Sustainable Community Development

David Orr at the Oberlin College has launched a project that joins the many strands of sustainability into an integrated response; including urban revitalization, green development, advanced energy technology, sustainable agriculture and forestry, green jobs, and education.

New York Communities for Change is organizing to oppose one of the city’s biggest real estate developers, Related, which is reportedly in talks to help Walmart build its first of many stores in New York City.

The Smart CSO Lab was officially founded at a meeting that was held in Brussels last month.The mission of the Smart CSO Lab is to foster a growing learning network of CSO leaders, funders and researchers aiming to build effective CSO strategies for the Great Transition.

Environment

On June 16, 2011, the Senate voted 73-27 to end the Volumetric Ethanol Excise Tax Credit. This major victory against dirty corn ethanol had strong bipartisan support across the political spectrum.

Mike Brune, former ED of Rainforest Action Network, now heading the Sierra Club, announces a $50 million gift from Michael Bloomberg, Republican Mayor of New York, to fight coal.

Peter Kareiva, the chief scientist for The Nature Conservancy, talks about the Future of Environmentalism.

The Transitional Committee (TC) is the 40-member body tasked by the COP 16 in Cancun to design the new Green Climate Fund (GCF) for approval by the next COP in Durban at the end of November. This progress report makes it clear that the process is now moving from scoping and understanding issues to be addressed to presenting concrete options for negotiations and approval.

President Obama announced proposed clean car standards that by 2030 will cut annual gasoline use by as much as 23 billion gallons, reduce annual emissions of global warming pollution by as much as 280 million metric tons, and save Americans over $80 billion at the gas pump annually.

Democracy and Corporate Accountability

The Supreme Court struck down the use of triggers for increasing levels of public financing in Arizona elections but reaffirmed the constitutionality of public financing in the McComish v. Bennett case.

David Carr, the media editor at the New York Times covers the News Corp criminal cover up and the role of investigative journalism in a democratic society.

A panel of U.S. judges threw out a new Securities Exchange Commission rule giving investors more power to oust corporate directors, a victory for U.S. companies in the long-running battle over shareholder “proxy access.”

Community Voices Heard has been working with Josh Lerner, Co-Director of the Participatory Budgeting Project. This fall, NY will be launching a 6-month democratic process in which residents of four districts will directly decide how to spend about $6 million. This will be only the second PB process in the US, and the largest to date.

Macroeconomic Policy

In the recently announced European plan to restructure the Greek debt through a “selective” default, the trillion dollar question is what happens to all the default swaps riding on that debt? Two years after AIG’s securitized mortgage default swaps crashed the credit system, the markets are still threatened by poorly regulated derivative instruments.

Robert Reich is an economist, an author, a former Secretary of Labor and the current chair of Common Cause, but who knew he was an artist too? Check out the short video he made for Move On.

John Fullerton from the Capital Institute explains why commodity prices are rising in a “full world”- and why speculation alone is not to blame.

In the new film “What’s the Economy For Anyway?” produced by John de Graaf of AFFLUENZA fame, Ecological economist Dave Batker questions whether GDP is an adequate measure of society’s well-being and suggests workable alternatives.

Social Justice

Common Cause is asking the IRS to launch an immediate investigation into whether American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) should have its tax-exempt status revoked.

A new report by the Pew Research Center documents the large and growing wealth gaps between white, black and Hispanic Americans.

Why Banks Aren’t Lending author Ellen Brown explains how a little known Federal Reserve policy is limiting credit availability to small businesses.

New Economy Bonus Question: Can you guess who wrote the following?

“Economic activity cannot solve all social problems through the simple application of commercial logic. This needs to be directed towards the pursuit of the common good, for which the political community in particular must also take responsibility. Therefore, it must be borne in mind that grave imbalances are produced when economic action, conceived merely as an engine for wealth creation, is detached from political action, conceived as a means for pursuing justice through redistribution.” If you guessed Pope Benedict XVI’s you are right- click here from other radical economic quotes from his latest encyclicals (Thanks to David Kane, Maryknoll Office for Global Concerns)