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Jim Motavalli
Jim Motavalli blogs on green matters for The Daily Green and Mother Nature Network and he blogs about cars in the New York Times “Automobiles” section. He was also a long-time editor for E–the Environmental Magazine, where he continues as a contributing writer. Motavalli combines his passion for autos and environment in his book, FORWARD DRIVE: The Race To Build Clean Cars for the Future
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Barack Obama has said time and again that change comes from the bottom up at least as much as from policy directives from on high. He’s right–and he seems to be giving signs that pressure from below is going to be needed to keep him true to his own campaign promises. Click to continue reading and listen to the show…
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At the G-20 Summit addressing the global financial crisis this weekend, the government leaders of the world’s largest economies essentially twiddled their thumbs, punting on setting ambitious goals until April 2009 — when the Barack Obama Administration, which is dedicated to addressing the financial crisis and the climate crisis, is in office. Before the Summit, Worldwatch Institute Senior Researchers Michael Renner and Gary Gardner proposed that the G-20 enact a Global Green Deal, evocative of FDR’s new deal but more audacious in scope and vision. CWR co-hosts Francesca Rheannon and Bill Baue speak with Renner about the proposal’s 5 strategies, including transitioning to a renewable energy economy, launching an efficiency revolution, and investing in green infrastructure.
And speaking of green infrastructure, Deutsche Asset Management issued a report calling for the establishment of a “green” National Infrastructure Bank. Bill Baue speaks with Deutsche Climate Change Investment Research Director Bruce Kahn about the report, a followup on the Investing in Climate Change 2009: Necessity and Opportunity in Turbulent Times report CWR covered recently.
“Building a Green Economy: It’s Time for the G20 to Focus on a Global Green Deal”
Report: Green Jobs: Towards decent work in a sustainable, low-carbon world
CWR News Analysis: Listen
News Sources:
–Pew Research Center on the People and the Environment “A Deeper Partisan Divide Over Global Warming”
–Schwarzenegger Blames Global Warming for Elongated Fire Season
–BBC: “Emissions up in developed nations”
–NY Times: “Pollution Has Leveled Off, but the Figures Have Holes”
–Pam Solo: “Saving Detroit from itself”
–Marketplace: “Obama meant it about C02″
CWR ViewPoint: Listen
The Top BENNY Award for 2008, given to activist campaigns holding corporations accountable by the Business Ethics Network (BEN), went to the Clean Up Ecuador campaign for bringing Chevron to justice for decades of pollution in the Amazon. The campaign is led by the Amazon Defense Coalition and Amazon Watch. Mitch Anderson of Amazon Watch has our commentary today, produced in partnership with BEN.
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We reported last week that Barack Obama will regulate carbon dioxide as a pollutant under the Clean Air Act if elected. Not so for John McCain. Today writer and scientist Joseph Romm wrote on his blog Climate Progess, that a McCain-Palin administration would use a voluntary or incentive-based approach, one that “has never worked in any country to restrain emissions growth.” Today, we talk to Joe Romm about how Barack Obama and John McCain differ on their approaches to the climate crisis and alternative energy. Romm is a senior fellow at the Center for American Progress, where he maintains its blog, Climate Progress. It was named one of the top 15 green websites by Time Magazine. Romm is also the author of the 2006 book Hell and High Water: Global Warming–the Solution and the Politics–and What We Should Do. He was Acting Assistant Secretary of the U.S. Department of Energy during the Clinton Administration.
CWR Headlines:
–BPA is OK — According to a Chemical-Friendly FDA
–Scientists Blast FDA report on BPA Safety
–Phthalate-Laden Toys Flooding the Market
–The Other Debt Crisis — How we’re Overspending Our Ecological Budget
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The market meltdown is spurring an urgent response from Congress, with both houses debating and revising versions of the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) bill on an hourly basis. The bill revises the President’s proposed bailout of financial institutions, which some call “Cash for Trash.” CWR co-hosts Francesca Rheannon and Bill Baue interview US Representative (D-MA) Barney Frank, chair of the House Financial Services Committee that is now ushering the Troubled Asset Relief Program bill, or TARP, through Congress. While many question whether this bailout is the best path out of the market meltdown, others are proposing a road to recovery paved in green. Bob Pollin of the Political Economy Research Institute co-authored a report on the Green Recovery that was released last week with the Center for American Progress. Francesca and Bill interviewed him here at the University of Massachusetts in Amherst the day after he testified before the House Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming at a hearing entitled “The Green Road to Economic Recovery.”
Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) bill as of 1:09 p.m. on September 22, 2008
Listen to the full 25-minute interview with Bob Pollin
CWR ViewPoint: read
Commentary from futurist Hazel Henderson of Ethical Markets on the market meltdown called Chicago Boys’ Curse Comes Home to Wall Street.
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The Democratic party has shied away from linking clean energy, the economy, and the environment since Jimmy Carter’s 1977 Energy Policy. But the political winds are changing. At Tuesday evening’s Democratic National Convention, almost all of the speakers hit on the theme of green collar jobs. Nancy Floyd of Nth Power noted that there are 2.4 million green collar jobs worldwide — but less than 10 percent are in US. Presumptive Democrat candidate Barack Obama’s platform calls for more than doubling that number to 5 million green collar jobs in the US alone. And he’s framing it as a win-win-win to get us off foreign oil, stop global warming, and create tons of green jobs in the US. This week, we feature the second part of our conversation with Bracken Hendricks, co-author with Congressman Jay Inslee of Apollo’s Fire, and co-founder of the Apollo Alliance. The discussion focuses on the political will required to build a green economy.
Barack Obama’s New Energy Platform
DNC speech by Nancy Floyd of Nth Power
Jimmy Carter’s 1977 Energy Policy
Green Jobs: Towards Sustainable Work in a Low-Carbon World report by the Worldwatch Institute as part of the UNEP- ILO- ITUC Green Jobs Initiative
Job Opportunities for the Green Economy report from the Political Economy Research Institute at the University of Massachusetts in Amherst.
CWR Headlines:
–Joe Biden’s Got Environmental Creds
–Google.org Pumps Money into Geothermal Energy
–Buffett and Gates Visit Tar Sands
CWR ViewPoint: read
Conrad MacKerron of the As You Sow Foundation comments on the labor and human rights implications of greening the supply chain.
Prius Envy and the Greening of Wal-Mart: A Blind Spot for the Human Cost
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Utilities and coal companies are pushing to open over a hundred new coal-fired power plants in the US. But activists, investors, communities, consumers, and scientists are pointing to financial, regulatory, environmental, and social risks that far outweigh the potential benefits of coal. And they are pulling back the veil from the myth of clean coal, exposing that king coal is a naked emperor. Carbon capture and storage, the key to coal’s “clean” claims, has years of technical and economic hurdles to cross. Leslie Lowe, director of the Interfaith Center on Corporate Responsibilty’s Energy & Environment Program, speaks with us today about the risks of committing to a future of new coal plants.
Interfaith Center on Corporate Responsibility
ICCR Report: Don’t Get Burned: The Risks of Investing in New Coal-Fired Generating Facilities
CWR Headlines:
–Airlines Flying to and From Europe Will Have to Pay for Emissions
–Coal plants get thumbs up — and thumbs down
–Leading Climate Scientist calls Coal and Oil CEO’s Criminals
–Clean coal gets a boost from the US Dept of Energy
James Hansen Congressional testimony: Global Warming Twenty Years Later: Tipping Points Near
CWR ViewPoint: read (Thanks to our partner CSRwire for posting text of CWR commentaries.)
Yochi Zakai of Co-op America points out that clean coal is dirtier than it’s cracked up to be. He comments on the recent Georgia court ruling against a new coal plant proposed by Dynegy, and Co-op America’s ongoing activism aimed at that company and others in the industry.
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Last week, the price of corn rose above $7 a bushel on the commodities market for the first time, and soybeans rose sharply, too, reacting to the harsh weather hampering crop production across the US Midwest. Soaring global demand in addition to the increased use of corn for ethanol, an alternative fuel, have shrunk the worldwide supply of staples that are the core of practically every continent’s diet. Meanwhile, the price of oil has jumped, raising the cost of producing crops and feeding livestock and causing an increase in grocery bills here and abroad, sparking riots and protests in at least two dozen countries. CWR co-host Francesca Rheannon speaks about this global food crisis with Raj Patel, author of Stuffed and Starved. Patel is a visiting scholar at the Center for African Studies at the University of California at Berkeley and a researcher with the Land Research Action Network as well as the University of KwaZulu-Natal in South Africa.
CWR Headlines:
–Floods may cause famine and food prices to rise
–Workers illegally trafficked from india call off hunger strike
–Green collar jobs grow bullish despite global credit crunch
–Cashew nuts fight global warming
CWR Viewpoint: read (Thanks to our partner CSRwire for posting text of CWR commentaries.)
Dean Cycon of Dean’s Beans Organic Fair Trade Coffee Company comments on the link between climate change and coffee as experienced by indigenous Arhuaco coffee farmer Javier Mestres in the Sierra Nevada Mountains of Colombia.
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Andy Hoffman
Baue also speaks Working Assets Co-Founder Peter Barnes, author of Climate Solutions: What Works, What Doesn’t, and Why–A Citizen’s Guide, out recently from Chelsea Green.
Plus, we hear commentary from Sierra Club Executive Director Carl Pope on the failure of the Environmental Protection Agency to regulate carbon dioxide emissions, even after being ordered to do so by the Supreme Court. Thanks to Sierra Club Radio for this commentary.
Climate Solutions: What Works, What Doesn’t, and Why–A Citizen’s Guide by Peter Barnes
Climate Change: What’s Your Business Strategy? by Andy Hoffman and John Woody
–Stern Report Underestimated Consequences of Climate Change
–Canada Bans Bisphenol-A in Baby Bottles
–57 Nations Endorse Report Promoting Shift from Industrial to Small-Scale Local Agriculture
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CWR co-hosts Francesca Rheannon and Bill Baue attended the conference, hosted by investor-environmentalist coalition Ceres and its Investor Network on Climate Risk. Rheannon speaks with British Telecom Pension Scheme Trustee Donald MacDonald about the impact of war on climate change and what institutional investors can do to address it.
Alisa Gravitz
Institutional Investor Summit on Climate Risk
McKinsey Global Institute report: The Case for Investing in Energy Productivity
John Holdren presentation: Global Climatic Disruption
CWR Headlines: Over a quarter of Fidelity fund shareholders support genocide-free resolution.
Investors Against Genocide webpage on Fidelity resolution vote
19 March 2008, Associated Press: “Fidelity Holders Defeat Investment Limit”
19 March 2008, Reuters: “Fidelity funds reject genocide-linked proposal”
CSR News from 3BL Media
Representative Barney Frank
Bob Pollin
Hazel Henderson
