Green Options

Last Wednesday, as I was riding my bicycle down Third Street to the UCSF Mission Bay Farmer’s Market, my thoughts turned to the economist Jospeh Schumpeter and his seminal book “Capitalism, Socialism and Democracy”. Streams of loud cars and trucks barreled past me on the road, some of the vehicles nearly grazing me as oblivious drivers chattered on cell phones. As I continued pedaling down the street, images of organic daikon and Schumpeter’s theory of “Creative Destruction” swirled around [...]

Sunday’s Financial Times has confirmed that the administration will be putting Wall Street banks through a “stress test.” The $2,000bn bank bailout plan was announced last week ahead of formal discussions with the industry’s representatives.

With growing speculation that electric cars and other energy efficient vehicles will soon dominate markets worldwide, Bolivia is a nation that perhaps stands to benefit (or suffer) more than any other from the energy revolution.

Most electric cars will be powered by lithium batteries, and Bolivia has more lithium than any other nation worldwide. How this development will affect Bolivia is unknown, but will squarely place the South American country at an intriguing and crucial crossroads.

In France, the Old Left is rising again. Working people are becoming angry that bankers are being bailed out to continue to pay obscene bonuses while ordinary peoples’ jobs go to the wall. Governments are under pressure to limit mass unemployment as a result of the recession. But this cannot be done by propping up environmentally-dangerous industries. They must be required to change. It’s a story of danger – and of opportunity.

The government of Bolivia announced plans on Tuesday to buy land and distribute it among landless indigenous groups in an effort to improve their lives.

One of these groups are the Guaraní people, who some claim are living in Bolivia in “a situation of servitude analogous to slavery.”

There are others who dispute that claim, including several prominent American ranchers. They claim that President Evo Morales’ government wants to confiscate their land using the bogus slavery accusation and redistribute it so that it can obtain rights to more of Bolivia’s profitable natural gas reserves.

As retail sales decline, manufacturing slows and unemployment benefit claims rise, the economic situation looks more and more grim by the day. Rises in the stock market that show a glimmer of hope are invariably followed by dips. The housing markets declines steadily and the recession promises to linger well into next year. George Bush has called for a mid November summit to discuss the international economic situation.

With fourteen days left until the U.S. presidential election, the heat is on. As much as all eyes are on the candidates, everybody’s pulse is on the economy. People all over America are wondering who will better serve the U.S. Economy and bring it to where it needs to be. What are the candidates saying?

John McCain says that Barack Obama’s tax policy is not conducive to building a strong economy. Obama says he wants to spread the wealth around. Joe [...]

On Saturday, September 13, 2008, Green Party Vice Presidential and gubernatorial candidate Peter Camejo died from lymphoma. He was 68 years old.

Has it ever occurred to you that the whole concept of private property might be innately harmful to the natural environment? While I’ve always recognized that indigenous cultures viewed the land as a blessing to all, not as something belonging to individuals, I never really made that concept personal until now.

Now, in the context of the U.S. mortgage meltdown, the context of protections for Alaskan wildlife and how they affect Inuit culture, the context of how actions on one side of the globe (i.e., industrial pollution and greenhouse gas emissions) are affecting the lives of people on the other side, I have to wonder if the idea of personally-owned land is destructive to the environment and, ultimately, to all of us.