Big agribusiness was shaken a little over the Obama administration’s proposed cuts to farm subsidies.

The plan was to end direct payments to farms with more than $500,000 in gross sales. The cuts would save over $9 billion over a decade, and therefore is part of the administration’s overall budget plan.

The potential problem with this cut is that the $500,000 in sales may not take into account the amount that farms may actually spend to grow their yields, nor how much they make in profits.

Nor does it consider how much the farm may have lost due to poor crops or weather conditions for the growing season. …read more of Farm Subsidy Cuts No Longer an Issue here

There is a lot of excitement about the prospect of new green jobs, and rightfully so. President Obama has made it a priority in his administration and even hired Van Jones as Green Job Advisor to help make it happen.

But under the radar and excitement, and in response to all of the excitement about green jobs, there is some negative chatter concerning the “myths” of these jobs.

Recently, a collaborative report was written by law and economics professors at the University of Illinois arguing that the proposal of green job creation has many myths attached to it.

The paper postulates that these jobs will not really help the economy, and that they’ll also cause great harm and detriment to our society and to the industry’s growth and potential.

So how can new jobs be bad for the economy?

Upon reading, you find the authors of this report are convinced that …read more of Green Jobs: Myth or Reality? here

Large social/political movements usually start out on the fringe of political discourse, slowing building momentum until their moment finally comes.

As 19th Century French writer Victor Hugo (author of Les Misérables and The Hunchback of Notre Dame) put it: “One withstands the invasion of armies; one does not withstand the invasion of ideas.” Often paraphrased today as: “Nothing is stronger than an idea whose time has come.”

Almost 50 years after Rachel Carson launched the modern environmental movement with the publication of her book “The Silent Spring,” we –as a society– are beginning to think seriously about what it means to be truly environmentally sustainable.

Organic food, renewable energy projects, hybrid/EV/ethanol fueled vehicles, and green buildings are sprouting up left and right. …read more of Eco-Cities: The Next Frontier here

In Obama’s recent address to Congress he called for the submissions of Cap and Trade policies for the United States of America. It looks as if by the end of 2009 the USA will be the last developed country to adopt a carbon trading scheme, but what will this scheme look like and what will be done with the money earned from the selling of permits?

In short, a Cap a Trade policy puts a cap on the amount of carbon industries and organizations are allowed to expel. These companies would buy pollution permits from the government, and can then buy and sell these permits amongst themselves, so that companies who can reduce more efficiently can sell excess permits to those who are unable to reduce in a financial feasible manner.

The government, as a result, will collect vast sums of new funds from the selling of these permits through the creation of a regulated carbon-polluting market.

There are a three different philosophies at the moment on what should be with this new revenue …read more of The Cap and Trade Conundrum here

The question that people are now asking themselves is whether this economic crisis just a downturn in the market or it’s shed light on some flaws in the model of economic growth which led us here?

It sounds a bit radical to suggest that there is something wrong with our economic model, un-American maybe. But it’s not.

As painful as the current economic situation is, this is the perfect time to take a look at our economy to see what we’ve been doing wrong and what we can do better.

Specifically, what aspects of our economic growth were/are unsustainable? How can we progress towards a model that provides sustainability—both economically and environmentally?

Let’s start with a recent history of how we got here. …read more of Sustainable Growth here