Carbon Finance

An interesting update on the finance of carbon markets by the Yale Center for Business and the Environment.
Environmental-Market-Solutions-to-Climate-Change

Blue Source

I noticed this company in a press release from Goldman Sachs. They started in 1995 and are positioning to play a major role in domestic carbon credit markets. They also have an interesting values statement…they are driving the vision of their company through Christian religious mores.
http://www.ghgworks.com/index.html

Remaking the Office

We had some water leakage issues a few weeks ago and have taken the opportunity to restore our office after ten years of constant use. The process has us deciding what is useful and what is not…also, what to store as historically relevant and what to recycle, trash, use as firestarter, etc.
One of the interesting [...]

Earthworms

I’ve always experienced a sense of wonder over the impact of tiny things on our world.
Earthworms can change the chemical nature of the carbon in North American forest litter and soils, potentially affecting the amount of carbon stored in forests, according to Purdue University researchers.
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/10/081027152119.htm

Minnesota Spends the Big Bucks

Yesterday Minnesota voters approved the Clean Water, Land and Legacy Amendment, the largest conservation ballot measure in history, according to The Trust for Public Land (TPL), a national conservation organization. At more than $5.5 billion dollars for land and water conservation, the winning measure nearly doubles the previous largest conservation ballot measure, New Jersey’s Constitutional [...]

President Obama’s Big Climate Challenge

Environmental writer Bill McKibben published this interesting article this morning.
http://e360.yale.edu/content/feature.msp?id=2082

Sustainable Livelihood

Many times over the past few years I’ve referred to our land use and environmental work in terms of their improvements to health and livelihood of communities. We have never methodically developed indicators or measures of “healthy, sustainable livelihood”…but think it is critically important.
Attached is a white paper that begins to take the issues apart [...]

Obama and McCain on Agriculture

Last minute update before the election on Obama and McCain positions on agriculture.
Ag Positions

Food Fight

An interesting review of a new movie about eating locally produced, healthy fresh food.
The reviewer points out the shortcoming of using lots of ‘elite’ chefs to sing the virtues of fresh food when the real issues are not the value of fresh, organic foods, but how to have it available (and reasonably priced) in the [...]