The chief executives of Caterpillar Inc. and FedEx Corp. said they prefer a tax on carbon dioxide emissions and criticized the cap-and-trade measure being debated in Congress.
The legislation approved by the House in June gives certain industries free pollution permits that would distort the market, said Fred Smith, CEO of FedEx, the package-shipping company based in Memphis, Tennessee.
“We very much believe that a straightforward graduated tax on carbon is better than the cap-and-trade,” Smith said in Washington today. He was among a group of executives who participated in an energy conference.
Activists and filmmakers Andy Bichlbaum and Mike Bonanno have disguised themselves and entered into the private enclaves of corporations with seriously unsustainable practices: Dow Chemical, Exxon, Halliburton for example. In their new documentary, "The Yes Men Fix the World", we watch the team infuse humor and sarcasm into their feats.
A recent report from the Center for Public Integrity shows that the 25 largest originators of subprime mortgages also spent more than $370 million over the last ten years lobbying the legislators in Washington to ease up on regulation that would have restrained the risky investment behavior that has resulted in the meltdown. And now, at least 21 of the 25 ventures are backed or owned by banks now receiving bailout money.
Bill Moyers talks with Senator Dick Durbin who describes the influence of lobbyists on Washington in this video. Earlier this year, Durbin authored a bill in which it would become easier for people facing foreclosure to renegotiate their loans. After 12 Democrats crossed the aisle to vote against it earlier this month, the amendment to the bill failed. Durbin, himself a beneficiary of those mighty lobbying dollars, has since come out swinging.
On a local radio station, Durbin said:
The banks -- hard to believe in a time when we're facing a banking crisis that many of the banks created -- are still the most powerful lobby on Capitol Hill. And they frankly own the place.
Durbin also recently introduced a bi-partisan bill with Senator Arlen Specter to create a voluntary public financing system for members of both chambers of Congress. As he tells Bill Moyers on the JOURNAL: "I think that is a good move for our democracy, and it's one which we ought to acknowledge is at the heart of many of the issues we face."
Modeled after successful fair election bills of several states including Connecticut, Maine, Arizona, and North Carolina, the Fair Elections Now Act seeks to diminish corporate influence removing the need to go "dialing for dollars".
Senators Durbin and Spector introduce Fair Elections Now Act on March 3, 2009 in this video
Monsanto is now suing the German government (and, by that, the people) to force them to grow their GM Corn.
According to "Food Production Daily, the Monsanto files suit against Germany over GM ban:
MON810 maize is genetically engineered to produce Bacillus thuringiensis, which is toxic to the corn borer pest. Permitted in Europe since 1998 for animal feed, it is marketed as a way to save farmers money on insecticides and other pest controls.
However, German agriculture minister Ilse Aigner claimed last week that she had "legitimate reasons" to believe the maize to be a danger to the environment – and believes the Environment Ministry to agree with the view. Although MON810 has been permitted in Germany since 2005, she scrapped plans for 3,600 hectares (8,892 acres) to be planted in the eastern states for this summer's harvest.
Now the biotech giant has hit back, according to a Reuters article, filing a lawsuit against the Germany government in the administrative court in Braunschweig, northern Germany. The wire quotes a spokesperson for Monsanto as saying the ban is "arbitrary". Aclause in EU law does allow member states to impose such a ban, but Monsanto claims they can only do so once a plant has already been approved if new scientific evidence has come to light.
If the outcome of the lawsuit is in Monsanto's favour, the cost to the German government has been estimated at between €6m and €7m....
France also invoked the clause on new scientific evidence that cast doubt over its safety last year....
Other countries to implement bans are Hungary and Austria. Last month European ministers voted – for the fourth time – against forcing these countries to lift their bans, despite EFSA's view.
Makes trying to refuse those sprouts at dinner seem familiar? Several other intelligent EU countries have reservations and have refused to grow these products that are inefficient, low producing, chemically ruinous, fertilizer intensive, UN-tested for toxicological harm to humans, and dubious safety for animals. This is a good indicator that not ALL the world has been fooled by Monsanto.
Some American growers are also moving away, after they have had land become so Roundup resistant they can no longer farm it! News Source France 24 reports:
"Superweeds" are plaguing high-tech Monsanto crops in southern US states, driving farmers to use more herbicides, return to conventional crops or even abandon their farms."
I do hope that Germany can not only win, but by doing so, set a precedent the rest of the world to follow. JUST SAY NO!! AND MEAN IT!
A form of mental alienation, marked by a delusion of greatness, wealth, etc.
A mania for big or great things.
I personally think a "form of mental alienation" is the correct term to sum up this news. The level of hubris that must exist for a corporation to attempt to force us to grow anything we do not want to grow, or eat anything we think is unsafe. Leave us to farm in peace without being harassed by GMO-contamination of our crops, animals, honey... whatever it is we produce.
This is a company forcing a government and a people to accept a product they do not want. Somebody certainly has a delusional issue, and it is NOT those who refuse to accept genetically altered food.
During the I Love Mountains rally in Frankfort on Feb. 17, 2009, actor Ashley Judd took the podium to speak out against mountain top removal mining and in support of the Stream Saver Bill in this video.
(video courtesy of David Stephensen, Lexington Herald-Leader)
This Greenwash moment is brought to us by Monsanto who intends to meet the challenges of tomorrow by redefining "sustainability".
From the Monsanto website:
By 2030, Monsanto commits to help farmers produce more and conserve more by:
Developing improved seeds that help farmers double yields from 2000 levels for corn, soybeans and cotton, with a $10 million grant pledged to improve wheat and rice yields.
Conserving resources through developing seeds that use one-third fewer key resources per unit of output to grow crops while working to lessen habitat loss and improve water quality.
Helping improve the lives of all farmers who use our products, including an additional five million people in resource-poor farm families by 2020.
That’s sustainable agriculture. And that’s what Monsanto seeds are all about.
Monsanto was primarily a chemical company, prior to focusing on the seed market. It helped us keep our lawns green with toxic herbicides now known to be carcinogenic. In 1980, concurrent with the Reagan Administration, the United States Patent and Trademark Office began to grant patents on seeds. Since then, Monsanto has purchased seed companies worldwide and has become the leader in genetic modification of seeds, monopolizing control of food production through a combination of its seed and pesticide sales. It systematically uses legislative pressure and lawsuits to fight the blocking efforts of farmers and stores who reject their products.
This Vanity Fair article, "Monsanto’s Harvest of Fear" provides a fascinating and well-researched piece on Monsanto's march to monopolize the seed market. It illustrates that Monsanto's definition of "sustainable" is about sustaining itself.
United Kingdom's Green Peace activists attempt to give the first annual Emerald Paintbrush Award to a company that has excelled in Greenwashing in this video. While the activists made it to the front desk of the award winner, British Petroleum (BP), they were hastily removed from the premises still holding the green award, the doors closed behind them.
The citation awarded BP for:
A multi-million dollar advertising campaign proclaiming its commitment to the earth, the sun and everything in between, and proudly announcing that the best way out of the energy "fix" is an energy "mix".
In reality, the unnamed Tuxedo-clad activist said, BP had spent 93 per cent of its 2008 investment dollars in oil and gas exploration, drilling and distribution. Solar power received just $300 million dollar or just 1.3 per cent of BP's total investment.
"So thanks must go to at this moment to BP senior staff, investment managers, strategists, and above all its advertising agency," the jocular Green Peace representative concluded.
Huffington Post contributor Johann Hari offers a metaphor for unsustainable corporate practices in a telling of the history of the world's most popular fruit: the banana.
Is there a parable for our times in this odd milkshake of banana, blood and fungus? For a hundred years, a handful of corporations were given a gorgeous fruit, set free from regulation, and allowed to do what they wanted with it. What happened? They had one good entrepreneurial idea - and to squeeze every tiny drop of profit from it, they destroyed democracies, burned down rainforests, and ended up killing the fruit itself.
What does "Being Green" mean to the mainstream media, to the Democratic and the Republican insiders?
The title of CBS's Horserace blog entry today was entitled"Not easy Being Green". The author used the phrase "Being Green" to discuss the challenges Barak Obama will feel in finding a running mate who vets well under public scrutiny, given all the ties to corporations and lobbyists.
Is there irony that the CBS article was "Presented by Exxon Mobil". Perhaps the title should have been "Not easy Finding Green when you declare that you will no longer take corporate or lobbyist money", as Obama declared last week.
While it's not easy "Being Green" it's really not easy being "Seriously Green." Ask a Green Party Presidential candidate, whose party allows no corporate funding whatsoever and whose party members are, by and large, working class people without spare dollars.
With little ground organization provided by the party, except in a few states like Illinois, Maryland, Maine, California and New York, all four of the Green Party Presidential candidates are working hard to collect enough to pay for trips to their potential constituents and to their Convention, let alone qualify for matching funds. None of them are close, at this point, to meeting the base requirements of raising $5000 from 22 different states, not even the lead candidate, former Congresswoman Cynthia McKinney.
The Green Party's national leadership today sent out a donation plea to party members on behalf of all the candidates. Being a party that espouses democratic values and egalitarianism, the party leadership could not ask directly for donations to go to the presumptive candidate, McKinney. However, Richard Winger, of Ballot Access News believes that the National Green Party leaders should have done just that so that at least one candidate could carry the Green flag with some kind of visibility into the final election period.
What will McKinney do if the funds are not raised? Will she raise or fold? If she folds, will one of the three remaining candidates, Jesse Johnson, Kent Mesplay or Kat Swift, claim the responsibility for finishing the campaign or does Ralph Nader ride into the rescue? These questions are circulating amongst Greens as they also watch many notable Greens, chief amongst them being California Green Party co-counder and San Francisco Supervisor Ross Mirkarimi, accept Obama as a choice they can abide.
In this NY Times piece by JEFFREY ROSEN, we read about how a divisive court lines up behind big business, as the economic populist has disappeared from the bench. This wonderful read tells a historical picture of the evolution of the Supreme Court and points, with hope, to how the new Populist movement might push back.
