carbon trading won't work - la times

Carbon trading won't work - Los Angeles Times

Experiments with the market scheme favored by Schwarzenegger shows trading favors big polluters without curbing global warming gases.
By Michael K. Dorsey, MICHAEL K. DORSEY, assistant professor on Dartmouth College's faculty of science, teaches in the environmental studies program.
April 1, 2007

Economists, some environmentalists and a growing gaggle of politicians are pushing a grand strategy that a market mechanism — known as "carbon cap and trade" — can rescue us fastest from a climate catastrophe. But early evidence suggests that such a scheme may be a Faustian bargain.

poor markets, offshore competition, tight credit...

Outside of California forest products companies close due to poor markets, offshore competition, and tight credit... And, they know it.

Laramie Boomerang Online - Laramie, Wyoming News and Information

A Laramie-based wood molding company had to lock its front doors and turn away its employees Saturday after it and its parent company filed bankruptcy in District Court.

Rocky Mountain Forest Products (RMFP), 667 W. Flint, and its parent, Tewa Holdings of Wilmington, Del., filed Chapter 7 bankruptcy in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the District of Delaware.

Another Tewa Holdings subsidiary, Tewa Moulding, also filed Chapter 7 bankruptcy, according to papers RMFP distributed Saturday to its former employees.

The papers — which were from Cross & Simon LLC, a law firm based in Wilmington, Del. — said Tewa Holdings filed for bankruptcy because of “competition from offshore wood molding producers, a slowdown in the housing market and the inability to restructure its debt with its major secured lender.”

Mother's Day Hot Flash

This one's from Mom...

KFW HOT FLASH:

DISCOVER THE REAL HISTORY OF THE HOLIDAY:

Mother's Day in the United States was first established around 1870 by Julia Ward Howe who organized a Mother's Day peace march in Boston. In her Mother's Day Proclamation, Howe called on women to support pacifism and disarmament each year nationally. Read the original Mother’s Day Proclamation

When it was created, Mother's Day was an occasion for women to march for peace and to stage public anti-war protests. Feminists in decades since have followed in Howe's footsteps. For example, in May 1982, northern California saw a gathering of Mother's Day activists launch a protest campaign against the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory which designs and develops nuclear weapons. The protest escalated and today there continues to be people outside the gates at Livermore.

For the complete article by Louise Bernikow, The Shoulders We Stand On: Women as Agents of Change visit the Women’s Enews website

LEARN ABOUT:
Global historical perspectives on Mother’s Day Celebrations:

Mother's Day Central
Holidays Net
Women's History



REMEMBER MOTHERS WHO CHANGED HISTORY:

Mother Ann Lee
Ann Lee was born in Manchester, England, in 1736, the daughter of a blacksmith. A religious mystic, she believed in celibacy, but married at the urging of her parents. She gave birth to four children, all of whom died in infancy. She later experienced a mystical revelation that led her to seek divine perfection and to found a new religious group whose members became known as Shaking Quakers or Shakers. In 1774, she led a small group of Shakers to New York to settle as a community of believers. Her husband left her, and she became known as Mother Ann Lee, teaching celibacy, sobriety, hard work, and careful attention to craft and simple beauty. Mother Ann Lee died in Watervliet, New York, in 1784, but her followers established two communities in Kentucky, at Pleasant Hill and South Union.

Mother Jones:
Born in Cork, Ireland, in 1837, Mary Harris migrated with her family to Canada. After finishing school, she moved to Memphis and married George Jones, an iron molder. In one week in 1867, her husband and all four children died of yellow fever. She moved to Chicago and worked as a seamstress but lost everything in the Great Fire of 1871. After that, Mary Jones took working people for her family. She traveled across the United States speaking to labor union members, who called her “Mother.” Twice, she organized “children’s crusades” to protest against child labor and in favor of better wages for mothers and fathers. A West Virginia District Attorney called her “the most dangerous woman in America,” and a U.S. Senator said she was the “grandmother of all agitators.” Mother Jones answered that she hoped to become the great grandmother of agitators, too. She died in 1930 and is buried in the Union Miners Cemetery at Mount Olive, in the coalfields of southern Illinois.

Josephine Baker
Freda Josephine McDonald was born in St. Louis, Missouri. After surviving the 1917 riots she ran away at the age of 13 and began dancing in vaudeville and on Broadway. Virtually an instant hit, Josephine Baker became one of the best-known entertainers in both France and much of Europe. During World War II she worked with the Red Cross, gathered intelligence for the French Resistance and entertained troops in Africa and the Middle East. After the war, Josephine Baker adopted twelve children from around the world, making her home a World Village. She returned to the stage in the 1950s to finance this project.

In 1951, Josephine Baker was refused service at the famous Stork Club in New York City. Josephine Baker responded by crusading for racial equality, refusing to entertain in any club or theater that was not integrated, and thereby breaking the color bar at many establishments. In 1963, she spoke at the March on Washington at the side of Martin Luther King, Jr.

Mother Teresa
Born in 1910 in what is now Macedonia, Agnes Bojaxhiu went to India to teach in an open air school in 1929. She became a nun in 1931 and took the name Teresa, the patron saint of missionaries. She continued to teach until 1948, when she left the convent to live among the poor. In 1950, she established the Missionaries of Charity to care for “the hungry, the naked, the homeless, the lepers, and all those people who felt unwanted, unloved, and uncared for throughout society.” In 1979, Mother Teresa was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize “for work undertaken in the struggle to overcome poverty and distress, which also constitute a threat to world peace.” When she died in 1997, the Missionaries of Charity numbered over 4,000 sisters and 300 brothers, operating 610 centers in 123 countries.


Find out more about famous mothers, including Mary Wollstonecraft, mother of women’s rights and grandmother of Frankenstein.

THINK ABOUT:
Spiritual Mother Figures:

Ala, Earth Mother: Nigeria

Al-Lat, The Mother facet connected with the Earth: Islamic

Asherah, The Nursing Goddess of the Israelites: Jewish

Danu,The Great Mother: Celtic

Demeter,The Earth Goddess: Greek

Devi, The Great Goddess: India

Kuan Yin, Goddess of Compassion: Chinese

Mami Wata, Mother of the Sea: Ghana

Maia, The Great Mother: Greek

Selu, The Corn Mother: Cherokee Tradition

Tara, The Mother of Liberation: Buddism

Tonantzin, The Lunar Mother: Astec

Virgin Mary, The Mother of Jesus: Christian

Yemoja, Great Mother Creator: Yoruba

Establishment Rethinks Globalization

The Establishment Rethinks Globalization
William Greider

Gomory's critique has great political potential because it provides what the opponents of corporate-led globalization have generally lacked: a comprehensive intellectual platform for arguing that the US approach to globalization must be transformed to defend the national interest. Still, it will take politicians of courage to embrace his ideas and act on them. Gomory's political solutions are as heretical as his economic analysis.

Toyota, GM, and the seeds of future growth

Toyota's annual report, released today, revealed robust growth in 2006. According to some, Toyota's CEO Wantanbe downplayed record breaking profits in order avoid inviting "jealousy and other negative reactions" including trade sanctions.

Meanwhile GM and Ford are losing billions. At Ford even the Ford family is considering hiring outside advisers for the struggling company.

While Toyota is "'planting the seeds' of future growth" the recent film "Who Killed the Electric Car" indicates that GM is intentionally crushing them and burying them in the desert.

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Toyota Profit Robust, Forecast Cautious - New York Times

Yet, despite last year’s strong showing, Toyota struck a cautious note in its forecast for the current fiscal year, which ends in March 2008. The company said it expects a modest 0.4 percent rise in net profit, to 1.65 trillion yen ($14.1 billion).

The company attributed the forecast to what it called a “severe market” in slumping North America, where Toyota earns about 60 percent of its profits. Toyota said it expects sales growth this year in North America to slow to 1.6 percent, down from 15.1 percent last year. Toyota also cited increased spending to build factories and develop new vehicles and technologies, like its popular gas-electric hybrids and more futuristic hydrogen-powered fuel-cell engines.

The slowdown in profit growth “is temporary, as we are planting the seeds” of future growth, Toyota’s president, Katsuaki Watanabe, told reporters. “Earnings will improve again.”

Who Killed the Electric Car? Trailer:

An Electric Car, Booted - Washington Post

The film [Who Killed the Electric Car?] chronicles how GM developed and launched a fleet of silent, aerodynamic electric vehicles to meet California's zero-emissions mandate. The shapely two-seaters with a GM logo enjoyed a brief ride in California and Arizona from 1996 until 2003, when they were taken off the market and destroyed. (GM says it was concerned about safety; others say the company wanted to head off the loss of proprietary secrets.)

[Chris] Paine was one of the original drivers. The director started to make a comedy about Los Angeles drivers going nutty over cars, but the project turned serious after he encountered perfectly drivable EV1s being crushed and shredded at the Mesa Proving Grounds in Arizona.

In the film, images of President Bush and Vice President Cheney set a political tone, although California regulators set standards for zero emissions that forced automakers, including Honda and Toyota, to experiment with electric cars. Ralph Nader weighs in. So do Mel Gibson and Tom Hanks, who drove EV1s.

Every one of its 2,000 parts was unique. The engine whirred, rather than roared, but spewed no emissions; there was no gear-shifting; and drivers talk of the car's torque with awe.

The film presents the EV1 as an answer to global warming, pollution, unrest in the Middle East and rising gasoline prices.

Instead, California changed its emissions laws and automakers could again pursue nonelectric technology…

Phil Karn, a vice president for technology at Qualcomm in San Diego, drove the Smithsonian's car for two years. He leased a second one, commuting 11 miles each way to work without recharging issues. When the car was reclaimed, he says, it felt like losing a family pet.

"It made no sense to us," he said by phone. "The only way we can figure is, they built this car to fail . . . or the anti-EV1 faction inside GM won."

Carbon indulgences

The Carbon Neutral Myth - Transnational Institute

Carbon offsets are the modern day indulgences, sold to an increasingly carbon conscious public to absolve their climate sins. Scratch the surface, however, and a disturbing picture emerges, where creative accountancy and elaborate shell games cover up the impossibility of verifying genuine climate change benefits, and where communities in the South often have little choice as offset projects are inflicted on them.

This report argues that offsets place disproportionate emphasis on individual lifestyles and carbon footprints, distracting attention from the wider, systemic changes and collective political action that needs to be taken to tackle climate change. Promoting more effective and empowering approaches involves moving away from the marketing gimmicks, celebrity endorsements, technological quick fixes, and the North/South exploitation that the carbon offsets industry embodies.

Drug policy, point counterpoint

No, not those kind of drugs.

Today's senate action managed to block the importation of cheaper FDA approved medicines from Canada, Australia, Europe, Japan and New Zealand...

Meanwhile Brazil's president Lula broke the patent on Merck's AIDS drug Efavirenz allowing the government to buy a generic version from labs certified by the World Health Organization.

Senate Blocks Bid to Allow Drug Imports - Forbes.com
By ANDREW BRIDGES 05.07.07, 5:55 PM ET

The Senate effectively killed a bid to allow consumers to buy their prescription medicines abroad Monday, requiring U.S. officials to certify the safety and effectiveness of such drugs.

The certification amendment, passed on a 49-40 vote, would require health officials to do something they have long said they cannot.

Because of that, the vote undercut a second measure that would permit prescription drug imports from Food and Drug Administration-approved sources in Canada, Australia, Europe, Japan and New Zealand.

The Bush administration opposes allowing imports of prescription drugs, and the White House had threatened a veto.

Bloomberg.com: Latin America
Brazil Breaks Patent on Merck's Efavirenz AIDS Drug
By Katia Cortes

May 4 (Bloomberg) -- Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva broke the patent on Merck & Co's AIDS drug Efavirenz after the company's offer to cut prices failed to satisfy demands from the country's health ministry.

Lula, in a presidential palace ceremony today in Brasilia, signed a law allowing the government to buy a generic version of Efavirenz from laboratories certified by the World Health Organization. The government would consider a new proposal from Merck should the company choose to make one, Health Minister Jose Gomes Temporao said in an interview.

``Our decision today involves this one drug, but we can take the same steps with any other that we consider necessary,'' Lula said. ``It doesn't matter if it's a U.S., German, French, Brazilian or Argentine company.''

Forest carbon markets: benefits challenged

Seems simple enough: Manage forests, sequester carbon, reduce global warming.

A recent summary of science findings Forests, Carbon and Climate Change by the Oregon Forest Institute is supportive:

Chapter 5: In conclusion, forest management cannot fully solve the problem of carbon accumulation in the atmosphere (and no other individual sector can). However, measures in forestry and other types of land management can contribute significantly to the solution.
Over the course of 50 years, reduced deforestation, reforestation, afforestation and other measures could provide a cumulative sequestration of 25 billion metric tons of carbon globally. This is similar to the effect of doubling the current global nuclear power generation capacity or doubling the fuel economy of cars (Pacala and Socolow 2004). Increased carbon storage on land, in combination with a host of emission reduction measures, can help reduce and even end the ongoing rise of carbon concentration in the atmosphere.

Yet the necessary infrastructure to support carbon markets is still in a formative stage:

Industry caught in carbon ‘smokescreen’

Companies and individuals rushing to go green have been spending millions on “carbon credit” projects that yield few if any environmental benefits.

A Financial Times investigation has uncovered widespread failings in the new markets for greenhouse gases, suggesting some organisations are paying for emissions reductions that do not take place."

And then, just to make matters really confusing this report challenges underlying assumptions regarding the relationship between carbon storage in temperate forests and their overall impact on global warming:

Models show growing more forests in temperate regions could contribute to global warming

LIVERMORE, Calif.
Temperate and Tropical Forests
New climate modeling research from LLNL and the Carnegie Institution shows that northern temperate forests may contribute to global warming, while tropical forests can help keep global temperatures cool.

In theory, growing a forest may sound like a good idea to fight global warming, but in temperate regions, such as the United States, those trees also would soak up sunlight, causing the earth’s surface to warm regionally by up to 8 degrees Fahrenheit.

Government statistics and market performance

All you've got to do is believe:



Shadow Government Statistics
Analysis Behind and Beyond Government Economic Reporting

Have you ever wondered why the CPI, GDP and employment numbers run counter to your personal and business experiences? The problem lies in biased and often-manipulated government reporting.

Redefining Progress - 2006
Genuine Progress Indicator Update

Global Warming, Income Gap, Urban Sprawl, and Debt
Reduce America's Economic Welfare

The U.S. economy has actually stagnated since the late 1970s as income inequality, environmental degradation, and our flailing international position take their toll on real economic progress.