Latest Articles
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A livestock title for fair and competitive markets
This is the second in a series of five farm bill fact sheets from the Sustainable Agriculture Coalition. Want more details on all of the sustainable agriculture provisions in the next Farm Bill? Go here (PDF) for a matrix that shows the status of provisions in the House and Senate versions.
A shrinking number of companies dominate the nation's food supply, exerting market power over the entire supply chain from farm gate to dinner plate. In the livestock sector, the increasingly concentrated market has left farmers and ranchers in a position to negotiate with corporations that have far greater bargaining power and control over price information. The 2008 Farm Bill is the country's last best chance to restore competition and fairness to livestock markets for the next five years.
Contact your senators and representative today, and tell them to urge the Senate and House Agriculture Committee leadership to include a comprehensive Livestock Title in the final farm bill.
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Mayoral climate-protecting agreement hasn’t necessarily translated into action
Mayors across the country have signed onto the U.S. Mayors Climate Protection Agreement, a nonbinding initiative encouraging city leaders to meet or beat the greenhouse-gas reductions outlined in the U.S.-shunned Kyoto Protocol. So about that nonbinding part: While some city officials have taken concrete steps to reduce emissions, others haven’t followed through at all. “I […]
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Everest climber dead at 88
Things I did not know about Sir Edmund Hillary: He was still alive. He was only 88 when he died. Which means when he became the first person to reach the top of Everest, he was just a year older than I am now. Better get cracking. He once won an honor from Queen Elizabeth […]
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Here’s hoping newly politically active scientists don’t step on rakes
A few days ago I said of James Hansen’s increasing activism: Hansen has decided that it would be perverse to hoard the social capital that comes with being a prominent scientist in the U.S., standing by nervously guarding his credibility while the climate goes to shit. So he’s taking a big risk and spending some […]
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With all the upbeat talk about an environmental labor boom, is rhetoric running away from reality?
Someone help me puzzle this out:
Proposition 1: A shift to renewable energy and energy efficiency will result in a boom in green-collar jobs -- good service-industry work that can't be outsourced. This proposition is attractive because it holds forth the promise of a grand alliance between greens and the labor movement. See, e.g., Tom Friedman and everyone who posts on Grist.
Proposition 2: The optimism over green-collar jobs is a classic example of the make-work bias, a widespread economic fallacy that mistakes amount of work for wealth creation. The actual effect of greenhouse-gas reductions on labor markets is unclear, so environmentalists should stick to environmental policy. See, e.g., various environmental economists.
I don't have a clever opinion here, although I will say that the case for a positive labor impact from energy efficiency measures seems decently solid. Efficiency is, after all, an unambiguously good thing for the economy as a whole. If it costs us less to get the same amount of stuff, we're all richer. Certainly this is a nice thing for consumers, and because energy industries tend not to be labor-intensive, we can expect that wealth creation at the expense of energy producers will be a net benefit for employment as well. I think.
The impact of renewable energy, on the other hand, is more difficult to suss out. More to the point, it's not clear that anyone has sussed it out. Discuss.
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Tennessee Senate passes resolution honoring Al Gore
The Tennessee state Senate has passed a resolution honoring Al Gore for his efforts to curb climate change. And the crowd goes wild! “Let’s be honest about it. What is a resolution but a piece of paper with flowery words on it,” says House Republican Leader Jason Mumpower, adding that the resolution “has no real […]
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Watch CBS this Saturday for breaking electric-car news
I was just interviewed by CBS for a possible story on plug-in hybrids on Monday. You should tune in to CBS evening news Saturday for the first coverage of what I believe is a major advance in plug-ins -- a car I test drove a few weeks back and will be free to write about here Monday.
The New York Times will probably be doing a print story on the car Sunday, which I'll link to. Then CBS may do another story, which is where I would come in. This hybrid technology will be rolled out in a retrofitted car at the Detroit auto show.
I think this is a big deal. Basically the company figured out how to design a practical, affordable plug-in hybrid without a breakthrough in battery technology!! Stay tuned.
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World’s largest banks ranked on their climate commitment
The world’s banks are starting to recognize the threat of climate change, but could certainly do more, says a new report from Ceres, a coalition of investors and green groups pushing corporate sustainability. The group ranked 40 of the world’s largest publicly traded banks on their green (the climate kind, not the money kind). Some […]
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Cargill’s well-connected fertilizer unit wows Wall Street, dumps on Florida
As I wrote last week, the real winners in the ethanol boom aren’t corn growers or even ethanol makers (though the latter will do just fine). Rather, it’s the companies that make the inputs needed for growing vast quantities of corn. Photo: iStockphoto Monsanto, the world’s dominant producer of genetically modified seed traits as well […]
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