Green Daily

For such a small country, Indonesia manages to emit a huge amount of green house gases. According to a World Bank and British Department of International Development report, up to 84% of those emissions are from "deforestation, forest fires and peatland degradation."

They are taking steps to address this high emissions rate, as well as to protect the rainforest which is home to so many impoverished indigenous people and endangered animals. The most promising is a program to issue carbon credits to companies that manage -- rather than destroy -- forests.

These credits can be traded by companies that have a surplus or want to offset their emissions, creating a potentially lucrative market in credits, as well as in the government concessions to run a project that qualifies for the credits. Annual revenue estimates run between $500 million and $2 billion annually. This is a big business!

And that's where it gets complicated. Who should benefit from these profits? The local government? The federal government? The companies? Plus, how do you monitor the forest carbon projects to ensure they remain effective?

The goal was to release a set of rules for forest-carbon projects at the beginning of the year. The Indonesian government is working with the World Bank to finalize the guidelines but they are still sorting through these complexities. Adding to the mix is the U.N., who wants to include the credits in the 2013 phase of the Kyoto climate pact.

As eager as everyone is to get this process up and running, it's actually great news that the parties involved are taking the time to get it right. Or as right as possible. If the current economic downturn has anything to teach us, it's that the relationships between money, markets and regulations are always evolving.

Among other problems, Nepal is experiencing a major energy shortage. The country is currently dealing with daily 9 hour power cuts. Next week they are scheduled to be increased to 12 hours each each day. And it gets worse -- in February, the government expects to have to cut power for 16 hours each day.

The combination of a lingering civil war and unexpected weather (climate change anyone?) have created a situation where country is only able to produce a small amount of energy despite having amazing national resources, including rivers with the potential to generate 83,000 megawatts of electricity.

Sadly, because of all of the political problems, the country is only generating 336 MW of total capacity. The government is offering tax concessions to companies that produce hydroelectric power. Still, the majority of the country lives without access to the electric grid, and burn wood for cooking fires and heat.

Kind of puts high gas and oil prices in perspective, doesn't it?

I love Bjork. She's so insane -- awesomely insane. And she has been one of the biggest celebrity advocates for the planet since I can remember.

In her new single, entitled "Nattura," she's calling for the government of her native Iceland to be more careful with the country's natural resources.

The long weekend started with some good news for endangered Sumatran elephants and the critically endangered tigers who live in Sumatra's Tesso Nilo National Park.

Working with the World Wildlife Fund, the Indonesian government agreed to extend the national park, which was initially only 94,000 acres by about 250,000 acres.

One of the biggest challenges for Sumatra is the global demand for its products, particularly palm oil and paper. In the past 25 years, the province of Riau, where the park is located, has lost 65% of its original forest cover, mostly due to the growth of these industries.

The new extension of Tesso Nilo gives the 60 to 80 elephants and 50 tigers who live there official protection and a little more space to roam. Sadly they will still need real protection from poachers and illegal settlements.

The WWF helped establish a coalition of communities that live around the park to help them work together to protect the forest and animals living there. The coalition will also have more influence as a group and can be more productively involved in park management.

This is a step in the right direction for Sumatra. Next step? Let's see some help and protection for their population of critically endangered orangutans!

Despite the recent popularity of raw milk, and the claimed benefits that it may have over pasteurized milk, government authorities are cracking down on the sale and manufacturing of raw milk and raw milk products. No, we're not talking about crack or meth here, we're talking about milk.

Raw milk research has shown that unpasteurized milk contains important microbes and enzymes that help protect against many growing ailments, including asthma, hay fever and other allergies. Many US states have cracked down on unregulated raw milk sales, as the popularity of the product has increased dramatically. In Georgia, raw milk is required to carry a label reading "not for human consumption." Ohio, Michigan, Pennsylvania and California are among a handful of other states forcing restrictions on raw milk products.

Here we are thinking that carbon emissions, oil spills and global warming will destroy the planet, but the US government knows better. Apparently, the priority is giant asteroids, in true Armageddon style.

The US House of Representatives just passed bill H.R. 6063, which directs NASA to develop plans for creating an inexpensive mission (is that even possible with NASA?) to the Apophis asteroid to attach a tracking device. Apophis is projected to come dangerously-close to Earth in 2029, according to researchers. In addition, this bill requires the Director of the White House's Office of Science and Technology Policy to come up with a procedure for notifying Federal agencies and other emergency response groups of any other space objects with a collision course for Earth. I just hope Bruce Willis and Ben Affleck are still around to save us in 2029.

Every week we pick a theme to explore in more depth, and this week that theme is green government. To read all our posts related to this theme, click here.



The Climate Security Act is coming to the Senate floor for a vote either late this month or early next month, and while we're not entirely sure it'll get enough bi-partisan support, environmental groups are nonetheless lobbying for it to pass. This very clever ad from the Environmental Defense Fund won't officially air until tomorrow, but here's a sneak peak for you, Green Daily readers -- just because we care.

If you'd like to read more about the bill, you can read a very comprehensive summary here.

Every week we pick a theme to explore in more depth, and this week that theme is green government. To read all our posts related to this theme, click here.

If you want to see what fuel woes could look like in a few year, you could look at Europe today.

Wednesday saw violent police clashes in Paris and truck protests in Bulgaria. A thousand angry British trucks are driving into London on Tuesday to clog traffic in a follow-up to a smaller 65-truck protest last month.

All this unrest is in response to soaring fuel prices across the continent. The cost of diesel fuel in France has doubled since November. Across Europe, gasoline costs for drivers are more than double what an American pays to fill up.

European governments have produced a lot of new environmentally protective programs and rules - everything from congestion charges to bike rentals to fuel taxes. Those fuel taxes, added to already soaring fuel costs, have angered a lot of truckers, commuters, and every day citizens (even non-drivers feel the sting with rising shipping costs in food and consumers goods). Rising fuel prices also hit inflation figures and there are concerns that economic growth is at risk.

On one hand, when I read a news story about an entire village in South Korea drawing 100% of its power from the sun, I get excited and optimistic, but on the other hand, it only makes me sad to think we don't have something like this going in the United States.

Sure, there are plenty of solar-powered homes in the US, and there are plenty of entire cities that are extending into a more off-grid power structure, but the kicker of this story is the fact that the South Korean government covered 70% of the installation fees for this project! Government-funded alternative energy projects in action, what a novel idea! Not only that, they announced a plan to raise Jeju-du Island's wind power generation capacity to 500 megawatts by 2020. I'd hate to think about how many solar panels a Blackhawk helicopter could buy.

A new report from the Global Foundation for Management Education finds that educators might find it difficult to keep up with changing demographics and an increasing emphasis on sustainability worldwide. For instance, in order to keep up with other associations and schools with an environmental focus, business school institutions will have to hire and train more professors and administrators, and the reports from environmental accreditation groups will become more meaningful.

To help the institutions grow, the foundation recommends that schools foster strong partnerships with environmental associations, as well as business and government leaders.

Brazil is starting the first government run condom factory in their country. They want to cut back on dependence upon imported condoms and save the rainforest while they're at it.

Sometime in late May or early June, America's Climate Security Act (S. 2191) will be coming to the Senate floor. The bill, a Lieberman-Warner production, would, among other provisions, restrict imports from countries with significant greenhouse gas levels that do not have comparable climate-change policies.

The bill is under heavy fire from the international trade community. U.S. Trade Representative Susan C. Schwab said, "We believe that this approach could be a blunt and imprecise instrument of fear - rather than one of persuasion - that will take us down a dangerous path and adversely affect U.S. manufacturers, farmers and consumers." Worries over how the bill might interact with our various treaty obligations abound.

And there is another worry: cost-effectiveness.

On March 14, the EPA released a 189-page study of the costs associated with S. 2191. As often happens in Washington, both proponents and opponents of the bill seized on the report as evidence of their position.

Last week, the House Energy and Commerce Committee approved a bill, H.R. 3754, that will allow the EPA to include diesel-engine retrofit projects in settlement agreements with corporations that have violated environmental laws.

Diesel retrofitting is part of a larger EPA "Clean Diesel" campaign designed to reduce particulates in the air. The program received about $49 million in funding for FY2008 under the 2005 Energy Policy Act. The biggest chunk of the funds goes to outright retrofits of existing bus fleets, trains, marine vehicles, etc. A smaller piece will go to fund emerging technologies – projects that reduce diesel emission but haven't yet been verified by the EPA or the California Air Resources Board.

As sometimes happens, the $49 million appropriated for the program turned out to be a problem. The EPA said that using the funds while asking companies to retrofit their diesel-powered engines as part of settlements would violate the Miscellaneous Receipts Act.

If you're thinking, "I'm sorry, what?" you're not alone.

In case you haven't heard, rumor has it there's some UFOs flying around over Texas. While normally extraterrestrial spacecraft are spotted by buck-toothed oddballs from the middle of the nowhere, this sighting comes from a bunch of seemingly normal people -- like business owners, pilots, and even police officers. The government has explained away the incident by suggesting this was an illusion caused by two commercial airplanes and the setting sun -- but that's exactly the kind of lame excuse they came up with Men in Black II, and Will Smith was totally lying to those people. Lying.

But the real question is: what does the mean for our planet? If aliens can fly all the way here in super-sleek, impossible-to-detect intergalactic orbs, surely they have the technology to power their lives without spewing greenhouse gases into the atmosphere -- right?

I know, it seems like I'm talking crazy, but some people really believe that extraterrestrials not only a) exist, b) visit Earth, and c) have superior alternative energy technology, but that the government is using that technology in ultra-top-secret military projects. Conspiracy!

Admittedly this isn't exactly a mainstream theory, but at least one person smart enough to earn a PhD believes that: "There is substantial evidence to suggest that reverse engineered ET technologies have been used in the development of energy sources for 'black projects' such as the anti-gravity propulsion system that is claimed to fuel the B2 bomber."

That person is Dr. Michael E Salla, and you can read more about his conspiracy theories on the website UFO Evidence. If nothing else, it's fairly entertaining.

Don't just stand there, stand up for environmental changes.