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IN TODAY’S AUDIO REPORT: Water, water everywhere — but doooon’t drink it!; Countdown to Copenhagen … PLUS: The media and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce get totally punk’d and we love it!… All that and more in today’s Green News Report!
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Green News Report
with Brad Friedman & Desi Doyen
10/20/2009
‘Green News Report’ – October 20, 2009 | With Brad Friedman & Desi Doyen... · · · · · ‘Green News Report’ – October 20, 2009 | With Brad Friedman & Desi Doyen...
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IN ‘GREEN NEWS EXTRA’: ‘Freakonomics’ Sequel gets panned & slammed for climate change denial chapter; Ecuador Oil Pollution Case Only Grows Murkier; US agriculture department confirms H1N1 virus found in pig; Gizmag Explainer: What is an LED TV?; An H1N1 “Swine Flu” Story: A Pregnant Woman’s Ordeal; Australians to fortify coast homes against climate change, rising seas … PLUS: Rebranding, and the Idea of America….
Info/links on those stories and all the ones we talked about on today’s episode follow below…
- Philippines Brace for Third Typhoon in One Month:
- Disease warning as Philippines awaits typhoon Lupit: Experts warn of deadly epidemics in country still in the grip of devastation caused by two powerful storms (Guardian UK)
- Court: ExxonMobil top pay damages in NYC Water Contamination
- Countdown to Copenhagen:
- Copenhagen climate talks are last chance, says Gordon Brown (Guardian UK)
- WATCH: British PM warns of climate ‘catastrophe’: ’50 days to save world’: The UK faces a “catastrophe” of floods, droughts and killer heatwaves if world leaders fail to agree a deal on climate change, the prime minister has warned.(BBC)
- UK Prime Minister Brown calls for steeper emissions cuts (Financial Times):
The world needs to cut its carbon dioxide emissions in 2020 by a further 10 per cent below the reductions that have already been promised to head off the threat of catastrophic global warming, Gordon Brown has told a meeting of leading economies in London.
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He added: “If we falter, the earth itself will be at risk.” - U.N. official expects no climate treaty at Copenhagen (AFP)
- In-Depth: UN climate negotiator knocks full treaty hopes (Financial Times)
- THE ‘YES’ MEN PUNK THE U.S. CHAMBER OF COMMERCE:
- The Yes Men Punk the Chamber (Mother Jones)
- Yes Men, Activist Group, Teamed Up On Chamber Hoax (Talking Points Memo)
- READ the phony press release: “U.S. Chamber of Commerce Announces Free Enterprise Survival Strategy”
- OOPS: Chamber of Commerce’s About Face: Good News for America (Get Energy Smart Now)
- Corporate Pranksters behind the hoax: The YES Men and Avaaz Action Factory
- WATCH IT: Will the Real Chamber of Commerce Please Stand Up?
‘GREEN NEWS EXTRA’: More green news not covered in today’s audio report…
- “SuperFreakonomics” Gets Panned & Slammed for climate change denial chapter:
- PAUL KRUGMAN: Superfreakingmeta (NY Times) [emphasis added]:
One good aspect of the controversy, though, has been some broader analysis of what it all means…an odd inconsistency that I’ve identified more broadly: those who go on and on about how people respond to incentives when they’re making a pro-free-market argument suddenly seem to lose all faith in the power of incentives when the goal is to induce more environmentally friendly behavior.
- Does “Superfreakonomics” Need A Do-Over? (The New Republic)
- SuperFreakonomics: Global Cooling (and some other stuff)? (SEED Science Blogs):
Diagnosis, in brief: (1) they write about stuff they clearly don’t understand (2) they pick a catchy reverse-common-wisdom nugget as a headliner without the having the slightest interest in whether it is true or not (mind you, plenty of more respectable folk do the same) (3) they pick an expert to talk to, but since they don’t have a clue about the subject they don’t know how to pick a good expert, or even understand what the expert says (4) there is a grain of sense in there, but so badly wrapped in trash it is nearly unfindable.
- New Book “SuperFreakonomics” Mischaracterizes Climate Science (Union of Concerned Scientists)
- Ecuador Oil Pollution Case Only Grows Murkier (NY Times)
- US agriculture department confirms H1N1 virus found in pig: Agriculture secretary emphasised that flu could not be contracted by consuming pork products (Guardian UK)
- Gizmag Explainer: What is an LED TV? (Gizmag)
- Flu Story: A Pregnant Woman’s Ordeal: The group most threatened by swine flu and most in need of the new vaccine, world health authorities agree, is that of pregnant women. (NY Times)
- Australians to fortify coast homes against climate change, rising seas (Reuters)
- OP-ED: Rebranding America, by Bono (NY Times) [emphasis added]:
In dangerous, clangorous times, the idea of America rings like a bell (see King, M. L., Jr., and Dylan, Bob). It hits a high note and sustains it without wearing on your nerves. (If only we all could.) This was the melody line of the Marshall Plan and it’s resonating again. Why? Because the world sees that America might just hold the keys to solving the three greatest threats we face on this planet: extreme poverty, extreme ideology and extreme climate change. The world senses that America, with renewed global support, might be better placed to defeat this axis of extremism with a new model of foreign policy.
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[U.S. General James Jones] and I also found ourselves talking about what can happen when the three extremes — poverty, ideology and climate — come together.
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[T]he idea of America, from the very start, was supposed to be contagious enough to sweep up and enthrall the world.And it is. The world wants to believe in America again because the world needs to believe in America again.
We need your ideas — your idea — at a time when the rest of the world is running out of them.
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