Grist presidential climate forum: full transcript and video

Last week, I offered my impressions of the candidates at our presidential forum on climate. Now the complete transcript (PDF)...

The Forest Guild on climate change

Here's a window into how foresters are looking at climate change: the Forest Guild is a national, nonprofit network of practicing foresters whose advice and efforts on behalf of their landowner clients has a big role to play in the health and future of privately owned forests. The Guild "promotes ecologically, economically, and socially responsible forestry as a means of sustaining the integrity of forest ecosystems" (and the welfare of those dependent on them).

So it's not a big surprise that the new edition of their publication, Forest Wisdom (large PDF), goes to some depth in exploring the challenges presented by climate change. It includes articles like "Recent Trends in US Private Forest Carbon" (of nine forest regions identified by the Forest Service, four are most important in terms of potential carbon gains and losses -- the Northeast, Southeast, Midwest/Lake states, and Pacific Northwest -- due to their high ratio of private ownership, high productivity, and intensity of management), and also a piece on carbon markets.

What caught my eye was the cover story by editor Fred Clark, "Forest Stewardship in a Changing World," the main issues of which he describes like this:

Forest practitioners will be on the frontlines in the effort to protect our forests and our environment from the effects triggered by changing climate. Guild members already possess many of the tools and skills that will be most needed ... [and] are well-suited for meeting both the new realities and expectations that society is rapidly placing on forests.

The "What's New" section of their site links to this edition of the publication, and lots of other interesting papers all delightfully full of forester-speak, but I wanted to (heavily) paraphrase here some of Fred's main points contained in the cover story:

U.N. creating small Adaptation Fund by going carbon neutral

The following essay is a guest post by Kari Manlove, fellows assistant at the Center for American Progress.

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The IPCC has warned us that developing nations are poised to bear the most dramatic effects of global warming, and so far we (the world) have done practically nothing to counter or prevent that fact. But the U.N. is trying.

This week in Bali, the U.N. announced that it will go carbon neutral by offsetting the operations of over 20 agencies, including the office of Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon. With the money collected, the U.N. will invest in an Adaptation Fund to help developing countries combat the consequences of climate change in coming decades. At its start, the fund will be worth no more than $50 million, but advocates hope that number will grow as we see increasing need for a fund of its type.

Direct and value-added marketing in the farm bill

This is the last installment of a five-part series of farm bill fact sheets from the Sustainable Agriculture Coalition. For additional information about the status of sustainable agriculture priorities in the House and Senate versions of the farm bill, please check out SAC's farm bill progress chart.

Farm Bill "conference" negotiations are underway at the staff level. Please call your Senators and Representative today and tell them what you want to see in the final Farm Bill!

Increasing consumer demand for healthy, sustainably-produced food and agricultural products from local and regional markets has great potential to improve farm income. However, tremendous challenges stand in the way of producers satisfying these consumer preferences, in part because federal policies and programs have been slow to respond.

A number of grassroots farmer and consumer organizations have been working to ensure that the final farm bill includes increased funding for direct market and value-added enterprise opportunities, and the removal of the prohibition on interstate sale of meat products processed in state-inspected plants. Greater federal support for these programs in the 2008 Farm Bill will help a larger number of consumers access good food and allow more producers to stay on the land.

Conservation title schemes, youth flee CAFO country, and a side of E. coli beef

In Meat Wagon, we round up the latest outrages from the meat industry. In the business section of Sunday’s New...

A noncarnivorous path to Super Bowl-snack nirvana

Three cheers for vegan snacks! Photo: iStockphoto I have tried and tried to learn about football. Many people have taken...

It can happen here

Recently Hale "Bonddad" Stewart, who normally writes informative posts about finance, let loose with a string of myths about manufacturing (both at Huffington Post and Daily Kos) that really got my blood boiling. Nothing like boiling blood to get those fingers moving, I always say! So I thought I would address various myths, most of which Bonddad managed to touch on. Also, I figure that some clarifications might be in order for those that read both my post on the necessity of manufacturing and Ryan Avent's spirited challenge.

Bonddad's myths: a strong U.S. manufacturing base will be bad for trade, is an artifact of World War II, is not necessary for high-tech industries or a thriving middle class, depends on low-cost labor, and ultimately, is not possible.

A few last bits of musing from Grist’s presidential forum on climate

A few final notes from Grist’s presidential climate forum, before (?) you get sick of me talking about it. Most...

The mark-up zoo

David is correct here. The Republicans desperately want to turn this markup session into a long, boring circus. They've come armed with about 150 amendments, dozens of which will come to a vote, almost all of which will be defeated. Here, via Hill Heat, are just a few doozies:

Vitter proposed 14 amendments:

Amendments 1 and 5 allow offshore and on-land natural gas drilling, respectively Amendments 2 and 3 require studies on industry displacement Amendment 4 allows renewable fuel program credits to qualify as emissions credits Amendments 6 and 9 removes various sources from coverage Amendment 7 removes injury liability from CCS activities Amendment 8 prevents implementation if other environmental regulations are found to be adversely impacted Amendment 10 restricts permit banking to 18 months on non-covered entities (a change requested by the AFL-CIO) Amendment 11 modifies transportation fuel coverage Amendments 12-14 make "technical" corrections ...

Isakson proposed four amendments, three of which support nuclear energy. Amendment 3 prohibits the enactment of a cap without sufficient known technology, an amendment which failed in subcommittee ...

Inhofe proposed approximately 45 amendments, some of which are joke amendments (#12 "directs 20% of all auction proceeds be used to build homeless shelters for families without shelter as a result of job displacement due to this Act"). Amendments #23-#28 are pro-nuclear. Amendment #32 increases the auction percentage to 100% by 2029. Amendment #38 overrides the Massachusetts vs. EPA decision.

The Democrats, by contrast, will propose about 30 amendments, many of which would drastically improve America's Climate Security Act. Sen. Bernard Sanders (I-Vt.) proposed similar versions of some of these way back when the legislation was marked up in subcommittee. Back then, Sen. Lieberman (I-Conn.) reflexively killed all of them. I sort of doubt that's changed, but we'll see ...