Latest news with #ReasonstobeCheerful
Miami Herald
09-05-2025
- Business
- Miami Herald
The towns that invent their own money
In 1932, the small Austrian town of Wörgl was buckling under the weight of the Great Depression, with crumbling infrastructure, rising unemployment and ballooning debt. But within just a year, all that changed: Local unemployment dropped by 25 percent despite rising by 19 percent in the rest of Austria and tax revenue skyrocketed, fueling extensive municipal investment in road repair, a new bridge and even a ski jump-a transformation that is still referred to today as "the Miracle of Wörgl." Unsurprisingly, the miracle was made possible by money, but not the shillings issued by the government. Instead, the town started circulating its own currency-called "labor certificates" to avoid the scrutiny of the central bank-in the summer of 1932. The certificates could be used in local businesses, as well as for the payment of taxes, rent and utility fees. Designed to depreciate one percent per month to incentivize spending, the money circulated as much as 12 times faster than the conventional currency according to some estimates, creating far more value and employment in the process, Reasons to be Cheerful explains. In the summer of 1933 the town's mayor, Michael Unterguggenberger, presented his scheme to a gathering of 170 other local mayors interested in replicating it. In response, the central bank promptly outlawed the currency. But Wörgl had already cemented its place in economic history. Community currencies-alternative forms of money sometimes also referred to as local or regional currencies-are as diverse as the communities they serve, from grassroots time-banking and mutual credit schemes to blockchain-based Community Inclusion Currencies. In Wörgl, Unterguggenberger based his currency on the writings of German economic thinker Silvio Gesell, which also inspired other community currencies across the U.S., Canada and Europe during the Great Depression. According to one estimate, 118 local governments, 80 business groups and around 70 self-help organizations issued their own currencies in the U.S. alone, and in 1934 a group of Swiss entrepreneurs launched the WIR, which is now the biggest and longest-running local currency worldwide: In 2009 it included 68,000 member businesses and had an annual turnover equivalent to 1.6 billion Swiss francs. Community currencies have a long history. Premodern monetary systems often distinguished between internal and external currencies-one for domestic economy and the other for foreign trade-and local currencies were common until the 19th century, when the newly emerging nation states transitioned to a centralized system of government-issued money as a way of consolidating their power and stabilizing the economy. Even so, local currencies continue to crop up, especially in times of economic crisis when people lose their jobs and conventional money becomes more difficult to access. "People come together and say, 'Well, I still have the needs that I had before, and I still have the skills that I had before,'" says Ester Barinaga, an expert on complementary monetary systems at Lund University in Sweden. "The only thing missing is the money to connect these needs with the idle resources." Since community currencies come in so many different forms and are often short-lived and undocumented, it's impossible to say how many there are worldwide, says Barinaga. In 2015, it was estimated that almost 400 of them are active in Spain alone, and across Africa blockchain-backed systems, like the Sarafu in Kenya, help underserved communities do business without conventional money. Elsewhere, local currencies like the Brixton pound in the U.K. or BerkShares in Massachusetts are a way to keep money in the community, buffering it against the pressures of a globalized economy. This is the case in Langenegg, an Austrian village some 200 kilometers west of Wörgl, where the village grocer retired in 2008 without a successor. While there are plenty of supermarkets within a short driving distance, the residents understood that local businesses are about more than convenience-they serve as meeting points for the community. Losing that has a knock-on effect on village life, says resident Christian Nußbaumer: "People lose contact, they lose the sense of togetherness." To prevent this, the municipality bought a plot of land and built a new village store on it. "But we knew it was not enough to just put up a building and find a tenant to run it," says Nußbaumer, who is part of the citizens' committee that initiated the project. "We needed to raise awareness among the residents about the importance of local shops, especially in a small rural community." To promote community spirit and incentivize local spending, Langenegg launched its own community currency, the Langenegger Talente, in 2009. More than 15 years later, the village shop and other local businesses are thriving and the currency is still going strong: Around €160,000 worth of local currency are issued per year, with each note circulating on average four times before being converted back to euros, thus keeping over €600,000 in the community each year. The reason for this success? "It's all about attitude," says Gernot Jochum-Müller, an expert in complementary currencies who has helped set up and run the scheme. "Everyone understood that there are two sides to this project-a monetary and an educational one." Through his social business Allmenda he has helped launch multiple local and regional currencies over the years, and finds that awareness-raising is half the battle: "As we've seen, the commitment level can be extremely high if the goal is clear and understandable for people." In Langenegg, more than half of the village's residents work in surrounding towns, passing a handful of large supermarket chains on the way there and back-meaning the choice to instead support local businesses has to hinge on more than economic self-interest. Nußbaumer says that the currency has succeeded in its goal: "I think people are now much more aware that they should spend their money locally, because it's about more than just shopping." While anyone can set up a local currency, the monetary system underpinning it needs to be well thought out to avoid unwittingly perpetuating existing inequalities, or simply failing to address the community's goals. "Not all complementary currencies are good. It depends on who designs them, and what they are designed for," says Barinaga. In Langenegg, "the fees, the process, everything is adapted to the needs of the village," says Jochum-Müller. Around 20 percent of the village households are subscribed to the currency and receive a set monthly amount. Since 100 Talente cost €97, shopping with the currency means an automatic three percent discount, while changing them back to euros incurs a 10 percent fee. Crucially, the municipality gives all its funding and subsidies-whether it's for local farmers, household renovations or association events-in Langenegger Talente, so the money has to be spent locally. "Before, people would spend it in wholesale supermarkets," says Jochum-Müller. "That's like having a watering can with a hole in it." Far from being a neutral system of exchange, a currency is a tool to achieve certain goals, says Jochum-Müller: "We need different tools for different goals, but our monetary system makes us think that we only have this one tool. And there are many goals we can't achieve with it." Inequality and unsustainability are baked into our monetary system, which is based on debt and interest with practically all the money (97 percent in the U.K.) being created by private banks when issuing loans, explains Barinaga. Well-designed community currencies eliminate two main sources of financial inequality: money's perceived inherent value and the interest rates, which both incentivize people to hoard their money, taking it out of circulation. "We think of money as a thing that we either have or don't," says Barinaga. "But actually, it's an infrastructure." Like the pipes that bring water to your house, money is the conduit that gives you access to goods and services. Accordingly, the value of money is created in the transaction-the more money is circulated, the more value it creates. Beyond their immediate effect on a community, local currencies are also proof that the mechanism behind our monetary system isn't an immutable fact of life. "It's a forgotten impact of citizen-driven currencies that people start asking the right questions," says Barinaga. "It can put us at a much better footing to have a democratic debate about how our monetary system could work to serve us and the planet, not to serve the financial interests of the private banking sector." Living Paradigms is a series about what we can learn from the customs and cultural practices of others when it comes to solving problems. It is sponsored by Wonderstruck. This story was produced by Reasons to be Cheerful and reviewed and distributed by Stacker. © Stacker Media, LLC.
Yahoo
09-05-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
The towns that invent their own money
In 1932, the small Austrian town of Wörgl was buckling under the weight of the Great Depression, with crumbling infrastructure, rising unemployment and ballooning debt. But within just a year, all that changed: Local unemployment dropped by 25 percent despite rising by 19 percent in the rest of Austria and tax revenue skyrocketed, fueling extensive municipal investment in road repair, a new bridge and even a ski jump—a transformation that is still referred to today as "the Miracle of Wörgl." Unsurprisingly, the miracle was made possible by money, but not the shillings issued by the government. Instead, the town started circulating its own currency—called "labor certificates" to avoid the scrutiny of the central bank—in the summer of 1932. The certificates could be used in local businesses, as well as for the payment of taxes, rent and utility fees. Designed to depreciate one percent per month to incentivize spending, the money circulated as much as 12 times faster than the conventional currency according to some estimates, creating far more value and employment in the process, Reasons to be Cheerful explains. In the summer of 1933 the town's mayor, Michael Unterguggenberger, presented his scheme to a gathering of 170 other local mayors interested in replicating it. In response, the central bank promptly outlawed the currency. But Wörgl had already cemented its place in economic history. Community currencies—alternative forms of money sometimes also referred to as local or regional currencies—are as diverse as the communities they serve, from grassroots time-banking and mutual credit schemes to blockchain-based Community Inclusion Currencies. In Wörgl, Unterguggenberger based his currency on the writings of German economic thinker Silvio Gesell, which also inspired other community currencies across the U.S., Canada and Europe during the Great Depression. According to one estimate, 118 local governments, 80 business groups and around 70 self-help organizations issued their own currencies in the U.S. alone, and in 1934 a group of Swiss entrepreneurs launched the WIR, which is now the biggest and longest-running local currency worldwide: In 2009 it included 68,000 member businesses and had an annual turnover equivalent to 1.6 billion Swiss francs. Community currencies have a long history. Premodern monetary systems often distinguished between internal and external currencies—one for domestic economy and the other for foreign trade—and local currencies were common until the 19th century, when the newly emerging nation states transitioned to a centralized system of government-issued money as a way of consolidating their power and stabilizing the economy. Even so, local currencies continue to crop up, especially in times of economic crisis when people lose their jobs and conventional money becomes more difficult to access. "People come together and say, 'Well, I still have the needs that I had before, and I still have the skills that I had before,'" says Ester Barinaga, an expert on complementary monetary systems at Lund University in Sweden. "The only thing missing is the money to connect these needs with the idle resources." Since community currencies come in so many different forms and are often short-lived and undocumented, it's impossible to say how many there are worldwide, says Barinaga. In 2015, it was estimated that almost 400 of them are active in Spain alone, and across Africa blockchain-backed systems, like the Sarafu in Kenya, help underserved communities do business without conventional money. Elsewhere, local currencies like the Brixton pound in the U.K. or BerkShares in Massachusetts are a way to keep money in the community, buffering it against the pressures of a globalized economy. This is the case in Langenegg, an Austrian village some 200 kilometers west of Wörgl, where the village grocer retired in 2008 without a successor. While there are plenty of supermarkets within a short driving distance, the residents understood that local businesses are about more than convenience—they serve as meeting points for the community. Losing that has a knock-on effect on village life, says resident Christian Nußbaumer: "People lose contact, they lose the sense of togetherness." To prevent this, the municipality bought a plot of land and built a new village store on it. "But we knew it was not enough to just put up a building and find a tenant to run it," says Nußbaumer, who is part of the citizens' committee that initiated the project. "We needed to raise awareness among the residents about the importance of local shops, especially in a small rural community." To promote community spirit and incentivize local spending, Langenegg launched its own community currency, the Langenegger Talente, in 2009. More than 15 years later, the village shop and other local businesses are thriving and the currency is still going strong: Around €160,000 worth of local currency are issued per year, with each note circulating on average four times before being converted back to euros, thus keeping over €600,000 in the community each year. The reason for this success? "It's all about attitude," says Gernot Jochum-Müller, an expert in complementary currencies who has helped set up and run the scheme. "Everyone understood that there are two sides to this project—a monetary and an educational one." Through his social business Allmenda he has helped launch multiple local and regional currencies over the years, and finds that awareness-raising is half the battle: "As we've seen, the commitment level can be extremely high if the goal is clear and understandable for people." In Langenegg, more than half of the village's residents work in surrounding towns, passing a handful of large supermarket chains on the way there and back—meaning the choice to instead support local businesses has to hinge on more than economic self-interest. Nußbaumer says that the currency has succeeded in its goal: "I think people are now much more aware that they should spend their money locally, because it's about more than just shopping." While anyone can set up a local currency, the monetary system underpinning it needs to be well thought out to avoid unwittingly perpetuating existing inequalities, or simply failing to address the community's goals. "Not all complementary currencies are good. It depends on who designs them, and what they are designed for," says Barinaga. In Langenegg, "the fees, the process, everything is adapted to the needs of the village," says Jochum-Müller. Around 20 percent of the village households are subscribed to the currency and receive a set monthly amount. Since 100 Talente cost €97, shopping with the currency means an automatic three percent discount, while changing them back to euros incurs a 10 percent fee. Crucially, the municipality gives all its funding and subsidies—whether it's for local farmers, household renovations or association events—in Langenegger Talente, so the money has to be spent locally. "Before, people would spend it in wholesale supermarkets," says Jochum-Müller. "That's like having a watering can with a hole in it." Far from being a neutral system of exchange, a currency is a tool to achieve certain goals, says Jochum-Müller: "We need different tools for different goals, but our monetary system makes us think that we only have this one tool. And there are many goals we can't achieve with it." Inequality and unsustainability are baked into our monetary system, which is based on debt and interest with practically all the money (97 percent in the U.K.) being created by private banks when issuing loans, explains Barinaga. Well-designed community currencies eliminate two main sources of financial inequality: money's perceived inherent value and the interest rates, which both incentivize people to hoard their money, taking it out of circulation. "We think of money as a thing that we either have or don't," says Barinaga. "But actually, it's an infrastructure." Like the pipes that bring water to your house, money is the conduit that gives you access to goods and services. Accordingly, the value of money is created in the transaction—the more money is circulated, the more value it creates. Beyond their immediate effect on a community, local currencies are also proof that the mechanism behind our monetary system isn't an immutable fact of life. "It's a forgotten impact of citizen-driven currencies that people start asking the right questions," says Barinaga. "It can put us at a much better footing to have a democratic debate about how our monetary system could work to serve us and the planet, not to serve the financial interests of the private banking sector." Living Paradigms is a series about what we can learn from the customs and cultural practices of others when it comes to solving problems. It is sponsored by Wonderstruck. This story was produced by Reasons to be Cheerful and reviewed and distributed by Stacker.
Yahoo
07-05-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Government offers homeowners cash to rip out their lawns: 'It's as simple as check in, dig in, cash in'
Reasons to be Cheerful reported a new way for some Utah residents in Washington County to earn cash and save water: sell their lawns to their local government. Why is the county ready to fork over dollars for lawns? Washington County's already booming 200,000 population is expected to double by 2060, according to Reasons to be Cheerful. The hottest and driest county in the state relies on the Virgin River as its sole water source. Unfortunately, that river basin is under threat from drought due to our planet overheating, and its increasing population is already a strain, leading to overuse. One conservation solution the county has come up with is encouraging homeowners to use more drought-resistant plants by buying their grass through its turf buyback program, which started in December 2022. The Washington County Water Conservancy District has high hopes for the plan. Reasons to be Cheerful reported that they estimate that using regionally appropriate plants can reduce landscape water use from 56 gallons to 11 gallons per square foot. Doug Bennett, conservation manager for the district, said, "I like to say it's as simple as check in, dig in, cash in," per Reasons to be Cheerful. To take part, residents register for the program, a representative measures how many square feet of grass turf needs replacement, homeowners complete the switch within a year, and they get paid after another county inspection. This effort is one of the many initiatives that local and nationwide governments are using to help the environment and protect endangered resources such as freshwater. This buyout plan from Washington County can prevent the area from experiencing a potential water crisis in the future, similar to what's happened in California. In other good water conservation news, Lake Powell, located mostly in Utah, recently reached a three-year water-level high. On the national level, the Inflation Reduction Act has allowed Americans to make their homes and vehicles more energy-efficient with tax rebates that offset costs. The initiative also funded drought mitigation programs and several improvements in water infrastructure. Everyone can do their part to save water and cool down the planet. In addition to using native plants that need less water, homeowners can practice conservation using ancient irrigation methods such as ollas or terracotta pots that slowly seep water into the soil.
Yahoo
21-04-2025
- Science
- Yahoo
Engineers debut gravity-powered technology that could reshape energy systems worldwide: 'It's a way to give these sites new life'
Energy innovators around the world plan to harvest more power from abandoned coal mines, but not by digging up dirty deposits. Instead, this concept utilizes gravity and renewable energy to transform the defunct locations into next-generation power sites, according to reports from Reasons to be Cheerful and Popular Mechanics. The method is fairly simple. Excess renewable energy powers winches that lift weights, which, in this case, are located in old mine shafts. The suspended bulk represents stored energy, crucial to utilizing sun or wind power at night and when the breeze is slow. It's a process similar to so-called water batteries, where renewable-powered pumps send water to a reservoir as stored power. In both cases, the weight or water is dropped or released into a lower reservoir, generating electricity, according to the reports and a description from the World Economic Forum. "This approach not only gives these disused mines a second life, but also offers economic and environmental benefits to communities once reliant on coal," RTBC wrote. As the world transitions to cleaner energy sources — now accounting for 29% of generation worldwide, per the United Nations — storage is becoming a bigger hurdle. Lithium-ion batteries like Tesla's Megapacks or a giant sodium-ion unit storing energy in China are among other options. But those units require expensive and hard-to-gather materials to build or, at this stage of development, come with other logistical challenges. Sustainability by Numbers estimated that tens of millions of tons of deposits will need to be harvested to sustain the energy transformation by 2040, much of it for batteries. But that's far short of the 16.5 billion tons of heat-trapping dirty fuels pulled from Earth annually, per the report. Gravity batteries could be a cleaner bridge from our dirtier energy past to a sustainable future, key to avoiding worst-case scenarios triggered by our warming world. Increased risks for severe weather and wildfires are among the changes already being felt, per NASA. In the U.S., there are 550,000 abandoned mines, representing lost jobs and causing environmental hazards, according to RTBC and other reports. The abandoned shafts and more idle industrial sites can become clean-energy hubs, with solar installation potential sufficient to power 200 million U.S homes annually, per the story. RTBC added that a mine-based gravity battery is already supplying enough energy to power nine homes for a year in China — all with suspended weight. Projects in Australia, Switzerland, and Finland are also in development. "Many mines shut down in the '80s and '90s, and while environmental issues remain, using these sites to create new energy brings a sense of continuity," Edinburgh University geosciences Professor Christopher McDermott said in the RTBC report. Should the U.S. invest more in battery innovations? Absolutely Depends on the project We're investing enough We should invest less Click your choice to see results and speak your mind. Among challenges are harmful substances in old mines like asbestos that sometimes need to be mitigated, and the process can be costly, per the article. But the right investment and approach could turn them into ample power vaults if successfully developed. "It's a way to give these sites new life while respecting the local history and legacy," McDermott said in the story. What's more, tax breaks are still available to add solar power at home, a move that will likely save you up to $700 annually, even after expenses, per a government study. Adding a small home-based battery can expand the financial benefits. Join our free newsletter for good news and useful tips, and don't miss this cool list of easy ways to help yourself while helping the planet.
Yahoo
16-03-2025
- General
- Yahoo
Officials deploy unlikely army to protect against wildfires: 'There's a need ... all across the U.S.'
The growth of invasive plants is a common problem in agriculture that must be managed and prevented. But instead of resorting to harmful weed killers, you can call on a herd of goats for help. Several companies popping up across the U.S. rent out herds of goats that can be deployed in areas overrun with invasive plants. The goats eat the plants and prevent the infestations from getting worse. Invasive plants are known to annoy home gardeners and frustrate farmers, but they can also be dangerous and lead to the spread of wildfires. Should we be actively working to kill invasive species? Absolutely It depends on the species I don't know No — leave nature alone Click your choice to see results and speak your mind. Goats On The Go connects landowners and businesses with local goat herds for their plant problems. It works with 75 affiliate goat businesses in 25 states, according to Reasons to be Cheerful. On its website, the organization explains that herbicides are often toxic and risky to handle and can pollute local water supplies. "Goats go where people can't, eat what most animals won't, and leave behind nothing but fertilizer," it said. Goats are light-footed, so they won't damage landscapes, and they eat only the problem vegetation, the group said. Using goats as natural landscapers replaces the need for chemical herbicides and heavy machinery powered by dirty energy sources. In addition to eliminating invasive species, the trained herds can fix blocked hiking paths, thin dense plant cover to reduce pests such as mosquitoes, clear areas for construction planning, control weeds on dangerous terrain, keep drainage channels open to reduce flooding, and more. "There's a need for goats pretty much all across the U.S.," said Aaron Steele, co-founder of Goats On The Go, according to Reasons to be Cheerful. "North America is in an uphill battle with invasive plants. One estimate places the loss of native wildlife habitat to invasive plants at 1.8 million acres per year," Goats On The Go said. "Increasingly devastating wildfires in the western U.S. are fueled by excess vegetation — often invasive plants. The scale is such that manual and mechanical removal alone is not practical." The companies that provide and manage the goats install temporary fences to keep the herd safe in a designated area while they graze. Join our free newsletter for good news and useful tips, and don't miss this cool list of easy ways to help yourself while helping the planet.
