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Carbon offsets and human rights

More evidence was released today demonstrating the complexity and oxymoronic nature of "ethical capitalism." This time it has to do with carbon offsets.

According to "A funny place to store carbon," a report issued today by the World Rainforest Movement, villagers living along the edges of Mount Elgon National Park in east Uganda, the site of a Dutch-owned carbon offset project, have been beaten, shot at, and repeatedly denied access to their land by armed park rangers guarding the "carbon trees" inside the park.

Starting in Wash.

It looks like the Washington legislature is going to take up eminent domain soon. According to editorial coverge in the P-I:

A bill this legislative session should require general public notification (beyond Web-based meeting dockets) of condemnation decisions and direct notification of landowners by any government considering using eminent domain to acquire property. Openness is vital.

That sounds like an unalloyed good to me.

Let’s wonk it out

DR: On our site there are many people highly skeptical about biofuels. For lots of reasons: corn ethanol barely breaks even on energy balance. It’s an environmental nightmare, with nitrogen fertilizers in the dead zone in the Gulf of Mexico. It is a commodity sector governed by a few massive multinational corporations, which are lavished […]

NAS smacks Bush admin.

Remember when it seemed like there was some kind of force field around Bush? Like Rove had completely mastered the political game, Cheney ran the geopolitical scene like a puppetmaster, Rumsfeld bestrode the Pentagon, and Congress was packed with courtiers? It was hard to bring to mind, watching Bush give his speech the other night. […]

Plans for the long weekend?

Many folks have a long weekend this week as the nation pauses to celebrate Martin Luther King Jr. Day on Monday. And to honor King’s legacy, organizations around the country will be taking part in a day of service. Social, political, and environmental justice are the main focuses of the service events, emphasizing the need […]

A new organization does it for you

As globalization takes off, it's not only governments that have the power to affect millions of lives. We expect to hold democratically elected officials accountable -- but what about unelected bigwigs, CEOs, foundation heads, philanthropists, and NGO leaders?

Turns out it’s high

Reducing our contribution to global warming may be expensive. Global warming itself, however, is likely to be much more expensive.

A dispatch from Gore’s climate training sessions

I'm blogging from Nashville, where I just spent two days hanging with Al Gore and shooting the sh-t about climate change. OK, it wasn't just me and Al -- there were about 200 other people there.

This meeting is part of Al Gore's effort to train 1000 people to go out and deliver his Inconvenient Truth talk.

The meeting started off on a low note when I found out that Cameron Diaz had been in the session before mine. Damn. My session was actually devoid of anyone well known. The closest we got was Dennis Kucinich's wife, who it turns out is actually quite a babe.

A quick update

Posting from me will continue to be light for a few days, but I have some announcements of interest.

New climate change bill circulating the Hill

Via The Hill: Sen. Jeff Bingaman (D-N.M.) is floating climate-change legislation on Capitol Hill that he plans to introduce soon. A draft version of the bill has been circulated to several Senate offices and the Energy Information Administration (EIA) will release an analysis of the proposal Thursday, according to Bill Wicker, press secretary for the […]