Necessary News

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Companies Go Green, But How Green Are They Really Going?

• 150 companies around the world “pledged to reduce their carbon emissions voluntarily and raise energy efficiency” as part of the UN Global Compact on Thursday. Sounds good, right? Well, maybe. [Financial Times]
• Turns out the targets are different for each company, and won’t be made public ’til 2008. And some critics are accusing the UN Global Compact of being little more than “a public relations shield for companies while failing to substantially meet its environmental, social and anti-corruption goals partly because it has little enforcement power.”
• The 150 global companies that sign the pledge include Alcan, Anglo-American, and Rio Tinto as well as “a number from China and other emerging economies that are becoming large energy consumers.”
• Georg Kell, head of the Compact, dismissed the concerns over “greenwashing,” saying that this effort was “unprecedented” and that the agreement did indeed have teeth because companies who filed to meet their commitments had been kicked out of the Compact in the past. Ooooh, ouch. That must have really hurt their feelings.

But not their bottom line.

Global Warming’s Greatest Hits

If global warming has in a band, its “Best of” album would probably be called something along the lines of “Death, Destruction, and Cannibalistic Bears.” In light of this weekend’s Live Earth concerts, we here at Mic Check have taken the opportunity to put together a list of some of climate change’s more (in)famous accomplishments. Rev up the Prius and take a look.

• Cannibal Polar Bears: A study has found warmer temperatures near the southern Beaufort Sea mean longer seasons without ice. Longer seasons without ice mean polar bears can’t access their natural food. And that means they are eating one another. [Mic Check]
• No More Vino: Wacky temperatures and rain cycles brought on by global warming are threatening something very important: Wine. Get ready to say bye-bye to French Bordeaux and hello to British champagne. We are not amused. [LA Times]
• The Swiss Alps Become The Swiss Foothills: Late last summer, a rock the size of two Empire State Buildings in the Swiss Alps collapsed onto the canyon floor nearly 700 feet below. The reason? Retreating glacier ice is robbing the cliff face on the eastern edge of the Eiger Mountain of its main support. [MSNBC]
• Your Checkbook Dries Up: A report done last year by the British government showed global warming could cause a Global Great Depression, costing the world anywhere from 5 to 20% of its annual gross domestic product. [Washington Post]
• Greenland? Green-gone! Earlier this year, the UN climate change panel published a five-year report saying that it would take thousands of years for Greenland’s ice sheets to melt. But now, after considering new evidence, the panel’s saying that prediction was far too optimistic, and is expecting Greenland to vanish in just hundreds of years. [Mic Check]

The only thing we need now is a plague of locusts.

In A Glance: The White House Environmental Record

• With the world coming together this weekend with Live Earth, it’s worth a look at the White House track record on greenhouse gas emissions, the environment and global warming.
• This week, the Department of Transportation got caught calling federal and state lawmakers, asking them to petition the EPA to block California from instituting a stricter emissions policy in their state. [CBS News]
• In 2004, White House official Philip Cooney, chief of staff of its Council on Environmental Quality, doctored a report on global warming to downplay scientific warnings. (He now works for Exxon.) [AP] [NY Times]
• In 2004, White House staffers were caught having “deleted or modified information on mercury” from an EPA report to hide the toxic health effects emissions have on people. [NY Times]
• After President Bush pledged a cap on carbon emissions in 2000, President Cheney stacked the deck, filling the White House Committee on Environmental Quality up with industry guys. Right after, the group released a report saying “the current state of scientific knowledge about causes of and solutions to global warming is inconclusive” and no caps were needed. [Rolling Stone]
• At the G8 summit this year, U.S. negotiators attempted to “weaken the language of a climate change declaration set to be unveiled at next month’s G-8 summit of the world’s leading industrial powers.” [Washington Post]
• Last year, the “Smithsonian Institution toned down an exhibit on climate change in the Arctic for fear of angering Congress and the Bush administration, says a former administrator at the museum.” [AP]
• Although President Bush charged in his State of the Union that the “best way to break this addiction [to oil] is through technology,” his 2007 budget actually proposed to spend $1.176 billion less (in inflation-adjusted dollars) on energy efficiency, conservation, and renewable energy resources. [Think Progress]

Happy Live Earth Day, Dick & W.

Just Because They’re Not Soldiers...Contractors in Iraq are Suffering Too

• The mental health problems are plaguing people besides the solders returning from Iraq. Private contractors, without the institutional support of the VA, are suffering too. [NY Times]
• As many as 126,000 of the over 180,000 private contractors hired by the U.S government, drawn from the US, Iraq and other countries, work along side the U.S. military in Iraq and “are exposed to the same dangers”
• The problem? Many are suffering from PTSD, and other mental disorders faced by those who have experienced stressful combat situations “but mostly they must fend for themselves in navigating the civilian health system.”
• Says Paul Brand, a psychologist and chief executive of Mission Critical Psychological Services “I think the numbers are in the thousands, maybe tens of thousands. Many are going undiagnosed. These guys are fighting demons, and t,hey don’t know how to cope.”
• Some chilling examples:
• “Tate Mallory, a police officer from South Dakota who worked as a Dyncorp police trainer, was grievously wounded by a rocket-powered grenade last fall. After returning home, he was so mentally scarred that he begged his brother to kill him.”
• “Nathaniel Anderson, a Texan whose truck was hit by rockets while hauling jet fuel, lost a contractor friend to suicide. Though suffering from stress-related symptoms himself, he has yet to see a doctor.”
• The use of private military contractors in Iraq is so extensive, that private contractors currently outnumber U.S. troops, 180,000 to 160,000. [LA Times]

Just because they’re private, doesn’t mean they should be left alone.

Meltdown At The U.S. Embassy In Iraq

• Shoddy building materials, expensive waste, fraud, no accountability, bad wiring, secrecy…we’ve known for years now about the problems plaguing reconstruction in Iraq. Now, however, it’s hitting close to home. [Washington Post]
• American diplomats in Baghdad sent the State Department a scathing cable about the disaster that is the new U.S. Embassy in Iraq.
• The first building of the $592 million embassy – the $22 million guard base – was “finished” in May. The guards started to move in, and that’s when the trouble started. According to the cable:
• The wiring in the kitchen melted. The wires used were counterfeit, labeled as10mm but actually the cheaper 6mm. Workers kept getting electrical shocks. Big, big fire hazard, too.
• The sleeping facilities were filled with toxic formaldehyde fumes.
• Fuel tanks for the generators installed without corrosion protection, every one of which was now saturating the surrounding soil with the fuel. (See, the contractor patched up the fuel tanks with Teflon tape used for water tanks. Teflon tape “will dissolve on contact with diesel fuel.”
• And much, much more.
• The builder, First Kuwaiti, is supposed to be building the whole rest of the embassy compound, making diplomats who have to live there very, very nervous.
• And did we mention First Kuwaiti is already under investigation for lying to foreign employees about where they’d be working, shipping them to Iraq then confiscating their passports so they couldn’t escape? Great guys.
• The State Department response? How dare you send the cable over an open embassy system rather than address these complaints secretly, in-house! (The nerve!)
• An officer in the State Department’s Overseas Buildings Operations department (OBO to the insiders) signed off on the projects, calling it “one of the better built” places in Iraq. (Yikes. Isn’t that like being “one of the smarter girls” on America’s Next Top Model?)

The real kicker here: The audit of all the mistakes was done by Halliburton’s KBR. Pot, you’ve met Kettle, right?

Good News, Bad News

Al Gore’s son was arrested this week going 100 mph while in possession of drugs in his Prius.

[ABC News]

BAD NEWS

It’s always sad when your kid emulates Lindsay Lohan.

GOOD NEWS

You can go 100 mph in a Prius!

Quote Of The Day

“President Bush’s commutation of the 30-month prison sentence for I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby, Vice President Dick Cheney’s former chief of staff, is neither wise nor just…Perjury is a serious crime. This newspaper argued on behalf of its seriousness in the 1990s, during the Clinton perjury controversy, and today is no different. We’d have hoped that more conservatives would agree.”

—Editorial in the conservative Washington Times [Washington Times]

Speed Round

AUDIO: AL GORE ON HIS SON’S ARREST

“We’re dealing with it as a private, family matter, Meredith. We love him very much, and we’re glad that he’s safe, and that he’s getting treatment, and we’re going to leave it as a private manner.”

MAYOR’S MISTRESS

LA Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa may have admitted to having an affair. But that’s not going to keep him from running for Governor in 2010, California’s pundit classes say. [McClatchy]

MORE REPUBLICANS SAY NO

Senator Pete Dominici (R-NM) is the latest Republican senator to call for a change of course in Iraq. [AP]

SAVING THE PLANET

279: The number of species that could die out while waiting to get through White House red tape to get on the Endangered Species list. [LA Times]

CONGRESS SAYS NO

Congress gears up to block Bush’s plan to put a missile shield in Eastern Europe because, well, it just won’t work. (The missile shield, that is...) [The Guardian]

TERROR

You are now safe to move about the London: Britain re-lowers its terror threat level. [LA Times]

OLD GLORY

Governors win the right to lower the flag in honor of fallen troops in Iraq and Afghanistan. [Stateline]

PIMP MY POLICE LAB

That giant black vehicle following you in Montana might be MIDAC, the $250,000 mobile DUI lab, tricked out with a testing station, blood refrigerator, computers for background checks and really, really scary cops. [ABC]

$1 BILLION

The amount of cash the federal government spends a year to tell us carrot sticks are better for us than Ding Dongs®. [Yahoo News]

116 DEGREES

The expected temperature in Las Vegas, NV. Meanwhile, the rest of the west coast sizzles in a heat wave. [AP]

TRAGEDY

14 people are seriously injured when a building collapses in Colorado. [AP]

453

The number of unidentified corpses, “some bound, blindfolded, and bearing signs of torture,” found in Baghdad during June, an increase of 41 percent since the escalation began in January. [Think Progress]

PAKISTAN

The seige on Pakistan’s Red Mosque continues, with the death toll surging to 19. [NY Times]

BUSH MISSILE PLAN

The President’s attempt to resurrect the “Star Wars” missile defense plan to protect his legacy- we mean, the American people- may be thwarted by Congress next week if they vote not to fund the project. [Guardian]

CENSURE

Rep. Robert Wexler (D-FL), is planning to introduce a resolution to censure President Bush after his decision to commute Scooter Libby’s prison sentence. [Raw Story]

THE PEOPLE VS. BUSH

A new poll shows an overwhelming majority of Americans think the U.S. presence in Iraq is creating more terrorists. [Think Progress]

US SENATE DESPERATE FOR VISITORS

Foreign tourism is way down in the U.S., so the Senate is trying to pass a bill that would establish a non-for-profit corporation to give it a boost with advertisement and incentive. Right, because we definitely don’t have bigger fish to fry...[NPR]

TERROR SPAM

Terrorists fund raise using electronic scams and phishing schemes. Don’t buy that herbal viagra. You could be supporting a terrorist. [Washington Post]

ROBOT PLANES OVER BAGHDAD

The “use of unmanned aircraft in Iraq has surged by nearly a third since the buildup of U.S. forces began this year.” [AP]

ENDANGERED WETLANDS

The Bush administration, under pressure from lobbyists, secretly failed to follow a Supreme Court decision that brought “thousands of small streams and wetlands under the protection of the Clean Water Act of 1972.” [NY Times]

ONE WAR DOWN

A war that’s actually going reasonably well? The War on Drugs. Drug use is down worldwide, and so is production (except for Opium in Taliban controlled portions of Afghanistan...awkward). [McClatchy]