Blogs

Residents in one Chinese village were so fed up with pollution from a local aluminium plant that they took their frustrations to the street. According to media reports, more than 1,000 people from Zhuang village in Jingxi County, Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, broke into the Xinfa plant of aluminum manufacturer Shandong Xinfa Aluminum & Power Group, one of the three largest producers in Jingxi, smashed equipment and, later, blocked roads, a railway line and surrounded the county’s government headquarters  read more »

As rich countries continue with plans to pour money into forestry programs in the developing world as a way to combat climate change they should heed warnings that the programs will fail to reduce carbon emissions, strip local citizens of their ownership rights, and be ridden with fraud and corruption. Yet, governments in the developed world seem intent on ignoring these warnings, as they recently pledged another $500-million—on top of the $3.5-billion they promised at Copenhagen’s UN Climate Conference in December—to carbon-reducing forestry programs in the developing world.  read more »

Seeing countries around the world back away from their climate change commitments, and seeing his own electoral support crumble, Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd announced today that Australia will be shelving its cap and trade program for at least three years, until after the next election.  read more »

Carbon markets are again facing allegations of a scam involving the trading of carbon credits. Reuters reports the Australian company WesternField Holdings Inc. has been accused of defrauding investors down under of A$3.5 million ($3.2 million) through a telemarketing swindle. Although blacklisted by the country's securities regulator, the firm continues to operate.  read more »

As calls for a “Marshall Plan for Haiti” continue to make headlines, an increasing number of reports are beginning to ask: is aid the answer? A recent report from PBS interviews a number of aid supporters and critics, asking them if a massive aid program to Haiti is the best option.  read more »

Banks and other investors are pulling out of the carbon market after government leaders at last month’s meeting in Copenhagen failed to come up with new emissions targets beyond the current Kyoto Treaty, which ends in 2012. According to a recent report in the UK Guardian, a number of carbon financiers have already begun leaving banks in London due to a lack of activity and a pull-back in investment demand.  read more »

For Haiti, just about every conceivable aid scheme beyond immediate humanitarian relief will lead to more poverty, more corruption and less institutional capacity, says Bret Stephens, writing in the Wall Street Journal. After the immediate impact of the earthquake has passed, and the immediate relief efforts subside, “the arrival of the soldiers of do-goodness, each with his brilliant plan to save Haitians from themselves” will take root.  read more »

While citizens across China are confronting some of the most severe winter weather in decades, they’re finding that holdover policies from the Maoist era are making the situation worse.  read more »

CBC’s Rex Murphy weighs in on the controversy surrounding the hacked documents from servers at the University of East Anglia’s Climatic Research Unit (CRU).  read more »

59% of Americans say it's at least somewhat likely that some scientists have falsified research data to support their own theories and beliefs about global warming, according to a Rasmussen survey released yesterday. 35% say it's Very Likely and just 26% say it's not very or not at all likely that some scientists falsified data.  read more »