Are Gibson Guitars destroying the rainforest? (BBC News)

The dark side of TNCs is often well-known but it is often the global brand names like Nike and Addidas that come under scrutiny as opposed to music labels. However, this report raises some interesting questions and ethical issues about the products we buy and consume....

Iconic US guitar maker Gibson is facing a criminal probe over claims it broke environmental laws while importing wood. So is music the next threat to the world's forests?

"Up here you grow up liking Fenders or you grow up liking Gibsons," says Billy Jack, 55, sat in a Nashville music store eyeing up a trio of shiny new Gibson guitars.

Cradling a $3,800 (£2,413) Gibson Les Paul, Mr Jack, a veteran guitarist, recalls riffs gone by as he explains his fondness for one of rock's iconic instruments.

"You can hear it in your ear. It's how quickly you can run through your chops. It's the tone. You just can't go wrong."

But things have gone wrong. On 28 August federal agents raided Gibson's Nashville and Memphis premises, seizing shipments of Indian rosewood and leaving the venerable guitar maker more than a little off-key.
The agents brandished search warrants issued amid suspicions that Gibson had violated the terms of the Lacey Act, an environmental law that requires imports to the US to comply with laws in the country of origin as well.

To read more click here

	Origin
Rosewood/ Ebony	Central and South America, central Africa and Asia
Mahogany	Central and South America (lesser mahogany types from Africa)
Maple	North America and Far East

Alternative Development Indicators: Mobile Phones

Once again an overlap with Economics - the two disciplines do go hand in hand (Econ obviously emerging out of Economic Geography into it's own distinctive discipline...) - as my A-level students were convinced that they had looked at mobile phone use, subscription and ownership as a key alternative development indicator (Mr Chong!), which would make sense as many of the world's poorest and vulnerable people do own pay as you go phones; especially in light of the micro credit schemes in India and the ability to transfer information/money via the web combined with old handsets flooding into Sub-Saharan Africa and SE Asia. So thanks to Simon A for the following posts - enjoy exploring - the International Human Development Indicators website (http://hdr.undp.org/en/) is brilliant, especially the Data Explorer section (reminiscent of Hans Rosling's lectures on Ted.com - click here and here).

Ok so here is the interesting stuff...enjoy:

Now time for a simple and quite up-to-date list of total number of mobile phones in use - can you guess which country is top?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_number_of_mobile_phones_in_use
This one per capita:
http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/med_tel_mob_cel_percap-telephones-mobile-cellular-per-capita

An in-depth study on mobile phones and development (a clear link to the Technological Fix) for A2 Edexcel is available here: http://www.ejisdc.org/ojs2/index.php/ejisdc/article/viewFile/529/265

Other Links:
http://www.freakonomics.com/2011/10/18/international-aid-and-mobile-cash-transfers/

Alternative Development Indicators: The Big Mac Index

So i was teaching my Upper Sixth today introducing the Development Gap and how development can be measured; specifically how PPP (purchasing power parity) is more robust than GDP/GNI.

The Economists in the room, of which there are many, started to pipe up about other comparative measures like the Big Mac Index - i had not heard of this, but low and behold here it is in all of it's glory:

Websites to explore in more depth:

http://www.economist.com/blogs/dailychart/2011/07/big-mac-index
http://www.economist.com/node/13055650
http://flowingdata.com/2011/08/04/big-mac-index/

Questions to consider and discuss:

1. Is there a 'best' measure of levels of development and development per se? If so, what is it and why? If not, what is a food combination?
2. How could the reliability of certain measures be improved?