Roni Bell Sylvester
Dear Margot,
Please study www.GoodNeighborLaw.com and www.UniversalWeather.Blogspot.com
They are run solely by volunteers. No pay offs here!
We allow sound offs, but favor public debate.
Most green groups refuse public debate. Why? Their livelihoods are dependent upon government grants, emotional rants, and sans science marketing.
Good Neighbor Law is where judicious thinking people go to gather truth and facts.
Fact. Groups including The Nature Conservancy, Greenpeace, Defenders of Wildlife, World Wildlife Foundation, Sierra Club, Earth Justice, Friends of the Earth, HSUS
and PETA are copious in litigious activities, and scrawny on public debate. They cannot afford to expose their cozenages, for that would show they care more about larding
lies than animal or human welfare.
They want you to dumpster-dive in un-friendly nations for your food.
They want to diminish domestic resource provisions so their fancily inked import deals will continue accommodating them financially.
Their actions contribute towards America's vulnerability, thereby enhancing grave threats to our national security.
And regards global warming? Watch. Soon Al Gore will let out a Ponzi sized belch that will make Bernie Madoff's look like a baby hiccup.
If any of these groups disagree with my statements herein, our good scientists, attorneys and scholars welcome opportunity to look their people straight in the eye.and debate!
Margot, you would do Americans a great service if you would initiate such.
Thank you,
Roni Bell Sylvester
Volunteer Editor GNL
In a settlement, U.S. Export-Import Bank and the Overseas Private Investment Corp. agree
to account for their projects' effects on global warming.
By Margot Roosevelt
February 7, 2009
The government's major financing agencies for overseas development projects reversed direction Friday, committing to scrutinize fossil-fuel facilities for their effect on global warming and pledging to help build renewable energy plants abroad.
The decision was revealed in settlement agreements filed in U.S. District Court in San Francisco in a lawsuit brought by two environmental groups, Greenpeace and Friends of the Earth, against the U.S. Export-Import Bank and the Overseas Private Investment Corp. in 2002.
The environmental groups were joined by three California cities -- Santa Monica, Oakland and Arcata -- along with Boulder, Colo. The cities argued that carbon dioxide spewed into the atmosphere by such U.S.-financed projects as oil refineries and gas pipelines in India or Russia affect the Earth's climate. And global warming, the suit argued, influences Santa Monica's water supply, the sea level near Oakland's airport and the snow on Rocky Mountain ski slopes.
From 1995 to 2006, the Ex-Im Bank and OPIC provided more than $21 billion in loans and loan guarantees for oil refineries, pipeline projects, liquefied natural gas plants and electric power plants around the world, according to a Times investigation in 2007. An analysis of a sample of 48 projects in Russia, Mexico, Venezuela, Algeria, China, Brazil, Turkey and India found that they would emit 12 billion metric tons of planet-heating carbon dioxide emissions over their lifetime, or at least 600 million metric tons a year.
The Bush administration had argued that the two agencies were not subject to the National Environmental Policy Act, which requires government projects to include impact statements. It had also contended that the "alleged impacts of global climate change are too remote and speculative" to be part of the agencies' project reviews.
Under the settlements, the agencies agreed to account for the effects on climate in financing future projects and spend $250 million each on renewable energy projects overseas. In addition, OPIC set a goal of reducing greenhouse gas emissions from its projects by 20%.
The agencies' change of heart came as the Obama administration has committed to a new direction in climate policy. It has moved to grant California and other states the right to regulate greenhouse gas emissions from automobiles and endorsed efforts to craft national climate legislation, as well an international treaty limiting emissions.
"When we launched this lawsuit in 2002, we were deep in the Bush global warming dark ages," said Kert Davies, research director of Greenpeace. "Now [we] hope that sweeping reform of global warming policy will reach every corner of the government."
The amount of carbon dioxide, which traps heat in the atmosphere, has risen rapidly since the industrial revolution. There are now 387 parts per million of CO2 in the air, the highest figure for 650,000 years. Many climate scientists say the world has only 10 years or so to halt increases in greenhouse gas emissions or face dangerous climate change including more droughts, floods and a rising sea level.
Good Neighbor Committee
P.O. Box 155 - La Salle, CO 80645
info@goodneighborlaw.com
| Good Neighbor Law© 2006 |