The booklet “Saving the Titanic” was originally published by Paul Freundlich, founder of Green America (formerly Co-op America). It contains a dozen green strategies for our society to avoid the “icebergs” of climate change, nuclear catastrophe, economic collapse, and other ills. Today, we excerpt Solution #7, and over the coming days, we’ll share the rest of Paul’s solutions:
In the poorer nations of the world, GNP ignores the self-sufficiency of communities, barter, and financial transactions that are undocumented and untaxed. The scale of these transactions ranges from growing one‘s own food and trading chickens for medical care, to prostitution and the drug trade. The traditional charm of the informal economy—reliance on personal trust and strengthening of community relationships—is almost as well-documented as the risks: usury, exploitation and violence. More dependable, institutional protocols may be worth giving up invisibility. In the past few decades, community investment vehicles like the Grameen Bank in Bangladesh have found mutual assurance for lending as a reasonable and reliable way of transferring money to support community entrepreneurship. A more mainstream example of the transition has been the inroads to lucrative gambling by casinos and government-sponsored lotteries.
Did our government learn nothing from the terrible nuclear disaster at Fukushima?
Little more than one year later, the federal government has opened negotiations with Southern Company – one of the worst-polluting electric utilities in the country – to provide $8.3 billion in loan guarantees for two new nuclear power plants.
Today is the annual meeting of Bank of America in Charlotte, NC and it’s a lively one – inside and outside the meeting. Concerned shareholders and community groups, labor, environmental activists, foreclosure victims, and others in the 99% have been organizing to make their voices heard by corporate management and by people throughout the nation.
Socially responsible shareowners are promoting shareholder resolutions addressing political spending by Bank of America as well as its mortgage lending policies. Several of the big banks face resolutions this spring on their lending policies, as Green America’s Proxy Voting Recommendations highlight.
The financial crisis brought on in large part by the greed and misconduct of the mega-banks continues to threaten our nation’s economy as a whole. The role that bailed-out banks are playing continues to endanger our communities – especially low-to-moderate income neighborhoods and communities of color. The big banks’ political contributions and lobbying also continue to erode our democracy. But the public is fighting back and will do so for as long as it takes: http://youtu.be/WWp85MeqEhM To leave your mega-bank and switch to a community development bank or credit union visit: www.BreakUpWithYourMegaBank.org
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Every 30 minutes, a farmer commits suicide in India, a phenomenon that has been steadily rising since the 1970s. Documentary filmmaker Micha X. Peled took his cameras to the vibrant farming community of Telung Takli in the state of Maharashtra—which sits at the heart of the crisis— to find out why.
Peled’s 2011 film Bitter Seeds starts out with brief scenes from the funeral of a farmer who has just committed suicide. It swiftly cuts away to follow the story of Ram Krishna Kopulwar, who has been farming cotton on the same three acres since he was seven, as he plants genetically modified (GM) Bt cotton seeds for the first time. The question at the heart of the film is whether or not this gentle family man will join the list of farmers who have given Maharashtra and a handful of neighboring states the nickname of “India’s Suicide Belt.” Read more…
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The booklet “Saving the Titanic” was originally published by Paul Freundlich, founder of Green America (formerly Co-op America). It contains a dozen green strategies for our society to avoid the “icebergs” of climate change, nuclear catastrophe, economic collapse, and other ills. Today, we excerpt Solution #6, and over the coming days, we’ll share the rest of Paul’s solutions:
Deteriorating physical infrastructure is a critical issue in many countries, perhaps most seriously in the USA, where natural disasters have dramatically illustrated the tragic consequences of neglect. While the construction industry poured resources into building McMansions, there were bridges, tunnels, rails, sewers, electric cable, and gas lines ready to col-lapse or explode. In the USA, recession generated some political will to invest in public works that was vitiated by an emphasis on propping up the financial sector. Around the world, there is a critical need for sustainable forestry to fight the battle against global warming.
How: Governmental investment in infrastructure, and increasing minimum wages. An army of workers to rebuild our nations, with environmental efficiency paramount; a corps of workers to plant trees and preserve aquifers.
Result: Paying workers fair wages for work that is needed is the best way to democratize economies and provide both hope and the basis of consumption. Public works programs, financed by national governments and international lending (a re-directed IMF and World Bank), achieve a full-employment eco-omy while shoring up vital services and renewing the environment. Many less skilled jobs can be performed through National Service, also serving as a bridge to full employment.
Probability: The political bankruptcy of national governments is visible in Lagos and Mexico City, and then there was the in-ept, verging on criminal response to Hurricane Katrina. Even in a sophisticated and risk averse economy like Japan, the exposure of fallibility in nuclear facilities was a sobering message delivered by the 2011 tsunami. Nevertheless, the dual priorities of endangered critical resources and the need for spreading wealth are compelling arguments for governmental interventions.
In the days that follow, we’ll post the rest of Paul’s 12 strategies for righting the ship.
Congratulations to the state of Maine which just signed the first-ever government contract for renewable tidal power in the US! With power scheduled to be added to the grid as soon as October 2012, the terms of Maine’s contract call for electric utilities to negotiate for 20 years of power from the tides. According to Renewable Energy Magazine:
“Today is a major milestone in the 80-year effort to commercially harness the vast power of the tides. For longer than most of us have been alive, it has been a dream deferred. Now that dream will finally be realized,” said Maine Senate President Kevin Raye, who represents all of Washington County and eastern areas of Hancock and Penobscot Counties, and who was a Senate member of the Ocean Energy Task Force.
Cliff Boley made the transition from the building industry to the solar industry in 2008 and hasn’t looked back. He sees the green movement as the solution to social ills both large and small.
“Green works, everywhere, mean more American jobs, and a better America than was handed to our generation,” says Cliff. “Going green means we do not have to send our children to war to fight for oil. Going green means we keep our money in our communities building a future rather than shipping it overseas while we watch our cities die.”
We asked Cliff to tell us more about Blue Pacific Solar and his work for a renewable-energy future. Read more…
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The booklet “Saving the Titanic” was originally published by Paul Freundlich, founder of Green America (formerly Co-op America). It contains a dozen green strategies for our society to avoid the “icebergs” of climate change, nuclear catastrophe, economic collapse, and other ills. Today, we excerpt Solution #5, and over the coming days, we’ll share the rest of Paul’s solutions:
Nothing will be more productive than the development of technologies that support energy efficiency, address areas of environmental concern, or reduce major costs built into the present system. Alternative sources of energy like wind, solar, geothermal and hydrogen fuel cells are obviously at the top of the list; more efficient pumps that husband our fragile water supply; controlling emissions; stem cell research to alleviate the cost and human burden of caring for chronic disease. The long-term effects of genetic engineering need to be considered carefully. Germany, China, Brazil and Denmark are among the leaders in recognizing their economic future is tied to developing potent technologies. Read more…
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The fate of the Keystone XL pipeline remains uncertain in Congress as the House and Senate disagree on including the pipeline in the Transportation Bill to which it has been attached by the House. At the same time, TransCanada is promoting the Oklahoma to Texas portion of the project which many ranchers and families oppose.
To express your support for local families and landowners and your opposition to any and all branches of the K XL visit: http://standwithdavid.tumblr.com/
Other tar sands pipelines are also receiving increased attention – and opposition:
The Northern Gateway Pipeline, proposed by Enbridge Inc., a subsidiary of ExxonMobil, would cross approximately 50 First Nations territories and 1,000 rivers and streams as it moves crude oil 727 miles from the Alberta, Canada tar sands to the Pacific Coast for foreign markets. The potential damage to human health, the well-being of First Nation communities, and the environment is profound. To safeguard their future, the Yinka Dene Alliance, a coalition of First Nations in British Columbia, is organizing a Freedom Train, departing today from Jasper, Alberta to Toronto. Freedom Train participants will then attend Enbridge’s annual shareholder meeting on May 9 to assert that the company will not be allowed to build its pipelines through First Nations’ territories.
To follow Freedom Train developments visit:
http://www.freedomtrain2012.com/about-the-freedom-train
In addition, Big Oil is also promoting the Enbridge Line 9 Reversal tar sands pipeline, also known as the Trailbreaker pipeline, from Eastern Canada to New England. The pipeline would carry tar sands oil approximately 750 miles from Ontario and Quebec across Vermont, New Hampshire, and into Maine. The oil would then be sold from Maine’s Casco Bay. Again – the impacts on and risks to local communities, waterways, and the broader environment cannot be overstated. For more information on this New England tar sands pipeline, visit:
http://www.foe.org/news/archives/2012-04-stop-the-new-england-tar-sands-oil-pipeline
What we need is a clean energy economy! Go to Green America’s new Clean Energy Victory Bonds website and pledge your support for renewable energy and efficiency!
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We’re fed up with Southern Company.
The Georgia-based electric utility is one of the worst polluters in the US, and yet it has consistently obstructed and delayed the development of affordable clean energy that would create thousands of good green jobs in the southeastern US.
Southern Company has actively blocked state legislation to promote solar energy and has delayed the development of offshore wind on Georgia’s coast for FIVE YEARS NOW – even though Southern Company’s own research demonstrates that wind energy would benefit the the company, electric ratepayers, and the environment. At the same time Southern Company operates the three largest carbon-polluting plants in the US and wants to build the first new nuclear power plants in 30 years.
Enough is enough: Tell Southern Company to invest in wind »
South Carolina utility Santee Cooper is looking for investors for its trail-blazing Palmetto Wind Project which seeks to install nearly 80 MW of offshore wind off the coast of South Carolina. This regional approach to the development of offshore wind will allow Southern Company to quickly offer its customers wind-generated power, and by partnering with Santee Cooper, Southern Company could learn more about how to offer even more offshore wind energy for its customers in Georgia.
