Is Even the Truth Unsustainable?

Why do words fail us? Why is demonstrable truth so widely and persistently disdained and ignored? Effective communication with integrity is essential for the people – you and I – to become informed and to take action necessary to establish, maintain and strengthen a democratic republic. But effective communication with integrity, even on a personal, one-to-one level, is very, very difficult in modern times.

Forests, Money, and Rights at Copenhagen Climate Talks

by Claire Vanderslice
President – League of Women Voters of Ozaukee County, Wisconsin

As part of the US League of Women Voters delegation to Copenhagen in December 2009, I investigated REDD; “Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation”, a mechanism originally conceived to reward “custodians” to keep the remaining tropical forests intact instead of cutting them down. Carbon dioxide is released when trees are cut and burned and the soil is exposed to oxidation. Living trees, on the other hand, convert CO2 to oxygen and sequestered carbon. So protecting forests reduces atmospheric greenhouse gases.

Nonsense’n’nobrainer: Questions of Our Congressman

Congressman Sensenbrenner’s latest Annual Questionnaire has come again, prepared and mailed at taxpayer expense. It began with the assertion that “The 109th Congress is involved with many issues vital to you, your family and the nation.”

Here’s looking at you, Congressman Jim

Representative Sensenbrenner’s annual questionnaire has again arrived in our mailboxes. There is not space for a proper critique, so I will make my limited case here by quoting just five “questions” he asks, and following each with a re-phrasing that allows for a wider response or focuses on the issue he hides.

Import Destruction, Trash Freedom

Since “free trade” policies got rolling, and the World Trade Organization, run by and for trans-national corporations, has taken powers formerly reserved to elected governments, the quantity of international shipping, by train, truck, plane and ship has skyrocketed. Ships can be owned by anyone, but even most of those that are owned by American corporations are not inspected or documented by the United States. This of course is because it costs more to comply with U.S. safety and pollution and labor regulations than it does to register a ship with a “flag of convenience” nation.