Calls for Honduran credits to be thrown out of ETS following alleged killings, while consultation process goes under review
By Arthur Neslen
The reported killing of 23 Honduran farmers in a dispute with the owners of UN-accredited palm oil plantations has called into question the integrity of the EU’s emission trading scheme (ETS), as carbon credits from the plantations remain on sale.In Brussels, Green MEP Bas Eickhout called the alleged human rights abuses “a disgrace”, and told EurActiv he would be pushing the European Commission to bar carbon credits from the plantations from being traded under the ETS. Several members of the CDM board have been “personally distressed” by the events in Bajo Agu’¡n, northern Honduras, according to the board’s chairman, Martin Hession, and have placed under review the CDM’s stakeholder consultation process.
“Plainly, the events that have been described are deplorable,” said Hession. “There is no excuse for them.” But because they took place after the CDM’s stakeholder consultations had been held, and fell outside the board’s primary remit to investigate emissions reductions and environmental impacts, it had been powerless to block project registrations.
At the heart of the issue are the reported murders of 23 local farmers who tried to recover land that they say was illegally sold to big palm oil plantations, such as Grupo Dinant, in a country scarred by widespread human rights abuses.
In a remote desert spot in northern Nevada, there is a geothermal plant run by a politically connected clean energy start-up that has relied heavily on an Obama administration loan guarantee and is now facing financial turmoil.
The company is Nevada Geothermal Power, which like Solyndra, the now-famous California solar company, is struggling with debt after encountering problems at its only operating plant.
After a series of technical missteps that are draining Nevada Geothermal’s cash reserves, its own auditor concluded in a filing released last week that there was “significant doubt about the company’s ability to continue as a going concern.”
It is a description that echoes the warning issued in 2010 by auditors hired by Solyndra, which benefited from the same Energy Department loan guarantee before its collapse in August caused the Obama administration great embarrassment.
More than 20,000 people were expelled from their homes.
By Josh Kron
According to the company’s proposal to join a United Nations clean-air program, the settlers living in this area left in a “peaceful” and “voluntary” manner.People here remember it quite differently.
“I heard people being beaten, so I ran outside,” said Emmanuel Cyicyima, 33. “The houses were being burnt down.”
Other villagers described gun-toting soldiers and an 8-year-old child burning to death when his home was set ablaze by security officers.
“They said if we hesitated they would shoot us,” said William Bakeshisha, adding that he hid in his coffee plantation, watching his house burn down. “Smoke and fire.”
According to a report released by the aid group Oxfam on Wednesday, more than 20,000 people say they were evicted from their homes here in recent years to make way for a tree plantation run by a British forestry company, emblematic of a global scramble for arable land.
“Too many investments have resulted in dispossession, deception, violation of human rights and destruction of livelihoods,” Oxfam said in the report. “This interest in land is not something that will pass.” As population and urbanization soar, it added, “whatever land there is will surely be prized.”
Across Africa, some of the world’s poorest people have been thrown off land to make way for foreign investors, often uprooting local farmers so that food can be grown on a commercial scale and shipped to richer countries overseas.
But in this case, the government and the company said the settlers were illegal and evicted for a good cause: to protect the environment and help fight global warming.
Those of us from Chicago know exactly what the Solyndra scandal smells like. And It doesn’t smell fresh and green.
By John Kass
The Solyndra scandal cost at least a half-billion public dollars. It is plaguing President Barack Obama. And it’s being billed as a Washington story.
But back in Obama’s political hometown, those of us familiar with the Chicago Way can see something else in Solyndra - something that the Washington crowd calls “optics.” In fact, it’s not just a Washington saga - it has all the elements of a Chicago City Hall story, except with more zeros.
The FBI is investigating what happened with Solyndra, a solar panel company that got a $535 million government-backed loan with the help of the Obama White House over the objections of federal budget analysts.
Obama and Vice President Joe Biden got a nice photo op. They got to make speeches about being “green.” But then Solyndra went bankrupt. Americans lost jobs. Taxpayers got stuck with the bill. And members of Congress are now in high dudgeon and making speeches.
Federal investigators want to know what role political fundraising played in the guarantee of the questionable loan. Washington bureaucrats warned the deal was lousy. And White House spokesmen flail desperately, like weakened victims in a cheesy vampire movie.
So forget optics. What about smell? It smells bad, and it’s going to smell worse.
Or, did you really believe it when the White House mouthpieces — who are also Chicago City Hall mouthpieces — promised they were bringing a new kind of politics to Washington?
This is not a new kind of politics. It’s the old kind. The Chicago kind.
The top two executives of a solar-energy company that filed for bankruptcy after getting $528 million in loan guarantees from the Obama administration said Tuesday that they will invoke their constitutional rights against compelled self-incrimination when they appear at a Congressional hearing.
The chief executive of Solyndra, Brian Harrison, and Bill Stover, the chief financial officer, hired lawyers in preparation for the hearing this week before the House Energy and Commerce committee and got advice not to say anything, according to a representative of the lawyers.
The offices and the homes of some executives of Solyndra, a California solar-panel manufacturer, were recently raided by the F.B.I. as part of a criminal inquiry into the bankruptcy. The company said in a statement that it was “not aware of any wrongdoing by Solyndra officers, directors or employees in conjunction with the DOE loan guarantee or otherwise.â€
President Obama on Green Jobs at 2011 State of the Union Address
Obama Regime Steals Billions from Taxpayers – Blows it on Failed Green Projects
By Jim Hoft
The Obama Administration spent nearly half of the $38.6 billion ($17.2 billion) set aside for his green energy programs and was only able to create 3,545 permanent green jobs. This comes out to a staggering $4,853,000 per job.
Obama continued to push green energy initiatives in his 2011 State of the Union Address.
The Obama Administration has blown billions of taxpayer dollars on green energy and has only succeeded in producing a few thousand jobs.
The green-jobs revolution may be going up in smoke.Despite billions of dollars in federal investment and cheerleading from President Obama, even the most ardent supporters of a transformed, job-generating energy sector based largely on wind, solar and other renewable sources acknowledge that their dreams have not translated into reality. The records for other countries chasing green employment opportunities have been equally unimpressive.
Rep. Maxine Waters, California Democrat, told MSNBC last month that, despite impassioned support from liberal Democrats and environmentalists, “green jobs” initiatives “have been about a lot of talk, and not a lot has been happening on that.”
The absence of a promised boom in environmental jobs has become a talking point among Republicans who are campaigning to unseat Mr. Obama in the 2012 election.
Mr. Obama “keeps talking about green jobs,” former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney said during the GOP candidates debate Wednesday night. “Where are they? Let’s have real jobs.”
Talk of green jobs was conspicuous by its absence from Mr. Obama’s jobs speech to a joint session of Congress on Thursday night. He gave the address on the same day that the FBI raided California solar-energy company Solyndra, which filed for bankruptcy and laid off at least 900 full-time employees.
Despite Solyndra’s abrupt closing and bankruptcy announcement last month, the Department of Energy (DOE) is undeterred. Just this month, the agency made two more loan guarantees worth millions of dollars to alternative energy firms.And, as was the case with Solyndra, officials and investors with the two new companies have strong financial ties to President Barack Obama.
On September 7, the DOE announced its plan to guarantee 80 percent – or $275 million – of a $344 million private loan taken out by the firm SolarCity. The company installs rooftop solar systems that harvests electricity SolarCity then sells.
GE CEO Jeffrey Immelt, the head of Barack Obama’s Economic Advisory Panel, was invited to sit with the First Lady during the president’s speech to Congress this past week. He’s been a strong supporter of the president since he took over the White House and his companies have received plenty of government funds as well.
GE was awarded 44 contracts totaling over $46,000,000 and 44 grants totaling more than $79,000,000 from the Obama-Pelosi $757 billion dollar stimulus package. Millions of dollars in stimulus funds were used by GE in green energy projects.
Today GE announced that it was going to gut its offshore wind-power plans.
Not only does the now-bankrupt solar energy firm Solyndra have a cozy financial relationship with the Obama administration, company representatives also made numerous visits to the White House to meet with administration officials, The Daily Caller has learned.
According to White House visitor logs, between March 12, 2009, and April 14, 2011, Solyndra officials and investors made no fewer than 20 trips to the West Wing. In the week before the administration awarded Solyndra with the first-ever alternative energy loan guarantee on March 20, four separate visits were logged.
George Kaiser, who has in the past been labeled a major Solyndra investor as well as a Obama donor, made three visits to the White House on March 12, 2009, and one on March 13. Kaiser has denied any direct involvement in the Solyndra deal and through a statement from his foundation said he “did not participate in any discussions with the U.S. government regarding the loan.â€
Part of a Joint Investigation with the Department of Energy
By RJ Middleton
FBI agents armed with search warrants descended Thursday morning on bankrupt solar company Solynrda.
The investigation comes after a request by the Department of Energy’s inspector general, FBI spokesman Peter Lee told NBC Bay Area News.
Agents arrived at Solyndra at 7a.m. and were examining the factory. Solynrda has a skeleton crew of 100 workers on the scene, who are closing the factory down.
Solyndra filed for bankruptcy last week, shocking both workers and the Obama administration, which had given the startup $535 million in low interest loans.Â
The announcement was a devastating blow to Mr. Obama who is set to deliver a speech on job creation Thursday evening.
Congress has demanded a hearing into the matter. Wednesday the company was reported to be for sale.
There are no reports of any arrests at this time.
Solyndra officials made numerous visits — 20 — to the White House, according to logs and reporting by The Daily Caller.
The world has a food shortage. This isn’t speculative or subjective, and it’s not fear-mongering or alarmist. It’s a well-documented fact and, what’s more, the real experts – those who aren’t influenced by government or corporate interests – have been trying to make that case for months.
Moreover, these same experts say, the shortages are causing global food prices to rise – dramatically in some cases – which is only leading to more hunger, more pain and more hardship.
So, what is the United States doing to blunt the effects of this food shortage? What is official U.S. policy regarding, say, the production of corn – the primary ingredient in scores of food products and livestock feed? Well, officially, our policy is to burn up a substantial amount of corn every year in our automobiles – food that could be used to feed Americans and the world.
Wind power can be more expensive and dirty than we think.
Â
By David Schnare
As most of the Republican presidential hopefuls stake their positions to win the hearts of the party’s base, the Tea Party has made it safe for honest conservatives to stand up and demand more than spin.If we can demand fiscal responsibility, however, we also should demand fiscal honesty. And, if there is a subject where Republicans should be willing to be honest, it is on environmental and energy policy – in particular, climate change. After all, environmental policy does not sway voters, as it always ranks last on surveys that ask about domestic priorities. Republicans don’t get any of the hard “green” voters and never will, so they should be honest about today’s hallmark environment and energy issue.
Texas Gov. Rick Perry is just the latest to state that he doesn’t believe the science on climate change is settled – a nice start. Unfortunately, all the candidates say they support an “all of the above” energy policy, which is problematic. Are they talking about options available within the free market or about an outcome determined by bureaucrats to be forced on the public?
If the candidates understand what “all of the above” has meant traditionally, they would know that it is often “greenwashing” code for reduction in fossil fuel use and support for mandates and subsidies for renewables such as wind as a replacement. That means they oppose the increase in use of cheap, affordable energy in favor of continued heavy intervention by government. We’ve seen how well that turns out.
When Barack Obama spoke of “necessarily bankrupting†coal-fueled electricity producers, he claimed that the explosion in “green jobs†would replace the workers dislocated by penalizing fossil fuels. So far, though, there is little evidence of any explosion in green jobs, or even significant job creation at all. As Politico reports, the Obama administration is having to fall back on “saved and created†language to describe its big investment in the green-collar field:
President Barack Obama heads to an energy plant in North Carolina on Monday to talk once again about the job-creating power of a green economy.
The catch? Nearly three years into Obama’s presidency, the White House can’t point to much solid evidence that significant numbers of Americans are scoring the green jobs the president has been touting.
Monthly Labor Department employment reports say nothing about the new clean energy workforce, while an effort to document how many Americans actually make a living in the “green collar†field may not be done by November 2012.
Obama’s Council of Economic Advisers suggests 225,000 clean energy jobs were either created or preserved through the third quarter of 2010 thanks to more than $80 billion in the economic stimulus package. But those are estimates at best.
At $80 billion, that would mean a cost of $355,555.56 of public subsidy per job created … or “saved.â€Â At best, as Politico states.
Federal environmental regulators are urging Gov. Chris Christie to reconsider a decision to pull New Jersey from a 10-state greenhouse gas reduction program.
Christie announced withdrawal from the program Thursday.
Calls for Honduran credits to be thrown out of ETS following alleged killings, while consultation process goes under review
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