Debbie Jarrell works with Pennies of Promise, and emailed me today. Her group is based in West Virginia, and is working to raise money to replace the Marsh Fork Elementary School in West Virginia, a school that sits 400 feet from the mouth of a 2.8 billion gallon toxic coal slurry.

You may have heard of Ed Wiley - he's the fellow that walked from West Virginia up to Washington DC to meet with Congresspeople to find out why we're allowing MTR and coal waste storage around our communities. I have a lot of respect for these local activists, and I'm proud to be working on these issues with them.

Check out their site, there's a bunch of great videos of Ed on his walk to DC, thoughts on community, and of the devastation this mining operation has wrecked on their town.

I’m incredibly excited about the September 4th Climate Emergency Fast being organized by the U.S. Climate Emergency Council and others. I've signed up, and hope you will too by clicking here. In one week, the number of fasters has grown from 395 to 795 and continues to multiply. Everyone I've talked to about it is instantly drawn to it; people seem to instinctively understand that we need to move beyond polite letter-writing, lobbying, and yes - blogging - that has characterized response to the climate crisis thus far.

In most true crises, people take to the streets if the government doesn't act. What's happening to the planet is a crisis of that scale, but thus far hasn't got the dramatic response it merits. Institutional advocacy just won't cut it; as a recent groundbreaking study by Jon Agnone of the University of Washington shows. As Ken Ward summarized in a recent post here:

1. Protest is significantly more important than public opinion or institutional advocacy in influencing federal environmental law. Agnone found that each protest event increases the likelihood of pro-environmental legislation being passed by 1.2 percent, and moderate protest increases the annual rate of adoption by an astonishing 9.5 percent. 2. Public opinion on its own influences federal action (though less than protest), but is vastly strengthened by protest, which "amplifies" public support and, in Agnone's words, "raises the salience of public opinion for legislators." Protest and public opinion are synergistic, with a joint impact on federal policy far more dramatic than either factor alone. 3. Institutional advocacy has limited impact on federal environmental policy.

Coming in the wake of Al Gore's call for civil disobedience against polluters, this fast could be the start of a vital shift in the strategy of the environmental movement - getting out of the halls of power where it's easy to mollify demands and into the streets: the point at which leaders start freaking out and wondering what you'll do next. Of course, it's always important to keep any protests accessible to the average person and do the organizing in advance to ensure that your action has widespread public support and won't provoke a crippling backlash, but I think we're getting to that point in the climate crisis.

Already some climate big shots have signed up; look who they are: Rev. Jim Wallis, Vandana Shiva, Dennis Brutus, Sally Bingham, Bill McKibben, Rev. Bob Edgar, Van Jones, Mike Tidwell, Billy Parish, Brent Blackwelder, Ilyse Hogue and many more.

So join me and sign up now!

While not surprised, I'm surely outraged when I read that the Union of Concerned Scientists uncovered censorship and revision in the environmental impact statement (EIS) on mountaintop removal mining back in 2004, which has led to the recent proposal to expand the practice, and give more power over to the coal industry.

This proposal, which would expand the coal industry's ability to clear cut and blow up mountains, has been met with skepticism from pretty much everybody, and is currently under public review.

From the UCS:

Internal government documents initially obtained under the Freedom of Information Act reveal that senior Bush administration officials at the U.S. Department of the Interior intentionally disregarded extensive scientific studies conducted by five separate federal and state agencies over four years in preparation of an environmental impact statement (EIS) on mountaintop removal mining in Appalachia. [...]

While the EIS produced by the Bush administration included some 5,000 pages of analysis documenting this destruction, there are instances where administration officials sought to soften the overwhelmingly negative findings. For example, a U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) scientist says the Bush administration team ordered technical language rating the environmental impacts as "significant" or "severe" be stripped away in the editing process.15 In addition, a Bush administration "steering committee" of the interagency EIS process initially removed an economic analysis prepared by an independent contractor that showed that limits on the size of individual valley fills would not have negative economic impacts on the region’s electric costs. The steering committee discredited the analysis for what it called a "fatally flawed" methodology.16 [...]

While administration officials included extensive scientific documentation of the negative consequences of the mining practice in the EIS, they violated a central tenet of an EIS18 by offering no proposed alternatives to mitigate the worst environmental consequences of mountaintop removal mining. "We were flabbergasted and outraged," says one high-ranking staff scientist at the FWS who had worked extensively on the preparation of the technical analysis for the EIS.19

Right now, we're working to collect 20,000 public comments against this proposal - if you haven't taken action yet, click here to do so right now.

Hat tip to Wired Science for breaking this.

Last week, I talked about how the Bush Administration wants to essentially allow the coal industry to have more control over how they continue the abhorrent practice of mountaintop removal mining. This proposal, which is open for a 60-day public comment period (57 days left) needs to be stopped, as does all mountaintop removal mining.

Over the next 57 days, we're working to get 20,000 comments submitted against this proposal. To submit yours, click here.

And then, please spread the word - 20,000 comments in 57 days is a lot of work, but we can do it. If you've got a blog, post the action up there, put it on your Facebook, or send out a bulletin to your friends on MySpace. Every bit helps, and is needed.

In addition to the comment period, we're also going to be doing some work on the presidential candidates, urging them to support a ban on this kind of mining. Stay tuned (and help out).

Let's start here, since many of you don't live in place where mountaintop removal mining exists. A picture can explain it much better than I ever could:

Pretty gross, right? That's a mining operation in southern WV (thanks to the Ohio Valley Environmental Coalition for the photo by Vivian Stockman). In case you're unfamiliar with the practice, mountaintop removal mining is pretty much what it sounds like. The coal industry will remove the top of the mountain, then then scoop out what's inside.

Of course the process itself completely destroys ecosystems, forests, streams, and any semblance of natural beauty once there.

There has been much legal wrangling over the practice, because, beyond just clear cutting and blowing the tops off of mountains, there has to be a place to put all the stuff the industry blows off. Generally, it ends up filling in streams and rivers, which leads to flooding and other adverse conditions for local communities. Not to mention the massive 'waste pools' they create to store much of the waste, which then leak, and spill toxics into communities' waterways and drinking sources.

So, the Bush Administration, in their wisdom, is making it clearer and easier. For the coal industry. Yep, the New York Times reports that the Office of Surface Mining is set to propose a rule tomorrow that, "would allow the practice to continue and expand, providing only that mine operators minimize the debris and cause the least environmental harm, although those terms are not clearly defined and to some extent merely restate existing law."

Thankfully, this is not set in stone. Because it's a proposed rule, it will be open for a 60-day public comment period. As soon as we have the info on where to send comments, we'll set it up, and make it easy to blast (forgive the pun) this horrific move.

From the Times:

For a number of months now, Environmental Action has been asking the 2008 presidential candidates to support doubling our national gas mileage standard.

A couple weeks ago, I was at the Yearly Kos convention in Chicago. Part of the convention was a live debate between the Democratic presidential hopefuls, followed by small group break outs with each of the candidates. A friend of mine went to the break out session with Sen. Edwards, and I asked him to ask the Senator about doubling the standard, if he got the chance.

Unfortunately, he didn't (there were loads of questions), but the Senator said that anyone who didn't get called on could ask the question online, and he would answer. It took a little time, but here was Edwards' response:

Thank you for joining me in Chicago. I appreciate that you took the time to follow up on your questions about gas mileage.

I will help U.S. automakers apply technology -- biofuels, hybrids, electric cars, hydrogen cells, and ultra-light materials -- to meet higher fuel economy standards. We can harness American ingenuity to make fuel-efficient cars that are virtually petroleum-free within a generation.

Every American should be able to choose what vehicle they drive. I also believe that American automakers have the ability to lead the world in building the clean, energy efficient cars of the future, making fuel-efficient cars available in every class, size, and weight. I will provide $1 billion to help automakers transition to the production of hybrid vehicles and alternative-fuel vehicles that run on biofuels, hydrogen cells, or electricity.

Again, thank you for taking the time to contact me. I had a great weekend in Chicago and was excited to see so many people out supporting the fight for transformational change in America. I appreciate the thoughtful questions about the important issues facing voters, and I hope I have answered yours.

Best Wishes, John Edwards

What leadership on such an important issue! In case it doesn't come through, that last sentence was laden with sarcasm.

While he does say we can have cars 'virtually petroleum free within a generation', and does talk about helping the industry switch over, he fails to actually answer the question. What we need are bold steps and bold leadership, and frankly the willingness to state what needs to happen, not just want people want to hear.

It was reported yesterday that the federal government has kept the public in the dark for three years about the handling of highly enriched uranium.

This included not mentioning to anyone the nine violations or test failures at a plant in Tennessee, including one incident where nine gallons of highly enriched uranium leaked, and spilled onto the floor, discovered when a supervisor saw, "a yellow liquid running into a hallway".

There are many ridiculous parts of this story. First of all, the fact that these incidents are being kept from the public is an egregious violation of the public trust. Secondly, we shouldn't be generating energy from a source that has the potential to kill millions of people (as nuclear most certainly does), and therefore any info about said industry has to be protected under the idea of 'national security'.

When was the last time we had to keep our wind power sources a secret from the public? It's ridiculous.

But, one of the saddest pieces of this story is that the company responsible for the violations has yet to be fined at all - and it doesn't look like they will be. I'm sorry, but if I park on the wrong side of the street during the street sweeping time, I get fined. But dump gallons of uranium on the floor? Eh, try to be better next time.

Hat tip to Grist for this one.

A new study in the journal Science ($ub req'd) by Renton Rieghelato and Dominick V. Spracklen validates what many have been saying all along: that biofuels, especially those from the tropics, are far worse for the planet than regular old crude oil.

The study finds that we could reduce global warming pollution two to nine times more by conserving or restoring forests and grasslands rather than razing them and turning them into biofuels plantations - even if we continue to use fossil fuels as our main source of energy. That's because those forests and grasslands act as the lungs of the planet - their dense vegetation sucks up far more carbon dioxide and breathes out far more oxygen than any biofuel crop ever could.

When you destroy that wilderness, much of the carbon stored in its living matter is either burned or otherwise oxidized - which is why the destruction of tropical forests accounts for more than 20 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions (more than China produces). Meanwhile, we'd be saving all the creatures that rely on those wildlands for life. The scale is huge: replacing even 10 percent of our gas with biofuels would require 43 percent of U.S. arable land.

Are you listening George Soros? What about you, Center for American Progress? And you, Barack Obama?

If you don't have access to Science, here's the free write-up from The New Scientist (take action on this issue here).

It's not a shock to anybody that ExxonMobil is a pretty nefarious company. But it was shown recently that someone at an IP address registered to ExxonMobil had changed the Wikipedia entry on the Valdez spill, watering it down.

According to the article:

An IP address that belongs to ExxonMobil, the oil giant, is linked to sweeping changes to an entry on the Exxon Valdez oil spill of 1989. An allegation that the company "has not yet paid the $5 billion in spill damages it owes to the 32,000 Alaskan fishermen" was replaced with references to the funds the company has paid out.

As Peter Rothberg pointed out in The Nation's Act Now! Blog, ExxonMobil has been the one oil company to essentially dismiss any kind of investment in renewable energy, so it's not shocking that this backwards looking company wants to whitewash it's past. Thanks to Peter for also linking to ExxposeExxon, a coalition Environmental Action is a proud member of, and a great place to learn more about Exxon's environmental policies.

This summer, hundreds of EA members have sent me pictures of themselves and their loved ones in the forests and wild places they treasure, and we're working to get the message out to our 2008 presidential candidates - we love our forests, and want them protected.

As the campaign season is getting into high gear, this is an important message to get across to people like Gov. Bill Richardson. Gov. Richardson has stood up to the Bush Administration on forests, and supports protection for millions of acres of national forests - but we've yet to see a plan for long term forest management.

Today I'm asking everyone to send him a message - he's done good work, and can do even better in making sure our forests are protected. To email him, just click here.

In 2000, President Clinton protected almost sixty million acres of unspoiled national forest land from road building and logging. In 2001, as one of his first acts, President Bush rescinded that rule, opting to allow state governors to determine what happens with these areas.

Gov. Bill Richardson of New Mexico was one of the first governors to request that all 1.7 million acres in his state be protected - and we applaud him for that.

But, when you're running for president, it's not enough to react - you need to make bold policy decisions, and have long term plans in place when it comes to our national forests. click here to send the Governor a message.

From The New York Times's Nicholas Kristof:

I ran into Al Gore at a climate/energy conference this month, and he vibrates with passion about this issue — recognizing that we should confront mortal threats even when they don’t emanate from Al Qaeda.

“We are now treating the Earth’s atmosphere as an open sewer,” he said, and (perhaps because my teenage son was beside me) he encouraged young people to engage in peaceful protests to block major new carbon sources.

“I can’t understand why there aren’t rings of young people blocking bulldozers,” Mr. Gore said, “and preventing them from constructing coal-fired power plants.”

Say it, Al! But it's not just young people who need to do it - everyone needs to join in, starting with you. Shutting down coal plants, blockading palm oil importers like Imperium Renewables and other rainforest destroyers, and stopping work at oil refineries could move the climate debate beyond just personal action and put the spotlight squarely on the big polluters who are the real culprits behind the problem.

This could be Al Gore's Gandhi moment (especially appropriate for a Nobel Peace Prize nominee). It would be great if you (in conjunction with say, Greenpeace, Rainforest Action Network and other civil disobedience-oriented environmental groups) announced a day of civil disobedience to confront polluters - and were the first one to get arrested. You'll find thousands of people (self included) to back you up.

If you're interested in being one of those people, click here to send Al Gore a fax letting him know you're ready to participate in civil disobedience on behalf of the planet.

Looks like the Big Three automakers are hopping on the grassroots bandwagon. According to a story today, they will be holding rallies against raising the CAFE standard. According to Greg A. Martin, a GM spokesman, "The rallies give an outside-the-Beltway voice to our position that you can have improved fuel economy and protect jobs".

Outside the beltway? The automotive industry has contributed over $117 million to political candidates in the last 17 years - for those not good at quick math, that's $18,855.76 every day for the last 17 years. How much more inside the beltway could they possibly be?

But, according to the story, "The rally will also feature users of large SUVs and trucks, such as construction workers, kids' sports' teams and volunteers who deliver meals to senior citizens, to talk about why large vehicles are essential." Are they actually suggesting that the bulk of SUVs are used for construction, soccer teams, and meals-on-wheels, as opposed to upper middle class people who just want a big car?

Of course, the industry is blaming us crazy enviros, rather than realizing that people want more fuel efficient cars. Yes, it will cost the industry money to make fuel efficient SUVs and trucks, nobody is denying that. But couldn't it be that since sales are slumping for these huge vehicles, maybe the auto industry could welcome this change?

Of course, these are the same people who insisted that seatbelts and airbags would wreck the industry, actually claiming people aren't concerned about safety (never mind the fact that they now market SUVs as being safer than passenger cars).

I'm a pretty big believer that to be a successful environmental organizer, you need a good sense of humor. First of all, it's unexpected - a lot of folks think us 'ecos' are humorless dour people who can't chuckle at anything, especially ourselves.

But, when your President comes up with ideas like 'Healthy Forests' which would remove all trees from our forests, 'The Clear Skies Initiative', which would have allowed six times as much mercury into the air as currently allowed, and the mother of all Orwellian ideas - 'Clean Coal', you really have to laugh. Big chortling guffaws. Because if you didn't, well, you'd probably cry a little bit.

That being said, I was pretty excited to find this video recently from a comedy troupe in NYC, and I thought you all might enjoy.

Last week, there was a lot of debate about the energy bill passed out of the House. There was some good (15% RES by 2020!) and some bad (Hello? CAFE standard?), but the funny thing is how the votes played out in relation to donations from the oil and gas industry.

First, a word of explanation. The RES (renewable energy standard) says that 15% of U.S. energy needs to come from renewables by 2020. While most groups were pushing for 20%, 15% is pretty amazing, given that we're currently at a little over 3%. Now, who's going to be against this idea? Well, the oil and gas industry of course. And I figured out some interesting things.

- House members that voted against the bill, on average, received $25,803.67 in 2006 from the oil and gas industry

- House members that voted for the bill, on average, received $5,303.76 in 2006 from the oil and gas industry

- House members who were booted out of office, but had received money from oil & gas industry on average received $24,971.78

While I'm not surprised about the fact that people against renewable energy received almost five times as much money from oil and gas as those for it, I'm greatly heartened by the fact that money from the industry appears to be the kiss of death, politically.

Hear that Congress? Stop taking that oil money!

As awful as the fate of the four coal miners trapped underground in Utah is, the sad truth is that they represent merely a fraction of the casualties of America's addiction to coal.

Every year in America, pollution from coal fired power plants cuts short the lives of more than 30,000 people and causes millions of asthma attacks, according to government consultants Abt Associates. It's also responsible for retarding the mental development of thousands of American children: according to EPA scientists, more than one in six children born every year have elevated levels of mercury in their blood, putting them at risk for developmental disorders and slower brain growth.

Worst of all, coal is driving the global climate crisis that is putting billions of people at risk from more extreme weather, spreading infectious disease, and disastrous flooding (not to mention threatening thousands of species with extinction).

I suppose there's no better evidence for the urgent need to eliminate our addiction to coal than the callous (and weird) rant against action to solve the climate crisis made by the owner of the collapsed mine: (thanks to Grist's David Roberts for finding this clip. The man is willing to expose his workers to unsafe conditions - and exploit their situation to pursue his far-right political agenda; is it any surprise he's willing to let the planet boil as he tries to extract a few extra dollars from allowing safety violations to stack up in his mine?

I hope Murray keeps up the crazy talk; this unfeeling greed monster is the second best poster boy for the climate crisis doubters we could hope for; next thing you know, maybe he'll go for the climate skeptic gold and shoot an elderly friend in the face.

Glenn Hurowitz, who covers environmental affairs for The American Prospect, is the author of the forthcoming book Fear and Courage in the Democratic Party.

Well, that whole beating George Bush thing in 2004 didn't work out, so now billionaire financier/Democratic fundraiser/democracy spreader George Soros is back to his first love: making money - apparently even when it comes at the expense of the planet.

Sabrina Valle of The Washington Post is reporting that Soros is one of the biggest investors in growing sugarcane for ethanol in the Brazilian cerrado, "a vast plateau where temperatures range from freezing to steaming hot and bushes and grasslands alternate with forests and the richest variety of flora of all the world's savannas."

That could soon come to an end. In the past four decades, more than half of the Cerrado has been transformed by the encroachment of cattle ranchers and soybean farmers. And now another demand is quickly eating into the landscape: sugarcane, the raw material for Brazilian ethanol.

"Deforestation in the Cerrado is actually happening at a higher rate than it has in the Amazon," said John Buchanan, senior director of business practices for Conservation International in Arlington. "If the actual deforestation rates continue, all the remaining vegetation in the Cerrado could be lost by the year 2030. That would be a huge loss of biodiversity."

The roots of this transformation lie in the worldwide demand for ethanol, recently boosted by a U.S. Senate bill that would mandate the use of 36 billion gallons of ethanol by 2022, more than six times the capacity of the United States' 115 ethanol refineries. President Bush, who proposed a similar increase in his State of the Union address, visited Brazil and negotiated a deal in March to promote ethanol production in Latin America and the Caribbean.

Now Soros (as well as Goldman Sachs and the Carlyle Group) have joined longtime Big Ag environmental villains Cargill and Archer Daniels Midland in investing in sugarcane expansion on formerly wild land, fueling the loss of 7.4 million acres per year of pristine land. This would ordinarily violate sustainability principles adopted by Goldman Sachs and others (Goldman Sachs's policy, for instance, says that the company "will not
finance any project or initiate loans where the specified use of proceeds would
significantly convert or degrade a critical natural habitat.")

So, they claim they're not contributing to the extinction of the jaguars, blue macaws, and giant armadillos that roam(ed) the savannah because they're growing on fallow land, but that's just a big greenwashing cover.

But environmental groups argue that as soy and sugarcane displace cattle and less lucrative crops, ranchers are moving farther into the unspoiled areas of the Cerrado.

"There are ranchers substituting sugarcane for cattle in the Sao Paulo area, for instance, and displacing cattle to the state of Bahia, both in the Cerrado. So what is the point?" asks Ricardo Machado, author of a study about the Cerrado for Conservation International.

It's a widely documented phenomenon fueling deforestation in Indonesia, West Africa and elsewhere: increased demand for land fuels higher commodity prices and expansion into pristine forests.

It's particularly ironic that Soros is working hand in hand with the Bush family by investing $1 billion in growing sugarcane in Brazil. Jeb Bush formed the Interamerican Ethanol Commission in December to promote increased ethanol exports from Latin America, leading, perhaps not coincidentally to President Bush's March deal with Brazilian President Luis Lula Ignacio da Silva.

What really frustrates me more than anything is that these rogue billionaires are destroying these tropical forests for a relatively tiny amount of money, compared to the potential financial value of protecting these lands as carbon sinks. The value of agricultural land on the cerrado ranges from as little as $140 to as high (in areas with the richest land) to $3000. But protecting these areas as carbon sinks could give them a value of up to $6000 per hectare, based on current prices of carbon dioxide that exceed $20 per ton on European markets.

Of course, that would require governments to come together to allow countries and polluters to get greenhouse gas reduction credit for protecting intact ecosystems as carbon sinks, as I recently outlined with Bill Powers in a New York Times op-ed. But there's increasing support for the idea, and as these financiers destroy the forests to create agriculture, they're also destroying much greater potential returns for themselves.

I guess being a rogue billionaire doesn't make you a smart billionaire.

P.S. I've set up an action alert on my website where you can contact George Soros and ask him to withdraw from this project and invest instead in conservation; click here to send him a note. Soros has actually done a tremendous amount of good in his long career, from fighting Soviet tyranny to fighting George Bush, so I think a bit of media scrutiny combined with a grassroots outcry could convince him to align his business practices with his principles and history of good work.

That could soon come to an end. In the past four decades, more than half of the Cerrado has been transformed by the encroachment of cattle ranchers and soybean farmers. And now another demand is quickly eating into the landscape: sugarcane, the raw material for Brazilian ethanol.

"Deforestation in the Cerrado is actually happening at a higher rate than it has in the Amazon," said John Buchanan, senior director of business practices for Conservation International in Arlington. "If the actual deforestation rates continue, all the remaining vegetation in the Cerrado could be lost by the year 2030. That would be a huge loss of biodiversity."

The roots of this transformation lie in the worldwide demand for ethanol, recently boosted by a U.S. Senate bill that would mandate the use of 36 billion gallons of ethanol by 2022, more than six times the capacity of the United States' 115 ethanol refineries. President Bush, who proposed a similar increase in his State of the Union address, visited Brazil and negotiated a deal in March to promote ethanol production in Latin America and the Caribbean.

Now Soros (as well as Goldman Sachs and the Carlyle Group) have joined longtime Big Ag environmental villains Cargill and Archer Daniels Midland in investing in sugarcane expansion on formerly wild land, fueling the loss of 7.4 million acres per year of pristine land. This would ordinarily violate sustainability principles adopted by Goldman Sachs and others (Goldman Sachs's policy, for instance, says that the company "will not
finance any project or initiate loans where the specified use of proceeds would
significantly convert or degrade a critical natural habitat.")

So, they claim they're not contributing to the extinction of the jaguars, blue macaws, and giant armadillos that roam(ed) the savannah because they're growing on fallow land, but that's just a big greenwashing cover.

But environmental groups argue that as soy and sugarcane displace cattle and less lucrative crops, ranchers are moving farther into the unspoiled areas of the Cerrado.

"There are ranchers substituting sugarcane for cattle in the Sao Paulo area, for instance, and displacing cattle to the state of Bahia, both in the Cerrado. So what is the point?" asks Ricardo Machado, author of a study about the Cerrado for Conservation International.

It's a widely documented phenomenon fueling deforestation in Indonesia, West Africa and elsewhere: increased demand for land fuels higher commodity prices and expansion into pristine forests.

It's particularly ironic that Soros is working hand in hand with the Bush family by investing $1 billion in growing sugarcane in Brazil. Jeb Bush formed the Interamerican Ethanol Commission in December to promote increased ethanol exports from Latin America, leading, perhaps not coincidentally to President Bush's March deal with Brazilian President Luis Lula Ignacio da Silva.

What really frustrates me more than anything is that these rogue billionaires are destroying these tropical forests for a relatively tiny amount of money, compared to the potential financial value of protecting these lands as carbon sinks. The value of agricultural land on the cerrado ranges from as little as $140 to as high (in areas with the richest land) to $3000. But protecting these areas as carbon sinks could give them a value of up to $6000 per hectare, based on current prices of carbon dioxide that exceed $20 per ton on European markets.

Of course, that would require governments to come together to allow countries and polluters to get greenhouse gas reduction credit for protecting intact ecosystems as carbon sinks, as I recently outlined with Bill Powers in a New York Times op-ed. But there's increasing support for the idea, and as these financiers destroy the forests to create agriculture, they're also destroying much greater potential returns for themselves.

I guess being a rogue billionaire doesn't make you a smart billionaire.

P.S. I've set up an action alert on my website where you can contact George Soros and ask him to withdraw from this project and invest instead in conservation; click here to send him a note. Soros has actually done a tremendous amount of good in his long career, from fighting Soviet tyranny to fighting George Bush, so I think a bit of media scrutiny combined with a grassroots outcry could convince him to align his business practices with his principles and history of good work.

What goes right along with Sean Kingston covering Bob Marley's 'No Woman, No Cry' on the Today Show? Well, Doubling the Standard, of course.

That's right. Environmental Action staff and activists got up at 4AM on Tuesday to meet up with Roker & co. to get the message out on national television. You can see one of the screen shots below, and to watch the video, click here.

Kudos to the NY crew, and 'mad props' to Sean who took a brochure on energy independence. Maybe in a few months we'll hear Kingston perform, 'Get Up, Stand Up (for clean energy)'