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AN 9 26

Earthquake as Canada negotiates with the EU to join as associate member

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PCO

A federal judge on Thursday blocked the Trump administration from deporting a British man who was recently placed on a visa ban after U.S. officials accused him and four other Europeans of online censorship.

Center for Countering Digital Hate CEO Imran Ahmed filed a complaint Thursday against Secretary of State Marco Rubioand Attorney General Pam Bondito prevent “the imminent prospect of unconstitutional arrest,” the lawsuit reads.

“The government’s actions are the latest in a string of escalating and unjustifiable assaults on the First Amendment and other rights, one that cannot stand basic legal scrutiny,” it continues. “Simply put, immigration enforcement—here, immigration detention and threatened deportation — may not be used as a tool to punish noncitizen speakers who express views disfavored by the current administration.”

The suit adds that Ahmed is a lawful permanent resident with a wife and son who are U.S. citizens.

The complaint cites other recent cases where foreign nationals on student visas, including Mahmoud Khalil and Rümeysa Öztürk, were stripped of their documentation and faced with deportation as “part of a larger pattern of attempted repression of constitutionally protected speech.”

“The government has no power to punish Mr. Ahmed for his research, protected speech, and advocacy, and Defendants cannot evade those constitutional limitations by simply claiming that Mr. Ahmed’s presence or activities have ‘potentially serious adverse foreign policy consequences for the United States,'” the suit reads.

The administration placed the visa ban on Ahmed, along with French former European Union Commissioner Thierry Breton, Global Disinformation Index CEO Clare Melford and HateAid leaders Anna-Lena von Hodenberg and Josephine Ballon, on Tuesday.

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Breton backed the EU’s Digital Services Act, which compelled online platforms to tackle hate speech and misinformation and remove it from their pages. U.S. officials claim the law unfairly targets American tech companies and citizens, Reuters reported.

On Tuesday, Rubio accused the five of leading “organized efforts to coerce American platforms to punish American viewpoints they oppose.”

“Today, @StateDept will take steps to bar leading figures of the global censorship-industrial complex from entering the United States,” Rubio posted on social media. “We stand ready and willing to expand this list if others do not reverse course.”

Undersecretary of State Sarah Rogers shared Rubio’s message and warned that “if you spend your career fomenting censorship of American speech, you’re unwelcome on American soil.”

Breton criticized his visa ban, asking in an X post if “[former. Sen. Joe] McCarthy’s witch hunt” was back.

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AN 8 25

During his four years as president, Joe Biden worried that if Donald Trump ever returned to the White House, it would pose a major threat to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). Trump, during his first term, toyed with the idea of withdrawing the U.S. from NATO — whereas Biden, as president, aggressively championed NATO's expansion when Sweden and Finland opted to join the alliance.

Seven months into Trump's second presidency, the U.S. is still a NATO member. But author/military historian Phillips O'Brien, during an interview with economist Paul Krugman, stressed that Trump's return to the White House marks a dramatic change in U.S./Europe relations.

Krugman, on August 23, posted video of the interview on his SubStack page and also published it as a Q&A article. And O'Brien voiced major concerns about the United States' relationship with Europe.

READ MORE:Bill Maher hits raw nerve with detailed warning of Trump's 'slow-moving coup'

"The United States is going to great lengths to antagonize its allies," O'Brien told Krugman. "I don't get it. None of this makes any sense to me."

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The author/historian said of the Ukraine/Russia War, "I think what happens to Ukraine will determine how Europe deals with this. If Ukraine is sacrificed, I think Europe is going to have a terrible future. Because it's going to be dependent on the U.S., which has basically sacrificed Ukraine to (Russian President Vladimir) Putin's Russia. Europe might even break apart, structurally, such that you'll have the Central Eastern Europeans, the ones who want to stand by Ukraine, the Finns, the Baltics, the Nordics going one way and then the Western Europeans sort of pretending things are OK."

O'Brien added, "So, I think people are underrating the chance of Europe splitting over Ukraine, which is why it's so important, I think, that Ukraine comes out of the war in good shape."

According to O'Brien, U.S. allies in Europe will be paying very close attention to the outcome of the United States' 2026 midterms.

READ MORE:MAGA is panicking as Trump finally meets his match

"Well, that's the key thing, isn't it? The 2026 midterms," O'Brien told Krugman. "I don't think people are paying enough attention, because they have to be run fairly. I do think the Democrats have a very good chance of winning them if they are run fairly and happen under normal conditions. But they could also be easily perverted…. I would say that 2026 elections will show not whether America can come back, but whether it has a chance to come back — or whether the period we're going into could be a lot longer and darker than we imagined."

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11 24 cmd

In a coordinated effort to undermine climate science and slow environmental progress, prominent American climate change denial organizations recently teamed up with a conservative Austrian trade union known as the Union for Sovereignty and the German climate denialist European Institute for Climate and Energy to strategize on defeating climate solutions that threaten the fossil fuel industry or are otherwise deemed too radical.

The Heartland Institute, one of the leading climate denial organizations in the U.S., and the Committee for a Constructive Tomorrow (CFACT), a longstanding libertarian group, hosted the 16th International Climate Change Conference (ICCC), which took place from June 13–15 in Vienna — a new stronghold of the far right. It was the first time the conference had been held in Europe in almost a decade. According to CFACT, their intention was “to make the case for ‘climate realism,’” a phrase used by right-wing organizations to delegitimize climate change and downplay the urgency of the crisis.

Over the past few years, Europe has become a prime target for climate denialists, with fossil fuel lobbyists effectively peddling climate disinformation to far-right parties that oppose climate mitigation policies.

James Taylor, president of the Heartland Institute,pointed out that the new political climate in Europe — where the far right has been gaining traction in recent years — presents an opportunity to strengthen a global conservative “coalition” to push back against climate-friendly policies.

Spreading Misinformation and Conspiracy Theories

At the conference, speakers shared strategies for combating both “climate alarmism” and the growth of renewable energy. Craig Rucker, president of CFACT,advocated participating in shareholder meetings to propose anti-green initiatives, drafting model bills against renewables, and drawing more attention to whale deaths to ramp up public opposition to offshore wind farms — using what experts have called a misinformation campaign.

Many presenters, including Taylor and Marc Morano of ClimateDepot.com, framed climate change as an anti-democratic, left-wing plot to consolidate global power, echoing conspiracy theories associated with recent Covid-19 measures.

Morano further claimed that sustainable farming policies would force American farmers to sell their land to tech-world billionaires such as Bill Gates and Jeff Bezos due to rising compliance costs. He also painted net-zero policies like restrictions on gas-powered cars as “corporate government collusion” aimed at benefiting the Chinese EV industry — a claim that echoes the rise in anti-China rhetoric used by Republican politicians and other conservatives. Morano further criticized Natural Asset Companies (NACs) — a boogeyman to conservatives for valuing ecosystems and natural resources — as a Wall Street plot to “take away available land from private citizens.”

The Supporting “Science”

The scientists who presented at the conference, including a Nobel laureate in physics and a former Trump administration scientific advisor, promoted denialist rhetoric by casting doubt on scientific evidence of global warming and the impact of greenhouse gasses. Some reiterated the fringe argument that carbon dioxide is not a pollutant but rather “plant food,” while others questioned mainstream climate models such as those used by the United Nations.

Many of the scientists who presented at the conference have ties to oil industry money and have been criticized for accepting but not disclosing industry funding for their research.

Willie Soon, an astrophysicist formerly associated with the ​​Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, failed to disclose that he had accepted more than $1.2 million in research-related donations from corporate fossil fuel funders, including the Charles G. Koch Charitable Foundation, ExxonMobil, the American Petroleum Institute, and DonorsTrust, according to reporting by the New York Times.

William Happer and John F. Clauser, both of whom kowtowed to the fossil fuel industry by downplaying the role of carbon emissions on climate change, are members of the Koch-funded CO2 Coalition, which also receives funding from the Bradley Foundation, the Mercer Family Foundation, The 85 Fund (run by right-wing legal firebrand Leonard Leo), the Scaife Foundation, and other far-right donors. Additionally, Happer received $8,000 from Peabody Energy in exchange for testimony at a 2015 Minnesota state hearing claiming that carbon dioxide makes a positive impact on society, a Greenpeace investigation revealed.

Host Groups’ Industry Ties

Heartland and CFACT also receive significant funding from the fossil fuel industry. In 2019, a coalition of 19 U.S. Senators accused these groups of creating a “web of denial” to mislead the public about climate change and stymie legislative action. Heartland has received funding from fossil fuel companies such as Murray Energy and the American Fuel and Petrochemical Manufacturers. Since 2014, it has also received over $15 million from Donors Capital Fund and DonorsTrust, identity-scrubbing operations that give Big Oil a way to fund climate misinformation while avoiding bad press. These donor-advised funds have increasingly supported climate denial organizations as the traceability of funding from Big Oil has decreased, a correlation documented by Greenpeace.

Donors to CFACT have included ExxonMobil as well as the Scaife and Koch family foundations, which are largely funded by fossil fuel fortunes. Despite claims by its senior policy advisor that the group stopped accepting fossil fuel money as of 2010, data collected by DeSmogshows small grants from Charles Koch’s foundation and Murray Energy between 2014 and 2018. CFACT has also received more than $8 million from DonorsTrust and Donors Capital Fund over the past 20 years.

While these organizations claim to be “climate realists,” they play a major role in elevating and promoting arguments against net-zero initiatives and climate mitigation strategies critical to addressing the climate crisis. By reconnecting with their counterparts in Europe, they are expanding their global reach in ways that threaten serious efforts to radically reduce carbon emissions before it’s too late.

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4 24

On Tuesday (9 April), a group of elderly Swiss women , called KlimaSeniorinnen or Senior Women for Climate Protection, won the first ever climate case victory in the European Court of Human Rights. Europe's top court ruled that Switzerland's efforts to meet its emission reduction targets had been woefully inadequate.Apr 10, 2024

'Swiss grannies' win climate case: How climate litigation is ...

Firstpost

https://www.firstpost.com › Explainers](https://www.firstpost.com/explainers/swiss-grannies-climate-case-litigation-rising-world-unep-13758187.html#::text=On%20Tuesday%20%289%20April%29%2C,targets%20had%20been%20woefully%20inadequate.)~

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Swiss women win landmark climate case at Europe top ...

Reuters

https://www.reuters.com › sustainability › climate-activi...](https://www.reuters.com/sustainability/climate-activists-seek-breakthrough-human-rights-court-ruling-against-european-2024-04-09/)

Apr 9, 2024 — The Swiss women, known as KlimaSeniorinnen and aged over 64, said their government's climate inaction put them at risk of dying during heatwaves ...

Elderly Swiss women bring European court's first climate ...

Reuters

https://www.reuters.com › world › europe › elderly-swi...](https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/elderly-swiss-women-bring-european-courts-first-climate-case-2023-03-29/)

Mar 30, 2023 — Thousands of elderly Swiss women have joined forces in a groundbreaking case heard on Wednesday at the European Court of Human Rights, ...

Heat Waves Are Killing Older Women. Are They Also ...

The New York Times

https://www.nytimes.com › World › Europe](https://www.nytimes.com/2023/08/06/world/europe/heat-wave-older-women-lawsuit.html)

Aug 7, 2023 — A group of Swiss women over 64 has filed a lawsuit against Switzerland with Europe's top human rights court, saying the country has violated ...

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Human rights violated by Swiss inaction on climate, ECHR ...

The Guardian

https://www.theguardian.com › environment › apr › hu...](https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2024/apr/09/human-rights-violated-inaction-climate-echr-rules-landmark-case)

Apr 9, 2024 — Court finds in favour of group of older Swiss women who claimed weak policies put them at greater risk of death from heatwaves.

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no lnx

How Europe’s greedy lending to Africa is driving the migration wave that fuels the EU’s xenophobic politics

Written by Vijay Prashad / Independent Media Institute October 23, 2019

If you ask an African migrant in Europe who came across the Mediterranean Sea in a boat if they would make the journey again, most of them would say “yes.” Many of them had been on vans and trucks that took them across the dangerous Sahara Desert, and many of them had been on board vessels that struggled to get across the choppy waters. They might have seen their fellow migrants die of thirst or of drowning, but none of that halts their conviction that they’d cross the sands and the seas again.

Harsh treatment by European border guards and an overwhelming experience of racism inside European society do not bring regret or suggest that they would not do it again.

“It was all to earn money,” said Drissa from Mali. “Thinking of my mom and my dad. My big sister. My little sister. To help them. That was my pressure. That’s why Europe.”

Myths About African Migrants

A UN Development Program report, released on October 17, shows that 97 percent of the nearly 2,000 African migrants in Europe interviewed would take the same risks to come to Europe again knowing what they know now about the danger of the journey or what life in Europe would be like. What is powerful about this UN report is that it dispels the many myths about African migration.

There is a terrible view that Africans are somehow “invading” Europe, even worse “swarming” into Europe. Anti-immigration rhetoric speaks of building fences and creating a Fortress Europe. It is as if there is a war, and Europeans must arm themselves against invaders. A year ago, the UN’s Special Adviser on the Prevention of Genocide Adama Dieng warned that European politicians fan the flames with hateful rhetoric that “is legitimizing hatred, racism and violence. While extremists spread inflammatory language in mainstream political discourse under the guise of ‘populism,’ hate crimes and hate speech continue to rise. Hate crimes constitute one of the clearest early-warning signs for atrocity crimes.” At the UN in Geneva this May, Dieng—a Senegalese lawyer—said, “Big massacres start always with small actions and language.”

The UN report shows that the hatefulness around the African migrant is misplaced. The reasons for major flows of migration to Europe actually come from within Europe itself. Those leaving war zones—Syria and Afghanistan in West Asia, but also Eritrea and Libya—come in expected numbers as they flee bombs that are often produced inside Europe. These numbers are much higher than for those Africans who come to Europe for work.

In fact, more than 80 percent of African migrants stay on the continent. The proportion of African emigration out of the continent compared to Africa’s population “is one of the lowest in the world,” says the United Nations. Most of the migrants who go to Europe, according to European data, come by regular channels—with a visit to the embassy, an application for a visa, the granting of the visa, and then a flight into the country; irregular arrivals, many of whom might come by boat, are far fewer than those who come with a valid visa. It is racism that fails to acknowledge this reality.

Remittances

If you dig into the numbers from the UNDP report, you find that 58 percent of the African migrants in Europe were either employed at home or in school when they decided to leave; most of the migrants had jobs and earned competitive wages. What drove them is the insecurity in their countries, and the fact that they felt they could earn more elsewhere. More than half of the migrants had been supported financially by their families to make the journey, and 78 percent sent back money to their families.

World Bank statistics show that remittances to African countries are growing. In line with the global trend, sub-Saharan Africa received more foreign exchange from remittances than from foreign direct investment (FDI).

In 2018, according to the World Bank, remittances to sub-Saharan Africa totaled $46 billion—almost 10 percent more than in 2017. The countries that received high remittances were Comoros, Gambia, Lesotho, Cabo Verde, Liberia, Zimbabwe, Senegal, Togo, Ghana, and Nigeria.

The total FDI flow into sub-Saharan Africa, according to the UN Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD), was $32 billion, up by 13 percent from 2017, but a significant amount less than the remittance flows.

Migrants who send money home are more important than the corporations and banks that bring investment dollars into these countries. It’s too bad the bankers are treated better than the migrants.

African Debt Crisis 2.0

Africa is on the threshold of a major debt crisis.

The last debt crisis was in the 1980s, as part of the broader Third World debt crisis. In the decolonization period, Africa—looted of its wealth by colonialism—had to borrow money for development; these funds were large, but worse was the manipulation of dollar-denominated debt by the London Interbank Borrowing Rate (LIBOR) and by the U.S. Treasury’s interest rates. Skyrocketing debt in the 1980s produced a long period of austerity and suffering. That debt simply could not be paid as long as multinational corporations effectively stole Africa’s resources and refused to pay taxes on that drain of wealth. This was the reason why initiatives such as the Heavily Indebted Poor Countries (HIPC) and Multilateral Debt Relief Initiative (MDRI) were created by the World Bank and the IMF in 1996 and 2005, respectively. By 2017, these initiatives provided $99 billion to reduce Africa’s debts from a debt-to-GNI (Gross National Income) ratio of 119 percent to 45 percent.

No change in the structure was made—no assault on transfer mispricing and base erosion and profit shifting (BEPS), mechanisms used by Western-based multinationals to continue their plunder of the African continent. When the 2014 commodity price shock came, many African countries slipped gradually toward a new debt crisis. The new debts are not all government debt, but they include very high proportions of private sector debt, which has tripled from $35 billion (2006) to $110 billion (2017) according to World Bank figures. Debt repayments have risen dramatically, which means that investments in health and education have declined, as has access to capital for small-scale private sector businesses.

Currently, according to World Bank numbers, half of the 54 states in Africa struggle with high debt-to-GDP (Gross Domestic Product)—with many of these over the 60 percent threshold that signals a crisis. The rate of increase of this debt has set off alarms across the continent.

What does this mean?

It means that if there is any financial crisis in the West, it will draw away financing from Africa, plunge the region into another major debt crisis, and set millions of people in search of better earning opportunities. Families and countries in Africa have come to rely upon these remittances. They are part of the structural fabric of finances.

Racism against the migrant is an enormous problem, and it must be tackled in itself.

But deeper than that is another problem that has grown as a result of no effective post-colonial policy—the structural problem of the ongoing theft of resources from Africa, and of the lack of financing for the continent to develop its own potential. Allowing multinational firms to steal African resources, and allowing foreign banks to lend to Africa at virtually usurious conditions, simply creates a cycle of crisis that results in migration and remittances as the band-aids.

Europe does not have a refugee or migration crisis. The real crisis is in Africa, where the thief—often a European firm—continues to undermine the continent’s ability to breathe.

Vijay Prashad is an Indian historian, editor and journalist. He is a writing fellow and chief correspondent at Globetrotter, a project of the Independent Media Institute. He is the chief editor of LeftWord Books and the director of Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research. He has written more than twenty books, including The Darker Nations: A People’s History of the Third World (The New Press, 2007), The Poorer Nations: A Possible History of the Global South (Verso, 2013), The Death of the Nation and the Future of the Arab Revolution (University of California Press, 2016) and Red Star Over the Third World (LeftWord, 2017). He writes regularly for Frontline, the Hindu, Newsclick, AlterNet and BirGün.

This article was produced by Globetrotter, a project of the Independent Media Institute.

bit lost see clintel

https://www.desmog.co.uk/2019/09/06/climate-science-deniers-planning-coordinated-european-misinformation-campaign-leaked-documents-reveal

A coalition of climate science denial groups is gearing up for a European media blitz later this month, in an apparent bid to derail efforts to set an EU-wide “net zero” emissions target, documents obtained by DeSmog show.

Plans for a self-styled “European Declaration” include press conferences in Brussels, Rome and Oslo and a letter to be sent to leaders of EU and UN institutions, scheduled for mid-September.

The letter claims to have “400 independent Climate Scientists and Professionals” signed up so far.

Some notable signatories are part of a trans-Atlantic network of thinktanks pushing for environmental deregulation post-Brexit, and have a history of climate science denial. A number of former employees of the network’s member organisations are now staffers in Boris Johnson’s cabinet  Brulle, Professor of Sociology at Drexel University and an expert on climate science denial, told DeSmog the campaign looked like a panicked response to recent high-profile efforts to highlight the climate crisis:

“The rise of the Extinction Rebellion movement, and the immense popularity and influence of Greta Thunberg, are having a significant impact on media coverage of climate change and concern about this issue. I would suspect that the aim of the campaign is to blunt the impact of these climate advocacy efforts.”

“The talking points are stale and patently scientific nonsense. That isn't critical. The point would be to keep the ‘contested’ nature of climate change alive.”

Geoffrey Supran, a Research Associate at Harvard University who gave evidence to the European Parliament in March on oil giant ExxonMobil’s historic promotion of climate science denial, said he thought the move was an attempt to distract from the various upcoming efforts to increase action on climate change globally, such as the UN Climate Action Summit at the end of the month:

“These people are the rhetorical equivalent to the kid in the classroom screaming ‘Look at me! Look at me!’ They're desperate for attention.”

“As always, they presumably hope to muddy the waters of public and political discourse on the climate crisis. To feed the echo chamber of sympathetic right-wing media and blogs, and to prey on naive and unsuspecting journalists who may be tempted to exercise false balance in their climate coverage.”

Coordinated effort

The campaign is being spearheaded by a new Netherlands-based climate science denial group called the Climate Intelligence Foundation (CLINTEL), launched in April with funding from Niek Sandmann, a multimillionaire real estate developer.

The group’s co-founder Guus Berkhout, an engineering professor who began his career at Shell and set up the Delphi Consortium in the 1980s to develop new exploration methods for the oil and gas industry, told DeSmog that interest in the campaign had been “overwhelming”.

Berkhout said there were plans to hold press conferences in European capitals and that the effort was being “expanded to a World Climate Declaration”. He declined to offer further details or comment.

In addition to CLINTEL, the international organising group includes some well-known figures from the climate misinformation world, including:

In an email seen by DeSmog, Berkhout explains that “signatures are being collected from persons who give a valuable contribution to the climate debate and are recognised as such”. He goes on to boast that there are “already a lot of great names on the list”.

Of the 400 signatories, only a handful have a background in climate science, with the majority being writers, engineers and geologists with no direct expertise in the field.

In addition to the Cato Institute's Richard Lindzen,the list features numerous figures from US-based libertarian groups, including Patrick Michaels of the Competitive Enterprise Institute, and Charles Battig and Willie Soon from the Heartland Institute, which provides a total of 12 signatures alone. All three organisations are members of the Atlas Network, a Koch-funded international umbrella body of free-market groups.

UK affiliates of the network include the Institute of Economic Affairs (IEA), the Adam Smith Institute (ASI) and the Taxpayers’ Alliance. A number of former employees of these groups are now working in Boris Johnson’s government.

Taxpayers’ Alliance founder Matthew Elliott is reportedly advising new Chancellor Sajid Javid, whose Conservative leadership campaign he ran, while former employee Chloe Westley has joined Boris Johnson’s Number 10 team. International Trade Secretary Liz Truss has appointed two special advisors from the IEA and ASI.

UK support

The UK’s principal climate science denial group, the Global Warming Policy Foundation(GWPF), founded by former Chancellor Nigel Lawson in the run-up to the 2009 Copenhagen climate summit, is also well-represented in the campaign.

At least four members of its Academic Advisory Council feature in the letter’s signatories, and other contributors to the GWPF have also backed the “declaration”.

One is Northumbria University Professor Valentina Zharkova, who gave a lecture to the group last year claiming that climate change is caused by natural solar cycles. A paper Zharkova co-authored in June on the same subject was criticised for containing “basic errors” and an investigation into how it came to be published was launched by the scientific journal that printed it.

CLINTEL also has close ties to the GWPF. Berkhout wrote an essay for the UK group last year insisting that climate change was purely a natural phenomenon. And in February, the GWPF published an article by its Dutch counterpart that said: “Yes, the Earth is warming up. But that is business as usual. Earth’s history tells us that climate change has always happened.”

The following month GWPF director Benny Peiser spoke at a gathering in Amsterdam where CLINTEL announced its upcoming launch.

At that event, Berkhoutadmitted: “in this whole audience, apart from the organisation and a few brave ones, I don't see young people. So the first thing we are going to do is talk with the young people.” CLINTEL currently has a youth wing called “Young Clintel”.

The GWPF did not respond to a request for comment.

Other UK signatories include directors and former directors of lesser-known oil and gas companies, as well as five Fellows of the Geological Society, a professional body representing Earth scientists.

In addition to the EU “net zero” emissions target under consideration, planned “climate strike” protests and the upcoming UN Climate Action Summit, the media offensive may also, given its European focus, be timed to coincide with a crunch government meeting in Germany on how the country will meet its 2030 emissions target, set to take place on 20 September.

German signatories to the letter include a spokesperson for the European Institute for Climate and Energy (EIKE), which a Der Spiegel investigation earlier this year found had been working closely with the insurgent, far-right Alternative for Germany party to campaign against action on climate change.

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#2 in germany, ctr-left lose to greens and alt rt

dutch green big in EU parliament?

Green Party Wins Record Support in EU Elections as Youth-Led Climate Strikes Grow

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ew

5/19

'We've Made History': Ireland Joins France, Germany and Bulgaria in Banning Fracking​

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guk 219

Europe / Continent's most deprived areas 'hit hardest by air pollution'

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35,000 Protestors in Berlin Call for Agricultural Revolution ew 119

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https://www.ecowatch.com/uk-ban-petrol-diesel-2465723145.html

The UK has followed France in banning the sale of new petrol and diesel cars by 2040, as part of its plan to tackle chronic air pollution in cities. The government has been coming under intense pressure to act, with an estimated 40,000 people dying prematurely a year from air pollution.

A government spokesman told the press, "Poor air quality is the biggest environmental risk to public health in the UK and this government is determined to take strong action in the shortest time possible.

"That is why we are providing councils with new funding to accelerate development of local plans, as part of an ambitious £3bn [$3.9 billion] program to clean up dirty air around our roads."

But critics have said the ban is already "too little too late," with many highly critical of the proposals.

"Air pollution is poisoning our children and leading to causing avoidable deaths across the country," said Jenny Randerson, opposition Liberal Democrat shadow transport secretary. "Instead of properly fighting this silent killer, the government has flip-flopped, offering tax breaks for cars that they are now banning. The government's feeble attempts to tackle air pollution are too little too late.

"The Liberal Democrats have called for all new diesel sales to end by 2025 and a scrappage scheme to help drivers convert to greener vehicles. We are serious about fighting air pollution, this government is not."

Former Labour leader Ed Milliband tweeted this morning, "Fear that new car petrol/diesel ban in 23 years time is smokescreen for weak measures to tackle 40,000 deaths a year from air pollution now."

Green Party co-leader Caroline Lucas also tweeted, "Welcome start but need urgent plan to cut air pollution *now*—proper clean air zones, funded diesel scrappage, invest in public transport."

Areeba Hamid, the clean air campaigner at Greenpeace, added, "The high court was clear that the government must bring down toxic air pollution in the UK in the shortest possible time. This plan is still miles away from that."

The Government plan will be released on Wednesday after it was forced in the courts to release its clean air strategy after months of legal in-fighting. A judge had ruled that the government's original plans were so bad as to be unlawful.

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https://www.commondreams.org/news/2017/05/15/us-bank-stop-funding-pipelines-divestment-movement-expands-worldwide

As a nearly ten-days-long global mobilizationcalling for divestment from fossil fuels comes to an end, climate campaigners are celebrating a major victory stateside: U.S. Bank has announced that it will no longer finance fossil fuel pipeline construction.

The announcement came during the company's April shareholder meeting, reported MN350, a state arm of international climate justice group 350.org, on Monday.

As a result of the new policy, MN350 observes that the bank will no longer provide "project financing for the construction of oil or natural gas pipelines," and will also apply "enhanced due diligence processes" to oil and gas industry clients.

"U.S. Bank's new policy is an important step in protecting the environment and moving towards a fossil free future," said Wichahpi Otto, a MN350 volunteer, who attended the shareholder meeting in Nashville. "We applaud them for responding to the community and contributing to worldwide efforts to address climate change."

The group writes:

This move comes after ongoing pressure on U.S. Bank locally from MN350 and from the Minnesotans for a Fair Economy coalition, and on banks nationally from indigenous groups including Honor the Earth, the Indigenous Environmental Network, and the Dakota Access resistance movement.

Beginning in 2015, a regional partnership of climate, labor, and indigenous rights advocates has urged that U.S. Bank divest from fossil fuels, in particular from Enbridge Energy, and move its financing into the clean energy economy. Local actions have included letter-writing, account closures, and social media campaigns. In response, in May 2016 the bank made changes to their Environmental Policy restricting lending to coal.

"We applaud this progressive decision from U.S. Bank," said Tara Houska, National Campaigns Director of Honor the Earth. "A strong message is being sent to the fossil fuel industry: we are consumers, we have agency and the right to know how our money is being invested. Move to a green economy and a future that does not profit off the destruction of Mother Earth and our communities."

Meanwhile, 260 events in 45 countries saw people worldwide campaign for banks to divest from fossil fuel projects. The Global Divestment Mobilization (GDM) ran from May 5 to May 13, and included events in Europe, Africa, Australia, Asia, and South America.

"Divestment is a powerful act of solidarity and justice for the world's most vulnerable people, a defense of nature and our planet," said Lidy Nacpil of the Asian Peoples Movement on Debt and Development (APMDD) in a statement.

"We urgently need a transformation in the global energy system, away from the fossil fuel dependence that drives climate change, and challenge fossil fuel corporations that oppose progress in climate action and prioritize profits over people and planet," Nacpil continued. "Divestment has proven to be one of the most effective ways to push for this much needed transformation."

"During the GDM citizens and respected institutions across the world were able to enact an immediate and a much needed transformational form of climate leadership," wrote 350.org. "This included the announcement from nine Catholic organizations from around the world about their decision to divest their portfolios from fossil fuels in the largest joint Catholic divestment to date. A total of 27 Catholic institutions have now divested. Meanwhile in Brazil over 3000 people participated in prayers in a vigil outside the Umuarama Cathedral, to voice their hopes for a fossil fuel free future."

The organization went on to describe the varied actions in far-flung locations around the world:

Across Europe, the links between municipalities and fossil fuel companies came under scrutiny. Over 1,000 people marched in Munich, Germany and demonstrations took place across the UK including rallies at 14 Town Halls across London demanding divestment. Campaigners also put pressure on universities pension funds, faith, health and cultural institutions such as the Louvre in Paris, the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam and the British Museum.

The battle to safeguard people and planet is linked worldwide, the money in one part of the world is linked to infrastructure projects being built elsewhere. Hundreds gathered in Jakarta to listen to community representatives from Indramayu recount the struggles they encounter living in the shadow of a coal power plant. During an event in Japan case studies of Japanese banks financing coal power plants in Indonesia and oil pipelines in the United States were highlighted to put pressure on Japanese banks to pull out of fossil fuels.

In New Zealand and Australia campaigners targeted Australian coal-giant Adani by calling on the banks that invest in it, including CommBank to stop its funding. Australia's Great Barrier Reef has suffered a large bleaching for the second year in a row. Any mining expansion would jeopardise it even further.

Meanwhile in New York 150 activists rallied inside Trump Tower, to call on New York City officials to cut their ties with the dirty oil and gas companies that control the White House. In the face of federal government climate denial and the possibility of the U.S. leaving the Paris Agreement, demonstrating that local leaders can show impactful climate leadership, while other parts of the country are suffering from severe flooding.

"There is no question we are currently in a state of emergency on climate change. Day in day out people are dying from the effects of climate change," said author and 350.org co-founder Bill McKibben in a statement. "There are many ways to confront this emergency and divestment allows us to get in the way of the money financing the fossil fuel projects behind this crisis. The fact that the fossil fuel divestment movement has grown exponentially in the last few years is the best news ever."

"From the Pacific Islands to South Africa, from the United States to Germany, people are standing up and challenging the power of the fossil fuel industry," McKibben added.

==

===

http://www.alternet.org/environment/monsantos-gmo-crops-banned-two-more-european-nations

Monsanto's GMO Crops Banned by Two More European Nations

Greece and Latvia join Germany and Scotland in rejecting the biotech giant's genetically-modified crops.

==

==

G-7 6/15

Sources: 

Merkel convinces Canada and Japan on CO2 (Politico)

http://www.politico.eu/article/germany-canada-japan-emissions-pledge/ 

G7 leaders bid 'Auf Wiedersehen' to carbon fuels (Reuters)

http://in.reuters.com/article/2015/06/08/g7-summit-idINKBN0OO25120150608

 ===

Europe has taken leave of its senses—or its economic leaders have. That, in a nutshell, is the case that Paul Krugman makes in his column Friday. America's economy may be making a stumbling, long overdue recovery, but the eurozone remains in deep doldrums, a crisis that Krugman compares to the 1930s.

A sort of mass hysteria has taken hold in Europe. No matter how much evidence piles up that slashing budgets and government spending is exactly the wrong way to go about creating confidence, economic leaders keep espousing austerity.

The problem does not lie with fundamental economic models, Krugman explains:

It’s true that few economists predicted the crisis. The clean little secret of economics since then, however, is that basic textbook models, reflecting an approach to recessions and recoveries that would have seemed familiar to students half a century ago, have performed very well. The trouble is that policy makers in Europe decided to reject those basic models in favor of alternative approaches that were innovative, exciting and completely wrong.

I’ve been revisiting economic policy debates since 2008, and what stands out from around 2010 onward is the huge divergence in thinking that emerged between the United States and Europe. In America, the White House and the Federal Reserve mainly stayed faithful to standard Keynesian economics. The Obama administration wasted a lot of time and effort pursuing a so-called Grand Bargain on the budget, but it continued to believe in the textbook proposition that deficit spending is actually a good thing in a depressed economy. Meanwhile, the Fed ignored ominous warnings that it was “debasing the dollar,” sticking with the view that its low-interest-rate policies wouldn’t cause inflation as long as unemployment remained high.

In Europe, by contrast, policy makers were ready and eager to throw textbook economics out the window in favor of new approaches. The European Commission, headquartered here in Brussels, eagerly seized upon supposed evidence for “expansionary austerity,” rejecting the conventional case for deficit spending in favor of the claim that slashing spending in a depressed economy actually creates jobs, because it boosts confidence. Meanwhile, the European Central Bank took inflation warnings to heart and raised interest rates in 2011 even though unemployment was still very high.

But while European policy makers may have imagined that they were showing a praiseworthy openness to new economic ideas, the economists they chose to listen to were those telling them what they wanted to hear. They sought justifications for the harsh policies they were determined, for political and ideological reasons, to impose on debtor nations; they lionized economists, like Harvard’s Alberto Alesina, Carmen Reinhart, and Kenneth Rogoff, who seemed to offer that justification. As it turned out, however, all that exciting new research was deeply flawed, one way or another.

Bottom line, had Europe just followed old-time economics, it would be a lot better off. But there is not sign of recognition of that fact. A recent Op-Ed article by Wolfgang Schäuble, the German finance minister, reiterates the bizarre theory that austerity leads to confidence, according to Krugman. It's a headscratcher, when you think about it.  

==

The UK is one of several European governments allowing energy industry representatives to help draw up the European Union’s (EU) new air pollution standards, a Greenpeace investigation has found.

The EU is currently in the process of drafting new standards to limit pollution from coal-fired power stations. However, this “once-in-a-decade opportunity” has been captured by the coal industry Greenpeace claims and could result in “extremely lax” emission limits.

---

Robert Reich: American Capitalism is Broken

May 21, 2014 |

For years Americans have assumed that our hard-charging capitalism is better than the soft-hearted version found in Canada and Europe. American capitalism might be a bit crueler but it generates faster growth and higher living standards overall. Canada’s and Europe’s “welfare-state socialism” is doomed.  

It was a questionable assumption to begin with, relying to some extent on our collective amnesia about the first three decades after World War II, when tax rates on top incomes in the U.S. never fell below 70 percent, a larger portion of our economy was invested in education than before or since, over a third of our private-sector workers were unionized, we came up with Medicare for the elderly and Medicaid for the poor, and built the biggest infrastructure project in history, known as the interstate highway system.

But then came America’s big U-turn, when we deregulated, de-unionized, lowered taxes on the top, ended welfare, and stopped investing as much of the economy in education and infrastructure.

Meanwhile, Canada and Europe continued on as before. Soviet communism went bust, and many of us assumed European and Canadian “socialism” would as well.

That’s why recent data from the Luxembourg Income Study Database [3] is so shocking.

The fact is, we’re falling behind. While median per capita income in the United States has stagnated since 2000, it’s up significantly in Canada and Northern Europe. Their typical worker’s income is now higher than ours, and their disposable income – after taxes – higher still.

It’s difficult to make exact comparisons of income across national borders because real purchasing power is hard to measure. But even if we assume Canadians and the citizens of several European nations have simply drawn even with the American middle class, they’re doing better in many other ways.

Most of them get free health care [4] and subsidized child care [5]. And if they lose their jobs, they get far more generous unemployment benefits [6] than we do. (In fact, right now 75 percent [7]of jobless Americans lack any unemployment benefits.)

If you think we make up for it by working less and getting paid more on an hourly basis, think again. There, at least three weeks [8] paid vacation as the norm, along with paid sick leave [9], and paid parental leave [10].

We’re working an average of 4.6 percent more hours more than the typical Canadian worker, 21 percent more than the typical French worker, and a whopping 28 percent more than your typical German worker, according to data [11]compiled by New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof.

But at least Americans are more satisfied, aren’t we? Not really. According to opinion surveys and interviews [12], Canadians and Northern Europeans are.

They also live longer [13], their rate of infant mortality is lower, and women in these countries are far less likely to die [14] as result of complications in pregnancy or childbirth.

But at least we’re the land of more equal opportunity, right? Wrong. Their poor kids have a**better chance of getting ahead** [15]. While 42 percent of American kids born into poor families remain poor through their adult lives, only 30 percent of Britain’s poor kids remain impoverished – and even smaller percentages in other rich countries.

Yes, the American economy continues to grow faster than the economies of Canada and Europe. But faster growth hasn’t translated into higher living standards for most Americans.

Almost all our economic gains have been going to the top – into corporate profits and the stock market (more than a third of whose value is owned by the richest 1 percent). And into executive pay (European CEOs take home far less than their American counterparts).

America’s rich also pay much lower taxes than do the rich in Canada and Europe.

But surely Europe can’t go on like this. You hear it all the time: They can no longer afford their welfare state.

That depends on what’s meant by “welfare state.” If high-quality education is included, we’d do well to emulate them. Americans between the ages of 16 and 24 rank near the bottom [16]among rich countries in literacy and numeracy. That spells trouble for the U.S. economy in the future.

They’re also doing more workforce training, and doing it better, than we are. The result is more skilled workers.  

Universal health care is another part of their “welfare state” that saves them money because healthier workers are more productive.

So let’s put ideology aside. The practical choice isn’t between capitalism and “welfare-state socialism.” It’s between a system that’s working for a few at the top, or one that’s working for just about everyone. Which would you prefer?

See more stories tagged with:

economy [18],

capitalism [19]

---

Source URL: http://www.alternet.org/economy/robert-reich-american-capitalism-broken

Links:

[1] http://robertreich.org/

[2] http://www.alternet.org/authors/robert-reich-0

[3] http://www.nytimes.com/2014/04/23/upshot/about-the-data.html

[4] http://www.oecd.org/unitedstates/Briefing-Note-USA-2013.pdf

[5] http://www.oecd.org/els/emp/4343133.pdf

[6] http://www.oecd.org/employment/emp/43654254.pdf

[7] http://democrats.waysandmeans.house.gov/press-release/new-estimates-show-state-state-breakdown-72000-additional-americans-lose-unemployment

[8] http://www.law.harvard.edu/programs/lwp/papers/No_Holidays.pdf

[9] http://www.cepr.net/documents/publications/paid-sick-days-2009-05.pdf

[10] http://www.oecd.org/els/soc/PF2.1_Parental_leave_systems%20-%20updated%20%2018_July_2012.pdf

[11] http://www.nytimes.com/2014/05/15/opinion/kristof-its-now-the-canadian-dream.html

[12] http://www.pollingreport.com/right.htm

[13] http://www.oecd.org/unitedstates/Health-at-a-Glance-2013-Press-Release-USA.pdf

[14] http://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736%2814%2960696-6/abstract

[15] http://www.epi.org/publication/usa-lags-peer-countries-mobility/

[16] http://skills.oecd.org/OECD_Skills_Outlook_2013.pdf

[17] mailto:corrections@alternet.org?Subject=Typo on Robert Reich: American Capitalism is Broken

[18] http://www.alternet.org/tags/economy-0

[19] http://www.alternet.org/tags/capitalism

[20] http://www.alternet.org/%2Bnew_src%2B

===

alter: April 23, 2014  |

Fancy living up in Canada? Granted, it’s a bit chilly. But the middle class up there has just blown by the U.S. as the world’s most affluent. America’s wealthy are leaping ahead of the rest of much of the globe, but the middle class is falling behind. So are the poor. That’s the sobering news from the latest research put out by LIS, a group based in Luxembourg and the Graduate Center of the City University of New York.

After taxes, the Canadian middle class now has a higher income than its American counterpart. And many European countries are closing in on us. Median incomes in Western European countries are still a bit lower than those of the U.S., but the gap in several countries, including the Netherlands, Sweden and Britain, is significantly smaller than it was a decade ago. However, if you take into account the cost of things like education, retirement and healthcare in America, those European countries’ middle classes are in much better shape than ours because the U.S. government does not provide as much for its citizens in these areas. So the income you get has to be saved for these items.

The report found also found that the median U.S. income, which stands at $18,700, has remained about the same since 2000. And it found that the poor in much of Europe earn more than poor Americans.

==

 ==

Europe’s Retrenchment

The member states of the European Union (EU) have long exercised global leadership in the struggle to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and slow the pace of climate change.  Under their justly celebrated 20-20-20 plan, adopted in December 2008, they are committed to reducing their emissions by 20% over 1990 levels by 2020, increasing their overall energy efficiency by 20%, and achieving 20% reliance on renewables in total energy consumption.  No other region has embraced goals as ambitious as these, and none has invested greater resources in their implementation.  Any wavering from this path would signal a significant retrenchment in the global climate struggle.

It now appears that Europe is preparing to rein in the pace of its drive to slow global warming.  At issue is not the implementation of the 20-20-20 plan, which is well on its way to being achieved, but on the goals that should follow it.  Climate activists and green energy entrepreneurs have been calling for an even more ambitious set of targets for 2030 and beyond; many manufacturers and other major energy consumers have been pushing for a slower pace of change, claiming that increased reliance on renewables is driving up energy prices and so diminishing their economic competitiveness.  Already, it appears that the industrialists are gaining ground at the expense of climate action.

At stake is the EU’s climate blueprint for 2030, the next major threshold in its drive to slow the pace of warming. On January 22nd, the EU’s executive arm, the European Commission (EC), released its guidelines for the new plan, which must still be approved by the EU Parliament and its member states.  While touted by some as a sign of continued European commitment to decisive climate action, the EC’s plan is viewed as a distinct setback by many environmental leaders.

At first glance, the plan looks promising.  It calls for a 40% reduction in emissions by 2030 -- a huge drop from the 2020 requirement.  This is, however, less dramatic than it may appear, analysts say, because energy initiatives already under way in Europe under the 20-20-20 plan, coupled with a region-wide economic slowdown, will make a 40% reduction quite feasible without staggering effort.  Meanwhile, other aspects of the plan are downright worrisome.  There is no mandate for a further increase in energy efficiency and, far more important, the mandate for increased reliance on renewables -- at 27%, a significant gain -- is not binding on individual states but on the EU as a whole.  This makes both implementation and enforcementquestionable matters.  Jens Tartler, a spokesperson for the German Renewable Energy Federation (which represents that country’s wind and solar industries), called the lack of binding national goals for renewables “totally disappointing,” claiming it would “contribute to a marked reduction in the pace of expansion of renewables.”

To explain this evident slackening in Europe’s climate commitment, analysts point to the immense pressures being brought by manufacturers and others who decry the region’s rising energy prices caused, in part, by increased subsidies for renewables. “Behind the heated debate in Brussels about climate and renewable energy targets, what is really happening is that concern over high energy prices has taken precedence over climate concerns in Europe,” says Sonja van Renssen, the Brussels correspondent for Energy Post, an online journal.  “Many [EU] member states and industry fear that a strong climate and energy policy will be bad for their economies.”

In arguing their case, proponents of diluted climate goals note that EU policies have raised the cost of producing a metric ton of aluminum in Europe by 11% and that European steel companies pay twice as much for electricity and four times as much for natural gas as their U.S. counterparts.  These, and similar phenomena, are “dragging the EU economy down,” wrote Mark C. Lewis, former head of energy research at Deutsche Bank.

Not surprisingly, many European manufacturers seek to reduce subsidies for renewables and urge greater reliance on less-costly fossil fuels.  In particular, some officials, :{including}: British Prime Minister David Cameron, are eager to follow the U.S. lead and bring advanced technologies like hydro-fracking to bear on the extraction of more oil and natural gas from Europe’s domestic reserves.  “Europe’s hydrocarbons production is in decline,” noted Fatih Birol, the chief economist at the International Energy Agency, but “there may be some opportunities... to slow down and perhaps reverse some of these trends” -- notably by imitating the “revolution in hydrocarbon production” now under way in the United States.

Read this another way and a new and truly unsettling meaning emerges: the “shale gas revolution” being promoted with such fervor by President Obama as a “bridge” to a more climate-friendly energy system in the United States is having the opposite effect in Europe.  It is weakening the EU’s commitment to renewable energy and threatens to increase Europe’s reliance on fossil fuels.

Canada’s End-Run Around Keystone XL Pipeline Opposition

http://www.tomdispatch.com/dialogs/print/?id=175806

===

Denmark Is the Happiest Country on Earth! You'll Never Guess Why

October 23, 2013 |

Last month, Denmark was crowned the happiest country [2] in the world.

“The top countries generally rank higher in all six of the key factors identified in the World Happiness Report,” wrote University of British Columbia economics professor John Helliwell, one of the report's contributing authors. “Together, these six factors explain three quarters of differences in life evaluations across hundreds of countries and over the years.”

The six factors for a happy nation split evenly between concerns on a government- and on a human-scale. The happiest countries have in common a large GDP per capita, healthy life expectancy at birth and a lack of corruption in leadership. But also essential were three things over which individual citizens have a bit more control over: A sense of social support, freedom to make life choices and a culture of generosity.

"There is now a rising worldwide demand that policy be more closely aligned with what really matters to people as they themselves characterize their well-being," economist Jeffrey Sachs said in a statement at the time of the report's release [3].

But why Denmark over any of the other wealthy, democratic countries with small, educated populations? And can the qualities that make this Nordic country the happiest around apply to other cultures across the globe? Here are a few things Danes do well that any of us can lobby for:

Denmark supports parents

While American women scrape by with an average maternal leave [4] of 10.3 weeks, Danish families receive a total of 52 weeks of parental leave [5]. Mothers are able to take 18 weeks and fathers receive their own dedicated 2 weeks at up to 100 percent salary. The rest of the paid time off is up to the family to use as they see fit.

But the support doesn't stop at the end of this time. Danish children have access tofree or low-cost child care [6]. And early childhood education is associated with health and well-being throughout life [7] for its recipients -- as well as for mothers [8]. What's more, this frees up young mothers to return to the work force if they'd like to. The result? In Denmark, 79 percent of mothers [9] return to their previous level of employment, compared to 59 percent of American women. These resources mean that women contribute 34 to 38 percent of income in Danish households [10] with children, compared to American women, who contribute 28 percent of income.

Health care is a civil right -- and a source of social support

Danish citizens expect and receive health care as a basic right. But what's more, they know how to effectively use their health systems. Danish people are in touch with their primary care physician an average of nearly seven times per year, according to a 2012 survey of family medicine in the country [11]. And that means they have a single advocate who helps them navigate more complicated care.

"This gatekeeping system essentially is designed to support the principle that treatment ought to take place at the lowest effective care level along with the idea of continuity of care provided by a family doctor," wrote the authors of the family medicine survey [12].

By contrast, Americans seek medical care an average of fewer than four times per year and they don't just visit their general practitioner -- this figure includes emergency room visits, where many uninsured Americans must access doctors. This diversity of resources means that many Americans don't have continuity of care -- not a single medical professional advocating for them and putting together a comprehensive medical history.

Gender equality is prioritized

It isn't just parents who can expect balanced gender norms. Denmark regularly ranks [13]among the top 10 countries in a World Economic Forum's yearly report that measures gender equality. While no country in the world has yet achieved gender parity, Denmark and other Nordic countries are coming close. That is in no small part because of the strong presence of women in leadership positions. Reported the World Economic Forum:

The Nordic countries were also early starters in providing women with the right to vote (Sweden in 1919, Norway in 1913, Iceland and Denmark in 1915, Finland in 1906). In Denmark, Sweden and Norway, political parties introduced voluntary gender quotas in the 1970s, resulting in high numbers of female political representatives over the years. In Denmark, in fact, this quota has since been abandoned as no further stimulus is required.

Indeed, the country currently has its first female prime minister, Helle Thorning-Schmidt (although she has been leader of the Social Democrat party since 2005). Its blockbuster hit television show, Borgen, features a female prime minister (pictured above) as well -- a complicated, strong female character that stands in contrast to America's enduring obsession with male anti-heroes [14].

But government leadership merely exemplifies greater gender balance throughout the culture. As Katie J.M. Baker puts it in her exploration of gender politics [10] in the Scandinavian country: "Unlike in America, where bestsellers goad already overworked and underpaid women to Lean In even further, the assumption in Denmark is that feminism is a collective goal, not an individual pursuit."

Biking is the norm

In Denmark's most populated and largest city, Copenhagen, bikes account for 50 percent of its residents' trips to school or work. Half. Half of commuting happens on a bike in Copenhagen and that doesn't just improve fitness levels and reduce carbon emissions, it also contributes to the wealth of the city [15], reported Forbes:

Researchers found that for every kilometer traveled by bike instead of by car, taxpayers saved 7.8 cents (DKK 0.45) in avoided air pollution, accidents, congestion, noise and wear and tear on infrastructure. Cyclists in Copenhagen cover an estimated 1.2 million kilometers each day –- saving the city a little over $34 million each year.

What's more, just 30 minutes of daily biking adds an average of one to two years to the life expectancy of Copenhagen's cyclists.

Danish culture puts a positive spin on its harsh environment

Here's how Danish people turn lemons into spiced mulled wine: Ever heard of the concept of hygge? While some would define it as cultivated coziness, hygge is often considered the major weapon in combatting the dreary darkness that befalls the Nordic country over the winter. In a place where the sun shines fewer than seven hours during the height of the winter solstice -- a level of darkness that can (and does) stir depression and sad feelings -- the concept of a cozy scene, full of love and indulgence, can help to mitigate some of the season's worst psychological effects.

After all, both strong social connections and many of the indulgent foods associated with hygge -- such as chocolate, coffee and wine -- are mood boosters.

Danes feel a responsibility to one another

Danes don't prioritize social security and safety simply so they can receive benefits; there's a real sense of collective responsibility and belonging. And this civic duty -- combined with the economic security and work-life balance to support it -- results in a high rate of volunteerism. According to a government exploration [16] of Danish "responsibility":

Denmark is a society where citizens participate and contribute to making society work. More than 40 percent of all Danes do voluntary work in cultural and sports associations, NGOs, social organisations, political organisations, etc. There is a wealth of associations: in 2006, there were 101,000 Danish organisations -- worth noting in a population of just 5.5 million.

The economic value of this unpaid work is DKK 35.3 billion. Combined with the value growth from the non-profit sector, public subsidies and membership fees, the total economic impact of the sector represents 9.6 percent of the Danish GDP.

But that sense of stewardship isn't just extra-governmental: Danes also take pride in their involvement with the democratic process. During the last election in September 2011, for example, 87.7 percent of the country voted. It's not surprising, given these statistics, that the University of Zurich and the Social Science Research Center Berlin have given Denmark the very highest rating for democracy [17] among 30 established democracies.

See more stories tagged with:

denmark [18],

health care [19],

gender equality [20],

happiness index [21]

---

Source URL: http://www.alternet.org/world/denmark-happiest-country-earth-youll-never-guess-why

---

koch BS studies:

In 2009 IER run a campaign on "green jobs" attacking the expansion of renewables energies. IER commissioned three studies on renewable energies and green jobs in Denmark, Germany and Spain.[4] These studies by different think tanks were than promoted by IER and other free market think tanks in the US but also used in Europe[5] and Ontario, Canada.[6] The study on Germany e.g. was translated into German and taken up by German media - without mentioning that the study was financed by IER with its close business links. The German institute that wrote the study (called Rheinisch-westfaelisches Institut fuer Wirtschaftsforschung, RWI) didn't acknowledge the funding from IER until they were challendged by investigative journalists.[7]^

A report by the Europan NGO Corporate Europe Observatory tried to get more information on the funding of the libertarian Instituto Juan de Mariana responsible for the Spanish study and the Danish think tank CEPOS doing the study on wind energy in Denmark. The report states: "In their reply to CEO, Instituto Juan de Mariana affirmed that it finances all its activities through the individual donation of his over 250 individual members and that they did not receive corporate funding with the exception of a small Spanish insurance company. When contacted again to check whether the Institute for Energy Research (IER) support for the above study was financial, the Institute stopped responding."[8]^

==

European corporations support coal-friendly candidates

In 2010, an analysis of campaign finance by Climate Action Network Europe (CAN Europe), *Thinking Globally, Sabotage Locally*, found nearly 80% of campaign donations from a number of major European firms --and large greenhouse gas emitters -- were directed towards US senators who blocked action onclimate change.[5][6]The report used information on the Open Secrets.org database to track what it called a co-ordinated attempt by some of Europe's biggest polluters to influence the US midterms: "The European companies are funding almost exclusively Senate candidates who have been outspoken in their opposition to comprehensive climate policy in the US and candidates who actively deny the scientific consensus that climate change is happening and is caused by people."

The CAN Europe report said the companies, including BP, BASF, Bayer and Solvay, which are some of Europe's biggest emitters, had collectively donated $240,200 to senators who blocked action on global warming – more than the $217,000 the oil billionaires and Tea Party Patriots bankrollers, David Koch andCharles Koch, have donated to Senate campaigns. The biggest single donor was the German pharmaceutical company Bayer, which gave $108,100 to senators. BP made $25,000 in campaign donations, of which $18,000 went to senators who opposed action on climate change. Recipients of the European campaign donations included some of the biggest climate skeptics in the Senate, such as James Inhofe of Oklahoma, who has called global warming a hoax.[6]^

The following contributions were reported by CAN Europe:[5]^

Interest by foreign corporations in United States midterm elections is not restricted to Europe. A report by the Center for American Progress tracked donations to the Chamber of Commerce from a number of Indian and Middle Eastern companies.[7] The Guardian also reported earlier in 2010 that a Belgian-based chemical company, Solvay, was behind a front group called Coalition for Responsible Regulation that is suing to strip the Obama administration of its powers to regulate greenhouse gas emissions.[6]^

Obama and Democrats have accused corporate interests and anonymous donors of trying to hijack the midterms by funnelling money to the Chamber of Commerce and to conservative Tea Party groups. On October 7, 2010, Obama told a rally in Maryland, "Just this week, we learned that one of the largest groups paying for these ads regularly takes in money from foreign corporations. So groups that receive foreign money are spending huge sums to influence American elections, and they won't tell you where the money fro their ads comes from."[8] R. Bruce Josten of the Chamber of Commerce denied Obama's allegations, stating that the group "has never and will never" use dues collected from overseas business councils for U.S. political activities.[8] The Chamber of Commerce reportedly has raised $75m (£47m) for pro-business, mainly Republican candidates. Much of the speculation has focused on Karl Rove, the strategist of George Bush's victories, who has raised $15m for Republican candidates since September through a new organisation, American Crossroads. According to an NBC report, Rove was spearheading an effort to inject $250 million in television advertising for Republican candidates in the final days before the November 2 elections.[6]^

===

France looks at America, says non to fracking

==

In Europe, Monsanto Backing Away From GMO Crops

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/05/31/europe-monsanto-gmo-crops_n_3367284.html?view=print&comm_ref=false

===

Transatlantic Policy Network

Jump to: navigation, search

The Transatlantic Policy Network (TPN) is a US organisation dedicated to influencing EU policy while described as a 'partnership'.

For example, the document "The new trans-Atlantic agenda of December 1995" states "The Agenda's content reflects input from TPN's report "A European Strategy to the US" - the network's concise analysis of what Europeans needed to do to put relations with the US on a new, stronger footing".

Personnel

Member companies

The TPN website lists member companies as

The TPN website also lists "cooperating institutions" as being a part of the "TPN network" as [2]

Contact information

115 Rue Froissart

First Floor

1040 Brussels

phone: + 32 2 230 6149

fax: +32 2 230 5896

Web: http://www.tpnonline.org/

601 13th Street, NW

Suite 200 North

Washington, DC 20005

phone: + 1 202 289 6570

fax: + 1 202 289 6582

Suite 200 North Washington, DC 20005 phone: + 1 202 289 6570 fax: + 1 202 289 6582

Categories:

===

The economy ranked highest in concern in 15 countries, followed by health care in eight, education in six, poverty in two, and terrorism and crime in one country each. Immigration and the environment did not make the top of the list in any country over the 17-year period. In the United States, concern for the environment ranked sixth while the economy was No. 1....

Air pollution ranked first in 13 countries, followed by climate change, which was the top concern in 10 countries. In another question, the surveys asked people which environmental problem they considered most personally dangerous and found that in only three countries was climate change listed as the most dangerous environmental problem, trailing nuclear power plants and industrial air pollution.

“One reason for the relatively low ranking of climate change is that people often believed it did not directly affect them. Climate change is seen more as a country-level problem than as a personal problem,” Smith said. “While 14.6 percent cited it as the most important environmental issue for their country, only 9 percent rated it first for themselves.”

The latest surveys were completed in 2010. Similar surveys have been conducted since 1993, and little change has been noted on people’s concern for climate change. Differences exist among the countries, however, suggesting that widespread public support for current action on the issue will represent a major shift in attitude.

Environmental issues are of greatest concern in Scandinavian nations, Switzerland and Canada. They were followed by France, Austria, Finland, the former West Germany, Taiwan, Korea and New Zealand. Toward the bottom of the list are Croatia, Latvia, Chile, Turkey, Lithuania and Argentina. 

Climate change was listed as the top environmental concern in Japan, West Germany, Canada, Britain and Scandinavia, where between 19 and 26 percent of the population indicated it was their top environmental issue.

http://news.uchicago.edu/article/2013/02/25/global-surveys-show-environment-ranks-low-public-concerns

 ==---

huffpo 

According to one recent poll, 73 percent of Americans agreethat global warming is affecting extreme weather events in the U.S. Other polls continue to show a nation split over questions of whether climate change is real, whether humans play a major role in it, and what can be done. Indeed, the U.S. has a ways to go to match Europe's acknowledgment of the science, concern for the problem and progress in battling it.

The average annual carbon dioxide emissions per capita in the U.S. is more than double that of Europe: 17.4 tons versus 7.3 tons.

Perhaps the most visible difference between the U.S. and Europe, according to Hedegaard, is the latter's "acceptance that it is all right to put a price on energy and resources if you want people to use less energy and less resources."

Whatever decisions the U.S. makes domestically with regard to the controversial Keystone XL pipeline, natural gas production or a carbon tax, Hedegaard emphasized her hope that the country also thinks and acts globally.

One of the first tests of whether there is a "difference between Obama 1 and Obama 2" in that regard, she said, will be the country's involvement in the global regulation of aviation emissions. Talks are currently ongoing, set to conclude in the fall.

===

State of play – The European Union

Carbon-intensive companies and their apologists, such as

BusinessEurope, Cefic and Eurofer and the Alliance for a

Competitive European Industry*, continue to block serious

progress on climate policies.

• The EU has been embroiled in an effort to increase

its emissions reductions target for 2020 to 30% from

20%, but this new target has been undermined by

the heavy lobbying by carbon-intensive industrial

players, including BASF, ArcelorMittal and Business

Europe. These companies and their associations not

only exert their influence to hold back progress but

are boldly reframing the debates despite economic

analysis and reports that show the economic benefits

to taking action on climate change. This report reveals

how, despite EU Commission analysis showing the

economic benefits of a 30% emissions reduction target,

BusinessEurope and others have been successful in

holding back action by creating a false debate on the

‘de-industrialisation of Europe’.

• ArcelorMittal has been granted very generous

emission allowances, so large that the excess

allowances by 2012 are likely to overtake

Belgium’s annual emissions, and ArcelorMittal

is set to profit highly from sales or banking of

these unused allowances. These pollution ‘gifts’

– for which ArcelorMittal paid nothing – were the

result of ArcelorMittal’s and its predecessors’ close

relationship to and lobbying of the governments in

the countries it operates in, all while it undermines the

public understanding of climate science by financially

supporting US Senate candidates denying climate

change or blocking climate change legislation.24

---

http://motherjones.com/print/33941

2009 article

Climate Change Deniers Without Borders

American oil money is pumping up climate change skeptics abroad. Could they kneecap a post-Copenhagen accord?

By Josh Harkinson | Tue Dec. 22, 2009 4:59 AM PST

---

Writing two weeks ago in Poland's most popular tabloid, the Super Express, an economic analyst named Tomasz Teluk claimed that a potential climate agreement in Copenhagen might double Poles' electricity bills, hobble his coal-dependent country, and even lead to one-world government. Fortunately, he wrote, the "'global warming' scare" has been hugely overblown: "As each of us learned in elementary school, carbon dioxide is a gas essential to the development of life, not a poison, so you do not have to eliminate it at any price."

Teluk, the founder of the Globalization Institute [1], a libertarian think tank, is Poland's most prominent climate change skeptic. He has become a hero to Polish conservatives, who have convinced their government to resist strong emissions cuts and block the European Union from giving climate change assistance to developing nations. A leading Polish financial newspaper recently named his institute the country's best think tank. But Teluk is hardly a homegrown climate skeptic. Much of his rhetoric, such as his claim that CO [2]2 [2]is good for you [2], echoes the well-worn claims of American skeptics [3]. And much of Teluk's newfound visibility can be traced back to his long-standing ties with conservative patrons and energy interests in the United States.

Americans have provided Teluk with jobs, fellowships, professional contacts, and money. This year, the Globalization Institute won a $10,000 grant from the Atlas Economic Research Foundation [4], a Washington, DC-based think-tank incubator that's funded by ExxonMobil [5]. Teluk isn't alone. The Globalization Institute is part of a loose network of some 500 similar organizations in dozens of countries that are often bankrolled by American foundations that are, in turn, backed by carbon-spewing American industries. The foreign groups' finances are opaque, yet an Atlas Foundation spokesman acknowledges that some of them wouldn't exist without dollars being pumped in. In the coming months, these groups will lead the fight in their own countries to derail the shaky deal made in Copenhagen [6]—which will likely prompt American skeptics to cite widespread international opposition to taking action on climate change.

With US-backed overseas think tanks parroting denier talking points in dozens of languages, the echo chamber is already up and running. "The correct policy approach to [the] non-problem [of climate change] is to have the courage to do nothing," writes British skeptic Lord Christopher Monckton [7] in an article summarized in Chinese on the website of the Beijing-based Cathay Institute for Public Affairs. As the United States stonewalled sub-Saharan African countries' demands for more climate-related foreign aid in Copenhagen, the IMANI Center for Policy and Education in Ghana and three other African think tanks backed by American interests signed on to a letter blaming poor nations for invoking "the climate change scapegoat to explain hunger, sickness, and climate vulnerability." 

This September, after President Obama repeatedly cited Spain's success creating green jobs, congressional Republicans flew in Gabriel Calzada, president of Spain's Instituto Juan de Mariana, to present a study claiming that each green job created in his country destroyed another 2.2 jobs. "Europe's experience actually suggests that this is precisely the wrong approach," he testified before the House Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming. (The study was debunked by the Spanish government.) 

At the center of this feedback loop is the Atlas Economic Research Foundation, which has supported more than 30 other foreign think tanks [8] that espouse climate change skepticism. Atlas has given the Instituto de Juan Mariana more than $100,000. In 2008, it gave the IMANI Center for Policy & Education a $100,000 grant. It has also funded skeptic groups in the four nations whose governments just inked a controversial, last-minute climate deal with the United States in Copenhagen: the Cathay Institute in China, the Liberty Institute in India, the Free Market Foundation in South Africa, and the Instituto Liberdade in Brazil. 

Founded in 1981 and named after Ayn Rand's free-market amorality tale, Atlas Shrugged [9], the Atlas Foundation has spent more than $20 million seeding some 200 libertarian think tanks across the globe as part of its Atlas Network. Much of its money has come from Phillip Morris; foundations tied to the Koch family, oil magnates who are leading funders of denier groups; and the Earhart Foundation, which was created from the profits of the now-defunct White Star Oil Company. Since 1998, ExxonMobil [5] and its foundations have given Atlas nearly $1 million. Between 2002 and 2008, the last year for which tax records are available, Atlas' budget more than tripled, nearly hitting $7 million, with the largest single portion going to grants for "think tanks in different regions of the world." [8]

The Atlas Network overlaps with other international networks that share its climate change skepticism and fossil fuel funders. Foundations linked to ExxonMobil, the Koch family, and other conservative interests have donated more than $1 million to Canada's Fraser Institute, which in turn supports a network of think tanks in 71 countries that promote "economic freedom." Exxon, the Kochs, and other foundations tied to American oil money have also helped bankroll the British-based International Policy Network. In 2007, IPN created the Civil Society Coalition on Climate Change [10], a group of 59 "independent civil society organizations" from 40 countries, "as a response to the many biased and alarmist claims about human-induced climate change."

Some US companies and climate denial groups have taken a more targeted approach to funding their foreign allies. In 2004, ExxonMobil gave $80,000 to the Centre for the New Europe-USA for its "global climate change education efforts." In 2007, the Chicago-based Heartland Institute [11], which has received money from Exxon, granted $135,000 to four skeptic think tanks in Canada and New Zealand, followed by $182,000 to foreign groups in 2008, according to tax filings (it didn't say which groups received the money). The Washington, DC-based Committee for a Constructive Tomorrow [12] supports a German affiliate, CFACT-Europe [13], which put on a conference for climate change skeptics in Berlin earlier this year and protested the climate talks last week. "We want to get rid of this whole climate topic to focus on environmental problems again," CFACT-Europe director Holger Thuss said before marching with about 30 other demonstrators through downtown Copenhagen.

Thuss is reluctant to admit his ties to American donors. "We are not funded by the same people [as CFACT-US]," he said, though CFACT's president told Mother Jones that he gives the European group "a little bit of support when we can." Other leaders of foreign think tanks are similarly dodgy. Emmanuel Martin, who edits the French-language website Un Monde Libre [14] and frequently disputes climate science on his blog for the newspaper Le Monde, at first told me that "Atlas has not given me any orders or any financing on anything to do with the subject" of climate change. When told that an Atlas employee in Washington had described him to me as "our editor" and said that "he gets a lot of support from Atlas," Martin clarified that "Atlas effectively finances a good part of our events" but maintained that his writings are entirely his own.

Yet Martin's Un Monde Libre website is part of the Atlas Global Initiative for Free Trade, Peace, and Prosperity, a program that operates websites in 14 languages. (Atlas inherited the program from the libertarian Cato Institute in January.) Martin and other local "intellectual entrepreneurs," as Atlas calls them, translate and syndicate Atlas-generated content, such as a recent interview about Climategate with Cato's resident global warming skeptic. "We provide the literature and ideas," says Global Initiative general director Tom Palmer in a recent video promoting the program. "We go and find the entrepreneurs, and then we can slot them right into all of the flagship programs that have made Atlas so successful."

"There are some [think tanks] that wouldn't be able to survive without us," says Austin Petersen, Atlas' new media program manager. "But they get grants from all kinds of different places, not just from Atlas. There is no way we'd be able to support the whole network by ourselves."

In an email, Teluk of Poland's Globalization Institute writes that direct financial support from American funders "was not crucial" to launching his group. Yet he's clearly benefitted from their support in other ways. Teluk says he was first exposed to free-market think tanks at a conference in Rome hosted by the International Society for Individual Liberty, a libertarian group based in Arizona. He later won a scholarship at George Mason University's Institute for Humane Studies, a haven for climate change deniers that receives funding from the Koch family foundations. In 2003, while working toward his doctorate in philosophy in Krakow, Teluk got a job with TCS Daily, an online opinion journal published by the DCI Group, a PR firm known for its corporate Astroturf campaigns. TCS received $95,000 for "climate change support" from ExxonMobil that year. "Quite frankly, someone that doesn't have their PhD, they aren't a noted academic yet," says Todd Kruse, who hired Teluk while serving as a vice president at DCI, "and getting published on a journal like that gets them noticed and helps them branch out." 

Recounting his professional history on the Atlas website this summer, Teluk thanked Kruse for helping to launch his career. He also mentioned current DCI vice president Henrik Rasmussen and TCS founder James K. Glassman, a former Undersecretary of State for Public Diplomacy in the previous administration who now leads the George W. Bush Institute at Southern Methodist University. (Neither responded to requests for comment.) Teluk wrote that "it would have been impossible to create" his own organization without them.

In 2005, Teluk founded the Globalization Institute in Gliwice, a small city near the Czech border. Shortly before international climate negotiators gathered in Poland for a final round of pre-Copenhagen negotiations in late 2008, the Globalization Institute published a book in Polish titledThe Mythology of the Greenhouse Effect. The book spawned more than a dozen articles in leading Polish media outlets; several were op-eds penned by Teluk under headlines such as "Environmentalists Cause the Greenhouse Effect." More recently, the Globalization Institute and its allies circulated an open letter to the Copenhagen negotiators demanding "Free trade, no climate taxes!" and calling climate change "nothing more than a scientific hypothesis." The institute's science advisory board includes Cato Institute and Heritage Foundation staffers.

Teluk is confident that he's helping keep Poland out of a global suicide pact. "We are one of the most recognized groups opposing 'global warming' hysteria," he writes in an email. "We are present in all mainstream media, dailies, TV, radio and Internet. Decision-makers read our reports, books and comments." He adds: "There is no scientific evidence that current global warming is caused by humans. CO2 is a gas of life, not a poison. We believe that a movement that calls a gas of life 'a poison' is a movement against human life."

The Atlas Economic Research Foundation [4] has supported more than 30 foreign think tanks that espouse skepticism about the science of climate change. Groups in this list promote climate change skepticism or are members of the Civil Society Coalition on Climate Change [10], which was organized "as a response to the many biased and alarmist claims about human-induced climate change." 

Argentina: La Fundación Atlas 1853 [15]

Australia: Institute of Public Affairs [16]; Centre for Independent Studies [17]

Brazil: Instituto Liberdade [18]

Bulgaria: Institute for Market Economics [19]

Burkina Faso: Le Centre des Affaires Humaines [20]

Canada: Frontier Centre for Public Policy [21]

China: Cathay Institute for Public Affairs [22]

Chile: Libertad y Desarrollo [23]

Costa Rica: Asociación de Consumidores Libres [24]

Czech Republic: Liberální Institut [25]

Denmark: Center for Political Studies [26]

Ecuador: Instituto Ecuatoriano de Economía Política [27]

Georgia: New Economic School [28]

Ghana: IMANI Center for Policy and Education [29]

Honduras: Instituto Veritas [30]

Hong Kong: Lion Rock Institute [31]

India: Liberty Institute [32]

Israel: Jerusalem Institute for Market Studies [33]

Italy: Instituto Bruno Leoni [34]

Lithuania: Lithuanian Free Market Institute [35]

Nigeria: Initiative for Public Policy Analysis [36]

Pakistan: Alternate Solutions Institute [37] 

Paraguay: Centro Paraguayo Para la Promoción de la Libertad Económica y la Justicia Social [38]

Peru: Instituto de Libre Empresa [39]

Poland: Globalization Institute [1]

Slovakia: Institute of Economic and Social Studies [40]

South Africa: Free Market Foundation [41]

Switzerland: Liberales Institut [42]

Turkey: Association for Liberal Thinking [43]

Venezuela: Centro de Divulgación de Conocimiento Económico Para la Libertad [44]

Mother Jones reporter Kate Sheppard contributed reporting to this story.

---

Source URL: http://motherjones.com/environment/2009/12/climate-deniers-atlas-foundation

Links:

[1] http://www.globalizacja.org/en/

[2] http://motherjones.com/environment/2009/12/dirty-dozen-climate-change-denial-07-plants-need-c02

[3] http://motherjones.com/special-reports/2009/12/dirty-dozen-climate-change-denial

[4] http://atlasnetwork.org/

[5] http://motherjones.com/environment/2009/12/dirty-dozen-climate-change-denial-exxon

[6] http://motherjones.com/politics/2009/12/copenhagen-decoded

[7] http://motherjones.com/environment/2009/12/dirty-dozen-climate-change-denial-10-lord-christopher-monckton

[8] http://motherjones.com/environment/2009/12/deniers-without-borders?page=3

[9] http://motherjones.com/media/2009/07/and-rand-played

[10] http://csccc.info/

[11] http://motherjones.com/environment/2009/12/dirty-dozen-climate-change-denial-06-heartland-institute

[12] http://motherjones.com/environment/2009/12/dirty-dozen-climate-change-denial-05-committee-constructive-tomorrow

[13] http://cfact.eu/

[14] http://www.unmondelibre.org/

[15] http://www.atlas.org.ar/

[16] http://www.ipa.org.au/

[17] http://www.cis.org.au/

[18] http://www.il-rs.org.br/ingles/home_ing.php

[19] http://www.ime-bg.org/en/

[20] http://atlasnetwork.org/networknews/tag/le-centre-des-affaires-humaines/

[21] http://www.fcpp.org/

[22] http://www.chinaipa.org/

[23] http://www.atlasusa.org/V2/files/others/TFA%20announcement-final.htm

[24] http://www.consumidoreslibres.org/

[25] http://libinst.cz/stranka_en.php?id=2

[26] http://atlasnetwork.org/networknews/2009/.../fvg-winner-cepos-denmark/

[27] http://www.ieep.org.ec/

[28] http://www.nesg.net/

[29] http://imanighana.org/

[30] http://www.institutoveritas.org/

[31] http://www.lionrockinstitute.org/

[32] http://indefenceofliberty.org/

[33] http://www.jims-israel.org/

[34] http://www.brunoleoni.it/

[35] http://www.lrinka.lt/n/index.php?lang=2

[36] http://ippanigeria.org/

[37] http://asinstitute.org/

[38] http://www.ceppro.org.py/ingles/Financiamiento.htm

[39] http://www.ileperu.org/

[40] http://www.iness.sk/modules.php?name=Content&pa=showpage&pid=7

[41] http://www.freemarketfoundation.com/

[42] http://www.libinst.ch/?i=home--en

[43] http://atlasnetwork.org/networknews/2000/04/25/2000-fisher-award-winners/

[44] http://www.cedice.org.ve/

=

The Global Warming Policy Foundation (GWPF) is a United Kingdom group opposing action to mitigate climate change. Founded by Nigel Lawson,[1], it is a registered educational charity "deeply concerned about the costs and other implications of many of the policies currently being advocated" to mitigate global warming.[2]. Although founder Lawson claims to accept that anthropogenic global warming is occurring, his acceptance is unconvincing[3]; the group's banner image sports a short-term temperature graph to appear as though the world is not warming.

Contents[hide]

Start Up

The GWPF was founded, curiously, at the same time as the climategate emails were released on the University of Tomsk's server. At the time of it's foundation the average age of it's trustees was 74. Chairman Nigel Lawson stated "We will certainly be actively involved in monitoring what is being said, in correcting errors where the are errors. The only thing we will not be actively engaged in is what are the causes of the temperature changes on the planet: how much is CO2, how much is solar radiation, how much is cosmic rays. We won't be getting into all that."[4]^

Funding

The Global Warming Policy Foundation does not reveal where its funding comes from. [5] In their first years accounts they say "the soil we till is highly controversial, and anyone who puts their head above the parapet has to be prepared to endure a degree of public vilification. For that reason we offer all our donors the protection of anonymity." [6] The accounts show the extent to which the secretive Foundation is funded by anonymous donors, compared with income from membership fees. Its total income for the period up to 31 July 2010 was £503,302, of which only £8,168 came from membership contributions. The foundation charges a minimum annual membership fee of £100.[7]^

Charitable Status

The GWPF is a registered charity (Number 1131448), which gives it certain tax advantages. It's charitable objectives are stated as: "To advance the public understanding of global warming and of it's possible consequences, and also of the measures taken or proposed to be taken in response to it, including by means of the dissemination of the results of the study of and research into (a) the sciences relevant to global warming (b) it's impact upon the environment economies and society (c) and the above mentioned measures."[8]^

Location

The GWPF is located at 1 Carlton House Terrace, London, in a room rented from the Institute of Materials, Minerals and Mining.[1]^

Personnel

In November 2009, the GWPF listed:

Director

Board of Trustees

The Board of Trustees includes:[10]^

Academic Advisory Council

The Academic Advisory Council includes [11], [12], ^[13]^

Actions

In an op-ed announcing the GWPF launch and hopefully predicting failure of the December 2009 United Nations climate change conference in Copenhagen, Nigel Lawson called for a high-level independent inquiry into the content of the emails stolen from the University of East Anglia's Climatic Research Unit.[14]^

When the three British Government enquiries into the CRU email saga were completed Dr Benny Peiser of the Global Warming Policy Foundation immediately announced it would to stir the issue up once more. [13] Andrew Montford was commisioned to write an "enquiry" into the climategate emails claims and was paid £3000 for his efforts. The results were released in September 2010 The choice of Montford was ironic given the serious inaccuracies in his book, The Hockey Stick Illusion [15]. Furthermore the Global Warming Policy Foundation's own funding is mired in controversy whilst it enjoys charitable status , yet Montford himself is critical of what he calls 'fake charities'. [16] In his "enquiry" Montford criticized the official enquiries for not including known skeptics on their panels. This is a distortion of the truth however, since the Parliamentary Enquiry at the least included Graham Stringer Labour MP for Blackley and Broughton , a man who has consistently voted very strongly against laws to stop climate change . [17] [18] Montford knows this and records a cosy chat with Stringer on his blog[19]^

Articles and resources

References

  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 The voices of climate change sceptics. guardian.co.uk. Retrieved on 2009-11-24.
  2. ↑ Launched today!. www.thegwpf.org. Retrieved on 2009-11-24.
  3. ↑ Strip away the figleaf and reveal naysayers. timesonline.co.uk. Retrieved on 2009-11-24. “Lord Lawson’s acceptance of the science turns out, on close scrutiny, to be considerably less than half-hearted.”
  4. ↑ "[1]"
  5. ↑ [2]
  6. ↑ "Page 4 [3]"
  7. ↑ "[4]"
  8. ↑ "[5]"
  9. ↑ Dr Benny Peiser. www.thegwpf.org. Retrieved on 2009-11-24.
  10. ↑ Board of Trustees. www.thegwpf.org. Retrieved on 2009-11-24.
  11. ↑ "[6]"
  12. ↑ Academic Advisory Council. www.thegwpf.org. Retrieved on 2009-11-24.
  13. ↑ "[7]"
  14. ↑ Copenhagen will fail – and quite right too. timesonline.co.uk. Retrieved on 2009-11-24.
  15. ↑ " [8]"
  16. ↑ "[9]"
  17. ↑ "[10]"
  18. ↑ "[11]"
  19. ↑ "[12]"

Related SourceWatch articles

External resources

External articles

Categories: Climate change | Environment