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The Rhetoric Gap: Can Obama Give ‘em Hell (and High Water) Before It’s Too Late?

Joe Romm — Tue, 01 Sep 2009 21:58:16 +0000

"We had to struggle with the old enemies of peace: business and financial monopoly, speculation, reckless banking, class antagonism, sectionalism, war profiteering,” President Franklin Roosevelt told an audience in Madison Square Garden in 1936. “They had begun to consider the Government of the United States as a mere appendage to their own affairs. We know now that Government by organized money is just as dangerous as Government by organized mob. Never before in all our history have these forces been so united against one candidate as they stand today. They are unanimous in their hate for me and I welcome their hatred.”

Can anyone imagine President Barack Obama saying anything like that? The nickname of Roosevelt’s successor in the White House, Harry Truman, was “Give-’Em-Hell Harry.” As the Republican minority, backed by an avalanche of special-interest money, mobilizes to thwart the health reform agenda of the Democratic majority, maybe the time has come for “Give-’Em-Hell Barry.”

The most dangerous deficit that the United States faces is not the budget deficit or the trade deficit. It is the Democrats’ demagogy deficit. Franklin Roosevelt, looking down from that Hyde Park in the sky, would not be surprised that conservatives are seeking to channel populist anger and anxiety, not against the Wall Street elites who wrecked the economy, but against reformers promoting healthcare reform and economic security for ordinary people. As he told his audience in 1936, “It is an old strategy of tyrants to delude their victims into fighting their battles for them.” But FDR would be shocked by the inability of his party to mobilize the public on behalf of reform.

Michael Lind has a terrific Salon column today, with the subhead, “Why can’t Democrats mobilize the public for healthcare reform? Blame the demagogy gap.” I’d replace demagogy with the less incendiary and more accurate “rhetoric gap.”

Demagogues are a dime a dozen, and demagogy isn’t inherently persuasive or winning. But rhetoric is. Rhetoric is what makes a great, successful President (see “The greatest thing by far is to be a master of metaphor”: How to be as persuasive as Lincoln, 3).

I blog about the health care debate in part because success there probably makes it more likely we’ll see a climate bill and in part for what it tells us about Obama’s messaging. The ‘good’ news on the first front is that the American Enterprise Institute’s savvy centrist Norman Ornstein writes today that “The odds remain reasonable that a solid, if not dramatic, health reform bill can make it through this process and become law. Any bill, under these conditions, will be a major accomplishment. The odds have been improved, not damaged, by the president’s approach” — thanks to “Obama’s Health-Care Realism.” We’ll see.

Although he has the eloquence to be an FDR — and his achievements in clean energy and climate to date are far greater than most progressives give him credit for (see “The Green clean energy FDR: Obama’s first 100 days make — and may remake — history“) — Obama can’t truly be the clean energy FDR if he doesn’t master FDR’s ability to fight rhetorical fire with fire.

Now, unlike health care, where the whole message is a muddle, team Obama has half of the energy and climate message right (see “Clean energy messaging 101: ‘Green’ jobs are out, ‘clean energy’ jobs are in“).

And that’s why they are doing better on climate than health care — having passed a bill through the house and still winning on the issue in the polls.

But team Obama has mostly given up half its message unilaterally. As I wrote in July — and as subsequent conversations support — I’m told by multiple sources that the political operatives in the White House have bought into the ecoAmerica bullshit that we mustn’t explain to the public the serious threat posed by climate change (see Messaging 101b: EcoAmerica’s phrase ‘our deteriorating atmosphere’ isn’t going to replace ‘global warming’ — and that’s a good thing). And bullshit it is (see Mark Mellman must read on climate messaging: “A strong public consensus has emerged on the reality and severity of global warming, as well as on the need for federal action” — ecoAmerica “could hardly be more wrong”). That’s a key reason Obama didn’t even show up for the single biggest climate science announcement of his administration — the report on U.S. climate impacts — thus negating any impact it might have had on the debate (see here).

Of course, the White House doesn’t have any problem telling the public and the media day after day the myriad catastrophic consequences that await the country if we don’t act on health care (millions more without health care, a bankrupt economy, exploding premiums). No, it’s only talking about the myriad catastrophic consequences that await the country if we don’t act on climate that is verboten. That means most of the messaging will be on clean energy and jobs — which is a great message, one I’ve pushed for two decades now — but it hardly justifies or motivates a 42% reduction in CO2 emissions in two decades and an 83% reduction in four decades, along with all the extensive accompanying regulations.

Since the other side has no positive message on climate, this half-message may still may work. But fundamentally, it is wrong headed, and I’ll lay out the full message this month. Obama needs to give ‘em Hell and High Water.

I’ll end by excerpting the Lind piece at length because I think it makes some important points:

Liberal intellectuals, shocked by McCarthyism and the rejection by the voters of the urbane Adlai Stevenson for Dwight Eisenhower, concluded that the American people themselves were the problem. In “The Age of Reform” and other works, the influential liberal historian Richard Hofstadter argued that the Progressive and Populist movements, far from being the precursors of New Deal liberalism, were reactionary movements by downwardly mobile professionals or farmers suffering from “status anxiety.” Seymour Martin Lipset and other sociologists and historians including Daniel Bell and Peter Viereck argued that many members of the working class had “authoritarian personalities” and that populism here as in Europe could lead to fascism. Although more accurate historians and pollsters demolished their caricature of working-class Americans as proto-Nazis suffering from “status anxiety,” the damage had been done. The New Left of the 1970s and 1980s, clashing with socially conservative blue-collar “hard-hats,” were if anything even more hostile to the white working class, and sought allies instead among blacks, immigrants and various “social movements,” most of them staffed and run by members of the college-educated upper middle class.
Whereas progressives and populists alike had been able to invoke the people against the interests, the mid-century liberals and many of their successors on the center-left to this day fear the people even more than they fear the interests. They worry that if liberals rile up the crowd against Wall Street, the rampaging mob, like the torch-bearing Transylvanian villagers in the old Universal Pictures Frankenstein movies, might turn on the universities or carry out political pogroms against minorities. When passion and polemic are ruled out as uncivil, when appeals to the people and their tradition are ruled out by liberalism’s own theory of itself, it is hard to see how there can be a popular liberal politics, as distinct from a politics of brokering among interests or elite reforms from above. It follows that liberals should focus on keeping the public calm, while carrying out reforms on their behalf — but without their participation — on the basis of negotiations among politicians, public-spirited nonprofit activists, and enlightened interest groups. The Obama administration’s approach to healthcare reform has followed this script exactly.

The two arguments on which the administration has rested the case for healthcare are calculated to appeal to elites, not the general public. One argument holds that it is immoral to allow a substantial minority of Americans, who are disproportionately poor, to lack health insurance. This argument appeals to progressive Democrats in the academic and nonprofit communities for whom politics is a form of charity. The other argument is that healthcare cost inflation will wreck the economy in the future, unless it is brought under control. This argument appeals to the Wall Street donor wing of the party, symbolized by Robert Rubin, whose protégés, including Larry Summers, Timothy Geithner and Peter Orszag, surround Obama in the White House.

But if you are trying to mobilize public support for a sweeping healthcare overhaul, appealing to charity or the concerns of bondholders is not the way to go about it. “Vote your interests!” Harry Truman told Americans in 1948. Most Americans have employer-provided healthcare. They are worried about keeping it if they lose their jobs and about the rising cost of deductibles. Democrats should have sold healthcare reform as establishing a permanent, universal right to affordable healthcare.

You also can’t fight and win a war without naming your enemies. In the case of healthcare, the enemies of the American people — if I may be demagogic as well as accurate — include rent-seeking insurance companies, rent-seeking pharma companies, and overcompensated doctors and hospitals.

Last but not least, you need a narrative in which today’s campaign is not an isolated technocratic attempt to solve a particular public policy problem, but part of the ongoing story of progressive reform in America. In his 1964 Democratic convention speech, Lyndon Johnson invoked American history in laying out the vision of the Great Society: “The Founding Fathers dreamed America before it was. The pioneers dreamed of great cities on the wilderness that they crossed.” It’s hard to make that appeal if you agree with elements of the academic left that the Founders were self-seeking crooks, that the pioneers were genocidal monsters and that great cities on the wilderness are ecological disasters. The consensus liberals of the mid-20th century and the multicultural liberals of the late 20th century have been too busy exaggerating the anti-Semitism of 19th-century populists or emphasizing the racist attitudes of the 19th-century labor movement to invoke the ideals those precursors share with post-racist 21st-century liberals. But we can be inspired by the universal ideals that we share with our predecessors without endorsing or excusing their parochial prejudices.

A Rooseveltian or Trumanesque campaign speech, addressing the concerns of the American majority, invoking the heroic history of American reform and naming the enemy, practically writes itself:

You can read this excellent proposed speech in Salon.

I would note that, unlike health care, the public understands who the enemies are — the polluters, Big Oil, and the conservatives who have been kowtowing to them for years. That’s another reason we’re doing better on climate than health care.

If Barack Obama can speak in accents like these, then he will be able to declare, like Franklin Roosevelt in 1936, “I should like to have it said of my first Administration that in it the forces of selfishness and of lust for power met their match. I should like to have it said of my second Administration that in it these forces met their master.”

This piece originally appeared on Climate Progress

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(Posted by Joe Romm in Politics at 1:58 PM)

Climate Change Politics Floods Australian Parliament

Ben Block — Wed, 26 Aug 2009 19:33:55 +0000

When Kevin Rudd challenged then-Prime Minister John Howard for Australia's highest office in 2007, climate change was high on the national agenda. The country was suffering through a drought that some scientists said the continent had not experienced in 1,000 years.

Farmers were banned from irrigating their crops. The country's rice and cotton fields failed; livestock died of thirst. Prime Minister Howard, a hardened climate change skeptic, asked the country to pray for rain.
For many Australians, their prayers were indeed answered, although not as Howard requested. With nearly 53 percent of the popular vote, Rudd won the general election.

Less than two weeks later, Rudd signed the Kyoto Protocol as his first official act as prime minister. The move committed Australia to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions.

"My government will do everything in its power to help Australia meet its Kyoto Protocol obligations," Rudd promised in December 2007.

Twenty months later, Rudd and his supporters are struggling to overcome opposition from fossil fuel lobbyists and Green Party allies to pass national climate change legislation.

Many Australian politicians are bracing themselves for a parliament-wide re-election, which Rudd may initiate if legislators do not agree upon a response to climate change this fall.

An Australian Cap-and-Trade Plan

The proposed Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme (CPRS) would cut emissions 5 percent below 2000 levels by 2020 -an amount some 10 percent greater than 1990 levels. If the global community agrees to a successor agreement to the Kyoto Protocol during negotiations in Copenhagen this December, Rudd said his government would pursue a 25-percent emissions reduction target.

The cap-and-trade system would obligate about 1,000 of Australia's most polluting companies - those who emit more than 25,000 tons of carbon dioxide each year - to buy pollution permits for every ton they release. The government has proposed free credits for 25- 30 percent of polluters; the rest would pay during a government auction. Each ton of carbon dioxide would initially cost AU$10.

The policy would also cut fuel taxes to help offset increases in fuel prices that may result from the new carbon price.

Despite an intense campaign from the Rudd administration - a federal study released less than two weeks before a crucial Senate vote found that three of the country's most prominent icons, the Sydney Opera House, the Great Barrier Reef, and Kakadu National Park, could all be irreparably damaged unless greenhouse gases are contained - the Senate rejected the legislation.

Conservatives and industry associations said the proposed legislation would excessively damage the economy, while environmentalists denounced it as insufficient to curb emissions. In the end, 42 of the 76 Senators defeated the bill. The Parliament is scheduled to debate the law again in November.

"This bill may be going down today, but this is not the end," Climate Change Minister Penny Wong told the Senate before the August 13 vote. "We will bring this bill back before the end of the year because, if we don't, this nation goes to Copenhagen with no means to deliver our targets."

Australia, home to about 21 million people, is relatively small compared to the world's major greenhouse gas emitters. But the country relies heavily on coal for its electricity, a major reason why emissions are projected to reach 120-percent of 1990 levels by 2020 [PDF], according to business-as-usual scenarios. Energy-related emissions rose some 35 percent as the market for Australia's raw materials skyrocketed between 1990 and 2004. Australia is the world's largest coal exporter and fifth largest exporter of liquefied natur al gas. China and other Asian countries are the main destinations of energy-intensive Australian exports.

Meanwhile, Australia - already the driest inhabited continent on earth - will likely experience reduced rainfall, higher sea and land surface temperatures, more severe storm events, and rising sea levels as results of climate change, according to the Australian Department of Climate Change.

Renewable Energy Policies Spread

Before Rudd's election, the Australian government expected the country to achieve net emission reductions mainly through land use changes, such as deforestation, to offset the burgeoning combustion of fossil fuels. Ever since, the national government and regional administrations have passed policies to accelerate low-carbon energy use.

Australian Capital Territory and the states of South Australia and Queensland passed feed-in policies - payments that guarantee renewable energy providers receive a set price for electricity generation over an extended period of time. Queensland, the nation's major coal-producing state, last week banned all new coal-fired power stations that were not "ready" to capture and store carbon dioxide emissions (a still unproven technology, scientists say).

In addition, the Parliament approved Thursday a renewable energy law that requires that renewable sources supply 20 percent of the country's electricity by 2020.

Previously, the Mandatory Renewable Energy Target (MRET) set a target of generating 9.5 billion kilowatt hours of electricity, which the government expected to achieve by 2010. The new standard provides AU$22 billion (US$18.5 billion) of investment support for the renewable energy industry to produce 45 billion kilowatt hours of renewable energy by 2020.

"We anticipate that around 800 megawatts of additional renewable energy capacity could be built each year, which is sufficient to provide the energy needs of over 450,000 typical Australian homes," said Miles George, energy managing director of Infigen Energy, a wind energy generator, in a statement [PDF].

The renewable energy policy was originally included in legislation that proposed a national emissions cap-and-trade system. In recognition of widespread support for renewable energy, and intense controversy surrounding the cap-and-trade proposals, the Rudd administration struck an agreement with the main opposition party to split the energy provisions from the bill.

A "Double Dissolution" Threat

More than 60 percent of Australians support Rudd's emission trading plans, according to a Sydney Morning Herald poll. Yet conservatives lambasted its estimated AU$12 billion (US$10 billion) cost. Energy-intensive industries warned that the policy would lead to large-scale unemployment unless they received handsome transitional support. Environmentalists said such assistance, in addition to the low price the government has set on carbon, serves as disincentives for the industry to reduce emissions.

"The CPRS, as the federal government's main policy response to climate change, ignores the science, perversely rewards big polluters, and will result in Australia's greenhouse gas emissions continuing to rise," a coalition of environmentalists wrote in a June report.

When Parliament returns its attention to climate change in November, the Rudd administration has urged legislators to reach an agreement. If not, the Senate may face a new election.

According to the Australian Constitution, if the House of Representatives twice passes a bill and the Senate twice rejects it, the prime minister may advise the governor-general, the Australian representative of Queen Elizabeth II, to dissolve both houses. The move would force all parliament members, Rudd included, to face an early election next year. A "double dissolution" has not occurred since 1987.

Supporters of swift climate action are hoping the government can avoid such a measure.

"It is time for both sides of politics to put political point-scoring aside in the interests of the future of our planet," said Rev. Eleni Poulos, spokeswoman of the social justice arm of the Uniting Church in Australia.

Ben Block is a staff writer with the Worldwatch Institute. He can be reached at bblock@worldwatch.org.

This piece originally appeared on Worldwatch Institute

Related posts:
Australian Parliament Adopts 20 Percent Renewables Standard By 2020
Kevin Rudd, Australia's New Prime Minister
Australia's New PM Will Ratify Kyoto Protocol

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(Posted by Ben Block in Politics at 11:33 AM)

Senator Edward M. Kennedy (D-MA), A Champion Of The Environment And Clean Energy, Dies At Age 77

Joe Romm — Wed, 26 Aug 2009 19:20:35 +0000

Kennedy, the last surviving brother in a unique American political dynasty and one of the most influential senators in history, died late Tuesday night at his summer home on Cape Cod after a 15-month battle with brain cancer. He was 77.

He was a great champion of progressive causes, and his death is a great loss, particularly for health care reform. You can read read his staggering list of accomplishments here.

His legacy on “Protecting the Environment and Promoting Energy Efficiency” is below. How many Senators would even mention “energy efficiency” among their achievements?

Holding Oil Companies Accountable
During consideration of a 1975 tax cut proposal, Kennedy introduced a provision targeting the oil depletion allowance, which since 1926 had enabled oil producers to exclude 22 percent of their revenues from any taxes. Kennedy’s initiative passed overwhelmingly, trimming the allowance for independent producers and ending it for the major oil companies.

Raising Fuel Economy Standards
Senator Kennedy has a long and distinguished record supporting clean renewable sources of energy and reducing the nation’s reliance on fossil fuels. More than 30 years ago he cosponsored the first law to establish fuel economy standards. And in 2007, he supported a law which increased fuel economy standards, which is essential to cutting greenhouse gas emissions.

Promoting Energy Research and Development
In 2007, Senator Kennedy’s “America COMPETES Act” was passed by both chambers of Congress and sent to the White House to become law. That bill established an Advanced Research Projects Authority at the Department of Energy to be the focal point of federal efforts to support breakthrough research on new clean energy technologies.

In 2009, Senator Kennedy urged that funds from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act be used to build a wind blade technology testing facility in Massachusetts, and in May 2009, Energy Secretary Steven Chu announced that $25 million of such funds will be available for the project at the Autoport in Charlestown.

Improving Energy Efficiency
Senator Kennedy was a strong proponent of increasing energy efficiency, which is an essential part of reducing greenhouse gas emissions. He was a long time supporter of programs like the weatherization assistance program and the Low-Income Home Energy Assistance Program that helps those most in need reduce their energy bills by improving home energy efficiency.

Here are more of his efforts to maintain high environmental standards:

Kennedy Fought to Reduce Greenhouse Gas Emissions and Address Global Warming. During consideration of the FY 2002 Budget Resolution, Senator Kennedy cosponsored an amendment to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and address concerns related to global climate change. The amendment sought to promote voluntary programs for reducing emissions in the near term. In addition, Senator Kennedy’s amendment included provisions designed to assist developing countries address the danger of global warming – specifically increased funding to help them reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Finally, the amendment provided additional funding for programs that assist U.S. businesses willing to export clean energy technologies to developing nations.

Kennedy Criticized the Administration’s Proposed Changes to the Clean Air Act. Senator Kennedy was a vocal critic of the Bush Administration’s efforts to essentially repeal the “New Source Review” section of the Clean Air Act. The New Source Review provision requires industrial plants to install modern pollution control mechanisms when expanding or upgrading their old facilities. This standard has helped reduce smog- and soot-forming pollution by hundreds of thousands of tons each year. President Bush’s proposal eliminated this requirement, significantly increasing the probability of higher pollution levels and endangering the lives of millions of children, mothers, and elderly persons. Senator Kennedy strongly supported an amendment that would have delayed implementation of the new rule until a study was completed to determine its effect on air pollution and public health. The amendment failed on a party-line vote.

Kennedy Fought for Additional Personnel to Enforce Environmental Regulations. After a 2003 Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) report detailed the Agency’s substandard efforts to enforce the Clean Water Act, Senator Kennedy cosponsored an amendment to the VA-HUD Appropriations Act to reverse proposed cuts in the EPA enforcement staff. The amendment provided additional funding to maintain personnel levels and prevent layoffs to enforcement officers. The failure of the EPA to address a significant number of environmental violations exposed the negligence of cutting enforcement personnel. Senator Kennedy’s amendment maintained the previous year’s officer level.

Kennedy Opposed the Permanent Nuclear Waste Storage Facility at Yucca Mountain. Senator Kennedy is a strong opponent of the plan to create a permanent storage facility for nuclear waste at Yucca Mountain in Nevada. The potential for groundwater contamination from the site is yet to be determined, and the transfer of nuclear materials to Nevada from almost every state in the nation raises serious safety concerns. In addition, in March 2005, the Department of Energy admitted that falsified documents were used to ensure the credibility and safety of operations at Yucca Mountain. Until questions are resolved that will guarantee the health of both the public and the environment, it is irresponsible to approve a permanent storage site for nuclear waste.

And his efforts to “Supporting the Improving Mass Transit and Reducing Pollution and Congestion“:

Kennedy Cosponsored Legislation to Increase Funding for AmtrakSenator Kennedy cosponsored legislation to increase funding for passenger rail service in the United States. Amtrak is a vital component to the country’s transportation infrastructure, especially in the Northeast. Despite its importance, the Administration over the last three years has severely underfunded the passenger rail system, forcing it to delay critical capital investments. In his budget for FY 2006, President Bush proposed to eliminate all funding for Amtrak, hoping to force it into bankruptcy and shift the bill for passenger rail to state governments. Senator Kennedy’s bipartisan amendment would have restored the subsidy for Amtrak, ensuring service for the next fiscal year. Kennedy sponsored a similar amendment in 2003, which allowed Amtrak to maintain critical services during 2004.

Kennedy Fought for Increased Mass Transit Benefits for Commuters During consideration of the highway bill, Senator Kennedy was a key cosponsor of an amendment that increased the monthly amount of the employer-based federal mass transit tax benefit from $105 to $200. This puts the monthly benefit on par with the current federal parking benefit. The amendment was modeled after the Commuter Benefits Equity Act, of which Senator Kennedy is a cosponsor, and could help up to 194,000 T commuters in and around Boston. Encouraging the use of mass transit will help reduce traffic congestion and lower the cost of commuting, especially important at a time of escalating energy prices. Kennedy’s amendment was included in the highway conference report, which was signed into law by the President.

Kennedy Secured Record Transportation Funding in Highway Bill In 2005, Senator Kennedy successfully secured record transportation funding in the Transportation Equity Act, also known as the highway bill. Massachusetts will receive $3.658 billion for highways for the next six years – a $568 million increase over the last highway measure signed into law. In addition, the bill includes a substantial increase in funding for mass transit priorities in the state. The funds contained in the highway bill are critical to improving infrastructure in Massachusetts and reducing traffic congestion for the state’s commuters.

And his efforts to protect our oceans and land:

Kennedy Supported Additional Funding to Protect Water Resources. In 1972, the Federal Water Pollution Act was enacted to provide funding to states for water pollution prevention and clean-up. Despite substantial progress in protecting and improving water quality in the United States, serious pollution problems remain. A 2002 Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) study disclosed a $535 billion gap between current spending and projected water funding needs over the next 20 years. Payments from the Federal Water Pollution Control State Revolving Fund are essential to protecting vital water resources, wildlife and the public health in the U.S. To ensure adequate funding for the account, Senator Kennedy introduced an amendment to the FY 2006 Budget Resolution that expressed support for increasing water pollution payments to states.

Kennedy Fought to Cleanup Brownfields Sites and Revitalize Local Communities. In 2001, Senator Kennedy was a lead sponsor of the Brownfields Revitalization and Environmental Restoration Act, which authorized funds for assessment and cleanup of “brownfields” sites. Brownfields are former industrial sites that at one time were determined unsuitable for development because of environmental contamination. Today however, these sites are being cleaned up and redeveloped, enhancing the environment, creating jobs and expanding economic development in communities across the country. Massachusetts alone has identified over 7,000 such sites in the state. With over 500,000 brownfields sites in the United States, Senator Kennedy’s legislation provided important grants and revolving loans to states and local governments to inventory, assess, and cleanup contaminated sites. Unfortunately, despite its ability to bring economic vitality to communities throughout the country, the Administration’s budget for FY 2006 incorporated large cuts in the program.

Massachusetts Received Millions of Dollars to Clean Up Brownfields Sites. The year following passage of Senator Kennedy’s Brownfields revitalization bill, eleven communities in Massachusetts were selected by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to receive federal grants for their Brownfield Assessment Demonstration Pilot programs. The total of more than $3.4 million helped these communities establish new methods of assessment, cleanup, and redevelopment.

Kennedy Fought to Prevent Oil Drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. The Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR) represents one of the last remaining protected wilderness areas in the country, and is home to a variety of unique wildlife. The FY 2004 Budget Resolution contained language allowing energy drilling in ANWR, opening the environmentally protected area to development. Senator Kennedy introduced an amendment to eliminate the language and prevent the consideration of drilling in the refuge. Energy Department forecasts predict that, if retrieved all at once, the refuge would produce at most six months worth of American oil, and would not start flowing until 2013. This is a fruitless effort that would convert this spectacular ecosystem into nothing more than an oilfield, and damage the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge for future generations.

Kennedy Supported an Amendment to Prevent Drilling in ANWR During consideration of the FY 2006 Budget Resolution, Senator Kennedy strongly supported an amendment to remove language that opened the door for drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR). In recent years, the Senate has voted down attempts to allow drilling in ANWR, which would destroy one of the last remaining wilderness areas in the country. Drilling would do little to reduce U.S. dependence on foreign oil, and would have almost no impact on energy prices. Although the amendment was defeated, Kennedy will continue the fight to ensure this environmentally sensitive area remains free from oil drilling.

Kennedy Helped Defeat Drilling in ANWR Senator Kennedy and his colleagues were successful in defeating a provision from the Defense Department Appropriations bill that would have allowed drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. Republican leaders attempted to include the special interest provision in the Defense bill, but it was removed after being determined unrelated to the underlying measure.

Kennedy Supported the Goals of National Oceans Week. Oceans contribute vitally to the nation’s economy, the quality of the environment, and the health of the population. Providing oxygen to breath, food to eat, and a wealth of natural resources, these waters play a critical role in sustaining life on earth. As a result, the United States has a responsibility to promote and practice stewardship of the ocean. In 2003, Senator Kennedy cosponsored a resolution to designate the week of June 9, 2003, as National Oceans Week, and urged the country to exercise programs to advance ocean literacy and education.

Kennedy Worked to Expand Ocean Research and Apply it to Human Health In 2004, Senator Kennedy cosponsored legislation to establish a federal research program examining ocean resources and their application to human health. The bill would have created the Oceans and Human Health Program at the Department of Commerce, and directed the Department to establish an outreach effort with the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), and Centers for Disease Control (CDC). This coordination would help merge oceanographers and biomedical researchers to collaborate on marine research and its impact on human health. Senator Kennedy’s legislation passed in the Senate, but stalled in the House of Representatives.

Kennedy Cosponsored Legislation to Protect Coastal Lands and Wetlands In 2003, Senator Kennedy introduced legislation to help preserve America’s coasts and wetlands, and protect these unspoiled areas from development. The bipartisan bill would have provided grant funding to states and non-governmental organizations for land conservation at the state and local level. Funding would have been targeted to protect important coastal and wetland areas with significant conservation, recreation, and ecological value. The program would have supported coordination between private organizations and federal, state, and local governments for land acquisition and protection. The Coastal and Estuarine Land Protection Act failed to reach the floor for consideration.

And finally, you can see his major votes in recent years on energy, oil, and the environment here.

They say no one is indispensable, but some are irreplaceable. Ted Kennedy was both.

This piece originally appeared in Climate Progress.

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(Posted by Joe Romm in Politics at 11:20 AM)

China’s Growing Appetite for Climate Action

WorldChanging Team — Thu, 20 Aug 2009 20:30:38 +0000

CAP’s Julian Wong has a follow up to “China softens climate rhetoric, commits to emissions peak (again), shows flexibility on Western reductions.” In the photo, Chinese Vice Chairman of the National Development and Reform Commission Xie Zhenhua shakes hands with Special Envoy for Climate Change Todd Stern as Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, and Energy Secretary Steven Chu, and Assistant Secretary of State Richard Boucher look on.

China’s climate change envoy, Yu Qingtai, made headlines when he declared in a news conference earlier this month that “there is no one in the world who is more keen than us to see China reach its emissions peak as early as possible.”

Now all eyes are focused on the United States and China—the two biggest greenhouse gas emitters—with just four months to go to the U.N. summit on climate change in Copenhagen, where nations will negotiate a successor treaty to the Kyoto Protocol, which expires in 2012. Attendees at the most recent round of U.N. climate talks in Bonn, Germany may have left the meetings with a pessimistic sense that we’re a long way off from a global agreement. But interesting developments are unfolding in China outside of these U.N. meetings that bring a more hopeful message.

China already committed in a declaration last month with 15 other large emitting countries at the Major Economies Forum on Energy and Climate in Italy to peak global and national emissions “as soon as possible.” That provision lacks a precise timetable and is laden with the caveat that of the “overriding priorities of developing countries,” but it is the statement of intent that the Chinese are clearly taking seriously.

Then just last week, the Chinese Academy of Sciences, one of the more prominent government think tanks, published an extensive 900-page report that has gained notable attention in both the Chinese and Western press for advocating the notion that China can feasibly aim to peak its carbon emissions by 2030. The report is advisory in nature and by no means represents official policy, but it is the latest in a series of overtures by prominent Chinese academicians to set emissions peaking pathways. Hu Angang, a public policy professor at Tsinghua University in Beijing and a prominent policy adviser for the Chinese government, has also advocated for China to aim for peaking carbon emissions in 2030. He Jiankun, deputy head of the State Council’s Expert Panel on Climate Change Policy, has projected that China’s emissions are more likely to peak at 2035. Additionally, a different report by CAS released earlier this year called for peaking between 2030 and 2040.

Setting the timing of emissions peaking alone without considering the trajectory of the emissions pathway—especially the height of the peak—may not be helpful in determining whether such measures go as far as the climate science requires. But the broader significance of such discussions at the top-levels of the Chinese government, especially at this critical juncture in the run up to Copenhagen, should not be missed. China’s willingness to be a constructive player in the international climate change negotiation process is there; it just needs to be acknowledged and encouraged.

China’s willingness is not just talk, but is backed up by concrete actions. We have discussed previously many of the actions China is taking, including its current five-year plan that boasts some of the most ambitious energy efficiency and renewable energy targets in the world. And today, the Climate Group has launched a report entitled “China’s Clean Revolution II: Opportunities for a Low Carbon Future” that provides a similarly compelling narrative of how China, despite the current global economic downturn, is making hefty investments to accelerate a tectonic shift from grey to green in sectors such as transportation, industrial energy efficiency, wind, solar, geothermal, and urban design. The transition won’t be easy, nor will it happen overnight, but there should be little doubt about the Chinese leadership’s intent and resolve to reorient its carbon-intensive economy toward a more sustainable path.

China may announce its next five-year plan as early as this year, and many expect that it will contain even stronger commitments and perhaps incorporate some measure of carbon reductions in the form of benchmarks for reducing carbon intensity. China’s State Council, led by Premier Wen Jiabao, last week laid down the objective of incorporating climate change considerations into “the medium and long-term development strategies and plans of government at every level.” Also, Sun Qin, the vice chief of the National Energy Administration said he expects the government to complete a comprehensive plan for new and low-carbon energy development by the end of the year. A low-carbon strategy will be a central thread in China’s ongoing economic development strategy.

China is also hinting at increased flexibility in the negotiation process. Su Wei, director-general of the climate change office within the National Development and Reform Commission, China’s main economic planning agency, has signaled a change in tone, saying, “China will not continue growing emissions without limit or insist that all nations must have the same per-capita emissions. If we did that, this earth would be ruined.” China maintains its hard line that developed countries are historically responsible for climate change, but climate envoy Yu has also backed off somewhat from China’s previous demands that all developed countries commit to 40 percent reductions in carbon emissions by 2020, saying that, “[a] concrete figure has to be decided by the negotiations; we will get a result in Copenhagen.”

All these developments in China are encouraging considering also that South Korea and Mexico, two other non-Annex I countries—developing countries as defined in the U.N. climate treaty process—recently indicated a willingness to enact carbon emissions caps for 2020. This underscores the need for reciprocal action from the United States.

The United States Congress must first move swiftly to enact comprehensive energy and climate legislation to show its own commitment to climate action. We should also properly acknowledge the progress that China and other countries have made in mitigating climate change. One way which we at the Center for American Progress have articulated before is the “carbon caps equivalents” approach, which would quantify the unilateral domestic green measures undertaken by, for example, China, in terms of the effective emissions reductions that such measures yield, and then aggregate those reductions into a single figure that can be compared to proposed emissions reductions targets of other countries

The United States must build upon the modest but significant milestones of U.S. Secretary of Energy Steven Chu’s visit to Beijing, where the foundations for a joint research center on clean energy were laid, and the recent Strategic & Economic Dialogue in Washington, D.C., where both countries agreed formally for the first time to engage each other on climate change.

The United States must muster political and financial resources to engage China on the joint acceleration of clean-energy technology development and deployment. Such a bilateral effort will send a message to the rest of the world that the two largest emitters are ready to rise to the challenge and lead the way forward towards a global agreement in Copenhagen.

Julian L. Wong is a Senior Policy Analyst at the Center for American Progress. This post was first published here.

This piece originally appeared on Climate Progress

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(Posted by WorldChanging Team in Politics at 12:30 PM)

Get Ready To Participate: Crowdsourcing And Governance

WorldChanging Team — Wed, 19 Aug 2009 20:27:42 +0000

By Henry Jenkis

A year or so ago, Mark Deuze (Media Work) and I edited a special issue of the journal, Convergence, which explored some of the issues around "Convergence Culture." One of the best essays we received in our open paper call came from Daren C. Brabham, a Ph.D candidate at the University of Utah, who was doing his dissertation on "crowdsourcing." I've remained in touch with Brabham ever since and recently encouraged him to share some of his own recent thinking about how the crowdsource model can and is being adapted from the commercial arena to address issues of social welfare and public policy. I am happy to share Brabham's insights with the readers of this blog.

Crowdsourcing and Governance
by Daren C. Brabham

It's been three years since Jeff Howe coined the term "crowdsourcing" in his Wired article "The Rise of Crowdsourcing." The term, which describes an online, distributed problem solving and production model, is most famously represented in the business operations of companies like Threadless and InnoCentive and in contests like the Goldcorp Challenge and the Doritos Crash the Super Bowl Contest.

In each of these cases, the company has a problem it needs solved or a product it needs designed. The company broadcasts this challenge on its Web site to an online community--a crowd--and the crowd submits designs and solutions in response. Next--and this is a key component of crowdsourcing--the crowd vets the submissions of its peers, critiquing and ranking submissions until winners emerge. Though winners are often rewarded for their ideas, prizes are often small relative to industry standards for the same kind of professional work and rewards sometimes only consist of public recognition.

Crowdsourcing is a killer business model, effectively stitching the market research process into the very design of products, minimizing overhead costs, and speeding up the creative phase of problem solving and design. Theories of collective intelligence and crowd wisdom help to explain why crowdsourcing works: broadcasting a challenge online taps far-flung genius in the network and aggregating that talent can, for some types of problems, be just as effective as solving the problem in-house.

What I have argued for a few years now, and what I am trying to make clear in my dissertation, is that crowdsourcing has the potential to work outside of for-profit settings. In fact, it may be a suitable model for solving government problems, supplementing traditional forms of public participation to help government make better decisions with more citizen input.

Though you'd be hard pressed to see them ever use the word "crowdsourcing," one such example of crowdsourcing in governance is Peer-to-Patent. Begun in June 2007, Peer-to-Patent is a project developed by New York Law School's Institute for Information Law and Policy, in cooperation with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO). The pilot project engages an online community in the examination of pending patent applications, tasking the crowd with identifying prior art and annotating applications to be forwarded on to the USPTO. The project helps to streamline the typical patent review process, adding many more sets of eyes to a typical examination process.

Another attempt to use crowdsourcing in public decision-making is Next Stop Design, a project with which I am involved that asks the crowd to design a bus stop for Salt Lake City, Utah. With Thomas W. Sanchez and a team of researchers from the University of Utah, we're working in cooperation with the Utah Transit Authority (UTA) and funded by a grant from the U.S. Federal Transit Administration. On the Next Stop Design Web site, you can register for free, submit your own bus stop designs and ideas, and rate and comment on the designs of others. Launched on June 5, 2009, the project runs through September 25, 2009, and the highest rated designs will be considered for actual construction at a major bus transfer stop in Salt Lake City. Winning designs will be publicly acknowledged and included on a plaque affixed to the built bus stop.

Traditional public participation methods, such as town hall meetings and design charrettes, often involve relatively few voices in the decision-making process. The goal with Next Stop Design--as with all crowdsourced governing projects--is to draw in more voices by taking the process online. And though the realities of the so-called "digital divide" persist with any online process, crowdsourcing may still bring in a more diverse set of viewpoints than typically exists at town hall meetings. Finally, broadcasting the process online may attract innovative ideas from everyday Web users that might not have ever appeared in local face-to-face processes or among even large panels of experts.

There is much potential for crowdsourcing in government, certainly as one of an array of social media methods quickly being embraced by all levels of government. President Obama has made his intentions with technology and transparency in government clear. His appointment of Beth Noveck, the New York Law School professor who launched Peer-to-Patent, as Deputy Chief Technology Officer for Open Government, makes his intentions very clear. I predict over the next two years we'll see in the U.S. a rapid proliferation of government by the crowd, for the crowd. Get ready to participate.

Daren C. Brabham is a Ph.D. candidate and graduate teaching fellow in the Department of Communication at the University of Utah. His article, "Crowdsourcing as a Model for Problem Solving," appearing in a special issue of Convergence edited by Mark Deuze and Henry Jenkins, was among the first research articles published on the crowdsourcing model. Directed by Professor Joy Pierce, his dissertation makes the case for crowdsourcing in public problem solving contexts.

This piece originally appeared in Henry Jenkin's blog, Confessions of an Aca-Fan.

Image credit: Flickr/googlisti, Creative Commons License.

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(Posted by WorldChanging Team in Politics at 12:27 PM)

Steady at the Helm to Stop Carbon Freewheeling

WorldChanging Team — Tue, 18 Aug 2009 00:33:33 +0000

by Lisa Stiffler

Sen. Cantwell and others try to prevent manipulation in a cap-and-trade system.

A key concern raised over the creation of a carbon cap-and-trade system is that it'll be another market for unscrupulous players to manipulate and make heaps of cash. But that doesn't need to be the case. The carbon market can, and should, include plans for oversight and safeguards to prevent that from happening.

(Reminder on cap-and-trade basics: Greenhouse gas polluters must hold permits equalling their carbon emissions, and can trade permits if they have too many or too few.)

Natural Resources Defense Council gives its recommendations on curbing manipulation in this policy two-pager out today. It advises:
Limits on the amount of permits any trader can hold.
Bans on "dark trading" or "over-the-counter" trades in whichtraders buy and sell permits out of the view of regulators or other market participants. Instead trades should take place in registered markets or with transparent reporting.

So what are lawmakers doing to get a steady hand at the helm of the carbon market?

Sens. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., and Olympia Snowe, R-Maine, are sponsoring the Carbon Market Oversight Act of 2009, which sets up controls for a carbon-trading system. The act puts the Commodity Futures Trading Commission in charge of the carbon market and establishes the Office of Carbon Market Oversight within it. It also outlines rules for derivatives trading.

Washington's Sen. Maria Cantwell is working out the details of legislation that would prevent
market speculation in a number of ways, primarily by auctioning all permits (as opposed to giving them out freely to polluters) and instituting a government-run secondary market where permit holders can make trades.

As regards the NRDC's specific recommendations, the group says that the House-approved Waxman-Markey bill (a.k.a. American Clean Energy and Security Act, or ACES) sets permit limits and bans dark trading. The Feinstein-Snowe legislation also requires permit limits and, according to NRDC, "pushes carbon markets towards exchange trading, but provides limited exemptions for emitters hedging their carbon risk." Cantwell's plan, based on our understanding, requires complete transparency of buyers and sellers on the secondary trading market.

For further explanation of the gaming challenge, we at Sightline Institute tackled the topic in our Cap and Trade 101 Primer (see pages 19-20).

And for more on the politics of market regulation -- including senators calling for no trading at all -- Climate Wire lays out the concerns and solutions in a great article here. Point Carbon is tracking the issue (subscription required), and quotes Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., vowing the Senate legislation will have stronger controls than what passed the House, and there will not be "any untransparent, unaccountable, speculative kind of games." Aye aye capt'n.

This piece originally appeared in sightline.org

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(Posted by WorldChanging Team in Politics at 4:33 PM)

Steady at the Helm to Stop Carbon Freewheeling

WorldChanging Team — Tue, 18 Aug 2009 00:33:33 +0000

by Lisa Stiffler

Sen. Cantwell and others try to prevent manipulation in a cap-and-trade system.

A key concern raised over the creation of a carbon cap-and-trade system is that it'll be another market for unscrupulous players to manipulate and make heaps of cash. But that doesn't need to be the case. The carbon market can, and should, include plans for oversight and safeguards to prevent that from happening.

(Reminder on cap-and-trade basics: Greenhouse gas polluters must hold permits equalling their carbon emissions, and can trade permits if they have too many or too few.)

Natural Resources Defense Council gives its recommendations on curbing manipulation in this policy two-pager out today. It advises:
Limits on the amount of permits any trader can hold.
Bans on "dark trading" or "over-the-counter" trades in whichtraders buy and sell permits out of the view of regulators or other market participants. Instead trades should take place in registered markets or with transparent reporting.

So what are lawmakers doing to get a steady hand at the helm of the carbon market?

Sens. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., and Olympia Snowe, R-Maine, are sponsoring the Carbon Market Oversight Act of 2009, which sets up controls for a carbon-trading system. The act puts the Commodity Futures Trading Commission in charge of the carbon market and establishes the Office of Carbon Market Oversight within it. It also outlines rules for derivatives trading.

Washington's Sen. Maria Cantwell is working out the details of legislation that would prevent
market speculation in a number of ways, primarily by auctioning all permits (as opposed to giving them out freely to polluters) and instituting a government-run secondary market where permit holders can make trades.

As regards the NRDC's specific recommendations, the group says that the House-approved Waxman-Markey bill (a.k.a. American Clean Energy and Security Act, or ACES) sets permit limits and bans dark trading. The Feinstein-Snowe legislation also requires permit limits and, according to NRDC, "pushes carbon markets towards exchange trading, but provides limited exemptions for emitters hedging their carbon risk." Cantwell's plan, based on our understanding, requires complete transparency of buyers and sellers on the secondary trading market.

For further explanation of the gaming challenge, we at Sightline Institute tackled the topic in our Cap and Trade 101 Primer (see pages 19-20).

And for more on the politics of market regulation -- including senators calling for no trading at all -- Climate Wire lays out the concerns and solutions in a great article here. Point Carbon is tracking the issue (subscription required), and quotes Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., vowing the Senate legislation will have stronger controls than what passed the House, and there will not be "any untransparent, unaccountable, speculative kind of games." Aye aye capt'n.

This piece originally appeared in sightline.org

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(Posted by WorldChanging Team in Politics at 4:33 PM)

VolunteerMatch: Helping Everyone Find a Place to Volunteer

WorldChanging Team — Wed, 12 Aug 2009 22:19:10 +0000

VolunteerMatch is a leader in the nonprofit world dedicated to helping everyone find a great place to volunteer. The organization offers a variety of online services to support a community of nonprofit, volunteer and business leaders committed to civic engagement. Enter your zip code, your area of interest and how far you’re willing to travel and VolunteerMatch will create an automated list of all the volunteer opportunities in your area that fit your criteria.

Read more in the Worldchanging Archives

This piece is a part of Resources from the Worldchanging Library. Throughout this series, we will present the best resources from our archives. To view the complete list, please click here.

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(Posted by WorldChanging Team in Politics at 2:19 PM)

VolunteerMatch: Helping Everyone Find a Place to Volunteer

WorldChanging Team — Wed, 12 Aug 2009 22:19:10 +0000

VolunteerMatch is a leader in the nonprofit world dedicated to helping everyone find a great place to volunteer. The organization offers a variety of online services to support a community of nonprofit, volunteer and business leaders committed to civic engagement. Enter your zip code, your area of interest and how far you’re willing to travel and VolunteerMatch will create an automated list of all the volunteer opportunities in your area that fit your criteria.

Read more in the Worldchanging Archives

This piece is a part of Resources from the Worldchanging Library. Throughout this series, we will present the best resources from our archives. To view the complete list, please click here.

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(Posted by WorldChanging Team in Politics at 2:19 PM)

Film: Democracy in Dakar

WorldChanging Team — Wed, 12 Aug 2009 20:46:52 +0000

Democracy in Dakar is mindblowingly good. It’s not just a portrait of a country’s vibrant music scene - it’s the complicated story of how hiphop emerged as a political force in Senegal, and how that force has been both empowered and thwarted in recent elections. Ben Herson, the founder of Nomadic Wax and the director of the film, tells the complex story of the emergence of Senegalese hiphop and its political weight almost entirely through interviews, carefully edited into a tight narrative. Watching an MC like Didier Awadi of "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Positive_Black_Soul">Positive Black Soul toss off a freestyle rap about the limitations of the International Criminal Court is like waking up in an alternate reality where Dead Pres and Slum Village outsell Diddy and Kanye.

Read more in the Worldchanging Archives

This piece is a part of Resources from the Worldchanging Library. Throughout this series, we will present the best resources from our archives. To view the complete list, please click here.

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(Posted by WorldChanging Team in Politics at 12:46 PM)

SERVEnet: Mobilizing the Volunteer Community

WorldChanging Team — Wed, 12 Aug 2009 20:16:55 +0000

Launched in 1996, servenet.org is a website that mobilizes and empowers the volunteer service community to tackle some of the toughest challenges facing local communities. Since its inception, servenet.org has enabled millions of youth volunteers to connect with local nonprofits to make a difference in communities throughout America.

Read more in the Worldchanging Archives

This piece is a part of Resources from the Worldchanging Library. Throughout this series, we will present the best resources from our archives. To view the complete list, please click here.

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(Posted by WorldChanging Team in Politics at 12:16 PM)

SERVEnet: Mobilizing the Volunteer Community

WorldChanging Team — Wed, 12 Aug 2009 20:16:55 +0000

Launched in 1996, servenet.org is a website that mobilizes and empowers the volunteer service community to tackle some of the toughest challenges facing local communities. Since its inception, servenet.org has enabled millions of youth volunteers to connect with local nonprofits to make a difference in communities throughout America.

Read more in the Worldchanging Archives

This piece is a part of Resources from the Worldchanging Library. Throughout this series, we will present the best resources from our archives. To view the complete list, please click here.

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(Posted by WorldChanging Team in Politics at 12:16 PM)

Rebel, Rebel: The Protestor’s Handbook

WorldChanging Team — Wed, 12 Aug 2009 20:10:36 +0000

Rebel, Rebel: The Protestor's Handbook
by Bibi Van Der Zee

Environmental journalist Bibi van der Zee’s new book not only expounds on how to stage meaningful civil disobedience without being arrested, but also details how to join or start a campaign, raise funds and reach the masses. We agree with van der Zee that raising your voice has never been more crucial or effective, and once armed with the knowledge contained in Rebel, Rebel, organizing or partaking in a campaign can be easy, fun and jail-free.

This piece is a part of Resources from the Worldchanging Library. Throughout this series, we will present the best resources from our archives. To view the complete list, please click here.

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(Posted by WorldChanging Team in Politics at 12:10 PM)

Serviceleader.org: Virtual Volunteering

WorldChanging Team — Wed, 12 Aug 2009 19:38:07 +0000

Cyber addicts meet volunteering. Serviceleader.org opens the realm of volunteering to the couch potato. With an internet connection, you can give your time to any non-profit looking for some computer oriented help. And if you're a non-profit in need of some virtual help, log yourself in and setup your own volunteer program.

This piece is a part of Resources from the Worldchanging Library. Throughout this series, we will present the best resources from our archives. To view the complete list, please click here.

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(Posted by WorldChanging Team in Politics at 11:38 AM)

Idealist.org: The Interactive Site for Change Makers

WorldChanging Team — Wed, 12 Aug 2009 19:31:22 +0000

Idealist.org is a project of Action Without Borders, a nonprofit organization founded in 1995 with offices in the United States and Argentina. Idealist is an interactive site where people and organizations can exchange resources and ideas, locate opportunities and supporters, and take steps toward building a world where all people can lead free and dignified lives.

Read more in the Worldchanging Archives

This piece is a part of Resources from the Worldchanging Library. Throughout this series, we will present the best resources from our archives. To view the complete list, please click here.

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(Posted by WorldChanging Team in Politics at 11:31 AM)

The Open Society Institute

WorldChanging Team — Wed, 12 Aug 2009 18:47:48 +0000

Through local efforts to advance justice, education, public health, and independent media, the Open Society Institute focuses on improving policy in ways to help people live in fair and democratic societies. From fighting for citizen recognition in Mauritania to providing scholarships to train Roma's next generation of nondiscriminatory health care professionals, OSI is driven by the need to improve the lives of the less fortunate around the world.

Read more in the Worldchanging Archives

This piece is a part of Resources from the Worldchanging Library. Throughout this series, we will present the best resources from our archives. To view the complete list, please click here.

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(Posted by WorldChanging Team in Politics at 10:47 AM)

Film: Democracy in Dakar

WorldChanging Team — Wed, 12 Aug 2009 17:46:52 +0000

Democracy in Dakar is mindblowingly good. It’s not just a portrait of a country’s vibrant music scene - it’s the complicated story of how hiphop emerged as a political force in Senegal, and how that force has been both empowered and thwarted in recent elections. Ben Herson, the founder of Nomadic Wax and the director of the film, tells the complex story of the emergence of Senegalese hiphop and its political weight almost entirely through interviews, carefully edited into a tight narrative. Watching an MC like Didier Awadi of "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Positive_Black_Soul">Positive Black Soul toss off a freestyle rap about the limitations of the International Criminal Court is like waking up in an alternate reality where Dead Pres and Slum Village outsell Diddy and Kanye.

Read more in the Worldchanging Archives

This collection is a part of Resources from the Worldchanging Library. Throughout this series, we will present the best resources from our archives. To view the complete list, please click here.

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(Posted by WorldChanging Team in Politics at 9:46 AM)

Netsquared: Connecting Nonprofits to Technology

WorldChanging Team — Wed, 12 Aug 2009 17:25:01 +0000

Netsquared is a TechSoup project aimed at connecting nonprofit organizations with Web 2.0 technologies to “collaborate, share information and mobilize support.” Jon Lebkowsky first introduced Netsquared here on Worldchanging when the project launched in December 2005. He noted the potential for the organization to "bring many more nonprofits to technologies that will increase their capabilities, and their ability to drive their own innovations, significantly."

Read more in the Worldchanging Archives

This collection is a part of Resources from the Worldchanging Library. Throughout this series, we will present the best resources from our archives. To view the complete list, please click here.

Image: netsquared.org

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(Posted by WorldChanging Team in Politics at 9:25 AM)

Netsquared: Connecting Nonprofits to Technology

WorldChanging Team — Wed, 12 Aug 2009 17:25:01 +0000

Netsquared is a TechSoup project aimed at connecting nonprofit organizations with Web 2.0 technologies to “collaborate, share information and mobilize support.” Jon Lebkowsky first introduced Netsquared here on Worldchanging when the project launched in December 2005. He noted the potential for the organization to "bring many more nonprofits to technologies that will increase their capabilities, and their ability to drive their own innovations, significantly."

Read more in the Worldchanging Archives

This collection is a part of Resources from the Worldchanging Library. Throughout this series, we will present the best resources from our archives. To view the complete list, please click here.

Image: netsquared.org

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(Posted by WorldChanging Team in Politics at 9:25 AM)

Rising Voices’ Projects Propel Citizen Media

WorldChanging Team — Wed, 12 Aug 2009 17:18:46 +0000

Rising Voices, led by David Sasaki, is an initiative that demonstrates that citizen media is possible in any corner of the globe. Through a modest amount of fiscal support and loads of technical support and advice, Rising Voices has helped small, community-based organizations to have a national or international impact, and to reach the stage where they can seek sustaining funding from other foundations or find business models that allow them to continue their work.

This collection is a part of Resources from the Worldchanging Library. Throughout this series, we will present the best resources from our archives. To view the complete list, please click here.

Read more in the Worldchanging Archives

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(Posted by WorldChanging Team in Politics at 9:18 AM)