[The following submission was penned by Synthesis Weekly columnist Julia Murphy. She can be reached at ninjatreehugger@gmail.com]

Addiction, The Economy and Environmentalism

What does Rehab have to do with sustainability? It’s like a personalized Superfund site. We don’t have any money in the not-so-Superfund, either, just like we don’t have funding for rehabs.
If you’re a wanton garbagehead, something probably will fall apart to the point where you at least end up with a DUI. And that, my friends, is a long hard row to hoe, costing you an ass-pile of money and the humiliation of DrunkSchool. I’m not talking about some Jäger in your Kleen Kanteen in that boring evening class. You know what I mean. Money or time is what you’ll be out, and probably both.
Economy: Ever seen Rich’s crew on Saturdays and Sundays? Skulking, chastened youths and insouciant fun-loving criminals alike, sweeping up the cigarette butts of the previous night’s revelers? How much money would the City of Chico have to pay fools to do that work? [Ed note: Rich's Crew is a local organization where those arrested for misdemeanors like Drunk In Public, Minor In Possession, etc, clean the streets of Chico weekend mornings.]
How much do people make in California prisons? Well, from www.pia.ca.gov:
“Court-ordered restitution/fines are deducted from the wages earned by CALPIA inmates and are transferred to the Crime Victims’ Restitution Fund. CALPIA inmates receive wages between $.30 to $.95 per hour, before deductions.”
Companies get a 10 percent discount on taxes for using prison labor — plus, they get to put that awesome “Made in the USA” tag on their product! Yay!
Good for PIA for creating a reparations fund (speaking of which, when are black Americans to get theirs?) — but I bet they don’t exempt the prisoners who committed “victimless” crimes.
How many people are in jail on drug charges?
“Drug arrests have more than tripled in the last 25 years, totaling a record 1.8 million arrests in 2005. Drug offenders in prisons and jails have increased 1100 percent since 1980. Nearly a half-million (493,800) persons are in state or federal prison or local jail for a drug offense, compared to an estimated 41,100 in 1980. Nearly 6 in 10 persons in prison for a drug offense have no history of violence or high-level drug selling activity.”
Please — I mean it — check this Web site out: www.november.org/graphs. It’s extensive.
“In 1985, our incarceration rate was 313 per 100,000 population. As of December 2006 it was 751 per 100,000. The largest single factor contributing to this imprisonment wave is a ten-fold rise in drug convictions.”

More after the jump. (more…)

Here’s a link to a super uplifting post on io9.com called 12 Ways To Prepare For The Next Great Depression. I’m going to start stockpiling coffee and dried meats.

Get out of your mortgage before the housing market collapses any further. As this site says, if you paid $300,000 for your house and it sells for $200,000, you could end up not owning your house and owing the bank $100,000.

Buy some cheap land in a rural area. Build a house, or just get a used RV. Either way, make sure you own your home free and clear, so you can live rent-free and mortgage-free for as long as you need to.

Go off the grid. Get your own power generator — or, better yet, some of those solar helium balloons. Or some wind turbines. Don’t be dependent on the power company to keep all your necessities running.

Cultivate some skills that will always be in demand. Become a decent electrician, handy-person, carpenter or cook. There may not be much need for someone who understands content management systems during a total economic shutdown, but someone who can build a house will always have a place to crash.

Go read the rest and start saving that canned food.