Green Lifestyles Top-of-Mind for Many Americans in March

comScore, Inc. a leader in measuring the digital world, has released its monthly analysis of US Web activity at the top online properties for March 2011 based on data from the comScore Media Metrix service. Green lifestyles were top of mind for many Americans in March as the country took part in the annual Earth Hour (March 26) amid rising fuel costs. Travel sites spiked as springtime rolled in, helping visitors to plan last minute spring break getaways and upcoming summer vacations.

“Green sites earned the #1 spot on the top gaining categories ranking in March -- a result of Americans seeking ways to cut back on energy consumption beyond Earth Hour amid a backdrop of skyrocketing gas prices,” said Jeff Hackett, executive vice president of comScore Media Metrix. “Travel sites were also popular during the month as many Americans booked last minute spring break trips and looked ahead to plan summer vacations.”

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Australia falls out of love with 'Carbon Cate' over starring role in tax advert

In the eyes of her fellow Australians, Cate Blanchett – Oscar-winning actor, theatre director and icon of female beauty – can usually do no wrong. Yesterday, though, she was branded "Carbon Cate" for taking part in a television advertising campaign promoting the virtues of a carbon tax.

Australia is embroiled in a bitter debate about the tax, which the Labor government plans to introduce by July next year. Critics, including the conservative opposition, claim it will lead to electricity, food and petrol price rises, causing hardship for families.

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Why must UK have to choose between nuclear and renewable energy?

The environment movement is needlessly polarised over nuclear power, with Jonathon Porritt only encouraging this tribalism. Can he explain why he thinks nuclear and renewables can't co-exist?

I know that others don't share my puzzlement, but I don't understand why the nuclear question needs to divide the environment movement. Our underlying aim is the same: we all want to reduce human impacts on the biosphere. We all agree that our consumption of resources must be reduced, as sharply as possible. We all question the model of endless economic growth.

Almost everyone in this movement also recognises that – even with the maximum possible conservation of resources and efficiency in the way they are used – we will not be able to bring our consumption down to zero. This is especially the case with electricity. Those who have been following the issue closely know that even with massive reductions in energy demand, electricity use will have to rise in order to remove fossil fuels from both transport and heating.

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Melting of the Arctic 'will accelerate climate change within 20 years'

An irreversible climate "tipping point" could occur within the next 20 years as a result of the release of huge quantities of organic carbon locked away as frozen plant matter in the vast permafrost region of the Arctic, scientists have found.

Warming threat to the frozen ground of the arctic: Click here to download the graphic (80k)

Billions of tons of frozen leaves and roots that have lain undisturbed for thousands of years in the permanently frozen ground of the northern hemisphere are thawing out, with potentially catastrophic implications for climate change, the researchers said.

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Ten ways to save the world

We get the message. The planet's doomed unless we get our act together PDQ. We even know some of the measures needed to give ourselves a chance. But which less orthodox proposals could stave off disastrous climate change? Environment editor Geoffrey Lean has a cunning plan

It has been a really bad week for the climate. Each day brought depressing news as scientists meeting in Copenhagen told us global warming is taking place more rapidly than expected. The seas are rising faster than predicted; the polar ice caps are melting more quickly; and the Amazon rainforest is doomed unless urgent action is taken.

The main solutions are widely agreed. The world needs to forge a much tougher treaty this year to replace the failed Kyoto Protocol. Global emissions of carbon dioxide must be cut by at least half by the middle of the century, much more in industrialised countries.

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Worst ever carbon emissions leave climate on the brink

Greenhouse gas emissions increased by a record amount last year, to the highest carbon output in history, putting hopes of holding global warming to safe levels all but out of reach, according to unpublished estimates from the International Energy Agency.

The shock rise means the goal of preventing a temperature rise of more than 2 degrees Celsius – which scientists say is the threshold for potentially "dangerous climate change" – is likely to be just "a nice Utopia", according to Fatih Birol, chief economist of the IEA. It also shows the most serious global recession for 80 years has had only a minimal effect on emissions, contrary to some predictions.

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Low metal recycling threatens green economy: UN report

Too much metal is being thrown away when it could be recycled, wasting an opportunity to save energy and risking shortages in materials used for new green technologies, a UN report warned Thursday.

In a landmark study, the first to outline the extent to which metals are collected, the UN Environment Programme (UNEP) found that less than one third of about 60 metals studied are recycled to any significant degree.

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Preventing Corruption in Humanitarian Operations

The handbook is primarily aimed at managers and staff of humanitarian agencies, both at headquarters (HQ) and in the field. It speaks directly to those on front line of aid delivery as well as to senior managers who determine organisational culture and values.

The handbook is designed to help anyone working in the humanitarian sector identify and prevent the corruption risks faced by their particular organisation or department, or within a specific programme or role. It does not try to set out industry-wide standards for aid agencies in emergencies. Rather, it describes ‘what to do’ to minimise corruption risks, while numerous reference documents attached offer technical details on ‘how to do it’.

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CFO Insights: Navigating the Road to IFRS

One issue frequently on the mind of today's CFO is the pending convergence of U.S. Generally Accepted Accounting Principles (GAAP) and International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS).

Navigating the Road to IFRS is a collection of CFO Insights' articles that looks at this issue from a variety of angles:

• The emerging convergence challenge
  
• Cutting costs and driving value with an IFRS Center of Excellence
  
• Debt covenants
  
• Tax considerations
  
• Enterprise resource planning systems

See full Press Release.

Sexo para salvar el planeta

Sexo, orgías y pornografía: una extraña manera de defender el medio ambiente.

Pero para Leona Johansson y Tommy Hol Ellingsen, es una forma de activismo.

"¡Salvar el planeta es sexy! ¿Por qué no excitarse por una buena causa?", argumentan.

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Financial Reform for Nonfinancial Companies | New regulations may change the way you do business with your financial

New regulations may change the way you do business with your financial institution

The Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act (Dodd-Frank) passed in July 2010 is one of several major efforts to reregulate the financial services industry in the wake of the financial and economic crisis. It is a sweeping piece of legislation made up of numerous titles that will lead over the coming months and years to significant changes in how and where financial firms do their main businesses. In many cases, the Act is likely to reshape the economics of some of those businesses, forcing existing providers to reconsider the balance between risk, required regulatory capital, and potential returns.

The direct consequences of Dodd-Frank and other new regulations or standards, such as Basel III capital and liquidity standards, will fall mainly on financial institutions, particularly banks and securities firms. However, because these companies provide essential credit and liquidity to the corporate sector more generally, it seems clear that whatever emerges as the precise set of impacts on financial services will likely also have impacts on their customers. Further, there are parts of Dodd-Frank — such as those dealing with corporate governance, executive compensation and whistle-blower protection — that apply to all public U.S. companies and these will clearly have direct effects on nonfinancial companies.

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How the 'ecosystem' myth has been used for sinister means

When, in the 1920s, a botanist and a field marshal dreamed up rival theories of nature and society, no one could have guessed their ideas would influence the worldview of 70s hippies and 21st-century protest movements. But their faith in self-regulating systems has a sinister history

At the end of March this year there was a wonderful moment of television interviewing on Newsnight. It was just after student protesters had invaded Fortnums and other shops in Oxford Street during the TUC march against the cuts. Emily Maitlis asked Lucy Annson from UK Uncut whether, as a spokesperson for the direct-action group, she condemned the violence.

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Promoting Revenue Transparency: 2011 Report on Oil and Gas Companies

The Promoting Revenue Transparency: 2011 Report on Oil and Gas Companies, published by Transparency International in partnership with Revenue Watch, rates 44 companies on their levels of transparency. Representing 60 per cent of global oil and gas production, the companies are evaluated in three areas: reporting on anti-corruption programmes, organisational disclosure and country-level disclosure of financial and technical data.

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Bravo for nimbyism. What else will keep us from turbines and pylons?

Too much faith – and subsidy – is ploughed into wind power when there are alternatives to butchering Britain

We know all about life, liberty, property and the pursuit of happiness, but what of beauty? This week hundreds of marchers have converged on Cardiff from the west Midlands and mid-Wales in a desperate bid to halt what, on any showing, is an aesthetic travesty. By what right?

The protested plan, which has seen the Welsh marches in uproar for six months, is to erect 800 more wind turbines across the Cambrian Mountains and build a 100-mile network of 150ft pylons over the Powys hills, down the upper Severn valley into Shropshire. It will turn the largest wilderness area of Britain outside a national park into hundreds of square miles of power station.

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Brazil risks protection record by proposing changes to forest code

If the president fails to keep the current forest laws intact she will break the very promises which saw her elected

Less than one year ago, the Brazilian government stood proudly on the world stage as a country that would not allow development to destroy its rainforests and announced the lowest rate of Amazon deforestation on record. Brazil's newly elected and first female president, Dilma Roussef, promised to prevent any changes in law that would allow more deforestation or give amnesty to environmental criminals. She vowed to uphold the previous government's commitments to reducing deforestation by 80% by 2020. Yet, only a few months later, the gloss has worn off and the promises look shaky. Forest loss is climbing again and millions of hectares are on the chopping block.

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Understanding Your FBAR Reporting Requirements

Individuals and organizations who have a financial interest in or signature or other authority over a foreign financial account are required to file an annual Report of Foreign Bank and Financial Accounts -- known as an FBAR -- with the Treasury Department. But because of final reporting rules put in place earlier this year, some individuals and organizations who never had to file an FBAR in the past will now be required to file one -- and returns for calendar year 2010 must be received by June 30, 2011. Failure to file can lead to civil and criminal penalties.

A wider net: Understanding your FBAR reporting requirements explains what the final rules are, who’s required to file, and what actions filers should be taking now to ensure they are in compliance.

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Green groups take EU to court over biofuels - again

BusinessGreen: Campaigners say the European Commission is failing to meet its legal commitment to transparency regarding the sustainability of Europe's biofuels policy

Green groups are suing the European Commission over what they see as a failure to meet its legal commitment to transparency regarding information in decisions relating to the sustainability of Europe's biofuels policy.

A lawsuit filed on Wednesday by law organisation ClientEarth, Friends of the Earth Europe, FERN and Corporate Europe Observatory alleges that the Commission has refused the groups access to information about voluntary certification schemes used to ensure compliance with EU criteria on biofuel sustainability set out in the Renewable Energy Directive (RED).

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Efforts to curb foreign bribery remain inadequate

New report shows the need to improve enforcement

The number of countries enforcing a ban on foreign bribery has shown continuous progress in the last six years, with countries representing more than half of world exports taking action, according to a new report by Transparency International (TI). However, there are still twenty countries that have taken little or no action.

TI’s report shows that 7 of the 36 countries evaluated are actively enforcing the OECD Anti-Bribery Convention to which they are party. These countries represent approximately 30 per cent of world exports. The increase from four to seven actively enforcing countries since TI’s 2009 report is a very positive development. The 2010 TI report also shows moderate enforcement in nine other countries which account for 21 per cent of exports. The 20 countries with little or no enforcement represent about 15 per cent of world exports.

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Cate Blanchett to front carbon tax campaign

HOLLYWOOD actress Cate Blanchett will star in a new television campaign urging Australians to support a carbon tax.

The campaign fronted by Blanchett and fellow Australian actor Michael Caton calls on the public to “Say Yes” to cutting carbon pollution.

Nine organisations - including Greenpeace, World Wildlife Fund and the Climate Institute - are behind the ads, which will start screening during shows like MasterChef tonight.

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Amnesty International marks 50 years of fighting for free speech

Amnesty International: campaigning organisation started by Peter Benenson to free prisoners of conscience celebrates evolution from first protest

When she was young, Manya Benenson's dad told her a story of two frogs that fall into a bucket of cream and swim around and around. The first one gives up and drowns, the second keeps going until he finds his struggles have churned the cream to butter, and he climbs out. As a fable, she said, it could sum up the movement that the late Peter Benenson began in the Observer 50 years ago this weekend.

It was a day for sentiment and inspirational stories yesterday, as Amnesty International celebrated its birthday with an event at St Martins in the Fields in central London. The celebration was held at the same Trafalgar Square church where Benenson, a bowler-hatted barrister, slipped away from work in 1961 and sat alone to dream up what has become the world's most renowned human rights organisation.

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Corruption in Indonesia: Slow to shame | The Economist

SOME societies are controlled by guilt, others by shame. Then there’s Indonesia, which is rarely controlled by either. At least among the political elite, there is an insuperable ability to avoid accepting responsibility for one’s actions. While American politicians step down quickly enough over sex or corruption scandals (Europeans even faster), and an Indian railways minister will fall on his sword after a horrific train crash, Indonesian leaders have a long record of refusing to resign no matter how serious the allegations against them, no matter how high the level of public pressure.

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The pursuit of happiness

A correlation between well-being and wealth

FOR more than 70 years, economists have been fixated with measuring economic ouput. Their chosen measure, gross domestic product, has limitations—it takes no account of natural-resource depletion and excludes unpaid services such as volunteering. On May 24th the OECD launched its alternative measure of well-being which includes 20 different indicators across 11 sectors in its 34 member countries, from life satisfaction to air pollution.

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OECD Anti-Bribery Convention Progress Report 2011

In 1999 leaders from OECD countries took a big step. They committed to holding their companies to account for their behaviour abroad. Until then, bribing abroad to win contracts had been a tax deductible expense in at least 14 OECD countries.

Twelve years on, progress with implementation of the OECD Anti-Bribery Convention is in danger of grinding to a halt. For seven years, Transparency International (TI) has monitored how well governments live up to their promises and enforce the OECD convention. This year’s progress report, for the first time, shows no improvement in enforcement, with the same countries in the same enforcement categories as in last year’s report.

Access full Report.

Women CEOs Just 3% of 500 Largest Companies

Bain & Company has released a new study explaining why women aren't making it to the C-suite. No surprises that while most respondents believe in the benefits of gender parity, very few companies are able to put it into practice. The study cites motherhood and poor company initiatives as the reasons for women not making it up the ladder.

It seems that women who have taken time off work or have worked part-time for family reasons are penalized when it comes to promotions, even if they have equal qualifications and skills. There are some estimates that more than 90% of women want to return to work after having children, but only 40% find full-time jobs.

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Dear G8: Please keep your promises at your 2011 Summit in Deauville, France

On May 27th and 28th the leaders of the top eight economies in the world will meet in Deauville, France for the G8 Summit. The G8 leaders made a promise to the world’s poorest people to halve poverty by 2015 and to put people first. With only four years to go on that commitment, they are dangerously off track.

Oxfam is asking the G8 for an emergency plan to deliver the aid they have promised. They must invest in reducing hunger, and health and education in the poorest countries. They must also take action to stop rich companies avoiding taxes in poor countries.

See full Press Release.

Female quotas 'against Deutsche principles', says Ackermann

Deutsche Bank chief executive Josef Ackermann has again stoked the debate over female representation on boards by dismissing gender quotas as being against the German bank’s principles.

Speaking at Deutsche Bank’s annual general meeting, Ackermann said the company was committed to having more women executives and board members “to make full use of the advantages of diversity”.

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We’re 50! | Amnesty International

Incentives 'can help home-owners go green'

Incentives, such as garden makeovers and fruit and veg vouchers, could help home-owners invest in energy efficiency measures, a pilot scheme has shown.

But the study found that more had to be done to convince people of the merits of flood protection devices, even if they lived in high flood risk areas.

The trial by the University of Salford set out to discover if non-cash incentives could change attitudes.

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The Grand Finale of the G8 Summit

G8 Leaders at the Moulin Rouge.

As the G8 Summit comes to a close, it seems like we’ve seen another grand show from world leaders, but not much real decision-making. It’s a disappointment that they didn't regain their credibility, and have been unclear on previous promises and new commitments. Why the façade?

Just like the show at the Moulin Rouge, the G8 Summit seems to be just for show with choreographed moves and behind-the-scenes agreements. It’s time for world leaders to come out from backstage and see the reality of their indecision. Every day one in 7 people will die of hunger, and they can’t afford to wait for the show to be over.

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Fifa president Sepp Blatter under investigation

Good news. As he is standing again and eliminating competition, it is good to see that his role is being investigated. There has been too much corruption in his tenure as well.

Onésimo Alvarez-Moro

See article:
Fifa has opened an ethics investigation against its president, Sepp Blatter.

The action follows a charge by Mohamed Bin Hammam, his rival in next week's presidency election, that Blatter knew about alleged cash payments.

Bin Hammam and vice-president Jack Warner will also be at Sunday's hearing to answer charges of bribery.

Blatter issued a statement saying: "I cannot comment on the proceedings that have been opened against me. The facts will speak for themselves."

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Deforestation: Chopping down the Amazon

Making sense of the numbers on the Brazilian Amazon

UNDERSTANDING what is happening to the world's largest tropical forest is hard: efforts to monitor deforestation in the Amazon are hampered by cloud cover, which can prevent satellites from getting a full picture of what's happening on the ground. The numbers also tend to ping around month by month, prompting alarm among conservationists one month and triumphalism from Brazil's government, which tries to prevent illegal logging, the next.

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Is Native Forestry an Endangered Species?

One day you sorry lot will wake up to the fact that “forestry” does not solely mean destroying trees and understorey for corporate profit … the results of your work are clearly visible even from outer space through the destruction left in your wake.

—anonymous contributor to the Tasmanian Times, August 2010

Clearly, some Tasmanians have little regard for the practice of forestry, judging by the savagery with which it has been regularly derided on Hobart-based current affairs blog, the Tasmanian Times. Similar views are also being increasingly held at the political level given the rise of the Greens and independents such as Tasmania’s Andrew Wilkie, who implied soon after his election that the treatment of the state’s native forests was “unethical”.

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The Greens' Agenda, in Their Own Words

For many years, the Greens have been treated as a political curiosity. They could win a spot or two in the Senate, but they were absent from the real place of political power, the House of Representatives. That has now changed. Not only will they have more senators from next July, they also have a seat in the House. More significantly, they are in formal alliance with minority Labor governments nationally and in Tasmania.

Despite the emphasis on the environment, “the Greens are not a single issue party”.[1] Their objective is clear: “to transform politics and bring about Green government.”[2] The Australian Greens are part of a worldwide movement that is actively engaged in the political process.[3] As their writings state, this objective involves a radical transformation of the culture that underpins Western civilisation. As a political party, they should be treated like any other political party and subjected to the same scrutiny.

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Carwyn Jones says Wales must grasp 'energy decade'

Wales has to move to a green economy as fast as possible, says First Minister Carwyn Jones.

The next 10 years must be "Wales's energy decade", he told a conference.

At the same event, Welsh Secretary Cheryl Gillan said politicians and businesses could not ride roughshod over local people's opinion.

They spoke two days after hundreds of campaigners descended on the Welsh assembly to protest against wind energy plans for mid Wales.

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Ursula Sladek: Power behind a green revolution

Ursula Sladek spent 25 years campaigning for green energy in her town, fuelled by a desire to protect her family

As the world confronts the implications of the Fukushima nuclear plant, Ursula Sladek is furious. "We had Chernobyl 25 years ago. I am very angry that we needed another disaster to open our eyes. Now we know that a disaster such as this can happen in highly industrialised countries like Japan."

The Chernobyl meltdown in 1986 transformed Sladek, 64, into an environmental hero, creator of one of Europe's first decentralised renewable power companies, owned by the people for the people.

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S.E.C. Adopts Final Rules for Whistle-Blowers

A divided Securities and Exchange Commission narrowly approved rules on Wednesday to create a $300 million whistle-blower program.

Supporters of the program said it would help the agency crack down on wrongdoing, but opponents contend it would actually hamper the ability of companies to police themselves.

The final rules, which were approved by a 3-to-2 vote, included several changes from rules first proposed by the S.E.C. last year after passage of the Dodd-Frank regulatory law that provided for the program. One of the changes included a potential bonus if corporate employees first report suspected wrongdoing through their company’s internal compliance system.

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Agents for Change

PARADISE BENEATH HER FEET: How Women Are Transforming the Middle East. By Isobel Coleman. Random House. 309 pp. $26

As the United States continues its wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, promises to broaden women’s rights in these two predominantly Muslim countries have not materialized. Millions of women in the greater Middle East still lack access to schooling and a political voice, are forced into child marriages, and are victims of honor killings and genital mutilation. In Paradise Beneath Her Feet, Isobel Coleman argues that in this traditional, deeply religious region, change is coming from within, but not in the ways many Westerners may expect or desire. Muslim women are running for office; starting careers in banking, law, and medicine; and taking to university lecterns by embracing Islam, the very belief that many in the West see as subordinatingthem.

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New OECD guidelines to protect human rights and social development

Ministers from OECD and developing economies will today agree new guidelines to promote more responsible business conduct by multinational enterprises, and a second set of guidance to limit the use of conflict minerals.

Forty-two countries will commit to new, tougher standards of corporate behaviour in the updated Guidelines for Multinational Enterprises: the 34 OECD countries plus Argentina, Brazil, Egypt, Latvia, Lithuania, Morocco, Peru and Romania. The updated Guidelines include new recommendations on human rights abuse and company responsibility for their supply chains, making them the first inter-governmental agreement in this area.

The Guidelines establish that firms should respect human rights in every country in which they operate. Companies should also respect environmental and labour standards, for example, and have appropriate due diligence processes in place to ensure this happens. These include issues such as paying decent wages, combating bribe solicitation and extortion, and the promotion of sustainable consumption.

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What Is a Tree Worth?

Trees brighten city streets and delight nature-starved urbanites. Now scientists are learning that they also play a crucial role in the green infrastructure of America’s cities.

On April 8, 1905, President Theodore Roosevelt, attired in a dark suit and top hat, could be found in Fort Worth, Texas, where youngsters looked on from a nearby window as he shoveled soil over the roots of a sapling. It was Arbor Day, which schools across the nation had recently begun commemorating, and the ever vigorous president was demonstrating his hands-on love of trees. For Roosevelt, Arbor Day was no publicity stunt. In an address to America’s schoolchildren a couple of years later, he celebrated “the importance of trees to us as a Nation, of what they yield in adornment, comfort, and useful products.” He saw trees as vital to the country’s well-being: “A people without children would face a hopeless future; a country without trees is almost as hopeless.”

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The doomed planet - The idiocy continues

Since humans began to farm several thousand years ago, we’ve become increasingly better off.

With progress comes problems, and one of the pesky problems that accompanies “easy food” is active imaginations and an insatiable desire for entertainment - preferably real-life drama.

So it’s no surprise that, in response to the demand, clever people cook up entertainingly frightful scenarios for us to dwell on. I suppose it started in earnest with John writing Revelation. Nostradamus got in on some action. Malthus was the king of dire. Carson’s Silent Spring continues to flow. Michael Moore is the modern version (complete with special effects!) of all the above. Global cooling, acid rain, ozone holes, alar on apples, Y2K, England winning the Ashes ... the list goes on and on.

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Anna Bligh warns of 'radical' Greens

QUEENSLAND Premier Anna Bligh has urged Julia Gillard to avoid "radical and extreme politics", warning that Greens' proposals to ban new coalmines would cause "a social and economic catastrophe" for her state.

Attacking the Greens as fanciful and unrealistic, Ms Bligh has also strongly defended her state's burgeoning coal-seam gas industry, telling The Australian it would be an important transitional fuel in coming decades as the world sought to develop "viable" energy alternatives.

The Premier's stout defence of an industry that directly employs 55,000 Queenslanders came as Greens leader Bob Brown renewed his calls for a swift transition away from coal and savaged federal Resources Minister Martin Ferguson, who on Tuesday defended the industry's future.

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Diversity Dismantled

THE SOURCE: "Affirmative Inaction” by William M. Chace, in The American Scholar, Winter 2011.

American colleges and universities have long been governed by two competing ideals: They aim to be both meritocratic centers of intellectual excellence and “model commonwealths” that bring together individuals of diverse backgrounds.
The “model commonwealth” ideal has taken a big hit over the years as one of its principal tools, affirmative action, has fallen out of favor with the courts and the public, writes William M. Chace, a former president of Wesleyan University and Emory University. In 2003, the U.S. Supreme Court upheld the place of diversity in higher education in Grutter v. Bollinger et al., ruling that race and ethnicity could continue to serve as criteria in admissions. But that same year, in Gratz et al. v. Bollinger et al., the Court said that racial and ethnic considerations could be made only if they were “narrowly tailored”—that is, if they were just two of many traits the institution considered in holistically evaluating candidates. No longer could institutions automatically increase the rankings of minority applicants.

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A Link Between Climate Change And Joplin Tornadoes? Never!

The US government and media are like children who have joined a strange cult, and environmentalists take on the role of frustrated parents trying to show connections between behavior and consequences. Many in the US stubbornly resist connecting extreme weather events with climate change. News anchors, reporters, government weather officials studiously avoid mentioning climate change, carbon emissions, a melting Arctic, moisture-laden warm air, sustainability or the fact that the US with 5 percent of the world’s population uses 25 percent of its energy. Instead, the media and government mindlessly repeat a mantra, “no single weather event can ever be directly tied to climate change,” contends environmentalist Bill McKibben in a Washington Post essay. The volatile weather is in line with longtime predictions from global climatologists. The US clings to low prices for fossil fuels and unsustainable practices even as tornadoes, droughts, wildfires, floods and other extreme events unleash economic chaos and suffering.

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Environment: Green and growth go together

Governments must look to the green economy to find new sources of growth and jobs. They should put in place policies that tap into the innovation, investment and entrepreneurship driving the shift towards a greener economy.

Green growth makes economic as well as environmental sense. In natural resource sectors alone, commercial opportunities related to investments in environmental sustainability could run into trillions of dollars by 2050.

The OECD Green Growth Strategy, and the new report, Towards Green Growth, provide a practical framework for governments to boost economic growth and protect the environment.

See full Press Release.

A Dozen Global Warming Slogans

For many years now, our media outlets have been awash with commentary about dangerous human-caused global warming. The coverage tends to move in spasms relating to events such as meetings of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) or, as at present, to government efforts to introduce penal legislation against carbon dioxide emissions in the vain belief that this will “stop global warming”.

Given that carbon dioxide is indeed a greenhouse gas (albeit a mild and diminishingly effective one at currently increasing levels of atmospheric concentration), and that some human-caused emissions accrue in the atmosphere, the question of dangerous warming was a good one to raise back in the late 1980s. Since then, with the formation of the IPCC, and a parallel huge expansion of research and consultancy money into climate studies, energy studies and climate policy, an intensive effort has been made to identify and measure the human signature in the global temperature record at a cost that probably exceeds $100 billion. And, as Kevin Rudd might put it, “You know what? No such signature has been able to be isolated and measured.”

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Blue goo sucks up toxic waste

Mopping up radioactive waste is messy work. Ever since an earthquake and a tsunami crippled Japanese nuclear power plants in March, cleanup crews have been struggling to decontaminate the area. Typically, this kind of work is performed with low-tech tools: soap, water, pads, brushes and old-fashioned elbow grease.

Enter Hawaiian entrepreneur Hank Wuh, who donated 100 five-gallon pails -- about $250,000 worth -- of his company's hazardous waste cleaner, DeconGel, to the cleanup effort. Japanese officials are using the cleaner on everything from concrete walkways and parking lots to schools and retail shops, both inside and outside of the exclusion zone.

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OECD Launches Your Better Life Index

The OECD today unveiled a new, interactive index that will let people measure and compare their lives in a way that goes beyond traditional GDP numbers.

Called Your Better Life Index (watch video), the tool is part of a larger OECD Better Life Initiative that aims to measure well-being and progress. The index allows citizens to compare lives across 34 countries, based on 11 dimensions -- housing, income, jobs, community, education, environment, governance, health, life satisfaction, safety, work-life balance -- giving their own weight to each of the dimensions.

“This index encapsulates the OECD at 50, pushing the boundaries of knowledge and understanding in a pioneering and innovative manner,” said OECD Secretary-General, Angel Gurría. “People around the world have wanted to go beyond GDP for some time. This index is designed for them. It has extraordinary potential to help us deliver better policies for better lives.”

See full Press Release.

How to kill agriculture

The proposal that agriculture be subject to a carbon tax must rank as one of the worst aspects of the rush to tax carbon dioxide.

Our agricultural exports are enjoyed by others elsewhere on the planet, yet the government is being urged to draw into the carbon tax scheme a major export activity where any extra cost imposition has little to offer in changing behaviour and much to fear from unintended consequences.

Although agriculture is only 2 per cent of our GDP, two thirds of its products are exported. Agriculture is responsible for 13 per cent of our merchandise exports, reported in great detail by the Australian Bureau of Statistics and totaling $32 billion in 2008-09. The Department of Climate Change has modeled Australia’s greenhouse gas emissions from agriculture and estimated that it is 15 per cent of our total emissions. The certainty of our export statistics is in stark contrast to the unverifiable estimate of the agricultural emissions.

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20 Alternative Jobs For Law School Grads

Law school is a grind, and surviving it can take every last ounce of your energy. What’s more, upon graduation, even if you still want to be a lawyer, the job market has more JD holders than open positions, thus causing a tooth-and-nail fight for the few positions that are open. The days of a JD ensuring financial security in the legal field are over due to law firms, judges and the government downsizing to adjust to the economic climate. Fortunately, a law degree can bring forth many additional opportunities beyond just becoming a lawyer. If you’re open to a new career path you previously may not have considered, then peruse the list of the following jobs and see if one piques your interest. Note: median salaries (all but one are ranges) are from PayScale and apply to workers with 10-19 years of experience, so this is what you can achieve with a few years under your belt.

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A Way to Win the Climate Fight?

The Climate War: True Believers, Power Brokers, and the Fight to Save the Earth, by Eric Pooley, Hyperion, 481 pp., $27.99

Global Warming Gridlock: Creating More Effective Stategies for Protecting the Planet, by David G. Victor, Cambridge University Press, 392 pp., $40

There's a tense scene in Eric Pooley's The Climate War when Jim Rogers, CEO of coal utility Duke Energy and leader of a shaky coalition of power companies, faces a moment of truth. Ten Fortune 500 companies and four major environmental groups are at the table. They've got a statement of legislative principles they can agree on and are ready to throw their collective weight behind a long-overdue comprehensive climate-change bill in the United States.

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The Personal Costs of Spurning Green Misanthropy

Patrick Moore, Confessions of a Greenpeace Dropout: The Making of a Sensible Environmentalist (Beatty Street Publishers, 2011), 400 pages, US$34.95.

There is a darkly humorous scene in the Wachowskis’ film The Matrix in which the sentient computer program called Agent Smith explains his epiphany about the true nature of human beings:

I’ve realised that you are not actually mammals. Every mammal on the planet instinctively develops a natural equilibrium with the surrounding environment. But you humans do not. You move to an area and you multiply and multiply until every natural resource is consumed and the only way you can survive is to spread to another area ... Human beings are a disease, a cancer of the planet. You are a plague. And we are … the cure.

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Pescar plástico: primer proyecto para limpiar el Mediterráneo

Cada hora se vierten a los mares 675.000 kilos de basura, la mitad es plástico. El Mediterráneo no es una excepción. Alberga 250.000 millones de partículas de polímeros flotando. Los pescadores franceses comenzaron esta semana a limpiar el mar de plásticos

Cada 60 minutos se vierten al mar 675.000 kilos de basura, la mitad es plástico. Estos desechos matan cada año a unos 100.000 mamíferos marinos. De hecho, se han llegado a hallar concentraciones de hasta ocho millones de fragmentos plásticos por kilómetro cuadrado flotando en los océanos. Y a pesar de la elevada cifra, lo cierto es que se considera que sólo es un 10 o un 15 por ciento de la realidad que existe en los fondos y en las costas. El Mediterráneo no es, por desgracia, una excepción. Alberga unos 250.000 millones de partículas plásticas flotando con un peso total de 500 toneladas.

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Econbrowser: Measuring systemic financial risk

On a recent visit to UCSD, NYU Professor and Nobel Laureate Rob Engle called my attention to the NYU Stern Volatility Laboratory, a great resource that anyone can use to get some very interesting real-time analysis. Here I'd like to describe some of the features available for assessing the systemic risk posed by financial institutions.

The first step that Engle and colleagues propose is to calculate what they call the Marginal Expected Shortfall (MES) associated with a given financial institution. This is an estimate, based on recent dynamic variances and correlations of observed stock prices, of how much the stock valuation of a given institution would be expected to fall today if the overall market were to decline by more than 2%. This is essentially a time-varying tail-event beta, details of whose estimation can be found here.

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