UXBRIDGE, Canada, Mar 5, 2010 (IPS) – The frozen cap trapping billions of tonnes of methane under the cold waters of the Arctic Ocean is leaking and venting the powerful greenhouse gas into the atmosphere, new research shows. It is not known if this may be one of the first indicators of a feedback loop accelerating global warming. Researchers estimate that eight million tonnes in annual methane emissions are being released from the shallow East Siberian Arctic Shelf, which is equivalent to all the methane released from the world’s oceans, covering 71 percent of the planet. On a global scale of methane emissions from the land-based sources – animals, rice paddies, rotting vegetation – the newly measured emissions from the Siberian seabed are less than two percent. “That’s still very significant,” Natalia Shakhova, a researcher at the University of Alaska in Fairbanks, told IPS. “Before, it was assumed that this region had zero emissions.” Methane concentrations measured over the oceans are currently about 0.6 to 0.7 parts per million (ppm), but they are now 1.85 in the Arctic Ocean generally, and between 2.6 and 8.2 ppm in the East Siberian Arctic Shelf, an area roughly two million square kilometres in size, said Shakhova. Shakhova, and her University of Alaska colleague Igor Semiletov, led eight international expeditions to one of the world’s most remote and desolate regions and published their results in the Mar. 5 edition of the journal Science. Global methane levels have risen each year since 2007 after being constant for a decade, reports Ed Dlugokencky of the Earth System Research Laboratory in Boulder, Colorado, which is run by the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). “We saw an increase in CH4 (methane) growth rate in 2007 in the Arctic… but it did not increase in 2008,” Dlugokencky, an expert on atmospheric methane told IPS via email. He suspects Siberia’s subsea emissions are not new but have been underway for some time, and he also says Shakhova’s estimate of eight million tonnes needs to be verified by other means. However, he acknowledges this study represents the first direct measurements ever done in the region and stresses the urgency for more investigation. In the last few years, researchers have been shocked to see Arctic Ocean “on the boil” in places as gases from deep below come bubbling to the surface. Large parts of the Arctic Ocean floor along coastal areas is actually permafrost that was flooded thousands of years ago after the big melt from the last ice age. Permafrost is frozen soil and contains very large amounts of carbon and methane. The extremely cold waters of the Arctic and its ice cover kept the subsea permafrost cold enough so it has been melting extremely slowly. Until now. Surface temperatures over much of the Arctic landscape and the Siberian landscape, particularly in summer, have jumped six to 10 degrees C above normal in recent years. That has lead to a massive increase in the flows of the many rivers that terminate in the Arctic Ocean. Shakhova and colleagues believe this substantial increase of warmer water into the shallow East Siberian Shelf has accelerated the melting of the subsea permafrost, in effect fracturing the frozen cap and allowing methane to escape into the atmosphere. “Our concern is that the subsea permafrost has been showing signs of destabilisation already,” she said in a release. “If it further destabilises, the methane emissions may not be teragrammes, it would be significantly larger,” she said. A teragramme is a trillion grammes, or one million tonnes. Methane – a greenhouse gas approximately 25 times more potent than carbon dioxide – is commonly called methane hydrates when it is frozen in permafrost or under the sea. The total volumes are unknown. “The release to the atmosphere of only one percent of the methane assumed to be stored in shallow hydrate deposits might alter the current atmospheric burden of methane up to three to four times,” Shakhova said in a release. “The climatic consequences of this are hard to predict,” she said. Shakhova’s study is just one of at least a dozen others that clearly show the Arctic region is not only melting but also emitting more carbon and methane. Permafrost spans 13 million square kilometres of the land in Alaska, Canada, Siberia and parts of Europe. A new Canadian study documented that the southernmost permafrost limit has retreated 130 kilometres over the past 50 years ago in Quebec’s James Bay region. Another Canadian study released last year showed that the region was getting darker and absorbing more heat in the summer because of a significant shift in plant growth from grasses and lichen to larger shrubs over the past 30 years due to warmer temperatures. A permafrost “retreat” has been observed over much of the southern fringe of the permafrost zone and could result in emissions a billion tonnes of carbon per year – human emissions are seven to eight billion tonnes – by mid-century, a University of Florida study estimated. Without major reductions in those human emissions, mainly burning of fossil fuels and deforestation, the top two to three metres of permafrost across the entire Arctic region could thaw by the end of this century, warned a major report, “Arctic Climate Feedbacks: Global Implications”, released by the World Wildlife Fund last September. Should that happen, the volumes of carbon and methane released could be many times higher than what is presently in the atmosphere, driving up the global average temperatures by six, eight, or even 10 degrees C. The consequences are unimaginable. “The changes we are (currently) seeing are not entirely unexpected, they are just happening far sooner,” said Mark Serreze, senior research scientist at the National Snow and Ice Data Centre in the U.S. state of Colorado and co-author of Arctic Climate Feedbacks report. If the methane hydrates start to melt or large areas of permafrost “that will be very bad news for humanity”, Serreze told IPS in September. “The world is a very small place and we have not been good stewards. Climate change is symptom of this poor stewardship,” he said. “The way we’re going right now, I’m not optimistic that we will avoid some kind of tipping point.”

Reader Supported News | 04 March 10 PM Andrew Romano opines in Newsweek: “Obama Needs to Be Unreasonable.” He might have something. | The House did pass Obama’s jobs bill, but the drama is thick: “House Approves $15 Billion Job-Creation Package.” Michael O’Brien and Bob Cusack reported it for The Hill. — ma/RSN Andrew Romano | Obama Needs to Be Unreasonable. Andrew Romano, Newsweek | Watching President Obama’s bipartisan health-care summit, I was reminded of something George Bernard Shaw once said: “The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man.” READ MORE House Approves $15 Billion Job-Creation Package, 217-201 Michael O’Brien and Bob Cusack, The Hill | The House passed the Senate’s $15 billion jobs bill in a 217-201 vote on Thursday. Lawmakers voted to approve the package, which provides a series of tax credits for job creation and other stimulus measures, after Democrats struggled to pass a rule for the legislation. READ MORE Moderation Is No Virtue Is Obama too reasonable for his own good? PHOTOS Is Obama Keeping His Promises? One year in, a look at how the president is doing. Video: Obama’s First Year By Andrew Romano | Newsweek, Mar 3, 2010. Watching President Obama’s bipartisan health-care summit, I was reminded of something George Bernard Shaw once said: “The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man.” The Republicans had clearly decided that it was in their best interest to act like the “unreasonable” men in the room—the more intractable, immoderate negotiators. They said the process should “start over from scratch,” as if there were enough time remaining before campaign season to repeat the entire ordeal, and they continued to characterize a market-based proposal to reform the private insurance industry as “a government takeover of health care.” Obama, meanwhile, sought advantage in seeming “reasonable,” making a show of shunning campaign rhetoric and insisting on finding specific areas where “both sides can work together.” “I hope that this isn’t political theater, where we’re just playing to the cameras and criticizing each other,” Obama said at the start of the summit, “but instead are actually trying to solve the problem.” Seven hours later, he’d made no discernible progress. This is the dynamic that largely defined Obama’s first year in office. So maybe it’s time to ask whether “reasonable” presidential leadership is an inherently flawed proposition. For many Americans the most appealing thing about candidate Obama was his rational cast of mind. After eight impractical, divisive years of George W. Bush, voters welcomed the prospect of a less ideological, more unifying presidency. Reason, the thinking went, would beget results that most people could get behind. It hasn’t really worked out that way. In pushing for his biggest initiatives to date—the stimulus package and health-care reform—Obama has chosen to support what he believes to be the best possible proposal instead of what he believes to be the best imaginable proposal. His economic adviser, Christina Romer, initially recommend a $1.2 trillion stimulus bill, but when his chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel, said “it would be impossible to move legislation of that size” through Congress, Obama slashed the sticker price to $787 billion. Health care was more of the same. After calling himself  “a proponent of a single-payer universal-health-care program“—and later advocating for a public option—the president wound up backing a private-market plan that’s nearly identical to the one that GOP leaders such as Bob Dole put forth in 1993. Obama’s first year was hardly a failure. He passed legislation large and small and made far more progress on health-care reform than any of his predecessors had. But the results of his rationalism—a stimulus package that’s considered bloated on the right and insufficient on the left; a health-care bill that’s stalled in Congress, despite a commanding Democratic majority—have become deeply controversial. His approval rating, meanwhile, rarely cracks 50 percent, and his political capital is largely spent. “Obama won the election by being the rational, professorial type,” says Sean Wilentz, the liberal Princeton historian. “It’s still unclear, however, that what worked for him as a candidate can work for him as president.” So the question is: would Obama be in better shape politically if he’d been a little less willing to adapt himself to the world, and a little more persistent in trying to adapt the world to himself?

THE WORLD IS WATCHING

Obama takes charge, demands vote on health care.

By DAVID ESPO, AP Special Correspondent – Wed Mar 3, 6:19 pm ET
WASHINGTON – The end game at hand, President Barack Obama took command Wednesday of one final attempt by Democrats to enact bitterly contested health care legislation, calling for an “up or down vote” within weeks under rules denying Republicans the ability to kill the bill with mere talk.
Appearing before a White House audience of invited guests, many of them wearing white medical coats, Obama firmly rejected calls from Republicans to draft new legislation from scratch. “I don’t see how another year of negotiations would help. Moreover, the insurance companies aren’t starting over,” the president said, referring to a recent round of announced premium increases affecting millions who purchase individual coverage.
While Obama said he wanted action within a few weeks, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., seemed to hint a final outcome could take far longer. “We remain committed to this effort and we’ll use every option available to deliver meaningful reform this year,” he said.
The results will affect nearly every American, mandating major changes in the ways they receive and pay for health care or leaving in place current systems that leave tens of millions with no coverage and many others dissatisfied with what they do get. With Republicans united in opposition, there is no certainty about the outcome in Congress — or even that Democrats will go along with changes Obama urged on Wednesday in what he described as a bipartisan gesture.
With polls showing voters unhappy and Democrats worried about this fall’s elections, Obama also sought to cast the coming showdown in terms larger than health care, which is an enormously ambitious undertaking in its own right. “At stake right now is not just our ability to solve this problem, but our ability to solve any problem,” he said.
Republicans dug in for another struggle on an issue that they agreed would echo into the fall campaign.
The Senate GOP leader, Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, said a decision by Democrats to invoke rules that bar filibusters would be “met with outrage” by the public. “This is really not an argument between Democrats and Republicans. It’s an argument between Democrats and the American people,” he said.
At its core, the legislation under discussion still is largely along the lines Obama has long sought and GOP critics attack as a government takeover of health care. It would extend coverage care to tens of millions of uninsured Americans while cracking down on insurance company practices such as denying policies on the basis of a pre-existing medical conditions.
A new “insurance exchange” would be created in which private companies could sell policies to consumers under terms fixed by the federal government. Much of the cost of the legislation, nearly $1 trillion over a decade, would be financed by cuts in future Medicare payments to hospitals and other providers and higher payroll taxes on individuals earning more than $200,000 and couples over $250,000.
The president’s appearance marked a presumably final pivot point in a long, uphill effort by Obama and other Democrats to enact far-reaching changes to the health care system — and with his own administration at an important crossroads. Eager to turn attention to efforts to stimulate the economy and create jobs, the president is seeking a victory on health care that can also give him a boost on other priority legislation.
At the same time, a defeat could damage Obama’s ability to help fellow Democrats heading into the fall campaign. Failure on health care could well lead to a shake-up of the president’s White House team, which has received criticism recently from Democratic lawmakers.
After nearly a year of struggle, the House and Senate passed separate bills late last year, and appeared on course for approving a final compromise version early in 2010. But those efforts were abruptly abandoned when Republicans unexpectedly won a special election in Massachusetts. Sen. Scott Brown’s victory gave the GOP an ability they had lacked, the strength to sustain a filibuster, a form of opposition that requires supporters of a bill to post 60 Senate votes in order to cut off debate and force a final decision.
Democrats went into something of a political fetal position, and have begun to stir in recent days only as Obama asserted his determination with a bipartisan summit followed by a revised set of proposals.
Obama said the use of rules that deny the minority the right to a filibuster had been used numerous times in recent years, including on passage of welfare reform legislation in the 1990s and twice when President George W. Bush pushed tax cuts to passage. Health care “deserves the same kind of up or down vote” as those earlier measures, he said.
Under the rather complicated approach under discussion, the House would be asked to approve the bill that passed the Senate late last year, despite objections by many members of the rank and file to several provisions. Simultaneously, both houses would also vote for a companion measure whose purpose would be to make changes in the first bill sought by either House Democrats or the White House.
Obama said he was exploring GOP proposals for cracking down on fraudulent medical charges, revamping ways to resolve malpractice disputes, boosting doctors’ Medicaid reimbursements and offering tax incentives to curb unnecessary patient visits to doctors.
The ideas include an experiment that would establish special courts in which judges with medical expertise would decide malpractice allegations. The idea has been criticized by the Center for Justice & Democracy, a consumer group that prefers the current system of awarding damages. It said health courts would be “anti-patient.”
The White House and Democratic leaders said they hoped that Obama’s maneuvering would at least win the votes of wavering conservative and moderates in their own party, even if it didn’t entice Republicans.
But there was no guarantee of success, despite Obama’s vow to do everything in his power to succeed — and a White House announcement that he would travel to Pennsylvania and Missouri next week to campaign for the legislation.

—————-

POLITICO, OPINION CONTRIBUTOR

Sarah Palin a populist?

By CHARLES POSTEL  3/3/10

When David Broder praised Sarah Palin’s speech at the National Tea Party Convention as “perfect-pitch populism,” real Populists were surely spinning in their graves.

In the 1890s, American farmers and other activists rocked corporate power in a populist revolt. Now, the Washington Post columnist has passed the populist mantle to Palin. If they could, the Populists would protest this misuse of their name.

But why do political analysts insist on using the word “populism” to describe conservative activism? Why should we care? Because it makes hash of both history and our current political conflicts.

The Populists were all about economic justice. They demanded government regulation of railroads, banks, telecommunications and insurance. And if that failed to curb corporate abuses, they wanted public ownership or at least a “public option.” They demanded a federal stimulus to get the economy out of the terrible depression of 1893-97.

The Populists were the ones who pushed for a progressive income tax to pay for the needs of the people, especially for better and more accessible public schools and universities. The Populist Party of the 1890s failed. But, in failure, its proposals refashioned progressive politics for generations.

Yet the populist reputation has suffered a cruel fate. In the 1950s, historian Richard Hofstadter discovered a “cranky” side of populism. “Progressive populism,” he suggested, had morphed into the conservative intolerance of McCarthyism.

It didn’t matter that this never happened. It didn’t matter how many scholars had showed that there was not a scintilla of evidence for a populism/Joe McCarthy connection. The damage was done.

Today’s political analysts channel Hofstadter. George Will’s Feb. 18 Washington Post column smugly reduces populism to the whiny politics of self-defeating resentment “that never seems serious as a solution.” It may be bad history, but it makes for simple story lines about “angry” politics.

So they tell us Palin is a populist because she speaks for the “common people.” But every ambitious politician over the past 200 years has laid claim to “the plain people,” “the neglected middle class” or “the silent majority.”

Palin is a populist, the political analysts tell us, because she is “resentful” and “angry.” But Americans are divided in their anger. And those divisions run along well-worn historical ruts.

Take health care. Lots of Americans, in the populist tradition, are mad at the social injustice of 40,000 people dying every year because of a lack of health care. Lots of other Americans, in the conservative tradition, are no less angry at the idea that government would provide the care that they need.

Or income taxes. Lots of Americans, in the populist tradition, resent the fact that schools and bridges are crumbling because Wall Street millionaires no longer pay their share of taxes. Lots of other Americans, in the conservative tradition, believe that progressive taxation means theft — putting “your tax dollars at work for those who won’t!”

Or President Barack Obama’s stimulus. Lots of Americans believe that the feds should take more action — that is, print more money to pull the economy out of its slump and put people back to work. The Populists of old wanted to do this by taking the United States off the gold standard and printing money or coining silver.

This gave rise to the late-19th-century “battle of the standards” that we learned about in high school — with the conservative “gold bugs” pitted against Populist “greenbackers” and “silverites.”

Today’s tea party conservatives, like the gold bugs of yore, have put fear of inflation at the top of their political agenda. Tea party protesters are demanding a return to the gold standard.

Earlier this month, Mike Pitts, a conservative legislator in South Carolina, introduced a bill to make gold coins the only legal currency in the state. Fox News’s Glenn Beck peddles his “three-G system” of “God, gold and guns” on his show.

If we want to make sense of the storms brewing in American politics, a little history can’t hurt. The conservatives haven’t adopted gold as their symbol by accident. They are today’s gold bugs.

They proudly follow in the footsteps of the “sound-money” enemies of Populism. Of the conservative bloc that fought Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal. Of the militant Republicans of the McCarthy cabal, who exposed Harry Truman and Dwight Eisenhower as traitors. Of the Barry Goldwater and Ronald Reagan wing, who promised to free America from Social Security and government slavery.

But many Americans have different concerns. They want government action to put the unemployed back to work, to stem the tide of foreclosures and evictions, to regulate the financial industry, to provide health care security and to repair schools and infrastructure.

For such people, there’s another historical tradition they need to know about: It’s called Populism.

Charles Postel, an assistant professor of history at San Francisco State University, won the Bancroft Prize in American history for his book “The Populist Vision.”

The New York Times Co.’s stock was surging today, March 1st, up 6.3%. It reached greater heights earlier in the day, spiking an astounding 11% on rumors that a billionaire shareholder – the Mexican Carlos Slim – would buy the whole company.

A representative for Mr. Slim has told CNBC that Slim won’t be buying The New York Times. For its part, the Times Co. has said it doesn’t comment on rumors.

Trading volume in New York Times shares is about four times as much as average today.

Slim bought a 6.9% stake in the Times in 2008. In January 2010 he invested an additional $250 million.

Over the weekend, New York Magazine reported that Rupert Murdoch’s Wall Street Journal was mooting a $15 million initiative to take on The New York Times with a new New York metro section, in hopes of cut into the Times’ advertising base. The Times needs money even though it actually returned last week the salaries of some of its employees that were cut because of the recession.

Does the NYT try to retain some of the staff so that its writing does not suffer further?

Are Murdoch – Salim fighting matches on New York’s horizon?

We think the beneficiary of this will continue to be The Financial Times.

HRW Press – HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH AT THE UN.

Egypt: Student Wrote About Corruption in Military Academy and was put before Military Court Trial.

(New York, March 1, 2010) – The Egyptian authorities should drop all charges against Ahmad Mostafa, a 20-year-old engineering student charged with writing about corruption in the military academy on his blog, Human Rights Watch said today.  Security officials are prosecuting Mostafa before a military court in a trial that began March 1, 2010.

“The government should not be prosecuting Mostafa at all, much less before a military court, with no possibility of appeal,” said Joe Stork, deputy Middle East director at Human Rights Watch.  “Instead of looking into his accusations, the government is trying to silence him.”

Writing that exposes corruption is protected under Egypt’s international obligations, Human Rights Watch said. Article 9 of the African Convention on Human and People’s Rights, and article 19 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, both ratified by Egypt, require Egypt to protect freedom of expression.

Mostafa, a student at Kafr El Sheikh University, in northern Egypt, is a member of “April 6,” a political activist youth group, and has a blog called “Maza Asabuki Ya Watan” (What is Ailing You, My Country?). On February 15, 2009, his post, “Scandal in the Military Academy,” contended that a teacher whose son was forced to leave the Military Academy later discovered that this was to make room for the son of an influential individual who would make financial contributions to the academy.

Military intelligence officers arrested Mostafa on February 25, 2010, while he was on his way to the Faculty of Engineering at Kafr El Sheikh University, and the prosecutor ordered his detention pending trial, based on a Military Academy complaint about the 2009 posting.

Gamal Eid, director of the Arab Network for Human Rights Information, told Human Rights Watch that military intelligence officers questioned Mostafa on January 17 about his blogging, demanded his password, and then changed his password to keep him from accessing the blog before releasing him that same day. The blog post appears to have come to their attention after Mostafa discussed plans to hold a demonstration during a January visit by President Hosni Mubarak to Kafr el Sheikh with other April 6 members.

The prosecutor concluded the investigation on February 28 and referred the case to the military court in Nasr City, Cairo.   The trial began March 1. At the first session, the judge agreed to defense lawyers’ request for an adjournment to study the court documents, but only by one day.

The prosecutor charged Mostafa under Law 113 of 1956 and the Penal Code which prohibit “the publication of information considered a secret of the armed forces, spreading false information with the goal of causing harm and insulting officials responsible for admission of students into the military academy.” The only evidence presented is the post on Mustafa’s blog.

Defense lawyers from the Arab Network for Human Rights Information and the Association for Freedom of Thought and Expression told Human Rights Watch that the judge only allowed them a brief review of the court file and refused to allow them to see a memo regarding the case from the military academy or to take any notes.

Egypt has arrested and detained other bloggers for acts protected by freedom of expression.  Kareem Amer, whose real name is `Abd al-Karim Nabil Suleiman, has been in Borg El Arab prison, in Alexandria, since November 7, 2006, for writing about sectarian tensions in Alexandria and criticizing President Mubarak and the Al-Azhar religious institution on his blog. On February 22, 2007, a court sentenced him to four years in prison for “insulting the president,” “spreading information disruptive of public order,” and “incitement to hate Muslims.”

Hany Nazeer, another blogger, is being detained without charge in Borg El Arab prison, under the country’s emergency law. State Security officers arrested him at his home in Naga Hammadi, Qena, on October 3, 2008, after he expressed opinions critical of Christianity and Islam on his blog. Mostafa Hanafy, vice president of the Egyptian Council of State and a member of the Egyptian delegation to the United Nations Human Rights Council, told the human rights body  on February 17 that the Egyptian government had “made a commitment before parliament to use the emergency law only for terrorism and drug-related crimes and it has only implemented the rules of the emergency law in these cases.”

Musad Abul Fagr, a novelist and rights defender who had been outspokenly critical of violation of the rights of Sinai Bedouin, remains in prison under an emergency law order despite several court orders for his release. On July 17, prison officials transferred him to Borg El Arab prison under the 13th emergency law order extending his detention.

Human Rights Watch strongly opposes any trials of civilians before military courts, whose proceedings do not protect due process rights. The African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights, in interpreting the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights, has said that military courts “should not, in any circumstances whatsoever, have jurisdiction over civilians.” The Human Rights Committee, the expert body that monitors compliance with the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), expressed concern in 2002 that Egypt’s “military courts and state security courts have jurisdiction to try civilians accused of terrorism although there are no guarantees of those courts’ independence and their decisions are not subject to appeal before a higher court,” as required by the ICCPR.

In a 2009 report following his visit to Egypt, Martin Scheinin, UN Special Rapporteur on the promotion and protection of human rights and fundamental freedoms while countering terrorism, reiterated that “the trial of civilian terrorist suspects in military and Emergency Supreme State Security Courts raises concerns about the impartial and independent administration of justice and furthermore does not comply with the right to have a conviction and sentence fully reviewed by a higher court.”

During the review of Egypt’s record by the UN Human Rights Council, several countries recommended that Egypt stop detaining bloggers under the emergency law and stop trying civilians before military courts. Hanafy, the Egyptian delegation member, told the Council on February 17 that “there are very few cases of [civilians tried before military courts]; the decision [to refer a civilian to a military court] is an administrative one that can be appealed against in all cases.”

“The Egyptian government says one thing in Geneva and then immediately makes a mockery of the Human Rights Council’s review process,” Stork said. “No civilian should be tried before a military court, and no government that claims to respect human rights should be prosecuting someone solely for writing about corruption.”

For more Human Rights Watch reporting on Egypt, please visit:
 http://www.hrw.org/en/middle-eastn-afric…

For more information please contact:
In Cairo, Heba Morayef (English, Arabic, French): +201-2381-0319; or  morayeh at hrw.org
In Washington, DC, Joe Stork (English): +1-202-612-4327; or +1-202-299-4925 (mobile)

Better than sliced bread?

{Now please – do not be sarcastic – this
should have been an Obama moment. Will the White House buy one – or
get one for free if this is permissible – and install it in the White
House Basement – Please? The point is that people should realize that
clean DECENTRALIZED ENERGY is the best we will ever get!}

Bloom: Thinking inside the box – { a new meaning for this – please! }

• Posted on Sustainabilitank.info on March 1st, 2010
  by Pincas Jawetz (PJ@SustainabiliTank.com)

  A Film Screening and Conversation on New Muslim Cool

  Is America Really Post-Racial?

  Location:	Baltimore, MD
  Event Date:	March 2, 2010
  Event Time:	7:00 p.m.

  Featuring an interactive spoken word performance, film screening, and panel discussion with the film’s protagonist and the film maker, this event will examine the emerging worldview of a new generation of Americans.

  The film New Muslim Cool is told through the lens of Hamza Pérez, a Puerto Rican independent hip-hop artist who converts from Catholicism to Islam in the aftermath of 9/11. The documentary traces Pérez’s journey from the East Coast to the post-industrial Midwest. From marriage and parenting to his art and activism, this snapshot of Pérez’s life highlights the diverse experiences and generational changes that are shaping the new American Dream.

  After the screening of New Muslim Cool, Bakari Kitwana, author of The Hip-Hop Generation, will moderate a panel discussion. The panel will include Nura Maznavi, staff attorney from Muslim Advocates; filmmaker Jennifer Taylor; and independent hip-hop artist MC Hamza, who is the subject of the film.

  Location

  Brown Center
  Maryland Institute College of Art
  1301 Mount Royal Avenue
  Baltimore, MD 21217

  The event is free and open to the public.

  ——————————————————–
  March 14, 3:00PM-5:00PM
  Oakland Mills Interfaith Center, The Meeting House, 5885 Robert Oliver Pl, Columbia, MD
  Author Event: Why Fund War?

  Maryland’s 7.4 percent unemployment rate is worse than it has been in a generation. The state’s unemployment trust fund is so depleted it will be insolvent within six months. Foreclosure claims are up 67 percent from 2008, 16,000 new claims in the last quarter alone.

  In the midst of severe economic crisis, why are we still funding war?

  All polls indicate the majority of Americans oppose the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. 95 service members from Maryland have been killed in Afghanistan and Iraq. Taxpayers in Maryland will pay $17.6 billion for Iraq & Afghanistan wars since 2001.

  What can we do about it in Howard County? Phyllis Bennis and Kevin Martin, executive director of Peace Action, will start the conversation. Bring your ideas for action to the discussion!

  This event is sponsored by the Howard County Coalition for Peace and Justice. Contact Virginia Rodino at (202) 465-0918 for more information.
  

  Permalink | |  Email This Article
  Posted in Future Events, Reporting from Washington DC, The US States

  Discuss this article

UN deplores Gaddafi call for anti-Swiss ‘jihad’

Mr Gaddafi spoke from behind bullet-proof glass in Benghazi A top UN official has condemned as “inadmissible” Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi’s call for a jihad, or holy war, against Switzerland. “Such declarations on the part of the head of state are inadmissible in international relations,” said Sergei Ordzhonikidze, the UN chief in Geneva. Col Gaddafi criticised a Swiss vote against the building of minarets and urged Muslims to boycott the country. Libya and Switzerland are embroiled in a long-running diplomatic row. The dispute dates back to 2008, when one of Mr Gaddafi’s sons was arrested in Geneva, accused of assaulting two servants. A Swiss foreign ministry spokesman declined to comment on the jihad call. Hannibal Gaddafi’s arrest in 2008 sparked the diplomatic spat The Libyan leader made his comments while speaking at a meeting in Benghazi to mark the birthday of the Prophet Muhammad. “Let us wage jihad against Switzerland, Zionism and foreign aggression,” he said. “Any Muslim in any part of the world who works with Switzerland is an apostate, is against Muhammad, God and the Koran.” Mr Ordzhonikidze, director-general of the UN mission in Geneva, said the UN’s security in Switzerland was very professional and well-prepared for any incident. He was responding to questions from journalists about Mr Gaddafi’s “jihad” call. In a referendum last November, 57.5% of Swiss voters approved a constitutional ban on the building of minarets. An appeal against the ban has been submitted to the European Court of Human Rights. Tit-for-tat quarrel Earlier this month, Libya stopped issuing visas to citizens from many European nations – those in the Schengen border-free travel zone. That drew condemnation from the European Commission. Libya’s move came after Switzerland allegedly blacklisted 188 high-ranking Libyans, denying them entry permits. The Swiss ban is said to include Mr Gaddafi and his family. The row began after the arrest of Mr Gaddafi’s son Hannibal and his wife, Aline Skaf, in Geneva in July 2008. They were accused of assaulting two servants while staying at a luxury hotel in the Swiss city, though the charges were later dropped. Libya retaliated by cancelling oil supplies, withdrawing billions of dollars from Swiss banks, refusing visas to Swiss citizens and recalling some of its diplomats. In the same month that the Gaddafis were arrested, Libyan authorities detained two Swiss businessmen, in what analysts believe was a retaliatory move. One was finally allowed to leave the country earlier this week but the second was transferred to jail, where he faces a four-month term on immigration offences.

———- Forwarded message ———-
From: Al Gore, Repower America <info@repoweramerica.org>
Date: Mon, Mar 1, 2010
Subject: What is required
To: Pincas Jawetz <PJ@sustainabilitank.com>

Dear Pincas,

Winston Churchill said, “Sometimes doing your best is not good enough. Sometimes you must do what is required.”

Now is that time.

Our elected officials must rise to face the challenge of the climate crisis. And we must demand that they do what is required before it is too late.

That’s what I wrote yesterday in the New York Times, and today I need your help to make sure our Senators pass a strong climate bill this year.

The good news is we could be very close. A bipartisan group of Senators is drafting a bill right now that could be introduced within weeks — and critical negotiations over its content are taking place right now.

So starting Tuesday, a broad coalition of climate groups is launching a massive calling campaign to build grassroots pressure for the strongest bill possible. Will you join us by pledging to call your Senator on Tuesday?

Clicking here will add your name to the thousands who have already pledged to call.

It would be an enormous relief if the recent attacks on the science of global warming actually indicated that we do not face an unimaginable climate calamity. But the overwhelming scientific consensus remains unchanged. Every day we dump 90 million tons of global warming pollution into the atmosphere, as if it were an open sewer.

There is still a narrow pathway to stopping catastrophic climate change — and it begins with a choice by the United States to pass a law establishing a clear cost for global warming pollution.

The House of Representatives has already passed comprehensive clean energy and climate legislation with bipartisan support. Now the Senate must follow suit, and the current effort may bring us closer than we’ve ever been.

To arrive at a strong bill, we must demand that our Senators take bold action on climate change. They need to know that we will support them if they do what is required.

That means you have to pick up your phone.

Pledge to call your Senator.

After all has been said and so little done, the truth about the climate crisis — inconvenient as ever — must still be faced.

The future of our nation and our world is depending on the United States Senate. Please join us this week to make sure they do what is required.

Thanks,

Al Gore
Founder
The Climate Protection Action Fund

P.S. To read my full op-ed, click here

– The Grand Old Party of Republicanism on President Obama’s Health Care Reform: “We Need To Start From Scratch.”

– The Patient: “I HAVE A SCRATCH.”

– The GOP Leading Insuring Doctor: “That’s All We’re Gonna Cover.”

$ $

NOT AMERICA’S DILEMMA – BUT AMERICA’S REALITY.

$ $

The range of questions on health care in GOP circles are:

Q.  IS HEALTH CARE REFORM -

a.   A BAD IDEA?

b.   A REALLY BAD IDEA?

c.   A TOTALLY DESPICABLE IDEA?

A.  Now please vote!      a.       b.      c.

$ $

The US spends about twice as much on health as other industrialized Nations – in absolutes and as percentage of GDP -  and see what you got – scratch coverage if it is not a pre existing condition!

from: www.Tomdispatch.com -  By Bill McKibben
February 27, 2010  |

Twenty-one years ago, in 1989, I wrote what many have called the first book for a general audience on global warming. One of the more interesting reviews came from the Wall Street Journal.  It was a mixed and judicious appraisal.  “The subject,” the reviewer said, “is important, the notion is arresting, and Mr. McKibben argues convincingly.”  And that was not an outlier: around the same time, the first president Bush announced that he planned to “fight the greenhouse effect with the White House effect.”

I doubt that’s what the Journal will say about my next book when it comes out in a few weeks, and I know that no GOP presidential contender would now dream of acknowledging that human beings are warming the planet.  Sarah Palin is currently calling climate science “snake oil” and last week, the Utah legislature, in a move straight out of the King Canute playbook, passed a resolution condemning “a well organized and ongoing effort to manipulate global temperature data in order to produce a global warming outcome” on a nearly party-line vote.

And here’s what’s odd. In 1989, I could fit just about every scientific study on climate change on top of my desk. The science was still thin.  If my reporting made me think it was nonetheless convincing, many scientists were not yet prepared to agree.

Now, you could fill the Superdome with climate-change research data. (You might not want to, though, since Hurricane Katrina demonstrated just how easy it was to rip holes in its roof.) Every major scientific body in the world has produced reports confirming the peril. All 15 of the warmest years on record have come in the two decades that have passed since 1989. In the meantime, the Earth’s major natural systems have all shown undeniable signs of rapid flux: melting Arctic and glacial ice, rapidly acidifying seawater, and so on.

Somehow, though, the onslaught against the science of climate change has never been stronger, and its effects, at least in the U.S., never more obvious: fewer Americans believe humans are warming the planet.  At least partly as a result, Congress feels little need to consider global-warming legislation, no less pass it; and as a result of that failure, progress towards any kind of international agreement on climate change has essentially ground to a halt.

Climate-Change Denial as an O.J. Moment:

The campaign against climate science has been enormously clever, and enormously effective. It’s worth trying to understand how they’ve done it.  The best analogy, I think, is to the O.J. Simpson trial, an event that’s begun to recede into our collectiveKatoKaelin, anyone? Lance Ito?

The Dream Team of lawyers assembled for Simpson’s defense had a problem: it was pretty clear their guy was guilty. Nicole Brown’s blood was all over his socks, and that was just the beginning.  So Johnnie Cochran, Robert Shapiro, Alan Dershowitz, F. Lee Bailey, Robert Kardashian et al. decided to attack the process, arguing that it put Simpson’s guilt in doubt, and doubt, of course, was all they needed. Hence, those days of cross-examination about exactly how Dennis Fung had transported blood samples, or the fact that Los Angeles detective Mark Fuhrman had used racial slurs when talking to a screenwriter in 1986.

If anything, they were actually helped by the mountain of evidence. If a haystack gets big enough, the odds only increase that there will be a few needles hidden inside. Whatever they managed to find, they made the most of: in closing arguments, for instance, Cochran compared Fuhrman to Adolf Hitler and called him “a genocidal racist, a perjurer, America’s worst nightmare, and the personification of evil.” His only real audience was the jury, many of whom had good reason to dislike the Los Angeles Police Department, but the team managed to instill considerable doubt in lots of Americans tuning in on TV as well. That’s what happens when you spend week after week dwelling on the cracks in a case, no matter how small they may be.

Similarly, the immense pile of evidence now proving the science of global warming beyond any reasonable doubt is in some ways a great boon for those who would like, for a variety of reasons, to deny that the biggest problem we’ve ever faced is actually a problem at all. If you have a three-page report, it won’t be overwhelming and it’s unlikely to have many mistakes. Three thousand pages (the length of the latest report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change)?  That pretty much guarantees you’ll get something wrong.
memory. For those who were conscious in 1995, however, I imagine that just a few names will make it come back to life.

Women’s Network For a Sustainable Future (WNSF) Provided us with a pink invitation to an event for which we were supposed to pay $55 for this “generously hosted by PricewaterCoopers event.”

There was also an early bird option for $40. When I wrote that I would like to cover the event for the Sustainable Development website – the PriceWaterhouseCoopers lady of my correspondence first did not react to our e-mail then it was a nope. The Advertised pink sheet said:
 http://www.wnsf.org/

 http://www.eventbrite.com/event/55129493…

Cordially invites you to its New York Luncheon Panel

The Business of Climate Change: Post-Copenhagen Opportunities

Including speakers from:
Consolidated Edison,
Interface,
JP Morgan Chase,
PricewaterhouseCoopers,
Siemens

A discussion of business risks and opportunities post-Copenhagen: What’s in store for companies nationally and internationally–and how to plan for it–with tips from those who were there.

Wednesday February 24, 2010
12 to 2pm

Generously hosted by
PricewaterhouseCoopers
300 Madison Avenue @ 42nd St.
New York City

BOARD OF DIRECTORS

Kathy Robb
Chair, WNSF; Head of environmental practice, Hunton & Williams.

Marlys E. Appleton
Vice President, Sustainability Initiatives; Chair, Sustainability
Steering Committee.
AIG Global Investment Group (AIGGIG).

Dianne Dillon-Ridgley
Director, Interface Inc.

Shelly M. Esque
Vice President, Legal and Corporate Affairs; Director, Corporate
Affairs Group, Intel Corporation

Karen Flanders
Director, Corporate Responsibility, The Coca-Cola Company

Joanne Fox-Przeworski. Ph.D
Former UNEP Director for North America and founding director of the Bard Center for Environmental Policy

Ann Goodman. Ph.D
Executive Director, the Women’s Network for a Sustainable Future.

Sarah C. Howell
VP, Public Affairs, American Wind Energy Association.

Michele Kahane
Professor of Professional Practice, Milano, the New School for
Management and Urban Policy.

Clair Krizov
Executive Director, Environment and Social Responsibility, AT&T

Joyce LaValle
Former Senior Vice President, Interface Inc. A veteran in the commercial interiors industry and advocate for environmental sustainability

———-

ADVISORY COUNCIL

Ray Anderson
Founder and Chairman, Interface Inc.

Jo Ivey Boufford
Professor and Former Dean, Wagner School of Public Service, New York University.

Paula Di Perna
Former President, Joyce Foundation.

Eileen Fisher
Founder, Eileen Fisher Co.

Joyce Haboucha
Director, Social Investment, Rockefeller.

Noreen Harrington
Former Managing Director, Goldman Sachs.

Stuart Hart
Director, Sustainable Enterprise Institute, Cornell University.

Terri Ludwig
President, Merrill Lynch Community Development Company.

———–

SPONSORSHIP INFORMATION

WNSF welcomes support from companies, foundations and individuals to help us spread the word to as many businesswomen as possible on how corporate responsibility can foster sustainability.

If you are interested in sponsorship opportunities, please contact:
Ann Goodman, Executive Director. Please direct inquiries to  info at wnsf.org.

WNSF is a 501(c)3 not-for-profit organization.

Recent Sponsors

Alcoa Foundation, AT&T, BP, Cola-Cola Co., Con Edison, Eileen Fisher
Inc., Ford Foundation, JP Morgan Chase, Merrill Lynch, Nathan Cummings
Foundation, Novartis, Pfizer, Starbucks, Swiss Re, McGraw-Hill Cos.

Participation

WNSF believes that integrating responsible, sustainable practices throughout organizations is key to building sustainable enterprises — and a sustainable future. That’s why WNSF welcomes participation from women in all parts of business including marketing, communications, legal affairs, human resources, finance, strategy, philanthropy, corporate citizenship and environment, health and safety. There are no formal membership requirements. To get regular email updates on WNSF activities, send your contact information to:info@wnsf.org

———–

WNSF Leadership Circle

Founding Members:
Eileen Fisher Inc.
Intel
Joyce La Valle
Kathy Robb

Recent WNSF sponsors include:

Adobe
Applied Materials
AIG
Alcoa Foundation
AT&T
BP
The Coca-Cola Companies
Con Edison
DuPont
Eileen Fisher Inc.
Ford Foundation
Hewlett-Packard
Hunton & Williams
Intel
Interface
JP Morgan Chase
The McGraw-Hill Companies
Merrill Lynch
Nathan Cummings Foundation
Novartis
Pfizer
Pricewaterhouse Coopers (PwC)
Siemens
Starbucks
Swiss Re
Symantec

Initial web site design and hosting provided by Netting Solutions

===============

OK – without an invitation to those sandwiches, I found it convenient to stop by at 2:15 pm after an event on Kazakhstan at the George Soros Institute.

Actually, I found that things, might actually be better then the initial impression. True, I have seen before high power corporate women barging into topics of social interest at the fringes of the UN that were rather a celebration of “We have Arrived” and we are ready to impress our sisters, but at least the most recent additions to this organization seem to understand the political importance of the subject beyond the potential of a corporate gain for their employing firm, and the lady I was in e-mail contact with, I was told was a complete novice employee of the organization.

Anyway, I seem to remember having already run into the Corporate Ladies of WNSF previously at an event at the outskirts of the UN Headquarters at the time of a Women’s Conference, but this time got really intrigued by the post Copenhagen and how to benefit from Copenhagen concept.

I understand that Dianne Dillon-Ridgley of Iowa City gave an inspirational description of the history of climate change policy.  She has experience with the Sustainable Development concept since her appointment by President Bush Senior’s White House to go to the Rio convention, as per http://www.wnsf.org/index.php?com=static…

Ann Godman is the Executive Director of the WNSF which she co-founded in 2002. She is now adjunct professor of corporate responsibility at the Center for Global Affairs at New York University, and affiliate professor at the graduate Center for Environmental Policy at Bard College. http://www.wnsf.org/index.php?com=static…

Helle Bank Jorgensen was the moderator of the panel, and the hostess of the panel, as she is Partner, PricewaterhouseCoopers Denmark. Member of the PwC Global Sustainability Leadership Council. She gave me a PriceWaterhouseCoopers two page “Sustainable growth strategies” sheet with indication that PwC is sponsoring “Sustainability & Climate Change Thought Leadership.” I learned that PwC is promoting literature with titles like: A point of view series that covers the EPA new rules on GHG registration requirements and their regulation under the Clean Air Act. www.pwc.com

Also – “Sustainability: Are consumers buying it?” and “Going Green: Sustainable growth strategies.”

Capitalizing on a climate of change” seems to be a good introductory booklet - www.pwc.com and if you want to learn about the tax implications - www.pwc.com . Above all it seems that what PwC wants you to remember is that CSR is in vogue – “A comprehensive survey of corporate social responsibility reporting trends, benchmark and best practices” is something the consulting firm can help you with. The company distributed also booklets of “Rethink” as in Vision, Visibility and Strategy resulting in improved performance for your company. Obviously – there is nothing wrong in using greed to help achieve important societal goals – or who knows – the knowledge to avoid having to comply.                                       http://www.accaglobal.com/documents/denm…

Rebecca Craft was there to speak of Energy Efficiency at Con Edison, and I am sure Alison Taylor had things to add to this from the Siemens Corporation performance that we know well from what we were shown in Copenhagen, at the Siemens Denmark headquarters.

Then there was James Fuschetti, the only man that was still in the room when I arrived, and the only man on the panel, a Managing Director at JP Morgan Chase, a banking corporation that has female executives, but has also the sense to deal with Sustainability and Climate Change to the subject and not as a matter of female representation.

James Fuschetti is the Managing Director of the Office of Environmental Affairs at JP Morgan Chase and is responsible for its overall management and direction. Mr. Fuschetti spent 26 years as a banker and product specialist at JP Morgan Securities, Inc. During that time he lived in New York, Sao Paulo and London and worked with corporate and government clients in Latin America, Europe, the Middle East and Asia. In 1999 Mr. Fuschetti left JP Morgan to join the World Wildlife Fund (“WWF”) in Washington DC where he co-founded the Center for Conservation Finance. During his 7 years at WWF he helped develop financing solutions for large scale conservation projects in Asia and Latin America. In February 2008 Mr. Fuschetti returned to JP Morgan Chase to assume responsibility for the Office of Environmental Affairs. Mr. Fuschetti reports to William Daley.

The Program was mainly about “REFLECTING ON COPENHAGEN” and Ms. Jorgensen posed questions to the panelists:

- What are the risks and opportunities you see for your company after Copenhagen?

- Do you see a different reaction nationally vs. internationally?

- How do you successfully plan for the future in a time of such uncertainty?

- While there is no current federal regulation – there is state/regional regulation – how do you address this in your company?

- Any last questions – or tips?

That all sounds good and I hope she got good answers, but for the life of me I do not understand why these topics had to be in pink format? Our website will fight for full equality for women when climbing the corporate ladder but we do not think that this sort of plain business talk ought to be segregated by sex.

I was glad I went to look at this congregation as I walked away with the feeling that indeed it was not a Sarah Palin tea party, but rather a joint learning experience that actually could have an impact if the ladies in the audience felt more comfortable in hearing about the misery of our environment and our governing system from a woman, rather then in a more mixed setting.

It is funny how the Chinese cannot take responsibility when they do something right, and the Americans cannot take responsibility when they do something wrong.

Washington bailed out GM rather then making sure first they change products and Beijing stopped companies from buying into the GM misfits but find ways to explain this without harming the feelings of GM. Good riddance to the Hummer monster – specially to the yellow one that used to cruise the New York Mid-town East Side and driven by some chief from the Department of Sanitation.

CHINA INSISTS A FLAWED APPROACH HURT GM DEAL
By Patti Waldmeir in Shanghai 2010-02-26, The Financial Times.

The collapse of General Motors’ plan to sell Hummer to a Chinese buyer reflects flaws in the deal rather than any reluctance by Beijing to sanction cross-border transactions, say Chinese government officials.

GM announced late on Wednesday that it had given up on efforts to sell its troubled Hummer operations to Sichuan Tengzhong Heavy Industrial Machinery, after nearly nine months of trying.

The Detroit carmaker said it would now wind down production of the heavy sports utility vehicle.

The collapse marks another difficult sales process for GM since it began to downsize its operations more than a year ago. The carmaker backed out of plans to sell its Opel business last year, while a deal to offload its Saturn brand fell apart.

But it this week succeeded in selling Saab, its Swedish marque, to Spyker, the Dutch boutique sports car maker.

Sichuan Tengzhong Heavy Industrial Machinery, which had never produced a passenger car, said the deal collapsed because it was “unable to obtain clearance [for] the transaction from the Chinese regulators within the proposed deal timeframe”.

The deal’s deadline had already been extended by a month while Tengzhong made a last-ditch effort to obtain Beijing’s blessing.

Analysts said yesterday that Beijing’s refusal to sanction the deal was scarcely surprising, given the central government’s recent strong emphasis on encouraging Chinese consumers to buy smaller, fuel-efficient cars.

To produce the hulking Hummer, with its image of wasteful excess, could hardly be less consistent with Beijing’s pro-green automotive policies, said Mike Dunne of Dunne & Co, an Asia-based automotive consultancy: “For them to approve the Hummer deal would be a big contradiction.”

A ministry of commerce spokesman said Tengzhong failed to provide a sound purchase plan. He reiterated China’s policy of encouraging development of a renewable, green and environmentally friendly economy.

The ministry has previously insisted it never received an application by Sichuan Tengzhong – but the company repeatedly denied it.

Yale Zhang, of CSM Automotive in Shanghai, said the deal violated not only Beijing’s environmental goals but also Chinese insistence on consolidation in the auto industry, which has about 50-100 carmakers.

“This was just the wrong group making the wrong purchase in the wrong way,” said an industry insider, noting Tengzhong did not obtain provisional clearance before announcing the deal.

Beijing is thought willing to sanction the much bigger $1bn acquisition of Volvo by Geely, the big private Chinese automaker. That deal is expected to be finalised by March’s end.

Last year BAIC, the Beijing automaker, acquired some assets of Saab from GM, with central government approval.

—————

NEW YORK TIMES EDITORIAL

Goodbye, Hummer
Published: February 25, 2010

The world might be saved: It looks as if the Hummer is destined for the junkyard. The plan by General Motors to sell the muscular brand to a Chinese company went up in a puff of exhaust smoke on Wednesday after government officials in China said that they had never received the necessary application for approval and thus couldn’t grant it.

We suspect the deal collapsed because the Chinese Communist Party — which rarely shows much shame — is worried about China’s image as the most polluting nation on the planet. If true, that is good news.

There may be other good news. While some policy analysts have called — sensibly, in our opinion — for steeper gasoline taxes to encourage American drivers to embrace fuel efficiency, some economists have been skeptical. They acknowledge that drivers might decide to drive less and take public transportation more. But they warn that most could not afford to quickly dump their gas guzzlers for more fuel-efficient cars.

Yet given time, it seems, people change their ways. Americans drove 3.4 percent fewer miles in 2008 — when gas prices shot up to a peak of $4 a gallon nationally — than in 2007. And many who had bought the Hummer when a gallon of gas cost $2 decided that they couldn’t afford to tool around town in a small tank that would run, on average, around 10 miles on a gallon.

By last year, even as gas prices drifted downward, only about 9,000 Hummers were sold in the United States. That was a steep drop from 71,000 in 2006. In the spring of 2008, G.M. announced that it could not keep the sinking brand. The company is weighing two long-shot bids, but it is more than likely to wind down the brand.

Gasoline is back around $2.50 a gallon, and Americans are falling back on some of their old bad habits. Still, the Hummer’s tale is a vivid example of the power of gas prices to change Americans’ ways. It also suggests that, given the proper incentives and disincentives, all the world’s nations can embrace a greener future.

———- Forwarded message ———-
From: Paul Higgins <phiggins@ametsoc.org>
Date: Tue, Feb 23, 2010 a
Subject: AMS Online Video: Climate Change Impacts and Adaptation

The American Meteorological Society has released an online video from
its monthly Climate Briefing Series:

CLIMATE CHANGE IMPACTS AND ADAPTATION

featuring:

Michael MacCracken, Chief Scientist for Climate Change Programs, the
Climate Institute

Kristie L. Ebi, Executive Director, IPCC Working Group 2 Technical
Support Unit – Impacts, Adaptation, and Vulnerability

Katharine L. Jacobs, Professor, University of Arizona Soil, Water and
Environmental Science Department

Susanne Moser, Director and Principal Researcher, Susanne Moser
Research & Consulting

You can learn about future briefings in the AMS Climate Briefing
Series by joining the list serve. You can also download this video and
future videos by subscribing to the podcast.

For additional information about the series or to download the
speaker’s presentations, visit the Climate Briefing Series web page
 www.ametsoc.org).

This event was recorded on January 8, 2010 in the United States House
of Representatives Canon House Office Building. The AMS Climate
Briefing Series is made possible, in part, by a grant from the
National Science Foundation’s Paleoclimate program.

Our Recent articles were:

From Campaign for America’s Future – Your Progressive Breakfast: Pressure on EPA To Suspend Climate Action. (February 24th, 2010)

An analysis of the Copenhagen pledges by the 60 Developed and Developing Countries, when analyzed by 9 different leading policy and science institutions were found very short of the needed goals of GHG emissions reduction by 2050. (February 24th, 2010)

On Climate Change – Sinners (Annex 1) and Sinned (the rest) is a division that proved it leads nowhere. Professor Jagdish Bhagawati suggests a Stock & Flow methodology that allows the funding of new technology and passing the know how as a way to have an impact on the future. William Antholis of Brookings is working on similar ideas. (February 24th, 2010)

These articles dealt with post-Copenhagen policy realities and our main preoccupation now -  how do we follow up. Also the question of the July 1, 2010 vacancy in the Executive Secretary of the UNFCCC office in Bonn. Have we reached the end of an era and do we understand how to open the door for next era in climate negotiations?

The UN Think-Tank at the UN University office in New York promised us several weeks ago an event with Dr. William J. Antholis, Managing Director at the Washington DC Brookings Institution. The event was postponed and it finally came about on February 23. 2010 3:00-5:00 pm and as you see from above three postings, and from our following posting – the speaker has lost quite a bit of his thunder because of the fact that above articles in the press estimate the situation very closely to his opinions – and had he presented them two weeks earlier – he clearly would have been first. Nevertheless, today, I can say that a new positive consensus is being established despite the attacks in Washington DC from the American Red-Right. The Brookings Institution knows the Washington establishment and has now close links to the Administration – so the brain picking we love to do is now:  how does Dr. William Antholis see the practical way of tackling the subject so it overcomes the real man-made hurdles that are being set up by paid lobbyists that swarm to the US capital?

In Washington, when one looks at how difficult it seems to come up with a Health-Care bill, Dr. Antholis says that under the UNFCCC rules, coming up with a consensus on climate will be 192 times more difficult then that. But he is here to praise the UN, not bury it – so, let us say that without the UN we would not even be where we are today. We must look at the flows of the system the way it was designed. All agree that a global agreement is necessary but do not agree on what has to happen – there is no common view on what the treaty has to have. Like in Washington, everyone wants to be a free rider and any major free rider on a common effort undermines the common effort.

The UN system asks for unanimity as a surrogate for the process – so the 60 % of US Senate votes is easy compared to this. Also, the division between Annex I and Annex B is a hindrance. The ritual of the yearly meeting of the UNFCCC has nevertheless served a purpose – it publicized the problem.

What Dr. Antholis suggested is that now we start a system with the countries that really matter on the issue – the greatest emitters. We also realize that regulation is best executed on the National level – so we have to deal with the Nation States – that brings back the system to the need that all Nations of the UN do something within their own borders.

He also says we should learn from the way the GATT was created with a system that allows countries to join as they were able to do it. There is a commitment – then one looks for when they develop the capacity to implement it. This is a far cry from what the UNFCCC has now. Under GATT – the US Europe, and Japan can develop the commitment and trade among themselves – others should eventually be part of that system! This approach could work with what exists already under the KP  What is needed is a Carbon Tax on the border of countries that have not done enough! Simple and useful! Start with the Four biggest entities (he called it countries) – there is 50% of the population and 60% of emissions, 2/3 of global nuclear power – these are:  China, US, EU, India. Then figure on bringing in Russia and Japan. Russia has 20% of world’s forests that account for two years og global emissions worth. Then Brazil that actually stepped up as a leader with largest forest. South Africa is a player – so are the SIDS.

What Dr. Antholis described has similarity to what Professor Jagdish Bhagawati suggests as a  Stock & Flow methodology that starts with working first with the greatest emitters who could then start working with the greatest forest wardens. They could find ways to make their dealings to best mutual benefits – but this is done via work within the National territory and in cooperation between the Nations that cooperate. We do not think that this is a blow to multilateralism – it is rather the recognition that there must be a clear limit to obstruction from countries that are not among the major concerns when it comes to the harmful emissions release to the atmosphere.

When question were allowed from the participants, it became clear that all UN points of view were present in the room.

We heard about historical guilt and we heard about the Solar Cookers that can help people in poor rural areas in the developing countries – both positions forget that while we scratch for our past sins, the major transgressions go on just now before our nose.

Then came the suggestion that in effect, what he described was the end of phase one in the raising of the issue of Climate Change and even though skeptics of climate science abound, we know clearly that we did spew CO2 into the atmosphere in the last 200 years by burning fossil fuels – so whatever one says there is a need for action. That calls for a second phase – the implementation of an action program that is different from the search for an agreement between 192 States.

Dr. Antholis thinks that the new leader of this effort, that will replace outgoing UNFCCC Executive Secretary Yvo de Boer ought to be a politician apt to come up with agreements between the initial small group that will start the activities. He will learn from President Obama who will sell the needed program to the US public not as a climate change bill but as clean energy, energy security, job creation – something clearly good for you – today. This should work with everyone for his personal advantage. For the sake of continuing also through the UN system, it would be nice if the new person in Bonn would be a Brazilian politician, or as Dr. Antholis said an Indian – though it seems that China might go along easier with a Brazilian.

Then there are further avenues for one to travel – there are levels closer to the people – State and Local Governments like City Mayors.

If one goes through these lesser routes, for the global commitment – the UN could take on ultimately the job of the verifier.

He described the so called Copenhagen Accord rather as an Accordion making it clear that there will be now a continuously change in size of the instrument. Also let us remember the consultancy profession’s main rule – 80% of the solution lies in 20% of the problem – go thus for the 20% in order to reach towards the 80%. Will the UN be able to live up to such ideas?

———-

What about my question of who will be that new man or woman at the UN?

The only indication comes from Mr. Janos Pasztor from Secretary General Ban Ki-moon’s climate office at UN Headquarters. He said that the UNSG started to discus the issue immediately after Mr. de Boer’s phone call, with the members of the Board of the Conference of the Parties of the UNFCCC. The new head will be chosen well before the July 1, date – but the UNSG wants to see it happen well soon. Until then he has confidence in Richard Kinley is the Deputy Executive Secretary of the United Nations
Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC).

Since joining the Climate Change Secretariat in 1993, Mr. Kinley has held a number of senior positions including as Coordinator;
Intergovernmental and Conference Affairs (2000 to 2006) and Coordinator; Resources, Management and Coordination (1996-2000), overseeing the secretariat’s teams dealing with intergovernmental process management, conference affairs, administration and budget, and national communications. He has been Secretary of the Conference of the Parties since 1996 and led the secretariat support for the negotiation of the Kyoto Protocol (1995-1997). He was also the Officer-in-Charge of the secretariat from September 2005 to August 2006.

Prior to joining the climate change secretariat, Mr. Kinley was an official in the Government of Canada, working in the areas of
international environmental policy, northern environment and resource management, and international climate policy.
Richard Kinley is a national of Canada.

From: Campaign for America’s Future
Date: Wed, Feb 24, 2010
Subject: Your Progressive Breakfast.

 http://peakenergy.blogspot.com/2010/02/b…

20 February 2010 – The Bloom Box: An Energy Breakthrough ?
Posted by Big Gav in bloom energy, cogeneration, fuel cells.

CBS’s “Sixty Minutes” program has a look at cogeneration / fuel cell company Bloom Energy this weekend – The Bloom Box: An Energy Breakthrough?.
For the past year and a half, several large California corporations have been secretly using the “Bloom Box,” a potentially revolutionary fuel-cell system. Confirming this for the first time, several of the companies report this system is a more efficient, clean, and cost effective way to get electricity than off the power grid. Lesley Stahl and 60 MINUTES cameras get the first look inside the secretive California company, just days before the Bloom Energy official launch, scheduled for this Wednesday (24). Stahl’s report will be broadcast on 60 MINUTES, Sunday Feb. 21 (7:00-8:00 PM, ET/PT) on the CBS Television Network.

John Donahoe, CEO of E-bay, confirms Bloom Boxes were installed at his corporate campus nine months ago. The company says the boxes already saved them over $100,000 in electricity bills. “It’s been very successful thus far. [The Bloom Boxes] have done what they said they would do,” says Donahoe. The five boxes are able to produce five times as much electricity as the 3,248 solar panels that E-bay installed on its campus roofs, says the CEO. “The footprint for Bloom is much more efficient,” he tells Stahl. Google, FedEx, Staples and Wal-Mart are among the first 20clients Bloom is confirming.

Stahl is the first journalist to be allowed into the Bloom Energy lab and factory where they currently make one box a day. The boxes create electricity by a chemical process that utilizes oxygen and fuel, but involves no combustion. Bloom’s founder and CEO, K.R. Sridhar, insists all the materials in the box are cheap and available in abundance. Bloom says each large Box – which can power about 100 homes – currently sells for $700-800,000. They hope within five to 10 years to roll out a smaller home version for about $3,000 a unit.

Bloom Energy was the first clean energy start-up Kleiner-Perkins, the Silicon Valley venture capital firm, invested in. They currently invest in about 50 clean tech companies. Sridhar confirms the company has received over $400 million, making it one of the most expensive startups in history. The majority of that comes from Kleiner Perkins. John Doerr, the Kleiner Perkins partner who invested in Bloom, has high hopes. “The Bloom Box is intended to replace the [electric power] grid for its customer,” says Doerr. He thinks existing utility companies should not be threatened or have a problem with Bloom Energy. “The utility companies will see this as a solution. All they need to do is buy Bloom Boxes, put them in the substation for the neighborhood and sell that electricity,” he says.

But there is another hurdle says Michael Kanellos, editor in chief of the Web site GreenTech Media. Even if Sridhar can mass produce his boxes and sell them cheaply enough, “The problem is then G.E. and Siemens and other conglomerates that can probably do the same thing. They have fuel cell patents,” he tells Stahl.

Open Article On Originating Site

Reid: Dems will use 50-vote tactic to finish healthcare in 60 days
By Michael O’Brien       – 02/20/10

Democrats will finish their health reform efforts within the next two
months by using a majority-vote maneuver in the Senate, Majority
Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) said.

Reid said that congressional Democrats would likely opt for a
procedural tactic in the Senate allowing the upper chamber to make
final changes to its healthcare bill with only a simple majority of
senators, instead of the 60 it takes to normally end a filibuster.

“I’ve had many conversations this week with the president, his chief
of staff, and Speaker Pelosi,” Reid said during an appearance Friday
evening on “Face to Face with Jon Ralston” in Nevada. “And we’re
really trying to move forward on this.”

The majority leader said that while Democrats have a number of
options, they would likely use the budget reconciliation process to
pass a series of fixes to the first healthcare bill passed by the
Senate in November. These changes are needed to secure votes for
passage of that original Senate bill in the House.

“We’ll do a relatively small bill to take care of what we’ve already
done,” Reid said, affirming that Democrats would use the
reconciliation process. “We’re going to have that done in the next 60
days.”

The move would allow Democrats to essentially go it alone on health
reform, especially after losing their filibuter-proof majority in the
Senate after Sen. Scott Brown’s (R) special election victory in
Massachusetts.

Republicans have protested the maneuver as a hyperpartisan tactic to
ram through a health bill, and have said that plans to use the
reconciliation process make moot a bipartisan summit at the White
House this week, where both GOP and Democratic leaders are supposed to
present their ideas on healthcare.

Reid said that the final Democratic bill is likely to be unveiled Monday night.

===================================================

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Reid: Dems Will Use 50-Vote Tactic to Finish Health Care

Michael O’Brien, The Hill | Democrats will finish their health reform efforts within the next two months by using a majority-vote maneuver in the Senate, Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) said.
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James Ridgeway | ACLU to UN: Stop Teen’s Torture in Montana Prison

James Ridgeway and Jean Casella, Solitary Watch | A teenager in solitary confinement at Montana State Prison has been subject to such brutal treatment that the American Civil Liberties Union today called upon a UN expert on torture to intervene on his behalf.
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