01/30/10
12:10:38 am by Sarah Rosengard, Categories: Global Governance, Climate Change, International Law, Resource Sustainability, International Development 
The Global Land Crisis: Deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon
Image Courtesy of ScienceDaily
GAINESVILLE, FLORIDA — The University of Florida Tropical Conservation and Development Program hosted a three-day conference to address the current hurdles of land conservation in the developing Latin American and African tropics. The conference generated a diverse discourse within a broad international spectrum of scholars and practitioners, scientists and advocates, students and instructors. It focused on the “global land crisis”, as Daniel Nepstad from Woods Hole Research Center described it. Speakers from a wide array of universities, institutions, and non-governmental organizations considered tropical deforestation from all angles. They covered topics ranging from food security to emerging infectious disease, and proposed several responses from market-based incentives to international collaboration. The conference underscored the steep challenges inherent in confronting the destructive regimes of modern landscape transformation.
01/25/10
03:42:07 pm by Ross Mittiga, Categories: Corporations, United States, Current Events, Politics, National Governance, Domestic Law , Tags: 2010, act, bipartisan, campaign, citizens united, commission, court, democracy, election, fec, federal, feingold, finance, hillary, keith, limbaugh, mccain, movie, new, olbermann, rush, supreme, the, times, york This week, the Supreme Court made a highly-controversial decision in the case of Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, which carries with it momentous political ramifications for the future of American elections. The decision has been receiving substantial attention from across the political spectrum and has found ample media outlet and speculation throughout the week.
Politically diverse interest groups and commentators are already offering critiques, ranging from the sincere to the dramatic in attempt to draw pointed focus on this issue. However, sharp political dissension is already characterizing this issue among Americans, much as it did within the Supreme Court, as evident in its narrow 5-4 final decision and in the majority and dissenting opinions.
01/15/10
The Dynamo has been formally welcomed into the Roosevelt Institute Campus Network. As a University of Florida chapter, we join a far-reaching network of over 7,000 students in 80 policy organizations across the United States. We are honored to become a part of this close family and excited about the many opportunities to come.
11/19/09
03:53:04 am by Lance Legel, Categories: Energy, Corporations, Climate Change, United States, Science and Technology, Industry SAN MATEO, CALIFORNIA -- Over 300 distinguished executive interests in an industrial energy revolution have gathered here to advance a new enterprise: smart grid technology. Digitally-savvy energy highways, smart grids give people unprecedented control over their use of electricity. How could this technology be capitalized upon?
The consensus here is that climate change creates urgent opportunities to profit. Major firms, investors, and politicians are dynamically posturing to win big in the $6 trillion dollar U.S. energy industry, which faces great changes from emissions legislation. This includes IBM, Google, Cisco, Oracle, former U.S. Vice-President Al Gore, major investment gurus Vinod Khosla and John Doerr, and a wealth of other innovative Silicon Valley entrepreneurs.
Opening Keynote: John Doerr, Partner of KPCB and advisor to President Obama
Articulating business rewards and obstacles, GreenBeat 2009 commenced with impassioned rhetoric from John Doerr, a visionary multi-billion dollar investor. He focused on the role of private investment for driving innovation in the energy industry. "You can't count on additional government incentives when you invest; you have to create the environment," he advised the ambitious audience of entrepreneurs.
Mr. Doerr stressed that Washington was only one arena for advocating sustainable interests. By emphasizing job increases and competitive advantages to be derived from pricing carbon, he helped push Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and the California legislature to mandate a 20% cut of carbon emissions in California by 2020. He said that putting a price on carbon will move more investors into low-carbon industrial applications "faster and at a lower cost than any models predict". Mr. Doerr added with a smile, "Congress can't model innovation."
11/12/09
05:02:23 pm by Ross Mittiga, Categories: Foreign Policy, Human Rights, United States, Defense, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Al-Qaeda, Taliban One of the premier foreign policy issues that faces the United States today is the conflict in Afghanistan. Months after inheriting this eight year old war, President Barack Obama has yet to determine a strategy that either supplements or diverges from the directives of the previous administration, despite the evolving and deteriorating nature of the conflict.
Several points have made the formation and implementation of policy to this situation slow to develop. Among these are the troubles with the recent Afghan presidential elections, the resurgent violence of the Taliban and Al-Qaeda movements in different regions of Afghanistan, the consequent gap of opinion between the American public and American political and military advisors on how to stymie that resurgence, the re-examined national security value of the conflict to the United States (in light of emerging quandaries with Pakistan and Iran), and the desire of the Obama administration to distance itself from the image of hasty decision-making processes characteristic of Mr. Bush and his staff. Understanding these problems is the first step in articulating the most correct route to pursue in regard to Afghanistan.
Trilateral Meeting: (left to right) Presidents Hamid Karzai of Afghanistan, Barack Obama of the U.S., and Asif Ali Zardari of Pakistan confer on policy
The first issue mentioned above is certainly the most visible: the fraud-spattered elections in August 2009. The two major opponents in this election were incumbent-President Hamid Karzai and Dr. Abdullah Abdullah. The results, which produced a decisive victory for Karzai , were immediately disputed. After UN intervention, cautious US condemnation, and the promise of a run-off, Abdullah rescinded his election bid (with ominous rhetoric) on November 1, 2009, less than one week before the scheduled run-off election. This issue underscored two very serious problems with the legitimacy of the Afghan government: the first one, being causal, is the deep-seated corruption on various levels of the Afghani political structure; the second, being partially reactionary, is the budding distrust of the government by the Afghan public, a condition which invites a whole domain of other problems.
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