Sustainable Community Development

Julia DeGraw, in this video from Food and Water Watch, explains why Oregonians are opposed to selling their water to Nestles.

Solidarity New York has just released 7 short film portraits of NY Solidarity Economy Leaders, putting a human face on an abstract economic concept and fostering a sense of shared identity among solidarity economy practitioners.

Community Capital Management has released a new White Paper, “A Case for Sustainable Fixed Income Investments” which reviews market-rate fixed income securities that support an economic system that provides for a healthy quality of life. (Note, registration is necessary to download PDF)

Environment

Hundreds of people gathered in front of the White House to participate in civil disobedience to tell President Obama to reject the Keystone XL tar sands pipeline. More than 70 people were arrested, including NEN leader Gus Speth.

Hazel Henderson, the editor of Ethical Markets.com reviews a new book from Amory Lovins and the Rocky Mountain Institute, Reinventing Fire, which makes the business case for renewable energy.

President Obama’s decision to delay establishing critical new national ozone standards was protested by the Natural Resource Defense Council and other environmental, health and social justice groups as for being scientifically and legally indefensible.

John Feffer from Foreign Policy in Focus reviews the challenges of feeding a growing global population in an era of increased climate volatility in his article, Feeding the World.

Democracy and Corporate Accountability

Free Speech for People, Rainforest Action Network, and Appalachian Voices are initiating legal proceedings with Delaware Attorney General Beau Biden to revoke the Massey Energy’s corporate charter.

Meanwhile the role of big money in elections steadily grows. Chris Kromm reports on record spending patterns in the 2012 House elections in “Buying 2012” in Facing South.

Center for Media Justice reports on the Department of Justice’s decision to file an anti-trust lawsuit to block AT&T’s acquisition of T-Mobile. Among the DOJ’s top concerns: less competition, higher prices, reduced quality and fewer choices for the millions of Americans who rely on mobile wireless services.

Macroeconomic Policy

John Fullerton from the Capital Institute explains how a financial transaction tax would make asymmetric information based proprietary trading strategies unprofitable and why this would make markets fairer and less volatile.

Richard Heinberg’s new book, The End of Growth, proposes a startling diagnosis: humanity has reached a fundamental turning point in its economic history. The expansionary trajectory of industrial civilization is colliding with non-negotiable natural limits.

Charles Eisenstein, in his new book Sacred Economics, imagines an economy that embodies a new relationship to nature and community caused by a metamorphosis of our system of money and property.

Social Justice

The Real News reports on nurses holding actions across the country to demand a Wall Street transaction tax to address increasing poverty and public health problems.

Adbusters launched their Occupy Wall Street Campaign, modeled on the Egyptian occupation of Tahir Square, to build a movement to reclaim democracy from moneyed interests.

Institute Index – The Apartheid of Wealth

Percent by which the net worth of white U.S. households fell from 2005 to 2009: 16

Of black households: 53 Of Hispanic households: 66

Number of times by which the median wealth of white households now surpasses that of Hispanic households: 18 Of black households: 20

Amount of wealth held by the typical white household in 2009: $113,149

The typical Hispanic household: $6,325 The typical black household: $5,677

Percent of white, Hispanic and black households respectively that had zero or negative net worth in 2005: 11, 23, 29 In 2009: 15, 31, 35

Rank of plummeting home values among the principal causes of the recent erosion in household wealth among all three groups: 1

Percent by which the median level of home equity held by white homeowners fell between 2005 and 2009: 17.6 By Hispanic homeowners: 50.8

By black homeowners: 23.3

“Wealth Gaps Rise to Record Highs Between Whites, Blacks, Hispanics,”

by Rakesh Kochhar, Richard Fry and Paul Taylor,

Pew Research Center, July 26, 2011.