eNews Friday 13 November 2009

ACEEE: California Leads the Country in Energy Efficiency Policies (EERE News, 11 November 2009)

The American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy (ACEEE) has released its 2009 State Energy Efficiency Scorecard, which ranks states according to their energy efficiency policies, incentives and standards. California topped the scorecard, followed by Massachusetts and Connecticut. Several other states were lauded for greatly improving their score through increased energy efficiency policy activity, new building codes, or the setting of energy-saving targets.

http://apps1.eere.energy.gov/news/news_detail.cfm/news_id=15617

U.S. climate bill needs strong border measure: Senator Baucus (Reuters, 10 November 2009)

Citing competitiveness and carbon-leakage concerns, US Senate Finance Committee chairman Max Baucus called for climate change legislation to include a “border measure”, consistent with WTO rules. Without indicating any preference for the type of measure, Senator Baucus said US lawmakers should take the lead on determining its shape, rather than letting it be worked out by trade negotiators.

http://www.reuters.com/article/GCA-GreenBusiness/idUSTRE5A92WC20091110

Brazilian state gov't approves law on greenhouse emissions cuts (People’s Daily, 10 November 2009)

Brazil’s Sao Paulo State government announced a target of reducing GHG emissions 20% from 2005 levels by 2020. The emissions reductions would focus on the transport sector, with fines imposed on those not meeting targets.

http://english.people.com.cn/90001/90777/90852/6809033.html

200M euro for renewable energy and energy efficiency in 2010 (The Sofia Echo, 10 November 2009)

The Bulgarian government is planning an overhaul of its administrative and application procedures to better roll-out funding for renewable energy and energy efficiency projects under the EU’s Operational Programme “Development of the Competitiveness of the Bulgarian Economy". 632 projects with a value of BGN 358 million are still waiting to be processed. Bulgaria expects a further EUR 200 million to be available for such projects in October 2010.

http://sofiaecho.com/2009/11/10/813552_200m-euro-for-renewable-energy-in-2010?ref=rss

Environment Agency to propose individual carbon ration cards (BusinessGreen, 9 November 2009)

The debate on individual carbon rationing rather than carbon taxes has reopened in the UK, after the UK Environment Agency will propose the system at the organisation’s annual conference. A feasibility study on rationing by Defra last year was shelved, after a study found it would be expensive to implement and may not benefit from public support, despite being technically possible and potentially engaging individuals. The Environmental Agency’s proposal would see each citizen awarded a “carbon account”, that would keep track of carbon-intensive purchases. Statements showing the carbon impact of each purchase and the person’s remaining carbon budget would be provided, and those exceeding their ration would need to buy credits from those that haven’t used up their full allowance.

http://www.businessgreen.com/business-green/news/2252771/environment-agency-propose

Japan may meet CO2 goals, but only due to recession (Reuters, 9 November 2009)

Lower GHG emissions due to economic recession may mean that Japan could meet its 2008-12 Kyoto Protocol emissions target; however, some are concerned at how more ambitious targets, beyond 2012, will be met in the face of recession and lack of government policy.

http://www.reuters.com/article/environmentNews/idUSTRE5A814X20091109?sp=true

EPA C02 endangerment finding to White House (Reuters, 9 November 2009)

The US EPA has sent its final endangerment finding, on whether carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gas emissions pose a danger to human health and welfare, to the White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB). It also sent the EPA’s findings on whether cars and trucks “cause or contribute to that pollution”, which if approved could pave the way for stricter vehicle mileage requirements. The OMB has 90 days to review the proposal, though the EPA is hoping for an expedited review.

http://www.reuters.com/article/GCA-GreenBusiness/idUSTRE5A84FN20091109

As nations haggle over CO2 cuts, measurement is tough (Reuters, 9 November 2009)

Scientists from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and the National Center for Atmospheric Research say there is a disconnect between emission reduction schemes and trading, and what can actually be measured. New measurement systems, satellites and computer models are getting more accurate, but they say we are still many years away from being able to accurately monitor national and regional emissions, particularly those produces and absorbed naturally in forests and oceans.

http://www.reuters.com/article/GCA-GreenBusiness/idUSTRE5A84KW20091109?sp=true

Japan and China sign major green agreements (Cop15, 9 November 2009)

As part of the Japan-China energy-saving and environmental forum, 42 cooperative projects were signed, covering energy-saving, recycling, sewage, water purification and other environment-related projects. Japan’s Economy, Trade and Industry Minister Masayuki Naoshima also said he hoped China would make an “international commitment” to reduce GHGs as part of a new global climate change agreement.

http://en.cop15.dk/news/view+news?newsid=2545

UK DECC: Strategic direction for overhaul of energy system (DECC press release, 9 November 2009)

The UK Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC) presented six draft National Policy Statements (NPSs) before Parliament, which seek to reform planning procedures for fossil fuels, nuclear, renewables, transmission networks and oil and gas pipelines, with the sixth NPS comprising the Government’s final Framework for the Development of Clean Coal. The nuclear power strategy proposes 10 new nuclear power sites, while the clean coal framework proposes that all new coal-fired plants be required to demonstrate CCS capacity on at least 300 MW of their total output.

http://www.decc.gov.uk/en/content/cms/news/pn130/pn130.aspx; National Policy Statements consultation pages https://www.energynpsconsultation.decc.gov.uk/

Climate top of the agenda at EU-India summit (European Presidency press release, 6 November 2009)

At the Tenth India- EU Summit, the goal of limiting global temperature increase to 2 degrees from pre-industrial levels was agreed, and a cooperation agreement signed in the field of nuclear energy for the exchange of data, information, researchers and specialists. In addition, one of two loans provided by the European Investment Bank (EIB) at the summit was of EUR 100 million for a car factory using European environmental technology allowing the cars to emit fewer GHGs.

http://www.se2009.eu/en/meetings_news/2009/11/6/climate_top_of_the_agenda_at_summit_in_india

Subsidizing green buildings reduces greenhouse gases and creates jobs (Cop15, 6 November 2009)

WWF and E3G have released “scorecards”, assessing the best and worst policies in G-20 countries that work towards creating a “Green new deal”: helping the economy while reducing GHG emissions and moving towards a low-carbon economy. In first place are Germany’s policies targeting the building sector, covering its standards, subsidies, grants and retrofit programmes. In the worst policies, subsidies for coal production took first place.

http://en.cop15.dk/news/view+news?newsid=2535; WWF/E3G Report: http://assets.panda.org/downloads/scorecards_2009_11_02_online_version_final.pdf

EU-US summit yields energy cooperation (EurActiv, 5 November 2009)

A new EU-US Energy Council established at the ministerial level met last week, to boost cooperation on energy policy and technology research, as well as provide a new framework for bilateral discussions on energy security and shifting to low-carbon energy.

http://www.euractiv.com/en/climate-change/eu-us-summit-yields-energy-cooperation/article-187060

India, Sweden to sign MoU on environment (Indian Express, 5 November 2009)

At the 10th India-EU summit this week, it is expected that a MoU will be signed on climate change, clean technology, CDM, environmental protection and governance, and air-water quality. The Indian Express says “sources” indicate a possible energy sector deal that could pertain to nuclear power.

http://www.indianexpress.com/news/India--Sweden-to-sign-MoU-on-environment/537520

Senate panel approves Democratic climate bill (Reuters, 5 November 2009)

After waiting two days for Republican Senators to participate in the mark-up of climate change legislation, the US Senate’s Environment and Public Works Committee passed the legislation, with 10 Democratic Senators voting for it and one against. Committee Chairman Barbara Boxer opened the session by reading a letter from Exelon’s Chief Executive, urging that the bill be reported for consideration before the full Senate.

http://www.reuters.com/article/GCA-GreenBusiness/idUSTRE5A42WB20091105

South Korea drops weakest 2020 emissions cut target (Reuters, 5 November 2009)

South Korea has dropped the weakest of its three potential GHG emissions target – that of an 8% increase from 2005 levels by 2020. It will finalise its 2020 target on 17 November, choosing between maintaining 2020 emissions at their 2005 levels, or reducing them 4%. Hyung-kook Kim, chairman of the presidential committee on green growth, said the second option would “probably show our definite willingness for green growth”.

http://www.reuters.com/article/GCA-GreenBusiness/idUSTRE5A410O20091105

Green policies will hit gas demand, says energy agency (Financial Times, 5 November 2009)

In an “unauthorised draft of the World Energy Outlook” cited by the Financial Times, the IEA projects that implementation of policies to reduce GHG emissions today could significantly reduce gas demand, 5% by 2015 and 17% by 2030 compared with the business-as-usual scenario. PFC Energy’s Robin West said the prediction of the US LNG market’s demise was to be taken with “a pinch of salt”, arguing that technologies allowing for “clean coal” and CCS were far from being commercial.

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/44118ace-c9ac-11de-a071-00144feabdc0.html

Carbon has no place in global trade rules (Financial Times, 4 November 2009)

In an opinion piece, the OECD’s Angel Gurria says countries should stop calling for border taxes on imports from countries without GHG targets; fears around loss of competitiveness and leakage are for the most part unfounded. The issue is harmful for current climate change negotiations, and Gurria argues the best solution to such fears is by broadening participation in a climate change agreement.

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/2b6217c6-c977-11de-a071-00144feabdc0.html

New Study Shows Reducing Energy Intensity is Critical in Curbing CO2 Emissions (World Bank, 4 November 2009)

Looking at data from over 100 countries from 1994 to 2006, a new World Bank study looks at several factors that explain why levels of GHG emissions increase or decrease. It finds that growth of GDP per capita and growth in population have contributed the most to the net increase in emissions. It also finds that reducing energy intensity (amount of energy required to produce a unit of GDP) has contributed the most to the net decrease in emissions.

http://web.worldbank.org/WBSITE/EXTERNAL/NEWS/0,,contentMDK:22377865~menuPK:51062075~pagePK:34370~piPK:34424~theSitePK:4607,00.html; Report http://siteresources.worldbank.org/EXTOGMC/Resources/co2_emissions1.pdf


Industry, business and utilities


Recession increases investment in clean technologies (BusinessGreen, 10 November 2009)

A study undertaken among 308 executives in global companies across the Americas, Europe and Asia-Pacific indicate that large corporations are more interested in investing in clean technologies since the global recession. The foremost factor in developing a clean tech strategy was cost reduction through operational efficiency, followed by meeting internal sustainability and climate change goals. Increasing revenues through new or existing products and services was also a factor. Manufacturing, transportation, IT and logistics were sectors for whom efficiency is high on the agenda.

http://www.businessgreen.com/business-green/news/2252835/recession-increased-corporate

Eurelectric: Carbon-neutral electricity by 2050 possible; efficiency key (Eurelectric press release, 10 November 2009)

Power industry body Eurelectric released a Power Choices study, using the PRIMES energy model to examine how a commitment to carbon-neutral power by 2050 could be realised. The study underlines that all low-carbon technology options must be available and receive adequate investment, but found that the major driver would come from energy-efficient electric systems – including vehicles and heat pumps - on the demand side.

http://www2.eurelectric.org/DocShareNoFrame/Docs/1/FCIMCJJBABCELKAKKLOFLJPKKJKHYTT3Q79YBD73B6B3/Eurelectric/docs/DLS/PRPowChFin-2009-030-0956-01-E.pdf; http://www.eurelectric.org/PowerChoices2050/; Preliminary report: http://www2.eurelectric.org/DocShareNoFrame/Docs/2/FCIMCJJBABCELKAKKLOFLJPKKHYDYC5K46SD6C6T4LTA/Eurelectric/docs/DLS/Power_Choices_brochure_A4-2009-030-0943-01-E.pdf

Putin warns oil firms: cut flaring or pay fines (Reuters, 10 November 2009)

In an attempt to reduce gas flaring, Russian gas companies must increase their gas utilisation rate to 95% by 2012, or else pay fines. Companies are investing in order to meet the target. Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin also said that flare gas used for electricity production would be provided with preferential access to the national electricity grid.

http://www.reuters.com/article/environmentNews/idUSTRE5A94VD20091110

Canada seen funding new carbon capture plans (Reuters, 10 November 2009)

Canada’s Natural Resources Minister Lisa Raitt said the government was looking to fund CCS for gas projects, following funding for projects in Alberta with TransAlta (coal-fired power plant) and Royal Dutch Shell (crude upgrading plant). Minister Raitt said CCS was “the best tool” available at the moment to deal with the environmental sustainability of hydrocarbon projects, such as the oil sands, which she said will continue to play an important role in North American energy security.

http://www.reuters.com/article/GCA-GreenBusiness/idUSTRE5A956Z20091110

Spain's windfarms set new national record for electricity generation (Guardian, 9 November 2009)

Due to favourable weather conditions, Spain’s wind farms broke a new record, covering 53% of the country’s total electricity demand for more than five hours on Sunday 8 November. While in previous years such massive output led to turbines being turned off, the spare electricity is now exported or used by hydroelectric plants to pump water back into their dams.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2009/nov/09/spain-national-record-power-windfarms

US Export-Import Bank Adopts Carbon Policy (Van Ness Feldman, 9 November 2009)

The Export-Import Bank of the United States (ExIm Bank) has released a “Carbon Policy” to guide more of its financing activities (that support US exports) towards less GHG-intensive sectors. This includes enhanced provisions for measuring and reporting GHG emissions resulting from projects receiving ExIm Bank support, and efforts to engage other OECD members on appropriate incentives for low-carbon exports and projects. ExIm Bank is now the first official export credit agency to adopt a GHG policy.

http://www.vnf.com/news-alerts-411.html; Policy statement: www.exim.gov/products/policies/environment/carbon_policy.cfm

Britain unveils nuclear energy expansion plans (Reuters, BBC, 9 November 2009)

The UK has approved proposals for 10 new nuclear power plant sites, meant to replace those currently operating, of which all but one will be shut down by 2025. The planning process to approve the plants is to be streamlined; the Infrastructure Planning Commission will make a decision on each application within a year of receipt. All but two of the proposed new sites are either next to existing or shut-down nuclear power plants.

http://www.reuters.com/article/environmentNews/idUSTRE5A83DL20091109?sp=true; http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/8349715.stm

UK DECC: Strategic direction for overhaul of energy system (DECC press release, 9 November 2009)

The UK Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC) presented six draft National Policy Statements (NPSs) before Parliament, which seek to reform planning procedures for fossil fuels, nuclear, renewables, transmission networks and oil and gas pipelines, with the sixth NPS comprising the Government’s final Framework for the Development of Clean Coal. The nuclear power strategy proposes 10 new nuclear power sites, while the clean coal framework proposes that all new coal-fired plants be required to demonstrate CCS capacity on at least 300 MW of their total output.

http://www.decc.gov.uk/en/content/cms/news/pn130/pn130.aspx; National Policy Statements consultation pages https://www.energynpsconsultation.decc.gov.uk/

China eyes closing coal-fired power plants in capital (Reuters, 9 November 2009)

According to China Energy News, four coal-fired power heating plants in Beijing may be “moved”, and replaced by gas-fired plants “with advanced environmental protection technologies”. Beijing’s power consumption reached 14 GW in August, with 2/3 of supplies generated outside Beijing. If implemented, the plan would further increase Beijing’s gas demand, with PetroChina already starting early-stage work for a third pipeline to send gas into the city in order to meet future demand.

http://www.reuters.com/article/environmentNews/idUSTRE5A83GG20091109

OECD Global Forum on Environment on Eco-Innovation (6 November 2009)

Last week’s OECD Global Forum on Eco-Innovation brought together delegates from business and government to exchange views on policy issues related to promoting eco-innovation. Presentations and background papers are available online.

www.oecd.org/environment/innovation/globalforum

European patent office to study green innovation (EurActiv, 6 November 2009)

The European Patent Office (EPO) will publish early results in April 2010 of a project to study how new patents for environmentally sound technologies have evolved in response to incentives and policy signals following the Kyoto Protocol. Raw data from the EPO indicates that patent applications for new energy innovations grew by an average of 6% per year from 1998 to 2008. At a seminar on eco-innovation, the EC’s Marcel Haag pointed to public private partnerships (PPPs) as central to eco-innovation, while EIB’s Tom Barrett said they were not always the right solution.

http://www.euractiv.com/en/enterprise-jobs/european-patent-office-study-green-innovation/article-186982

Accessing credit a daunting task for eco-innovators (EurActiv, 5 November 2009)

European companies called on the public sector to improve the flow of information to facilitate bank loans for eco-innovation projects, because banks typically lack the technical knowledge to grant such loans. The probably is particularly acute for SMEs, and for “un-glamorous” projects in energy efficiency and grid investments. One company suggests setting up a network of experts, contracted by the EU, which would issue guarantees for projects after assessment, which could then be brought to a bank for easier access to capital.

http://www.euractiv.com/en/innovation/accessing-credit-daunting-task-eco-innovators/article-186910#

RWE makes Denmark-sized mistake in CO2 emissions (Environmental Finance, 5 November 2009)

A wide range of methods to report GHG emissions, confusion about how to report which emissions, and companies not keeping up to date with changes in reporting methods, means companies can end up reporting inaccurate figures. Utility RWE overstated its emissions by 70 million tonnes, International Power reported them as 52 Mt on its website and 84.4 Mt to the Carbon Disclosure Project – after which a figure of 68.3 Mt was considered accurate. Environmental data firm Trucost’s managing director Simon Thomas said: “The GHG Protocol is well thought out. It sits behind most of the standards out there. I really don’t see the need for local embellishments.”

http://www.environmental-finance.com/onlinews/0511rwe.html

German nuclear policy skirts a taboo (Reuters, 5 November 2009)

Germany’s new coalition is opening the nuclear policy debate by proposing an extension of nuclear reactors scheduled for decommissioning. With 52% of the population still preferring the existing nuclear phase-out policy, the government is including in its plan a requirement that nuclear power profits be used for public purposes, such as research, safety and grid efficiency. It will also ensure that renewable sources are given priority over nuclear for grid access.

http://www.reuters.com/article/GCA-GreenBusiness/idUSTRE5A42P120091105?sp=true


Appliances and equipment


Sainsbury's will switch to CO2 to save CO2 (BusinessGreen, 10 November 2009)

UK retailer Sainsbury’s is planning on reducing its GHG emissions by tackling refrigeration, by far its largest source of emissions in supermarkets. It will replace fridges currently using ozone-depleting HCFCs and global-warming HFCs by more energy-efficient equipment that run on carbon dioxide. It plans to convert all stores to the new fridges by 2030, and said the lack of skilled engineers to build and maintain the equipment was a serious barrier to wider uptake.

http://www.businessgreen.com/business-green/news/2252845/sainsbury-switch-co2-save-co2

EU issues green vision for electrical engineering (ENDS Europe Daily, 9 November 2009)

The European Commission’s “Electra” communication outlines how the electrical engineering sector can contribute to climate and energy goals by delivering energy savings, notably in buildings, transport systems, industrial processes and power supplies. According to the commission key applications include smart energy meters, more efficient electric motors, and new high-power density batteries for electric cars. The commission is calling on the sector to commit to a voluntary agreement on the energy performance of several products under the Eco-design directive, without which the commission may propose minimum efficiency standards for transformers and other energy distribution infrastructure.

Electra communication: http://ec.europa.eu/enterprise/sectors/electrical/documents/electra_comm/electra_comm_2009_0594_en.pdf


Buildings


Trials start for innovative scheme to cut carbon from at least 200,000 London's homes by 2012 (City of London, 10 November 2009)

The City of London is launching a trial programme to bring various home retrofit programmes into a single scheme across London, aiming to undertake both simple and more substantial energy-saving measures to 200,000 homes by 2012. GBP 9.5 million have been made available to kick-start the programme, which will hopefully attract more capital.

http://www.london.gov.uk/view_press_release.jsp?releaseid=24244

U.S. EPA sticks Energy Star label on millionth home (Reuters, 10 November 2009)

The US EPA’s Energy Star label for homes has been awarded to 1 million homes as of Tuesday (10 November). The labelling programme for homes began in 1995, and Energy Star homes are at least 15% more energy efficient than traditional houses. Though more expensive to build, EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson says owners recover the expense within 5 years from savings on their energy bills. In 2008, 17% of single-family homes built had an EPA label, up from 12% the year before.

http://www.reuters.com/article/GCA-GreenBusiness/idUSTRE5A934E20091110

Subsidizing green buildings reduces greenhouse gases and creates jobs (Cop15, 6 November 2009)

WWF and E3G have released “scorecards”, assessing the best and worst policies in G-20 countries that work towards creating a “Green new deal”: helping the economy while reducing GHG emissions and moving towards a low-carbon economy. In first place are Germany’s policies targeting the building sector, covering its standards, subsidies, grants and retrofit programmes. In the worst policies, subsidies for coal production took first place.

http://en.cop15.dk/news/view+news?newsid=2535; WWF/E3G Report: http://assets.panda.org/downloads/scorecards_2009_11_02_online_version_final.pdf


Transport


China approves methanol-based "clean coal" fuel for use in vehicles (BusinessGreen, 11 November 2009)

China’s national and provincial governments have been promoting the use of methanol as a fuel for automobiles, through subsidies for engine conversion, a standard for M85 fuel to be effective 1 December, and a line of dual-fuel cars planned by automaker Geely. Methanol is touted as a domestically produced fuel source with lower tailpipe emissions. However, 70% of methanol’s feedstock comes from coal, it has half the energy content of gasoline, and costs USD 260/tonne to produce, vs. USD 150/tonne for methanol made from natural gas.

http://www.businessgreen.com/business-green/news/2252925/china-sanctions-methanol-clean

Low-emission Vehicles Catch On Faster Than Expected (JFS, 8 November 2009)

In an assessment of a 2004 policy target of increasing the number of low-emission vehicles to 10 million and the number of fuel cell vehicles to 50,000 by the year 2010, Japan’s Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications (MIAC) in June found that the target for low-emission vehicles had been reached in 2005, and that low-emission vehicles owned by the end of fiscal year 2007 reached 16 million. However, only 42 fuel-cell vehicles had been sold by 2007. Natural gas and electric vehicles still only made up a small portion of low-emission cars, the majority being ministry approved fuel-efficient and low-emission vehicles, as well as hybrid and biofuel cars.

http://www.japanfs.org/en/pages/029475.html

Sainsbury's flicks switch on London electric car recharge network (BusinessGreen, 6 November 2009)

UK supermarket chain Sainsbury’s is installing electric vehicle recharging stations at 11 stores across London, which they say means that drivers in the city will never be more than a few miles away from a recharging station. The London stations are the first part of a broader strategy to install electric vehicle recharge stations across Sainsbury locations in the UK. Sainsbury's expects the need for convenient recharge facilities to become important, and plans that all stores in large cities will offer the free service in 10 years’ time.

http://www.businessgreen.com/business-green/news/2252650/sainsbury-flicks-switch-london

F1 designer unveils electric car (BBC, 5 November 2009)

A former Formula 1 designer has launched prototype electric cars using a manufacturing process known as iStream. Rather than stamped out of metal sheets, the components are computer designed and then welded together. The cars are lightweight, and the latest model is designed to travel up to 100 miles between recharges and can travel 60m/h. The car is designed for urban use.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/8344532.stm

How to boost fuel efficiency? Raise taxes, executives say (Reuters, 4 November 2009)

Auto industry executives propose a simple but politically difficult solution to get Americans to buy fuel-efficient cars: raise the fuel tax to the level at which people start caring about energy efficiency. The only way this can be done, they argue, is if tax increases are done slowly and predictably. Some also suggested the strain could be limited through rebates and subsidies.

http://www.reuters.com/article/GCA-GreenBusiness/idUSTRE5A33NI20091104?sp=true


Emissions trading/Carbon market


Australian government: carbon deal will be difficult (Reuters, 10 November 2009)

While Australia’s opposition leader Malcolm Turnbull seeks a deal with the government on cap-and-trade legislation currently stuck in the Senate, the Senate opposition leader has stepped forward to say that the majority of the party did not believe in anthropogenic climate change, while others say they will simply not vote for cap-and-trade legislation. Such infighting has reduced the prospect of a political deal on the legislation by December’s Copenhagen climate talks.

http://www.reuters.com/article/environmentNews/idUSTRE5A90QX20091110

US Senator Stabenow Releases Domestic Offsets Bill (Van Ness Feldman, 9 November 2009)

The Clean Energy Partnerships Act of 2009 (S. 2729) was released in the Senate by Democratic Senator Debbie Stabenow. The bill would create a domestic offsets programme within a federal cap-and-trade programme, along with other financial incentives to the agriculture and forestry sectors for GHG emissions reduction. Offset provisions are generally more flexible then in the existing Kerry-Boxer and Waxman-Markey bills. Well received by industry and pro-offset groups, the Environmental Defense Fund qualified their support for the bill by saying it had to do more “to guarantee that offsets are environmentally effective.”

http://www.vnf.com/news-alerts-411.html

Environmentalist-Industry Alliance Demands Tighter GHG Market Regulation (Van Ness Feldman, 9 November 2009)

A group of over thirty environmental organizations, agricultural and petroleum marketers, and consumer advocates sent a letter to Senators John Kerry and Barbara Boxer, for climate change legislation to include stronger regulation of carbon markets than would be provided under legislation approved by the House Financial Services and Agriculture Committees. The letter asked that all allowances and derivatives be traded on exchanges; for GHG markets to exclude index funds and other large investment funds from trading; and for the relationship between GHG markets and other commodities markets to be studied. The letter emphasised that regulatory frameworks must be in place before legislation creating markets for allowances and offset credits is enacted.

http://www.vnf.com/news-alerts-411.html

Poland’s first Green Investment Scheme agreed with Spain (EIB press release, 9 November 2009)

Poland has completed its first sale of AAUs worth EUR 25 million to Spain, to be facilitated by the EBRD and EIB’s Multilateral Carbon Credit Fund. The sale will be co-financed by the EIB in the amount of EUR 75 million, bringing the total amount Poland will invest in GHG mitigation activities to EUR 100 million. The greening programme will be managed by Poland’s National Environmental Fund, and will include grants to biomass, biogas electricity and heat production projects, as well as electricity transmission network expansion.

http://www.eib.org/about/press/2009/2009-216-polands-first-green-investment-scheme-agreed-with-spain.htm

Study suggests peat CO2 credits more valuable (Reuters, 5 November 2009)

Scientists are finding that emissions from peat lands are more important than previously thought. The uncertainty surrounding estimates of how much carbon is stored in peat lands has meant they cannot be accurately valued on the carbon market. A team of peat experts is now developing a method to estimate emissions from tropical peat lands, a joint Australian-Indonesian project that was launched a year ago.

http://www.reuters.com/article/GCA-GreenBusiness/idUSTRE5A50OV20091106?sp=true

EU lawmakers approve helping industry with CO2 cost (Reuters, 4 November 2009)

The European Parliament approved a list of industrial sectors and sub-sectors that will qualify for free allocation of permits as of 2013 under the next phase of the EU ETS. These include metals, textiles, building materials and ceramics. The list will be combined with a benchmarking selection to be finalised next year, which will provide free permits to the 10% most efficient installations in each trade-exposed sector. Less efficient installations will need to purchase 20% of their permits in 2013.

http://www.reuters.com/article/GCA-GreenBusiness/idUSTRE5A33CA20091104?sp=true

Halt global carbon trade expansion: Friends of the Earth (Reuters, 4 November 2009)

Environment group Friends of the Earth (FoE) is arguing that carbon markets should not be reformed or expanded: the world simply does not have enough time to establish a global cap-and-trade scheme in a way that would avoid dangerous climate change. FoE argues for direct regulation over plants or sectors, taxation, and more government spending on renewable energy.

http://www.reuters.com/article/GCA-GreenBusiness/idUSTRE5A401L20091105


Climate change negotiations


Climate takes back seat at APEC (Reuters, 11 November 2009)

A draft leaders’ declaration of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) forum obtained by Reuters indicates limiting temperature increase to 2 degrees, as well as emissions peaking within the next few years (with a longer time-frame for developing countries) and reducing 50% by 2050 from 1990 levels. The declaration would also reinforce an earlier goal of reducing energy intensity by at least 25% by 2030 and boosting trade in green goods and services. Analysts believe climate change will not be a major issue at this weekend’s APEC forum, and it remains to be seen what elements will remain in the final declaration.

http://www.reuters.com/article/environmentNews/idUSTRE5AA0L420091111?sp=true

Kenya says makes climate effort before Copenhagen (Reuters, 11 November 2009)

Kenya’s Prime Minister Raila Odinga said the country would not wait for Copenhagen, and will explore renewable energy options as well as restore its forest cover, including reforestation programmes and the preservation of the Mau forest. The government will need to relocate 20,000 families living in the Mau forest.

http://www.reuters.com/article/environmentNews/idUSTRE5AA2VS20091111?sp=true

U.S. eyes deal with China on climate change monitoring (Reuters, 10 November 2009)

A top US State Department official, Robert Hormats, told Reuters that at meetings in Beijing next month the US would look for progress on the “internationalisation” of domestic commitments and actions on climate change, both on how these can be recorded, followed-up on, and monitored, “to keep each of our countries aware of what we've done and to categorize what we've done." He also said some clean energy projects may be unveiled, including “green” cars.

http://www.reuters.com/article/environmentNews/idUSTRE5A91OD20091110?feedType=RSS&feedName=environmentNews&sp=true

Maldives fails to convince peers to go "carbon neutral" (Reuters, 10 November 2009)

A group of developing countries – among the world’s lowest GHG emitters and those most vulnerable to climate change impacts – agreed to “commence greening our economies as our contribution toward achieving carbon neutrality." While the Maldives were looking for all countries to commit to be carbon neutral within a decade, as its President Mohamed Nasheed has, he said the summit at least agreed that “development and green technology or less-carbon development is possible."

http://www.reuters.com/article/environmentNews/idUSTRE5A948P20091110

EPA head says "proud" of U.S. climate efforts (Reuters, 9 November 2009)

In an interview with Reuters, US EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson said that despite final climate change legislation not being passed, she believed that "there is no one who can look at what we're doing and not think that the United States is engaged here." She pointed to progress with moving the legislation through Congress, and independent measures such as fuel efficiency standards and the promotion of renewable energy sources.

http://www.reuters.com/article/environmentNews/idUSTRE5A85J820091109

Obama will go to Copenhagen to clinch deal (Reuters, 9 November 2009)

US President Barack Obama said he was optimistic that the US and China, along with other large emitters such as Europe and future large emitters such as India, would be able to put together framework for an agreement on climate change that others could then buy into. He also said he was confident Copenhagen could create “a set of principles, building blocks, that allow for ongoing and continuing progress on the issue”. President Obama also said he would go to Copenhagen should his presence make a difference in getting agreement.

http://www.reuters.com/article/environmentNews/idUSTRE5A85AH20091109

G20 makes little progress on climate financing (Reuters, 8 November 2009)

Following heated arguments and debates so intense that a French official said climate change risked not being mentioned in the final statement, G20 finance ministers finally agreed on the need “to increase significantly and urgently the scale and predictability of finance to implement an ambitious international agreement." This was disappointing to some EU officials, who said the EU had a concrete offer and would have liked to reach an agreement.

http://www.reuters.com/article/GCA-GreenBusiness/idUSTRE5A60QQ20091108?sp=true

TIME: Russia is a safe haven for climate deniers (Cop15, 6 November 2009)

According to a story in TIME magazine, Russia will reluctantly sign on to a global climate change agreement, given it benefits from favourable conditions under the current regime. This combined with remaining scepticism regarding anthropogenic global warming and fossil fuel export revenues, may lead to foot dragging. The magazine quotes Elena Chistyakova, Chief Advisor to the Russian parliament’s foreign affairs committee: “Russia will drag out the ratification as long as they can. And if they ratify it, then they’ll drag out the implementation. There’s just no political will.”

http://en.cop15.dk/news/view+news?newsid=2532

China says studying weaker framework climate deal (Reuters, 6 November 2009)

China is currently weighing the possibility that Copenhagen will only result in a framework agreement rather than a legally binding treaty. In this case, China would want to ensure a future negotiations respect the principles laid out in the Kyoto Protocol. A framework deal would also need to reflect elements that have been agreed in principle, such as on technology transfer, funding, and emissions limitations.

http://www.reuters.com/article/environmentNews/idUSTRE5A51BC20091106

No Binding treaties expected in Copenhagen

We keep putting more CO2 in the atmosphere, and yet, can't get binding treaties.

Binding Treaty No Longer a Realistic Goal for Climate Summit, UN Chief Concedes

by Ben Webster, Environment Editor

A legally binding agreement on cutting greenhouse gas emissions is no longer a realistic goal for next month's Copenhagen summit, the UN Secretary-General says.

According to Ban Ki Moon such an agreement will not be signed next month and the most likely outcome is voluntary targets, which countries could announce but then ignore.

He said that several key countries were not ready to sign up to binding targets and that the best the world could hope for from the summit would be "political commitments". Mr Ban said he hoped that they would be legally binding within a year but would be dependent on each country.

His comments, made in London, marked a significant retreat from the UN's previous plan for a new treaty to be signed at Copenhagen to replace the Kyoto Protocol, which expires in 2012. Mr Ban said: "It may be realistic if we think Copenhagen will not be the final word on all these matters. But if we agree on a strong politically binding commitment that will be, I think, a reasonable success. Then the post-Copenhagen negotiations will continue so that we have a legally binding agreement as soon as possible.

"Each and every country has their own domestic constraints when they go back - no country will be totally free, that is the difficulty. It is a very complex process including verification systems, targets and money. It is not an easy task. That is why I am saying Copenhagen is not the final word."

Mr Ban also said that developed nations would have to increase the amount that they paid to poorer countries to help them to adapt to climate change. Asked whether he believed that the European Union's proposal of a fund of up to $50 billion of public money a year would be sufficient, he said: "As we go into the future, I think that should be scaled up."

He said that generous funding needed to be agreed to build trust among developing countries, which have accused richer nations of creating climate change but leaving them to face the consequences. "We should admit that there are some suspicions and distrust, particularly on the part of developing countries."

He also suggested that the global target for limiting the temperature increase to 2C above pre-industrial levels might have to be adjusted because it could still result in sea-level rises inundating many small islands. "These small-island developing countries say that it should be a maximum of 1.5C. For them it's a matter of life and death."

Mr Ban said that he was working closely with members of the US Senate, which is debating proposed legislation on cutting carbon dioxide emissions. He also suggested that President Obama and other world leaders needed to be present at the end of the Copenhagen summit to ensure an ambitious political agreement. "The urgency and importance of the work requires political leadership. I would expect many leaders will come."

Mr Ban was speaking as 50 African countries boycotted UN meetings on climate change in Barcelona. They accused developed nations of settingweak targets for cutting emissions. The African countries said that they would not discuss how developing countries could reduce their emissions until there were more stretching commitments from richer nations. "I don't think we can get to a result in the way we're going now," said Kamel Djemouai, the Algerian negotiator who chairs the Africa group.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change said that developed countries should reduce emissions by 25 to 40 per cent from 1990 levels by 2020, but the targets announced have fallen short.

Anders Turesson, the chief delegate from Sweden, which holds the EU presidency, said that while EU leaders shared the Africans' concern about the low level of pledges, their tactic of limiting the discussion to emission targets was unproductive.

The Peace Economy

Path to a Peace Economy
Published on Saturday, October 31, 2009 by YES! Magazine

David Korten presented the following speech on October 19, 2009 during a keynote lecture at the Economics of Peace Conference in Sonoma, California.

by David Korten

My subject tonight is the Path to a Peace Economy, based on ideas elaborated in my most recent book, Agenda for a New Economy, and the New Economy issue of YES! Magazine.
I start with a basic truth. A persistent pattern of violence against people, community, and nature is inherent in the institutional structure of our existing economy.
You don't treat a cancer with Band-Aids, and we can't resolve our current economic crisis with marginal regulatory adjustments. It is time to rethink and restructure.

Systemic Failure
Our economic institutions have been designed by Wall Street interests to secure personal economic and political power in the hands of members of a small ruling elite. They do it well. Unfortunately, it is the wrong purpose. We need a top to bottom redesign to put in place the institutions of a new economic system, a New Peace Economy, designed to share power and resources in a world that works for all.
So how bad is the failure of our current system? It is public knowledge. A brief review, however, is in order.

Economic Collapse
The Wall Street financial collapse has stripped tens of millions of previously middle class Americans of their jobs, homes, and retirement assets and plunged them into poverty and despair. The federal government and the Federal Reserve have responded by pouring trillions of dollars into the Wall Street financial institutions that created the crisis with minimal conditions and oversight, all in the hope that some of this money would trickle down as loans to the productive economy. The recipient financial institutions used the money instead to fund acquisitions that make "too big to fail" banks even bigger, pay dividends to shareholders who by market rules should have been wiped out in bankruptcy proceedings, award obscene bonuses to criminally culpable executives, and launch new predatory financial scams that create new systemic risks.

Wall Street says we have now weathered the crisis, which basically means the profits and bonuses of its most rapacious financial institutions have been restored. The jobs, homes, and retirement assets of ordinary Americans have not. To the contrary, job losses, bankruptcies, and housing foreclosures continue.

Social Collapse
This, however, is only the tip of the iceberg. In the absence of progressive tax and public service policies, the institutions of the old economy create an ever-growing wealth gap between the profligate few and the desperate many. This obscene injustice is tearing apart the social fabric of family and community essential to a healthy society. The resulting fear, insecurity, and sense of injustice fuel the forces of violence as expressed in terrorism, genocide, political deadlock, and high rates of crime, incarceration, and suicide. All are both consequences and indicators of a failed economic system.

Environmental Collapse
Now we come to the system's ultimate failure: environmental collapse. The rules and institutions of the Old Economy drive endless growth in wasteful and destructive forms of material consumption that deplete soil and water, disrupt climate patterns, and convert Earth's natural capital into toxic garbage, thus reducing Earth's capacity to support life, creating massive human displacement, and intensifying a violent competition for Earth's remaining resources that finds expression in bloated military budgets and wars of occupation.

Start with virtually any dysfunction or injustice in our society and it traces back to a failed economic system. Follow the money, and it leads ultimately to Wall Street.

A Failed Experiment
For some thirty years, we have been engaged as a nation and as a species in a social engineering experiment to test the claims of an extremist economic ideology known as market fundamentalism.

Ideology of the Sociopath
You've heard the sermon preached by its most fanatic true believers:
There is no public interest—only an aggregation of private interests, which are best served when we each pursue our individual greed in a marketplace unfettered by rules and other forms of government interference. Public assets must be privatized to increase their productivity and efficiency by selling them to the highest bidder. The faster we consume, the faster the economy grows and the wealthier we become as a rising tide lifts all boats.

Inequality is essential to social order and prosperity. It provides us with wealthy investors able to bear the risks of investing in the creation of jobs and a working class motivated by economic insecurity to work hard at those jobs at a globally competitive wage. There is no alternative. If a few get rich, instead of condemning them out of envy—which is a mortal sin—celebrate their good fortune, because as the rich get richer, wealth trickles down and we all get richer. In America, anyone can succeed who applies himself. Failure is a sign of a flawed character.
Is this story familiar? It is no mystery why this economic theology leads to ruthless competition, obscene accumulation, and reckless consumption that destroys the environment and tears apart the social fabric. It embodies the moral philosophy of the sociopath.

It is now time to acknowledge the lessons of this disastrous experiment. Markets do have an essential role in a healthy economy, but market extremism does not. It turns out that markets do need rules, there is an essential role for government, we all have more when resources are shared, and Jesus and the other great religious teachers were right. We are members of a community and we all do better when we care for one another and act with mindful consideration of the needs of others.

Wall Street as Operating System
The institutions of the economy determine how, as a society, we allocate whatever resources are available to us. In an earlier time, we organized ourselves into clans and tribes in which we cared for one another and allocated resources to secure the well-being of all. Resource allocation decisions were local and relationships were mediated by bonds of mutual caring and security. Money in the earliest human societies was unknown. In our current society, most relationships on which we depend for the basics of survival, including food, water, shelter, and health care, are mediated by money. This gives enormous power to those who control the creation and allocation of money. In our country, that would be Wall Street.

To use a computer analogy, the Wall Street financial system has become the operating system of the economy and the society. The values and priorities of Wall Street thus become the defining values and priorities of the larger society. Wall Street has one value—money—and one goal: to maximize financial returns to those who control the money system. Social or environmental consequences find no place in Wall Street decision making.

A Choice-Making Species
In a few minutes, I will take up the question of how we can change this. In the meantime, I want to put our situation in its deeper historical, evolutionary, and spiritual context. For the past 5,000 years, we humans have been living in a cultural trance of our own making that alienates us from the land, our true nature, and our place in the cosmos.

So who are we humans? From where did we come? And for what purpose? Here is how I understand the big story based on the data of science, the wisdom of indigenous peoples, and the teachings of Jesus and other mystics.

Hundreds of thousands of years ago, the Great Integral Spirit that expresses itself through what we know as creation embarked on a bold and risky experiment in reflective consciousness: bringing forth a species able to step back and to reflect on creation in awe and wonder and to participate as a conscious co-creator in the continued creative unfolding. We humans are that species.

Our reflective consciousness gives us the capacity to choose our future with conscious collective intent. It was a risky experiment, however, because the capacity for self-awareness gives us an ego that can run out of control if it forgets it exists only as part of a larger whole.

In our earliest days, we humans raised our children collectively in the clan, tribe, or village, initiating them to the ways of life and the need to care for our Earth Mother as she in turn cares for us.

Over millennia, as our human consciousness was awakening and our capacities for self-direction grew, we learned to communicate through speech, master fire, domesticate plants and animals, and construct houses of skins, wood, stone, and dried mud. We developed the arts of pottery, painting, weaving, and carving. We undertook vast continental and transcontinental migrations to populate the planet and adapted to vastly different physical topographies and climates. We created complex languages and social codes that allowed for life in larger communities.
Then, some 5,000 years ago, something began to go terribly wrong. We turned from the ways of Earth Community and embraced the ways of Empire. It was a time of separation and forgetting. Community, partnership, and the celebration of life gave way to individualism, domination, and violence.

The few expropriated the wealth of the many. The masculine drove out the feminine. We continued to worship the Sky Father, but turned against our Earth Mother. We came to value the power to kill and destroy more highly than the ability to create and nurture life. Conquest became the measure of greatness. Economies came to be based on servitude and eventually money became the prime arbiter of human relationships.

Consider the dynamics inherent in a dominator system. With a few on the top and the many on the bottom, everyone is placed in competition with everyone else for the favored positions and the bonds of caring and sharing are broken. The creative energy of the species is redirected from securing the well-being of the tribe to advancing the technological instruments of war and the social instruments of domination.

The winners expropriate the available resources to maintain the system of domination. Positions of power are too often claimed by the most ruthless and psychologically damaged members of society. And so it has been for 5,000 years
If this discussion of Empire sounds familiar, it is for good reason. The kings and emperors have been replaced by corporate CEOs and hedge fund managers, but we are still living in the Era of Empire—and the basic dynamics still hold.
In the past 100 years, we humans have achieved technological mastery beyond the imagination of previous generations. Yet, lacking in the wisdom of place and community that is the heritage of indigenous peoples, the cultures we call mainstream have lost their way—forgetting what it means to be human and denying our connection to the web of planetary life. The time has come to rediscover our humanity and bring ourselves back into balance with our living Earth Mother. Creation has presented us with our final examination to determine whether we are a species worthy of survival. We must not, need not, fail.

When Money Rules
At its core, our current economic crisis is a spiritual crisis framed by this well-known scriptural verse from the Sermon on the Mount:
No one can serve two masters: for either he will hate the one, and love the other; or else he will hold to the one, and despise the other. Ye cannot serve God and mammon. Matthew 6:24.

Mammon refers to wealth as an object of worship; the worship of a false god; a form of demonic possession; an evil force in opposition to Life.

Our worship of Mammon is the consequence of an illusion: the illusion that money is wealth and that making money is synonymous with producing wealth. The truth, as Wall Street has so dramatically demonstrated, is very different. Money isn't wealth, and it is quite easy to make lots of money without producing anything of value to the larger society. Money, the most mysterious of human inventions, a magical number of no meaning or existence outside the human mind, has displaced life as our object of sacred veneration and become the ultimate arbiter of human priorities. Money determines the fate of nations and shapes the boom and bust cycles of economic life. It allows some to live in grand opulence in the midst of scarcity, while confining others to death by starvation in the midst of plenty.

This is money as a system of power, a tyranny all the more complete because it is largely invisible to those it enslaves. To liberate ourselves from the tyranny, we must demystify money and recognize that it is a mere number created from nothing with a simple accounting entry when a bank issues a loan. As economist John Kenneth Galbraith once famously observed, the process by which money is created is "so simple it repels the mind."

When you take out a loan from a bank, the bank opens an account in your name and enters the amount of the loan in its ledger. That becomes a liability on the bank's accounts, offset by the corresponding asset of your promise to repay with interest. Two simple accounting entries, and money magically appears from nowhere. This simple fact makes banking a very profitable business and is the key to the ability of the institutions of Wall Street and its global counterparts to rule the world.

Mayer Amschel Rothschild, founder of the Rothschild banking dynasty, once famously said, "Permit me to issue and control the money of a nation and I care not who makes its laws."

That pretty well sums it up. In our current system, this control is centralized in and monopolized by Wall Street institutions that value only money and seek only private accumulation. From a societal perspective it is a devastatingly unwise and destructive arrangement.

Money, particularly money that is created out of nothing without any contribution to the creation of anything of corresponding value, is phantom wealth—it has no substance or intrinsic utility. Creating phantom wealth is a Wall Street specialty. They call it financial innovation. I call it theft.

A Real Wealth Economy
So what is real wealth? We might say it is anything that has a real intrinsic value: land, labor, knowledge, food, education.

Most valuable of all are those forms of wealth that are beyond price: Love, a healthy, happy child, a job that provides a sense of self-worth and contribution, membership in a strong caring community, a healthy vibrant natural environment, peace—none of which find any place on Wall Street balance sheets or in our calculations of GDP.

Pull back the curtain, as the financial crash has done, and the truth is revealed that Wall Street acquires its power by destroying real living wealth to create phantom financial wealth. Wall Street is more than immoral, it is an institutional manifestation of evil.

So what will the New Economy look like, and how will we achieve it?

Living Earth
We begin with a recognition that the old economy is based not only on the illusion that money is wealth, but as well the illusion that we live in a world of open frontiers with endless abundant resources free for the taking. We are only now as a species awakening to the reality that we are passengers on a living spaceship and must learn to live in balanced relationship with our local ecosystems everywhere, working with nature to reuse and recycle everything and to eliminate the release of any substance that nature cannot readily absorb and detoxify.

Spaceship Earth, our Birth Mother, is endowed with a wondrous self-managing, self-regulating life support system that has nourished us as a species through the years of our growing up. As a loving parent, she has absorbed the insults and injuries of our reckless adolescent behavior. Our numbers and the power of our technology, however, now exceed her capacity to absorb.

Defining Principles
We must now restructure our economic institutions to align with three foundational principles: Ecological balance. Shared prosperity. And living democracy. Let's take them one by one.

1. Ecological Balance: It's spaceship management 101. We must bring ourselves into balance with Earth's life support system-the biosphere. This requires something you don't normally hear mentioned at economics conferences. We need to reduce aggregate human consumption, global GDP, starting with the most profligate nations. I'll say more about this later. Follow me closely here: We must simultaneously redesign our human economies to function everywhere as subsystems of the local ecosystems that comprise Earth's biosphere.

2. Shared Prosperity: As we act to reduce aggregate consumption, we need to recognize that Earth's bounty is the shared birthright of all living beings and learn to share it equitably to the benefit of all. The potential benefits of sharing prosperity go far beyond securing our mutual survival. According to a massive body of public health research, people in societies in which wealth and work are equitably shared enjoy greater physical and emotional health, stronger families and communities, less violence, and healthier natural environments than people in more unequal societies. Societies that are more equal are also more democratic and more resilient in the face of crisis.

This has important implications for those of us who live in the United States. UK social epidemiologist Richard Wilkinson observes that among the world's 30 richest countries we in the United States are number one in many things, including homicide rates, teenage pregnancy rates, rates of imprisonment, and numerous other social dysfunctions. We are also number one in the size of the income gap between our richest and poorest members. This is not a coincidence.
The reason is simple. Greater inequality means greater psychological and emotional stress and insecurity for everyone, including for those at the top. Great sharing means less stress and insecurity.

3. Living Democracy means exactly what it says: living democracy as a daily practice of civic engagement. In a living democracy, popular sovereignty is integral to the fabric of community life. Living democracies celebrate and affirm diversity within a framework of individual rights, community responsibility, and mutual accountability. Their political and economic institutions support local decision making within a framework of cooperation and mutually agreed rules.
Ecological Balance, Shared Prosperity, and Living Democracy: three foundational principles of the new living peace economies on which the human future depends.

A Familiar Alternative
Those of us who came of age during the latter part of the twentieth century were taught that we are limited to a choice between two economic models: the model of Wall Street capitalism or the model of Soviet communism. We in the West chose Wall Street capitalism based on the false claim that capitalism is the natural champion of democracy and market choice. Now we see the reality that when Wall Street capitalism has its way, our political choices are limited to politicians who serve Wall Street interests and our market choices are limited to those that generate the greatest Wall Street profits.

Living Market Economies
We're not supposed to notice that both capitalism and communism, as we have known them, are simply alternative models of elite rule.

We have another option that is rarely mentioned, a planetary system of local living market economies that distribute and root decision-making power everywhere in inclusive, democratic, place-based living Earth communities, much in the manner of healthy ecosystems.

Many of the features of this New Economy option are more familiar than we might at first realize. They bear substantial resemblance to the Main Street economies many of us knew as we were growing up in the 1950s, 60s, and 70s.

The America We Once Knew
Although we had not yet dealt as a nation with crucial issues of race, gender, and the environment, the market rules of that day protected the public interest as we then understood it. Strong labor unions secured worker rights and assured a living wage. Our middle class was the envy of the world.

Banks were local and strictly regulated. Anti-trust protected the public from the abuse of corporate monopoly power. Cities and towns had vibrant lively Main Street economies served by local independent businesses that were accountable to the community and honored community values. And imagine this: Many insurance companies, hospitals, and financial institutions were organized as nonprofit cooperatives accountable to their members.

Most manufacturing was domestic, much of our food production was local, and we had a positive trade balance. Few families needed more than one car and per capita energy use was modest by current standards. There was substantial non-market household production and the typical wage for one employed working person was adequate to support a family.

Wall Street Take-Over
From the late 70s onward, Wall Street market fundamentalists mobilized to roll back the rules to unleash a consolidation of corporate power and de-link it from public accountability. Their right-wing social-engineering experiment allowed Wall Street to colonize the Main Street economy, decimated the middle class, undermined democracy and sense of community, reduced our national happiness index, and brought financial, social, and environmental devastation wherever it has reached.

Markets can and do support individual liberty and the public interest, but only when they operate within a framework of appropriate market rules and are complemented and supported by strong, democratically elected governments that enforce these rules and assure the provision of essential public services and infrastructure.

Appropriate rules support local ownership, bar private monopolies except within a strong regulatory framework, secure cost internalization and balanced trade among communities and nations, and prohibit monopoly pricing, market manipulation, and financial speculation.

We hear frequent reference these days to a distinction between the Wall Street economy and the Main Street economy. The difference is crucial.

Wall Street is in the business of using money to make money for people who have money without the burden of producing anything of value in return. Wall Street creates money out of nothing, engages in predatory lending at exorbitant interest rates, and uses its control of money to hold the public purse hostage to its demands. It is best understood as a criminal syndicate engaged in counterfeiting, usury, tax evasion, fraud, and extortion rackets—and should be treated accordingly.

Liberating Main Street
The Main Street economy is comprised of local businesses and working people engaged in producing real goods and services to meet real needs and providing meaningful, secure, family wage employment for the people of their communities. It is the logical foundation on which to build a new real wealth economy of green jobs, responsible community-oriented businesses, and sound environmental practices. Although devastated by the predatory intrusions of Wall Street corporations, it is now in revival as communities all across the nation rally to declare their independence from Wall Street and rebuild the community-serving economies they once knew.

No Wall Too Tall
Bringing down Wall Street may seem a daunting challenge to some of you. To get ourselves in the right spirit, I want to share an inspirational song by Raffi that he recorded to celebrate the launch of Agenda for a New Economy at the Trinity Wall Street Episcopal Church last January. It's called "No Wall Too Tall." Get up and dance with me as you listen to the words.

How many of you here grew up on Raffi's music or have children who did? Raffi is currently devoting his life to an initiative he calls Child Honoring based on the simple truth that a world that works for all the children will work for everyone.

A Three Part Strategy
So how can we bring down Wall Street's imperial tyranny?
We the people, as global civil society, are engaging this challenge on three strategic fronts:

1. We are changing the defining stories of the mainstream culture. It is a simple but rarely noted truth that every great transformational social movement begins with a conversation aimed at challenging a prevailing cultural story. The civil rights movement changed the story on race. The environmental movement changed the story about the human relationship to nature. The women's movement changed the story on gender. Our current task is to change the prevailing stories about the nature of wealth, the purpose of the economy, and our human nature. YES! Magazine and my most recent book Agenda for a New Economy are useful tools for organizing the necessary conversations.

2. We are creating a new economic reality from the bottom up as millions of people the world over are working to strengthen locally owned human-scale business and family farms, developing local financial institutions, reclaiming farm and forest lands, changing land use policies to concentrate population in compact communities that reduce automobile dependence, retrofitting their buildings for energy conservation, and otherwise moving toward local self reliance in food, energy, and other basic essentials. The Business Alliance for Local Living Economies (BALLE) is building a national support system for these initiatives.

3. We are changing the rules: Current law and public policy largely favor the Wall Street economy to the exclusion of Main Street economy. We must work together to promote and support political action at local, national, and global levels to change the balance in the favor of Main Street.

A New Economy Agenda
I'm currently focusing my energy on the New Economy Working Group, a partnership between Institute for Policy Studies in Washington DC, YES! Magazine, the Business Alliance for Local Living Economies, and the PCDForum. We are working to articulate a comprehensive New Economy agenda.

Here are five essential elements:

1. Implement Living Wealth Indicators as the basis for evaluating economic performance: Because we get what we measure, we should measure what we want. We currently evaluate economic performance against GDP, which is an indicator of the rate at which the economy is extracting useful resources from nature, converting them to saleable products, and disposing of them as toxic waste into our air, water, and soils—all for the primary purpose of making rich people richer. And this is what we get.

Stock price indices, another favorite indicator, measure the rate at which people who own financial assets are increasing their economic advantage over everyone else.
Imagine how different things would be if we designed and managed the economy to maximize indicators of the health and vitality of our children, families, communities, and natural systems—while simultaneously reducing environmental burdens by redistributing available resources from destructive and non-essential uses to beneficial ones that improve the quality of life for everyone, create meaningful beneficial jobs, and heal the environment.

We can end war and convert to a peace economy; reorganize our infrastructure to eliminate automobile-dependence; curtail advertising and redirect those creative and media resources to education; end financial speculation and redirect investment to productive sustainable enterprises devoted to meeting community needs. This list is just a start. It is about setting sensible priorities.

2. Create a Real Wealth Money System: Last night Don Shaffer spoke of redirecting the flow of money from global to local financial markets and moving from complex, opaque, anonymous, short-term financial relationships to direct, transparent, personal, and long-term financial relationships. This defines our charge for redesigning and restructuring our systems of money creation and allocation.
Our existing Wall Street financial system centralizes the power to create and allocate money in an interlinked institutional system of mega-banks, hedge funds, private equity funds, the Federal Reserve, and captive regulatory bodies operating in secret beyond public oversight and accountability that I earlier described as a criminal syndicate.

The Bush and Obama administrations both pumped literally trillions of dollars of bailout money into the corrupt Wall Street financial institutions responsible for the current economic mess. Note here the essential difference between the bailout money and the Obama stimulus money. Bailout money goes to Wall Street financial institutions in the hope that some of it will trickle down to Main Street in the form of loans. Stimulus money bypasses Wall Street and directly funds the creation of productive jobs to create beneficial goods, services, and public infrastructure projects.

So imagine that instead of a bailout for the corrupt banks that caused the crash, the government had taken them over, broken them up, and spun off the pieces as individual community-based financial institutions—community banks, savings and loans, and credit unions. Some might be organized as private for-profits. Others as nonprofits or cooperatives. Some might be owned by state or local governments. All would function as properly regulated, community accountable public utilities.
Now imagine that the trillions of dollars that went to bailing out Wall Street banks had instead been added to the stimulus package to directly help homeowners facing foreclosure, create new jobs, and to fund education, health care, and public infrastructure. Further, imagine that the recipients of the stimulus money then deposited a portion of it as savings in these community financial institutions to be continuously recycled as low interest or no interest loans to grow local businesses, expand home ownership, and finance public investment. How different things might now be.

Here is a really radical idea: Let's federalize the Federal Reserve and make money supply management and banking oversight transparent and publicly accountable federal functions. Why should the federal government borrow and pay interest on money created with an accounting entry by private banks, thus condemning our children to perpetual debt slavery to private banks and foreign countries, when it is within the means of the government to make the accounting entry itself?

3. Share the Wealth: As noted earlier, we all do better when we share the wealth. So let's do it with:
• Income and employment policies that assure every person who needs employment access to employment that provides a living wage.
• Progressive taxation and public services policies that continuously recycle wealth from those at the top who have more than they need to those at the bottom who have less than they need.
• Land use and regional development policies that limit sprawl and support compact multi-strata development that prevents geographical division by class and race.
• Ownership policies that eliminate the class divide between owners and workers by encouraging every owning person to do productive work and every working person to be an owner.

4. Favor Businesses Organized as Living Enterprises for which the primary business purpose is to serve the community and profit is a means, not an end. Cooperative, worker, and local public ownership models sensibly and appropriately link business interests to community interests. We can and should make them our favored enterprise models.

5. Change the Global Rules to Support Local Control and Regional Self-Reliance: Current global economy rules and institutions that put the economic rights of global financiers and corporations ahead of the economic rights of ordinary people, place-based communities, and even nations. They have it backwards. The rules and institutions of living peace economies properly support democratic self-determination at local, regional, and national levels, keep trade fair and balanced, favor local over global businesses, and facilitate the sharing of information and beneficial technology.

The goal is to shift the economic system's defining value from money to life, its locus of economic decision making from global to local institutions, its favored dynamic from competition to cooperation, and its primary purpose from growing the individual financial fortunes of the few to building living community wealth to secure the health and well-being of everyone. It is ours to so choose and create.

How to Engage
You will find further information on everything I've covered here in Agenda for a New Economy. Buy a copy, download a discussion guide from davidkorten.org, and organize a discussion group to engage your friends, colleagues, and neighbors in an exploration of the new economy alternatives.

People are always asking, "What else can I do?" I recommend YES! Magazine as the place to start. Each issue is filled with stories of possibility and ideas for action. Visit the "Path to a New Economy" section of the YES! website.

*****
Part of growing up human is putting aside the ways of our childhood to embrace the more inclusive values and responsibilities of adulthood. Our time has come to grow up as a species coming of age on a small planet. This is the larger challenge before us. In a very real sense, it is about growing up spiritually to recognize and accept our place within the larger scheme of creation.

As we engage this challenging work in its many dimensions, we must constantly remind ourselves that we are privileged to live at the most dangerous—but also the most exciting—moment of creative opportunity in the whole of the human experience. We have the power to turn this world around for the sake of ourselves, our children for generations to come, and the continued creative unfolding of life on Earth. We are the ones we've been waiting for. Thank you.

David Korten is co-founder and board chair of YES! Magazine. His most recent book is Agenda for a New Economy: From Phantom Wealth to Real Wealth. He presented this speech on October 19, 2009 during a keynote lecture at the Economics of Peace Conference in Sonoma, California.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons License

Three King's Day at el Corredor Ecologico del Noreste

Fiesta de Reyes en el Corredor Ecologico del Noreste

El dia estaba precioso:

La gente estaba contenta

Why we know less than ever about the world

Al Gore's speech - Democratic National Convention

Al Gore

Thursday, August 28, 2008 at 06:35 PM Central Mountain Time

One of the greatest gifts of our democracy is the opportunity it offers us every four years to change course. It’s not a guarantee; it’s only an opportunity. The question facing us is, simply put, will we seize this opportunity for change? That’s why I came here tonight: to tell you why I feel so strongly that we must seize this opportunity to elect Barack Obama President of the United States.

Eight years ago, some said there was not much difference between the nominees of the two major parties and it didn’t really matter who became president. Our nation was enjoying peace and prosperity. Some assumed we would continue both, no matter the outcome. But here we all are in 2008, and I doubt anyone would argue now that election didn’t matter.

Take it from me, if it had ended differently, we would not be bogged down in Iraq, we would have pursued bin Laden until we captured him. We would not be facing a self-inflicted economic crisis; we would be fighting for middle-income families. We would not be showing contempt for the Constitution; we’d be protecting the rights of every American regardless of race, religion, disability, gender or sexual orientation. And we would not be denying the climate crisis; we’d be solving it.

Today, we face essentially the same choice we faced in 2000, though it may be even more obvious now, because John McCain, a man who has earned our respect on many levels, is now openly endorsing the policies of the Bush-Cheney White House and promising to actually continue them. The same policies all over again?

Hey, I believe in recycling, but that’s ridiculous. With John McCain’s support, President Bush and Vice President Cheney have led our nation into one calamity after another because of their indifference to fact; their readiness to sacrifice the long term to the short term, subordinate the general good to the benefit of the few and short-circuit the rule of law.

If you like the Bush-Cheney approach, John McCain’s your man. If you want change, then vote for Barack Obama and Joe Biden.

Barack Obama is telling us exactly what he will do: launch a bold new economic plan to restore America’s greatness; fight for smarter government that trusts the market, but protects us against its excesses; enact policies that are pro-choice, pro-education and pro-family, establish a foreign policy that is smart as well as strong; provide health care for all and solutions for the climate crisis.

So why is this election so close? Well, I know something about close elections, so let me offer you my opinion. I believe this election is close today mainly because the forces of the status quo are desperately afraid of the change Barack Obama represents.

There is no better example than the climate crisis. As I have said for many years throughout this land, we’re borrowing money from China to buy oil from the Persian Gulf to burn it in ways that destroy the future of human civilization. Every bit of that has to change. Oil company profits have soared to record levels, gasoline prices have gone through the roof and we are more dependent than ever on dirty and dangerous fossil fuels.

Many scientists predict that the entire north polar ice cap may be completely gone during summer months in the first term of the next president. Sea levels are rising, fires are raging, storms are stronger. Military experts warn us our national security is threatened by massive waves of climate refugees destabilizing countries around the world, and scientists tell us the very web of life is endangered by unprecedented extinctions.

We are facing a planetary emergency which, if not solved, would exceed anything we’ve ever experienced in the history of humankind. In spite of John McCain’s past record of open mindedness on the climate crisis, he has apparently now allowed his party to browbeat him into abandoning his support of mandatory caps on global warming pollution.

And it just so happens that the climate crisis is intertwined with the other two great challenges facing our nation: reviving our economy and strengthening our national security. The solutions to all three require us to end our dependence on carbon-based fuels.

Instead of letting lobbyists and polluters control our destiny, we need to invest in American innovation. Almost a hundred years ago, Thomas Edison said, “I’d put my money on the sun and solar energy. What a source of power! I hope we don’t have to wait until oil and coal run out before we tackle that.” We already have everything we need to use the sun, the wind, geothermal power, conservation and efficiency to solve the climate crisis—everything, that is, except a president who inspires us to believe, “Yes we can.”

So how did this no-brainer become a brain-twister? Because the carbon fuels industry—big oil and coal—have a 50-year lease on the Republican Party and they are drilling it for everything it’s worth. And this same industry has spent a half a billion dollars this year alone trying to convince the public they are actually solving the problem, when they are in fact making it worse every single day.

This administration and the special interests who control it lock, stock and barrel after barrel, have performed this same sleight-of-hand on issue after issue. Some of the best marketers have the worst products; and this is certainly true of today’s Republican Party. The party itself has on its rolls men and women of great quality. But the last eight years demonstrate that the special interests who have come to control the Republican Party are so powerful that serving them and serving the national well-being are now irreconcilable choices.

So what can we do about it? We can carry Barack Obama’s message of hope and change to every family in America. And pledge that we will be there for Barack Obama—not only in the heat of this election, but in the aftermath as we put his agenda to work for our country.

We can tell Republicans and Independents, as well as Democrats, why our nation needs a change from the approach of Bush, Cheney and McCain. After they wrecked our economy, it is time for a change. After they abandoned the search for the terrorists who attacked us and redeployed the troops to invade a nation that did not attack us, it’s time for a change. After they abandoned the American principle first laid down by General George Washington, when he prohibited the torture of captives because it would bring, in his words, “shame, disgrace and ruin” to our nation, it’s time for a change.

When as many as three Supreme Court justices could be appointed in the first term of the next president, and John McCain promises to appoint more Scalias and Thomases and end a woman’s right to choose, it’s time for a change.

Many people have been waiting for some sign that our country is ready for such change. How will we know when it’s beginning to take hold? I think we might recognize it as a sign of such change, if we saw millions of young people getting involved for the first time in the political process. This election is actually not close at all among younger voters – you are responding in unprecedented numbers to Barack Obama’s message of change and hope.

You recognize that he represents a clean break from the politics of partisanship and bitter division. You understand that the politics of the past are exhausted, and you’re tired of appeals based on fear. You know that America is capable of better than what you have seen in recent years. You are hungry for a new politics based on bipartisan respect for the ageless principles embodied in the United States Constitution.

There are times in the history of our nation when our very way of life depends upon awakening to the challenge of a present danger, shaking off complacency to rise, clear-eyed and alert, to the necessity of embracing change.

A century and a half ago, when America faced our greatest trial, the end of one era gave way to the birth of another. The candidate who emerged victorious in that election is now regarded by most historians as our greatest president. Before he entered the White House, Abraham Lincoln’s experience in elective office consisted of eight years in his state legislature in Springfield, Illinois, and one term in Congress – during which he showed the courage and wisdom to oppose the invasion of another country that was popular when it started but later condemned by history.

The experience Lincoln’s supporters valued most in that race was his powerful ability to inspire hope in the future at a time of impasse. He was known chiefly as a clear thinker and a great orator, with a passion for justice and a determination to heal the deep divisions of our land. He insisted on reaching past partisan and regional divides to exalt our common humanity. In 2008, once again, we find ourselves at the end of an era with a mandate from history to launch another new beginning. And once again, we have a candidate whose experience perfectly matches an extraordinary moment of transition.

Barack Obama had the experience and wisdom to oppose a popular war based on faulty premises. His leadership experience has given him a unique capacity to inspire hope, in the promise of the American dream of a boundless future. His experience has also given him genuine respect for different views and humility, in the face of complex realities that cannot be squeezed into the narrow compartments of ideology. His experience has taught him something that career politicians often overlook: that inconvenient truths must be acknowledged if we are to have wise governance.

The extraordinary strength of his personal character – and that of his wonderful wife, Michelle – is grounded in the strengths of the American community. His vision and his voice represent the best of America. His life experience embodies the essence of our motto – e pluribus unum – out of many, one. That is the linking identity at the other end of all the hyphens that pervade our modern political culture. It is that common American identity – which Barack Obama exemplifies, heart and soul – that enables us as Americans to speak with moral authority to all of the peoples of the world, to inspire hope that we as human beings can transcend our limitations and to redeem the promise of human freedom.

Late this evening, our convention will end with a benediction. As we bow in reverence, remember the words of the old proverb: “when you pray, move your feet.” Then let us leave here tonight and take the message of hope from Denver to every corner of our land, and do everything we can to serve our nation, our world—and most importantly, our children and their future—by electing Barack Obama President of the United States.

A Meltdown Foretold

Analyst foresaw economic crisis

A push to increase home ownership along with Wall Street's desire for new securities to trade and a lack of oversight led to a crisis Christopher Whalen says will be the worst since the
Depression.
Posted on Mon, May. 19, 2008

Christopher Whalen

Current job: Newsletter publisher, investment banker, financial analyst

Education: Bachelor's in history from Villanova University

A past you would never guess: Advisor to Mexican presidential candidate Cuauhtémoc Cárdenas

Most recent book read:Fifty Billion Dollars (Franklin D. Roosevelt and the New Deal era), by
Jesse H. Jones

Where you have seen or read about him: Interviews on Bloomberg Television and writings in
Barrons, Insight on the News and The Financial Times

Investment banker, financial analyst and newsletter publisher Christopher Whalen has explored the ins and outs of Washington, Wall Street and Latin America for more than two decades.

Following stints on Capitol Hill, the Federal Reserve of New York and Bear, Stearns & Co., Whalen founded the newsletters The Mexico Report and Washington & Wall Street.

In 2003, he co-founded Institutional Risk Analytics, which offers risk analysis and consulting.
Besides editing the firm's newsletter, The Institutional Risk Analyst, he writes articles,
testifies in Washington and speaks frequently to financial groups.

Whalen, who has worked in New York, London and Washington, frequently looks to economic history to put the present in perspective. He points out that when President Franklin Delano Roosevelt took office on March 4, 1933, banks in 32 of the 50 states were closed because of panic.

Whalen spoke with The Miami Herald during a visit to South Florida to address the Insurer
Investment Forum, ''The Times They Are A-Changin,'' at the Diplomat Country Club & Spa in
Hallandale Beach.

Q: The U.S. economic picture was much rosier when you founded Institutional Risk Analytics. Are you surprised about the turn of events?

A: We saw that our colleagues had so badly skewed their thinking on risks that we knew eventually there would be a swing back the other way. This one was so severe and everyone was so impetuous; whether you are talking about home buyers -- borrowing 100 percent of their mortgages -- or banks -- people packaging securities up and selling them. It evidenced the mania. We said: ``Wow! Why don't we set up our lemonade stand here and people will come?''

Q: How serious is this financial crisis?

A: We are in the worst financial crisis in this country in 100 years. This is going to make the
savings and loan crisis look like a party.

It won't be as bad as 1930 and 1931 when you had a 30 percent unemployment rate. But it is going to get bad. A lot of value is going to be destroyed.

If you think of the way your parents lived and think of today, we've gone from people buying a
house and staying there, to people buying houses like baseball cards. People are using credit
cards and their home equity financing and pretending things are going to be OK. But we are
running out of gas.

Q: How did we get in this trouble both in the housing market and with subprime mortgages?

A: Right after the realestate crunch in the early 1990s, the government-sponsored enterprises --
Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, the Housing and Urban Development department, the Federal Housing Authority, the Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight, the Federal Home Loan Banks, the whole cast of characters, they put together this public/private partnership to push for home ownership. The Realtors, mortgage brokers and regulators picked up this theme. Then the banks picked up the theme.

The United States had the highest home ownership rates in the world, 65 percent. They pushed that to 70 percent. Unfortunately, many of these were marginal buyers and they are walking away. If you got into one of the adjustable-rate mortgages and you have no equity in it, there's not a whole lot of incentive to stay.

The Street was looking for something to trade. The banks were looking to securitize stuff. They
all got a fee. But no one took responsibility for the overall outcomes.

The banks are now being forced to write this down. All these loans and securities derived from
the loans have become illiquid.

It's amazing. We have to ask how did we do this? Foreign friends ask me, ``How did we screw up so badly?''

Q: Was no one looking at what was happening?

A: They were actively ignoring it. They were beating up on Brooksley Born [former chairwoman of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission] and saying: ''No, no, you are not going to regulate over-the-counter securities.'' They argued competitiveness. But these are not innovation. These are opaque securities that no one can value.

It's also how the dealers could make money. Over-the-counter is 10 times as profitable as the
exchange trade model.

Q: What is your assessment of the government's actions so far and what should be done?

A: The Bush administration has been totally asleep. But there were a lot of people responsible,
including former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan. Everybody focuses on his interest-rate policy, holding interest rates down for so long. But the real fault of Greenspan was allowing the banks to get more and more into securities, like mortgage-backed securities, and allowing them to move off balance sheet.

None of this over-the-counter paper was registered with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

That's why you have about $7 trillion in government-sponsored-enterpris

es paper and $3 trillion in private-label securities. That is all being redeemed. The banking system can't pick up the slack. So it's crunch time.

By election time, I think that the economy will be the only issue. We could be contracting
economically for the next couple of years. That will shock America because Americans are not used to this kind of environment. Whoever wins the White House will be in crisis mode from day one.

We have to have a discussion about market structure; what has to be registered with the
Securities and Exchange Commission and what doesn't. Anything a bank buys and sells or a pension fund buys and sells need to be registered.

We have to remake this marketplace in a much more transparent fashion.

Some thoughts, from an Engineer

Excerpt of an email from WM Bertolet, Fort Myers:

The USA faces a crisis that imperils the nation's economy and the planet's ecology. We have
forgotten about efficiency and durability. We have a pervasive irresponsible throw away mentality which ignores the precepts of quality and conservation and a woefully misguided administration.

There must be a change towards efficient and durable products offering quality and longevity.

Prime example. Detroit builds shoddy monstrous plastic gas guzzlers that are, by design and
marketing plan, throw away junk by the last coupon in the payment book. The USA has never
developed a viable diesel automobile. Incredibly, five states prohibit the registration of diesel
automobiles thus politically discouraging diesel imports.

If only one third of the cars on American highways were diesel we would not have to import one
drop of petroleum. That's efficiency. Diesels have service lives measured in millions of miles.
That's durability.

Appliances built to price are short lived energy hogs doomed to an early death from mechanical
failure or rust.

New buildings, both commercial and residential, have design service lives shorter than their
mortgages and are dependant on artificial ventilation and illumination.

Our reliance upon the automobile, truck and airplane is woefully inefficient and wasteful. Fast
and convenient mass transit systems are all but absent in north America. We have no bullet trains let alone passenger trains. We depend upon air and highway transport networks with prohibitively high fuel consumption per seat or ton mile. Why the 3 ton SUV with driver only?

Railroads can lug a ton of freight over 400 miles on a gallon of diesel oil, ships and barges are
even more efficient yet The US killed the railroads and merchant marine with government and
unions after WW2.

Intelligently deployed nuclear power is the only viable technology for present power demands.
Example France.

The severely limited energy densities for solar, wind, wave, and thermal differential energy
technologies preclude practical nationwide application, particularly for urban areas. For an
isolated dwelling, they are feasible but costly to build and maintain. They simply cannot be
scaled upwards to accommodate cities or a power grid.

Of the future energy technologies oil from algae is the most promising. The feedstock is waste,
no arable land is required, the growth rate is explosive, days compared to months, and the yield
per acre potentially 100 times that of any other bio source, the extraction of diesel oil
requires only pressing, and the pulp remaining is fodder, fuel pellets or fertilizer. The Salton
Sea area could supply the nation.

Mature technology exists to address all these issues. Buildings cars and appliances should be a
once in lifetime purchases designed for maximum efficiency and durability rather than throw away life cycles.

Inefficiency, lack of durability, and the throw away mentality exacerbate pollution.

The smallest and most basic measures which could be implemented instantly are overlooked in our aura of waste. In Europe the supermarkets sell shopping bags and they are not inexpensive so most folks carry reusable fabric mesh bags. In the USA plastic bags which are made from petroleum, are, despite $130.00 per barrel oil, still cheaper than biodegradable paper bags, and both are given away. Waste.

Many items are sold in plastic or foil packaging that exceeds the cost of the product within. It
would seem that in such cases regulation requiring the product to equal or exceed the value of
the package would have practical results. The fast food ketchup pouch would fatten to the point
where one pack would take the place of the three or four required to drench an order of fries.

The aptly named clear plastic "clamshell" packs so much a part of retail marketing for their
pegboard product display and theft-reducing bulk could just as easily be paper packed to the joy
of anyone who has fought to open one using scissors or knives.

The empty pack will be with us for eternity.

Recycling of plastics, including synthetic fibers, is mostly energy negative due to the variety
of materials leading to cross contamination. Even the familiar clear beverage containers must
have the cap retainer rings, the label film sleeve or the ink removed prior to shredding.
Plastics are a particular nuisance and curse in this regard as they are very long lived. Landfills of disposable diapers will take centuries, if ever, to degrade.

Fortunately glass, metals, nuclear fuel rods, and paper are energy positive or neutral to
recycle.

Products with combinations of many materials, such as motor vehicles, are hardly worth recycling as the costs to separate the various materials either manually pre-processing or mechanically after shredding tend to be prohibitive. Magnetic separation can pluck out the ferritic alloys but the other metals such as copper and aluminum are more difficult to select and the remaining amalgam of shredded plastics, glass, paint and fiber is valueless bulk.

Dump the politicians and the fruitcake "scientists" with their past failures and future dreams.

Bring on the engineers for real and immediate solutions..

That covers the practical, now to the political.

The oil market is worldwide and highly competitive, fully subject to supply and demand. Big
numbers, certainly. Conspiracies and cartels, no. So who’s making the big money? The countries
that produce crude oil. Crude represents more than half of the cost of each gallon of gasoline
sold. Federal, state and local taxes represent another fifth.

In 1998, a recession in Asia created an oil glut. Prices plunged to historic lows (near $10 a
barrel), and American drivers reaped the benefits, with gas dipping below $1 per gallon. Within
ten years we are facing a tenfold increase in cost, or, conversely and far more accurately a
tenfold devaluation of our currency.

We are bankrupting the nation with terrifying rapidity.

Given an intelligent balance of eco-priorities global warming issues could be ameliorated with
the funds saved by common sense energy policies.

Engineering cannot resolve political problems, revolution could. The blame lies 100% in
Washington.

One Man Stands up to Bush

MAYOR OF SALT LAKE CITY TO BUSH, CONGRESS AND MEDIA 'WE WON'T TAKE IT ANYMORE'

Address by Mayor Ross C. 'Rocky' Anderson

Today, as we come together once again in this great city, we raise our voices in unison to say to
President Bush, to Vice President Cheney, to other members of the Bush Administration (past and present), to a majority of Congress, including Utah's entire congressional delegation, and to
much of the mainstream media: 'You have failed us miserably and we won't take it anymore.'

While we had every reason to expect far more of you, you have been pompous, greedy, cruel, and incompetent as you have led this great nation to a moral, military, and national security abyss.' 'You have breached trust with the American people in the most egregious ways. You have utterly failed in the performance of your jobs. You have undermined our Constitution, permitted the violation of the most fundamental treaty obligations, and betrayed the rule of law.

You have engaged in, or permitted, heinous human rights abuses of the sort never before
countenanced in our nation's history as a matter of official policy. You have sent American men
and women to kill and be killed on the basis of lies, on the basis of shifting justifications,
without competent leadership, and without even a coherent plan for this monumental blunder.

We are here to tell you: We won't take it anymore! You have acted in direct contravention of
values that we, as Americans who love our country, hold dear. You have deceived us in the most
cynical, outrageous ways. You have undermined, or allowed the undermining of, our constitutional system of checks and balances among the three presumed co-equal branches of government. You have helped lead our nation to the brink of fascism, of a dictatorship contemptuous of our nation's treaty obligations, federal statutory law, our Constitution, and the rule of law.

Because of you, and because of your jingoistic false 'patriotism,' our world is far more
dangerous, our nation is far more despised, and the threat of terrorism is far greater than ever
before. It has been absolutely astounding how you have committed the most horrendous acts,
causing such needless tragedy in the lives of millions of people, yet you wear your so-called
religion on your sleeves, asserting your God-is-on-my-side nonsense when what you have done flies in the face of any religious or humanitarian tradition. Your hypocrisy is mind-boggling - and
disgraceful. What part of 'Thou shalt not kill' do you not understand? What part of the 'Golden
rule' do you not understand? What part of 'be honest,' 'be responsible,' and 'be accountable'
don't you understand? What part of 'Blessed are the peacekeepers' do you not understand?

Because of you, hundreds of thousands of people have been killed, many thousands of people have suffered horrendous lifetime injuries, and millions have been run off from their homes. For the sake of our nation, for the sake of our children, and for the sake of our brothers and sisters
around the world, we are morally compelled to say, as loudly as we can, 'We won't take it
anymore!' As United States agents kidnap, disappear, and torture human beings around the world, you justify, you deceive, and you cover up. We find what you have done to men, women and children, and to the good name and reputation of the United States, so appalling, so
unconscionable, and so outrageous as to compel us to call upon you to step aside and allow other
men and women who are competent, true to our nation's values, and with high moral principles to stand in your places for the good of our nation, for the good of our children, and for the good
of our world.

In the case of the President and Vice President, this means impeachment and removal from office, without any further delay from a complacent, complicit Congress, the Democratic majority of which cares more about political gain in 2008 than it does about the vindication of our Constitution, the rule of law, and democratic accountability. It means the election of people as President and Vice President who, unlike most of the presidential candidates from both major parties, have not aided and abetted in the perpetration of the illegal, tragic, devastating invasion and occupation of Iraq. And it means the election of people as President and Vice President who will commit to return our nation to the moral and strategic imperative of refraining from torturing human beings. In the case of the majority of Congress, it means electing people who are diligent enough to learn the facts, including reading available National Intelligence Estimates, before voting to go to war. It means electing to Congress men and women who will jealously guard Congress's sole prerogative to declare war. It means electing to Congress men and women who will not submit like vapid lap dogs to presidential requests for blank checks to engage in so-called preemptive wars, for legislation permitting warrant-less wiretapping of communications involving US citizens, and for dangerous, irresponsible, saber-rattling legislation like the recent Kyl- Lieberman amendment.

We must avoid the trap of focusing the blame solely upon President Bush and Vice-President
Cheney. This is not just about a few people who have wronged our country - and the world. They
were enabled by members of both parties in Congress, they were enabled by the pathetic mainstream news media, and, ultimately, they have been enabled by the American people--40% of whom are so ill-informed they still think Iraq was behind the 9/11 attacks a people who know and care more about baseball statistics and which drunken starlets are not wearing underwear than they know and care about the atrocities being committed every single day in our name by a government for which we need to take responsibility.

As loyal Americans, without regard to political partisanship as veterans, as teachers, as
religious leaders, as working men and women, as students, as professionals, as businesspeople, as
public servants, as retirees, as people of all ages, races, ethnic origins, sexual orientations,
and faiths we are here to say to the Bush administration, to the majority of Congress, and to the
mainstream media: 'You have violated your solemn responsibilities. You have undermined our
democracy, spat upon our Constitution, and engaged in outrageous, despicable acts. You have
brought our nation to a point of immorality, inhumanity, and illegality of immense, tragic,
unprecedented proportions.'

But we will live up to our responsibilities as citizens, as brothers and sisters of those who
have suffered as a result of the imperial bullying of the United States government, and as moral
actors who must take a stand: And we will, and must, mean it when we say 'We won't take it
anymore.' If we want principled, courageous elected officials, we need to be principled,
courageous, and tenacious ourselves. History has demonstrated that our elected officials are not
the leaders the leadership has to come from us. If we don't insist, if we don't persist, then we
are not living up to our responsibilities as citizens in a democracy and our responsibilities as
moral human beings. If we remain silent, we signal to Congress and the Bush administration and to candidates running for office and to the world that we support the status quo.

Silence is complicity. Only by standing up for what's right and never letting down can we say we
are doing our part. Our government, on the basis of a campaign we now know was entirely
fraudulent, attacked and militarily occupied a nation that posed no danger to the United States.
Our government, acting in our name, has caused immense, unjustified death and destruction. It all started five years ago, yet where have we, the American people, been? At this point, we are
responsible. We get together once in a while at demonstrations and complain about Bush and
Cheney, about Congress, and about the pathetic news media. We point fingers and yell a lot. Then most people politely go away until another demonstration a few months later.

How many people can honestly say they have spent as much time learning about and opposing the outrages of the Bush administration as they have spent watching sports or mindless television programs during the past five years? Escapist, time-sapping sports and insipid entertainment have indeed become the opiate of the masses. Why is this country so sound-asleep? Why do we abide what is happening to our nation, to our Constitution, to the cause of peace and international law and order? Why are we not doing all in our power to put an end to this madness? We should be in the streets regularly and students should be raising hell on our campuses. We should be making it clear in every way possible that apologies or convoluted, disingenuous explanations just don't cut it when presidential candidates and so many others voted to authorize George Bush and his neo-con buddies to send American men and women to attack and occupy Iraq.

Let's awaken, and wake up the country by committing here and now to do all each of us can to take our nation back. Let them hear us across the country, as we ask others to join us: 'We won't take it anymore!' I implore you: Draw a line. Figure out exactly where your own moral breaking point is. How much will you put up with before you say 'No more' and mean it?

I have drawn my line as a matter of simple personal morality: I cannot, and will not, support any
candidate who has voted to fund the atrocities in Iraq. I cannot, and will not, support any
candidate who will not commit to remove all US troops, as soon as possible, from Iraq. I cannot,
and will not, support any candidate who has supported legislation that takes us one step closer
to attacking Iran. I cannot, and will not, support any candidate who has not fought to stop the
kidnapping, disappearances, and torture being carried on in our name.

If we expect our nation's elected officials to take us seriously, let us send a powerful message
they cannot misunderstand. Let them know we really do have our moral breaking point. Let them know we have drawn a bright line. Let them know they cannot take our support for granted that, regardless of their party and regardless of other political considerations, they will not have our support if they cannot provide, and have not provided, principled leadership.

The people of this nation may have been far too quiet for five years, but let us pledge that we
won't let it go on one more day that we will do all we can to put an end to the illegalities, the
moral degradation, and the disintegration of our nation's reputation in the world.

Let us be unified in drawing the line in declaring that we do have a moral breaking point. Let us
insist, together, in supporting our troops and in gratitude for the freedoms for which our
veterans gave so much that we bring our troops home from Iraq , that we return our government to a constitutional democracy, and that we commit to honoring the fundamental principles of human rights.

In defense of our country, in defense of our Constitution, in defense of our shared values as
Americans and as moral human beings we declare today that we will fight in every way possible to stop the insanity, stop the continued military occupation of Iraq, and stop the moral depravity
reflected by the kidnapping, disappearing, and torture of people around the world.

Living Within our Means

LIVING WITHIN OUR ENVIRONMENTAL MEANS:
Natural Resources and an Optimum Human Population
Excerpt from Rachel F. Preiser’s article in http://dieoff.org/page50.htm

In his report, "Natural Resources and an Optimum Human Population," Cornell University professor Dr. David Pimentel has presented some sobering statistics indicating the insufficiency of world resources to sustain a rapidly-expanding human population. Dr. Pimentel indicated that even if humans succeed in using rapidly diminishing resources more efficiently, the planet can sustain a "quality" standard of living for only two billion people while still maintaining environmental integrity. The report also concluded, "For Americans to continue to enjoy a high standard of living and for Society to be self-sustaining in renewable energy and food and forestry products, given U.S. land, water, and biological resources, the optimum U.S. population is about 200 million." See graph of history of world population and fossil fuel availability on http://dieoff.org/ .

Land and Water Supply

In order for people to live in "relative prosperity," the world population—currently 5.6 billion and growing at a rate of 1.7 percent—will have to be reduced to 2 billion. The magnitude of this problem becomes apparent when one considers that the world population is expected to double in the next 41 years. According to Dr. Pimentel's statistics, the U.S. population— now 260 million—would have to be reduced by about 60 million people, even though actual trends suggest that the U.S. population will double over the next 63 years.

If the U.S. population continues to use cropland, water, and fossil energy at present rates while permitting population growth along current trends, shortages of essential goods and services will be experienced across the entire population. Technological development has enabled humans to push productivity from our land, water, energy resources almost to its environmental limits. However, expanding production to environmental capacity has its price in increasing the environmental degradation that ultimately makes this level of production and the population growth it has encouraged unsustainable.

The world food supply comes almost entirely (98 percent) from the land: food and fiber crops are grown on 12 percent of the earth's total land area, while the remaining 24 percent of the land is used as pasture to graze livestock that provide meat and milk products. Forests cover an additional 31 percent of the earth's land area, while the remaining 34 percent is too cold, dry, stony or steep to be suitable for agriculture or grazing. Efforts to compensate for the deficiency of land resources by redistributing limited resources can and will continue to be felt in the decreasing availability of food and other products on which our present standard of living depends.

The increase in human population and the demands on agricultural production to sustain world population growth not only create a strain on the earth's limited arable land resources, but also produce a tremendous draw on its water resources. While 24 percent of reservoir water is depleted yearly due to evaporation alone, 87 percent of the world's fresh water supply—and 85 percent of the U.S. fresh water supply—is consumed by agricultural production.

In addition to the human population's indirect demands on the water supply to fulfill its growing agricultural needs, an individual requires three liters (1 liter is about 1.06 quarts) per day of fresh water for drinking and a minimum of 90 liters per day for cooking, washing, and other domestic needs. Because, like topsoil, groundwater resources are renewed at an extremely slow rate of about one percent per year, the largest threat to the surface and ground water supply is the inequality between consumption of fresh water and its replacement by the environment. This problem is further compounded by pollution due to sewage, pesticides, and chemical wastes, which makes some portion of this limited resource unsuitable for human drinking and agricultural use. Under such circumstances, the average U.S. citizen uses about 400 liters of water per day, or more than four times as much water as Europeans use.

Irreplaceable Biodiversity

In addition to crop and livestock species on which we depend for food and other essential products, humans depend in more subtle, yet equally vital ways on a rich reservoir of other species in our ecosystems. There are no technologies to substitute for many of the services that wild biota provide, including pollination of crops and wild plants, recycling of manure and other organic wastes, degrading of chemical pollutants, and purification of water and soil. Bees, for example, play an essential and irreplaceable role in the pollination of nearly $30 billion worth of U.S. crops annually.

Yet worldwide approximately 150 species of plants and animals are lost per day due to deforestation, pesticide use, and pollution. To preserve essential natural biological diversity, about one-third of the terrestrial ecosystem would need to be set aside to provide food, shelter, and protection for these valuable species, an allotment made impossible by the demands annual worldwide population growth continues to make on land and water resources.

Energy

Dr. Pimentel's report suggests that, by cutting energy use in half while exercising strict control over population growth, the U.S. would have sufficient fossil energy reserves (particularly of coal) to make the necessary transition to a renewable energy economy over the next 100 years—if we start now. Unfortunately, the shortage of uranium and the problems of nuclear waste disposal prevent nuclear energy from being a suitable "renewable" replacement for disappearing fossil fuel supplies.

What Can We Do?

While humans can attempt to compensate for shortages in some prime resources (like arable land) by manipulating the distribution of other prime resources (like water), the overall possibility of such supplementation is restricted by environmental degradation due to the demands of an increasing population and unsustainable agricultural practices. This report indicates the necessity of developing alternative strategies for living within our environmental means.

According to Dr. Pimentel, significant quantities of fossil energy might be conserved if as a part of our move to greater reliance on renewable energy sources, we make better use of manure instead of fossil-based fertilizers to enhance our agricultural soils while also reducing use of fossil-based pesticides. Along with these revisions of agricultural techniques, Dr. Pimentel suggests that a return to crop rotation in growing crops like corn would stem soil erosion and conserve soil and water resources as well. While saving energy these changes would also promote a more sustainable agricultural use of the environment.

Nevertheless, even the most diligent conservation efforts will be effective only if they are accompanied by stopping population growth. If returned to a self-sustaining renewable energy system, the earth will be able to support a population of approximately two billion people living in relative prosperity. At current growth rates, the earth's population could reach an environmentally impossible 12 to 15 billion in the year 2100. In order to prevent the disastrous worldwide poverty and privation that such a population increase would produce, the report recommends profound revisions in our relationship to the environment and an end to population growth.

A Warning and Promise

"Decision making tends to be based on crises; decisions are not made until catastrophe strikes. Thus, decisions are ad hoc, designed to protect or promote a particular aspect of human well-being instead of examining the problem in a holistic manner. Based on past experience, we expect that leaders will continue to postpone decisions concerning human carrying capacity of the world, maintenance of a standard of living, conservation of resources, and the preservation of the environment until the situation becomes intolerable, or worse still, irreversible.

Starting to deal with the imbalance of the population-resource equation before it reaches crisis level is the only way to avert a real tragedy for our children's children. With equitable population control that respects basic individual rights, sound resource management policies, support of science and technology to enhance energy supplies and the environment, and with all people working together, an optimum population can be achieved. With such cooperative efforts we would fulfill fundamental obligations to generations that follow—to ensure that individuals will be free from poverty and starvation in an environment that will sustain human life with dignity."

Dr. Pimentel’s complete article can be found at: : http://www-geology.ucdavis.edu/~GEL134/pimental_et_al_1994.pdf