . . he was out there all day. And he was so purple, and he had edema on his head so bad, you could put your thumb in his forehead and [the print] would just stay. Another person recounted how they would escape the heat by pouring water on the ground of their cells to form a shallow pool. Granted, it was only a quarter-inch, at the most, deep, they said. But you would just strip down to your boxers and just lay on the floor in the water. Exposure to extreme heat, and other hazards caused by climate change, are not unique to Colorados prisons and jails. A study that looked at deaths of incarcerated people between 2001 and 2019 in Texas found that of more than 3,000 deaths in that time period, or 13%, could be attributable to extreme heat. The intensity and frequency of climate disasters are increasing at the same time as 1.2 million people are incarcerated in the U.S. Incarcerated people lack the ability to evacuate or otherwise protect themselves from heat, cold, wildfire, or the effects of these disasters. This simple fact led us to investigate the vulnerability of incarcerated people to climate hazards in Colorado. We are a collective of scholars in architecture, environmental communication, geotechnical hazards engineering, geography, sociology, and structural engineering. We have spent the past four years scrutinizing the vulnerability of carceral facilitiesbuildings like prisons, jails, and detention facilitiesto climate hazards. During that time, we also looked at the experiences of formerly incarcerated individuals. Our research has resulted in three papers, an exhibit at the University of Colorado Boulder, and two symposiums. We analyzed the exposure of 110 carceral facilities in Colorado to wildfire, flood, extreme temperatures, and landslides. We did so by mapping facility location and hazard exposure for single and multiple climate events, such as floods or the combination of fire and heat. We found that 75% of the facilities we studied had a moderate or high relative exposure to one or more of the hazards. These facilities house roughly 33,300 people, or 83% of people incarcerated in Colorado. Stories of incarcerated people In our most recent study from 2022 to 2023, we held a series of interviews and focus groups with formerly incarcerated people in Colorado to understand how climate hazards had affected their daily lives in detention. We found that climate-related extreme temperatures, wildfires, and flood events affected the majority, about 65% of the 35 study participants. To check the validity of what we learned from this small sample, we compared the information we collected with other investigations and projects, and found they were aligned. The people we interviewed experienced prolonged exposure to temperatures upward of 90 degrees Fahrenheit (32 Celsius) and below freezing, poor air quality, and water contamination. We found that Black and Latino people were disproportionately exposed to these hazards, based on the location of the facilities where they were incarcerated. Their stories are harrowing. It was so cold at times in the winter that I would have every piece of clothing I had on, one participant said. I was also afraid to go to sleep at night because it felt like it was so cold that I would not wake up. In the morning, theres steel toilets, and so you would have ice in your toilet. Another participant described the smoke of a nearby wildfire. The smoke actually woke me up, and it was choking. I just couldnt breathe, and I was just coughing, coughing, the participant said. I asked if I could go, like, to medical, and they were just like, No, you cant go to medical at this time. Theres nothing we can do for you. As extreme temperatures become more common, we believe such stories are important to collect. They offer insights into experiences that may otherwise remain unheard and provide data for a more accurate quantification of the risks incarcerated people face. Our hope is that documentation of actual conditions will provide evidence that can be used for advocacy and reform. Compounding effects We discovered three common ways incarcerated people cope with their climate vulnerability: by trying to modify their environment, making commissary purchases, and lodging formal complaints. [W]hen its that hot, youre filling out that grievance, youre dehydrated because you cant go to the water fountain, everybodys mad, angry, pissed off, said one study participant. You have symptoms of heat exhaustion, your brain is not firing on all cylinders, and youre sitting there trying to do the right thing, trying to follow their procedures. This participant, and others, told us that if they made a mistake in their formal complaintseither by misspelling a word or using the wrong technical terminology for the problem at handtheir grievance could be dismissed. The study participants also talked about retaliation for grievances. If they were to file a lawsuit, according to an interviewee, prison staff members are going to make it the worst that it could possibly be. They feared inmate privileges could be taken away or, as one participant explained, people could be suddenly moved to another facility. That move could disrupt important connections with family, visitors, and their communities on the inside. Experiences such as these were corroborated by multiple participants. Prison officials did not respond to our requests for more information about their facilities or the exposure of incarcerated people to extreme weather. Lack of insight into prisons Talking to formerly incarcerated people about their experiences made us eager to see the facilities we were studying ourselves to reliably asses risk, but it was almost impossible to get permission to get inside prisons or talk to the people inside. Our requests to see building floor plans or engineering drawings, which would have allowed us to analyze the exposure of facility staff and incarcerated people to hazards such as extreme temperatures or flooding, were denied. Corrections officials said our requests raised security concerns. Regardless of their function, jails and prisons must keep their occupants safe. We believe Colorados current carceral infrastructure does not provide humane spaces that protect against increasingly intense and frequent climate hazards. This produces unjust human suffering and hampers the ability of people who are incarcerated to stay healthy. Shawhin Roudbari is an associate professor of environmental design at the University of Colorado Boulder. Shideh Dashti is an associate professor of civil, environmental and architectural engineering at the University of Colorado Boulder. This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
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E-Commerce
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