CORPORATIONS HAVE BIG PLANS TO PROFIT FROM GLOBAL WARMING
By Jill Richardson, AlterNet
A bunch of multinationals have figured out how to make their
pollution-based businesses seem like the solution to the
climate crisis.
 http://www.alternet.org/environment/1008…

WILL CITIES SOON BE ABLE TO FEED THEMSELVES?
By Emily Wilson, AlterNet
A growing interest in urban farming is sprouting all kinds
of new ideas — including growing food in high-rises.
 http://www.alternet.org/environment/1008…

A GREEN BAILOUT: WE NEED HELP FOR PEOPLE WHO WANT TO SAVE THE PLANET
By Van Jones, Huffington Post
Don’t give platinum parachutes to those who wrecked the
economy; let’s throw a green lifeline to the people who want
to rebuild it.
 http://www.alternet.org/environment/1018…

HOW LOCAL GOVERNMENTS ARE STANDING IN THE WAY OF CLEAN ENERGY
By Kyle Rabin, AlterNet
Too often people who want to install clean, efficient solar
and wind systems can find themselves drowning in a sea of
red tape.
 http://www.alternet.org/environment/1018…

WE ARE ONE PRESIDENT AWAY FROM A FUTURE OF FOSSIL FUEL ADDICTION
By David Sassoon, SolveClimate
America’s energy and climate future will be determined by
what the nation decides to do with its deposits of oil
shale.

 http://www.alternet.org/environment/1018…

THERE IS MORE TO GREEN THAN GLOBAL WARMING
By Thomas Kostigen, Huffington Post
We are facing crises of freshwater, food, deforestation, and
ocean health. We need leadership in the protection of all
our natural resources.
 http://www.alternet.org/water/101491/

___________________________________________________________

AlterNet Blogs:

PALIN USED EXXON, OIL INDUSTRY-FUNDED SCIENTISTS FOR GLOBAL WARMING STUDY
By Tara Lohan, AlterNet
No wonder her science is a little fuzzy.
 http://www.alternet.org/blogs/peek/10119…

PALIN STILL GETS GLOBAL WARMING BACKWARDS AND REPEATS BIG ENERGY LIE TWICE
By Dr. Joseph Romm, Climate Progress
The debate showed she still can’t get her talking points
right on this issue.
 http://www.alternet.org/blogs/environmen…

___________________________________________________________

These stories and more are available in Environment
on AlterNet.

 http://www.alternet.org/environment

Italy fingers Libya on immigration - Tripoli failing to keep its end of bilateral deal - says Roberto Savio of “Other News.”
ANSA, Milan, October 7, 2008.

Italian Interior Minister Roberto Maroni on Tuesday condemned Libya for failing to keep its end of a bilateral deal, as dozens more migrants arrived by sea from north Africa. Three boats carrying 149 people were stopped near the southernmost Italian island of Lampedusa in the early hours of Tuesday, prompting angry comments from Maroni over an accord signed in August.

”Around 99.9% of illegals who arrive in Lampedusa set out from Libya,” he said in a radio interview. ”Libya promised more controls but these are not being carried out effectively as we requested”. Rome pledged to fund medical and infrastructure projects under August’s five-billion-dollar colonial compensation deal in exchange for Libya implementing previously agreed measures aimed at reducing migrant arrivals in Italy, such as joint patrols of the Libyan coast.

But three weeks after the agreement was signed, it seemed headed for trouble, when Maroni announced there had been no drop in the number of migrants arriving from Libya and threatened to block certain projects.

Tripoli issued an angry reply via the Libyan ambassador to Rome, saying Libya ”had never asked Italy for help” in dealing with migrants.

On Tuesday, Maroni accused Tripoli of refusing to accept the delivery of six high-speed motorboats for joint patrols off the Libyan coast. ”We are waiting hopefully for the Libyan government to give us clearance,” he said.

”Saving a sinking boat in international waters is clearly an obligation but if boats carrying illegals were stopped at the departure point then this problem wouldn’t arise”.

Three boats were brought safely to Lampedusa on Tuesday morning although coast guards said others had also been sighted, probably as a result of the sudden improvement in weather. There were 61 women and 41 children among the 149 foreigners brought to the island’s reception centre for processing. Hundreds of migrants are stopped in Italian waters each year en route to Europe. Lampedusa, which is closer to Africa than Italy, is the first port of call for most of these migrants, and facilities on the tiny island are often strained to breaking point.

AGREEMENT SIGNED AT THE END OF AUGUST.

The agreement Italian Premier Silvio Berlusconi signed with Libyan leader Colonel Muammar Gaddafi at the end of August has not yet been published or ratified in Italy. On Tuesday, Foreign Minister Franco Frattini said the full text of the measure would be put to parliament within two weeks, along with a ratification bill. A deal to compensate Libya for Italy’s colonial occupation has been the subject of sporadic negotiations for over a decade. In 2004, Libya promised to stem the flow of migrants leaving its shores under a separate agreement.

Although hailed as a victory by the Berlusconi government of the day, it made no impact on the number of arrivals. The new compensation deal requires Libya to implement its 2004 promises, which includes patrols of Libya’s southern borders to prevent migrants from Eritrea, Ethiopia, Sudan and Chad from crossing the country to arrive at the coast.

IPS Newsbriefs, Tuesday, 7 October 2008.
Indian Envoy Dismisses SG’s Annual Report as “Irrelevant”

UNITED NATIONS, Oct 6 (IPS) - India’s Permanent Representative to the United Nations, Ambassador Nirupam Sen, never known to pull his punches, offered a critical appraisal of Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon’s annual report on the work of the organisation. Abandoning diplomatic niceties, he dismissed the report as “inadequate, if not irrelevant.” The report, he pointed out, not only did not provide a vision for the future but also failed to discuss the current financial crisis, which he described as the most profound crisis since the Great Depression.

Addressing the General Assembly, Sen said while the universe had not ended, the world of Wall Street had certainly ended, and the Masters of the Universe had bitten the dust, “the same dust that is now in the mouths of the rest of us”. The free market, like free love, had come to an end, he said.

Sen said the debt crisis, the decline in commodity prices and the problems of liquidity would hurt the developing world the most. Only an international response could overcome the crisis, which was impacting the real economy. The problem with the Secretary-General’s report, he said, was that it ignored those issues and did not spell out how the United Nations could rebuild the global economic and political institutions.

Sen said the Secretary-General’s report was silent on that issue and others. It was also silent on what the United Nations could do to stimulate the stalled Doha Round of trade talks. The investment banking world had achieved the destruction of world liquidity, and had increased financial risks and bankruptcies. The impact on the developing world would be profound.

Make Hay While the Solar Subsidy Shines
Congress and Bush OK extensions of renewable-energy tax credits

Congress last week passed long-awaited extensions to tax credits for solar, wind, geothermal, and other forms of clean energy; they were attached to the financial bailout package that President Bush signed on Friday. Renewable-energy companies let out a big sigh of relief, happy that months of delays and petty squabbles over the tax credits were over. The legislation also provides incentives for the development of oil shale, tar sands, and coal-to-liquid fuels, which environmentalists are less happy about. But overall, renewables advocates and enviros are delighted that Congress finally got the tax-credit extensions through, just before adjourning for election season. As for how happy they feel about the bailout package in general, well, that’s another story.
Congress and Bush OK extensions of renewable-energy tax credits.

Congress last week passed long-awaited extensions to tax credits for solar, wind, geothermal, and other forms of clean energy; they were attached to the financial bailout package that President Bush signed on Friday. Renewable-energy companies let out a big sigh of relief, happy that months of delays and petty squabbles over the tax credits were over. The legislation also provides incentives for the development of oil shale, tar sands, and coal-to-liquid fuels, which environmentalists are less happy about. But overall, renewables advocates and enviros are delighted that Congress finally got the tax-credit extensions through, just before adjourning for election season. As for how happy they feel about the bailout package in general, well, that’s another story.

 http://gristmill.grist.org/story/2008/10…

Bail to the chie: House passes bailout plan with extensions for renewables, sends to Bush’s desk.

Posted by Kate Sheppard  - October 3,  2008.

If at first you don’t succeed, try again. After failing to muster enough votes on Monday, the House on Friday approved the financial market bailout plan by a vote of 263-171, sending the bill to the desk of the president.

The final version of the bailout included the extensions for renewable tax credits that Congress has been struggling with all year (the House and Senate disputed how to offset the credits with new revenues).

The $17 billion in tax credits includes an eight-year extension of the investment tax credit for solar energy, a one-year extension of the production tax credit for wind, and a two-year extension of the PTC for solar, biomass, and hydropower. The residential energy-efficient property credit would also be extended through 2016, and the definition of the systems that qualify for that credit would be expanded to include small wind investment and geothermal heat pumps. There are also incentives for bicycle commuting and plug-in electric vehicles.

The bill also includes provisions for carbon capture and sequestration, oil shale, tar sands, and coal-to-liquid fuels, which enviros are less happy about. But the final passage of the various tax credits is a welcome win for renewable industries, which have been begging all summer for Congress to come to agreement on the package.

UPDATE: “This bill is a major step in our long journey toward energy independence and ensures that solar energy will be a significant part of America’s energy future,” said Solar Energy Industries Association president Rhone Resch in a statement. “This long-term extension of the solar tax credits will create a domestic solar industry with hundreds of thousands of jobs while providing clean, affordable, carbon-free energy to millions of American families, businesses, and communities.”

UPDATE: President Bush signed the bill Friday afternoon.

Sent: Friday, October 03, 2008 5:58 PM
Subject: FW: saragh palin’s debate

In the midst of the War on Terror, the George Bush administration granted protected status to members of the Iranian terrorist organization Mujahedin-e Khalq in Iraq, reportedly due to the calculation that their terrorist services could be used against Tehran. This was in spite of the fact that the group was on the State Department’s list of terrorist organizations and that President Bush had pointed to Saddam’s patronage of the group as evidence for Iraq’s support of international terrorism. Now, however, the Iraqi government is taking control of the Mujahedin’s camp in Iraq and will likely expel them – but no country is willing to take them.

In this op-ed published yesterday in the Washington Times, I argue that the best way of defeating this anti-American terrorist group is not by protecting its members, but by helping the rank and file break from this cult-like organization.

Sincerely,
Trita Parsi, PhD
 http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2008…

The Bush administration inherited many of Iraq’s problems when it invaded that country, including an Iranian terrorist organization funded and armed by Saddam Hussein, the Mujahedin-e Khalq (MKO). Though in the midst of a war on terror, the Bush administration chose in 2003 to protect 3,000 of the organization’s militants and house them in a camp given to the group by Saddam — Camp Ashraf just north of Baghdad.

Ever since, the fate of this State Department-listed terrorist organization has been unclear. Hated by Iraqis for its involvement in Saddam’s crimes against the Iraqi people, the Baghdad government wants to expel the group. But no country is willing to take them.

Though the Iranian government wants to put the group’s leadership on trial in Iran, it seems less interested in the organization’s rank and file. The European governments have little interest in taking in 3,000 battle-hardened Muslim militants, fearing that they will use Europe as a base to plan and execute further terrorist attacks.

The U.S., on the other hand, has already contradicted its own principles by giving preferential treatment to an organization on the State Department’s terrorist list — even though President Bush himself pointed to the organization’s patronage under Saddam Hussein as evidence of Iraq’s support for international terrorists in his speech to the United Nations in September 2002.

“Iraq continues to shelter and support terrorist organizations that direct violence against Iran,” President Bush said. To complicate matters further, if reports that the U.S. has used MKO terrorists for cross-border raids into Iran are true, then Washington certainly doesn’t want these militants to end up in Iranian hands.

Washington seems doomed if it does, doomed if it doesn’t.
Members of the terrorist organization have protested outside the White House this past week, angered by the Bush administration’s decision to hand over Camp Ashraf to the Iraqi government. The government of Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki will surrender the MKO members to Tehran, they argue, who in turn will imprison and execute them.

Though approximately 500 MKO fighters have been repatriated to Iran and no reports of abuse have emerged according to the International Committee of the Red Cross, which oversaw their return, sending rank-and-file Mujahedin members to Iran against their will would be irresponsible.

Hated by the Iranian people for having fought on Saddam’s side in the Iraq-Iran war, the Iranian Mujahedin is understandably fearful of the fate awaiting them in Iran. After all, the Iranian government systematically violates the human rights of journalists and union leaders alike, let alone anti-Iranian terrorists.
Yet, contrary to the protesters outside the White House, the issue is not a choice between freedom in Camp Ashraf and captivity in Iran.

The Mujahedin is not an effective opposition to the unpopular government in Iran as the organization’s defenders in Washington claim, but a politico-religious cult that brainwashes its members, places children of Mujahedin members with other families in order to prevent parents from defecting, and who according to Human Rights Watch, maintains control by torturing its rank and file. “Members who try to leave the Mujahedin pay a very heavy price,” according to Joe Stork of Human Rights Watch.
Its involvement in terrorism is undisputed. It assassinated several Americans in Iran in the 1970s. It supported the taking of the U.S. Embassy in Iran and blasted Ayatollah Khomeini for releasing the American diplomats in 1981, arguing instead that the hostages should have been executed. It made a pact with Saddam Hussein in the 1980s and fought alongside his army against their Iranian countrymen. Later in the 1990s, they became Saddam’s most trusted henchmen, tasked with quelling Kurdish and Shiite uprisings against the Iraqi dictator.
According to defectors, Mujahedin members in Camp Ashraf celebrated the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.
In 2003, French authorities descended upon the Mujahedin headquarters in France, arresting the leader of the cult, Maryam Rajavi. Immediately, zealous Mujahedin members staged hunger strikes and several set themselves ablaze. Hardly the behavior of a democratically oriented opposition group.

But the vast majority of the Camp Ashraf residents are not so much members of a terrorist cult as they are victims of it. The camp is itself a prison. It may have provided Mujahedin militants with protection against ordinary Iraqis who sought to avenge their relatives killed by the Mujahedin at the behest of Saddam Hussein, but the prison has primarily enabled the leaders of the terrorist organization to prevent the rank and file from defecting.

Rather than debating where to expel the Mujahedin terrorists, help should be provided to the rank and file to break with the cult and make free choices about their future. It’s the only humanitarian solution to this dilemma - and one that defeats rather than protects this anti-American terrorist group.

*Trita Parsi is the author of “Treacherous Alliance — The Secret Dealings of Israel, Iran and the U.S.”, a Silver Medal Recipient of the Council on Foreign Relations’ Arthur Ross Book Award, the most significant award for a book on foreign affairs.

German Government Invests $18 Million to Support Clean Energy and Climate
Change Adaptation Says UNEP.

UNite to Combat Climate Change says UNEP {- ?? - The Questionmarks are ours. We have further questions if this German mini-effort is not just to save the moribund Poznan meeting from destroying all the rest of the world investment in finding a climate change global regime?)}

NAIROBI, 3 October 2008 – Germany today boosted its funding for the UN
Environment Programme (UNEP), earmarking $18 million for the organization’s
work on clean energy and climate-proofing vulnerable economies.

The announcement was made today by German Federal Minister for the
Environment Sigmar Gabriel during a meeting with United Nations
Under-Secretary-General and UNEP Executive Director Achim Steiner at UNEP
Headquarters in Nairobi.  Here they exchanged their views on current issues
surrounding international climate policy.

A main thrust of their discussions centred on the UN Climate Convention
negotiations being held at the end of the year in Poznan, Poland, leading
to the crucial UN Climate Convention meeting in Copenhagen, Denmark in late
2009.

***

Discussions also centred on the work of the German Presidency in relation
to the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) which Germany hosted
earlier in the year and which will be held next in Nagoya, Japan, in 2010.

Mr. Gabriel and Mr. Steiner agreed to further intensify their cooperation.
The German Environment Minister announced that Germany would increase its
financial involvement with UNEP by funding projects supporting developing
countries in clean energy; energy efficiency; adaptation to climate change
in developing countries and boosting the capacity of developing economies
for international negotiations.

Minister Gabriel said:  “Using the money raised by the auctioning of
emission certificates on the European carbon market, we intend to support
UNEP with an additional $18 million within the next three years for
specific projects to improve energy efficiency and advance the use of
renewable energies in developing countries.  Such market-generated
financial resources will be key to achieving real progress in combating
climate change.”

Mr. Steiner said:  “I would like to thank the German Government for this
significant contribution of over $18 million to UNEP’s work on supporting
developing countries on clean energy, adaptation and international
negotiation through immediate and practical measures.”

The funds, generated from the auctioning of carbon credits, underlined how
carbon markets were capable of delivering wide-ranging benefits above and
beyond the mitigation of greenhouse gases in developed economies, he said.

“UNEP will invest the new money to boost the capacity of developing
countries in energy efficiency projects; adaptation of vulnerable
communities to climate change and climate proofing of economies and in
climate negotiations”, added Mr. Steiner.

“At this stage of the climate change negotiation process, it is essential
that we demonstrate on the ground how a future agreement in Copenhagen can
deliver real and tangible benefits for developing countries and, thereby, a
basis for achieving the objectives of a global response to climate change”,
he said.

Ahead of the 10th Conference of Parties of the CBD which will take place in
Nagoya (Japan), both sides stressed the need to make the negotiations on an
internationally binding access and benefit-sharing (ABS) regime a success.

An international regime could be a key to increasing flows from North to
South in order to reverse the rate of loss of biodiversity while generating
new, biologically-based products in areas from pharmaceuticals to materials
and agriculture.

In Germany in May, Governments agreed to engage in such negotiations
setting a deadline of 2010 for their conclusion.

For more information, please contact: Nick Nuttall, UNEP Spokesperson/Head
of Media, on Tel: +254-733-632755, E-mail:  nick.nuttall at unep.org

For information on UNEP’s climate change work, see
 http://www.unep.org/themes/climatechange…

***********************************
Jim Sniffen
Programme Officer
UN Environment Programme
New York
tel: +1-212-963-8094/8210
 info at nyo.unep.org
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Obama-led US would protect eastern Europe.
VALENTINA POP, October 5, 2008 for the  EUOBSERVER from BRUSSELS.

 http://euobserver.com/9/26863/?rk=1

If elected president of the US, senator Barack Obama would not trade eastern European security for Russian help on Iran, his senior foreign policy advisor, Gregory B. Craig, told EUobserver in an interview. Any notion that the US tried to sabotage the Lisbon treaty is “silly,” he added.

Barack Obama will be a more “pro-European” president if elected, his advisor says. Mr Obama would be a “much more pro-European president” than his Republican predecessor if elected on 4 November, said Mr Craig - a lawyer who led former president Bill Clinton’s defence against impeachment and also worked as foreign policy advisor to former secretary of state Madeleine Albright.

The US and Europe will have to co-operate with Russia in areas where they have “common objectives and common ground,” especially on non-proliferation - reduction of the global nuclear arsenal, security of nuclear materials and challenges such as North Korea and Iran - senator Obama’s foreign policy man explained.

“[But] that doesn’t mean that you trade away our security commitments to the new members of NATO, that’s not even thinkable. I always remember the notion that the expansion of NATO was not a threat to Russia, that this was a decision not by NATO to move east, but a decision by the new democracies from the former Soviet space to integrate with the West.”

“The notion that you choose to co-operate with Russia vis-a-vis Iran at the expense of central and eastern Europe, I just don’t accept that. That’s not viable and it won’t happen that way,” Mr Craig said.

Russia’s aggressive stance toward neighbours who want to be part of NATO and the EU is a historical throwback, he added. “I think the notion that Russia has a veto over what they decide inside of Ukraine or Georgia is very 19th to 20th century. In a 21st century world, with global impacts, global trends, Russia suffered enormously economically as a result of its intervention in Georgia.”

The Obama advisor underlined that new members of NATO are protected by a “solemn security commitment,” while NATO aspirant states can look to the United Nations charter that “requires nation states to respect the sovereignty of other nation states.”

“Although a country like Ukraine is not a member of NATO, Russia does not have under international law the right to violate the sovereignty of Ukraine. Even if there is no security obligation, the people of Europe and US will be supportive of the freedom and independence of the Ukrainian people to make their own decisions, to choose democracy and affiliate themselves with Western institutions if they want to.”

Mr Craig said that senator Obama would also stick to plans to build parts of the US global missile shield in Poland and the Czech republic, despite fierce Russian criticism. The new Democratic president would “not turn his back on that agreement” as it is a “solemn commitment” signed by Washington, Prague and Warsaw.

“The timing, pace and scope of the implementation of that agreement is going to be a matter left to the discretion of the president of the United States,” he added, however.

US military facilities in Romania and Bulgaria - also disliked by Moscow - are not up for discussion either, Mr Craig said. “Democracies from the former Soviet space have every right to make their own decisions,” he explained, calling the notion of a Russian veto a “relic of the Soviet past.”

Obama good for EU-US ties:

The Obama camp believes America-bashing is decreasing in the EU in a trend that would be accelerated by a Democratic victory in November.

The European Parliament president’s recent request for an investigation into alleged CIA funding of the irish No-campaign against the Lisbon treaty is a freak event resulting from the parliament’s own upcoming elections in 2009, Mr Craig said.

“Every election has its silly season … this speculation or rumour that the CIA would support the No vote in Ireland is preposterous.”

“It seems to me that the European Union has some problems with its public relations, not just in Ireland, but also elsewhere where the [EU] constitution has been defeated. That should not, in my view, deter the Europeans from continuing on the course of consolidating its institutions, the rule of law, economic trading agreements and greater co-operation. This has been the policy of many, many US presidents and it will be the policy of president Obama to support that.”

Asked why senator Obama didn’t stop in Brussels during his European tour in July - which included Berlin, Paris and London - his advisor said it was just a question of “limited time.”

“We couldn’t include every capital that we wanted to visit. We regretted not being able to go to Brussels for many reasons - because it’s the European Union, it’s NATO, it’s a capital in itself of importance. And there is no doubt that at some point early in his administration, if elected, senator Obama would visit Brussels.”

No “League of Democracies”

Senator Obama also disagrees with Republican candidate John McCain’s idea of creating “League of Democracies”, a new global institution excluding Russia and China designed to escape the perceived deadlock of the United Nations Security Council, Mr Craig said.

“We would not want to exclude governments and nations from where their participation is required to solve problems. Creating another organisation that draws a line between ‘us’ and ‘them’ is not productive in solving the great challenges that face the world’s democracies today,” he explained.

“As flawed as it is, [the UN] is still the place people go to solve their problems. Not only about war and peace, but also about poverty and development, disease and the future of the planet. Creating yet another institution called the League of Democracies won’t get us where we want to go,” Mr Craig said.