Inauguration 2017 Special Coverage w/ Angela Davis, Naomi Klein, Ralph Nader & More
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Special coverage in the Trump Era
From Public Citizen's Corporate Presidency site: "44 Trump administration officials have close ties to the Koch brothers and their network of political groups, particularly Vice President Mike Pence, White House Legislative Affairs Director Marc Short, EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt and White House budget director Mick Mulvaney."
Dark Money author Jane Mayer on The Dangers of President Pence, New Yorker, Oct. 23 issue on-line
Can Time Inc. Survive the Kochs? November 28, 2017 By Jane Mayer
..."This year, among the Kochs’ aims is to spend a projected four hundred million dollars in contributions from themselves and a small group of allied conservative donors they have assembled, to insure Republican victories in the 2018 midterm elections. Ordinarily, political reporters for Time magazine would chronicle this blatant attempt by the Kochs and their allies to buy political influence in the coming election cycle. Will they feel as free to do so now?"...
"Democracy in Chains: The Deep History of the Radical Right’s Stealth Plan for America" see: our site, and George Monbiot's essay on this key book by historian Nancy MacLean.
Full interview with The New Yorker’s Jane Mayer March 29, 2017, Democracy Now! about her article, "The Reclusive Hedge-Fund Tycoon Behind the Trump Presidency: How Robert Mercer Exploited America’s Populist Insurgency."
Democracy Now! Special Broadcast from the Women's March on Washington
The Economics of Happiness -- shorter version
Local Futures offers a free 19-minute abridged version of its award-winning documentary film The Economics of Happiness. It "brings us voices of hope of in a time of crisis." www.localfutures.org.
What's New?
October 15, 2010
A great loss, great accomplishments: German parliamentarian and solar advocate Hermann Scheer
The Friday, 17 October hour-long Democracy Now! show featured Amy Goodman's excellent interview with Hermann Scheer during the Sept. 2010 reunion of winners (they both are) of the Right Livelihood Awards (also known as the 'alternative Nobel Prize). Find a video, audio and transcript here of Hermann Scheer's important observations about the many aspects of the solar transition, its importance for democracy as well as the environment.
Read about his work on his homepage. An excerpt follows, source and for more click here:
"Dr Scheer’s work is dedicated to a broad shift in the energy basis of modern civilization: from fossil and nuclear resources to renewable energies. He has demonstrated both necessity and feasibility of this transition in his five books: The Stored Sun (1987), The Solar Age (1989), Solar Strategy (1993), The Solar Economy (1999) and Climate Change. From the Fossil to the Solar Culture (2002). In addition, Dr Scheer has also authored more than one thousand articles.
The Solar Strategy (1993) has been published in eight languages; the English version is entitled "A Solar Manifesto". The Solar Economy (1999) is distributed in eleven languages; the English publication is “Solar Economy”. These two volumes are acknowledged as the most widely read books on renewable energy worldwide, combining new technological, economical and cultural issued with policy recommendations, from the local to the global scale. They suggest that the transition to renewable forms of energy with the aid of modern technologies will lead to a “solar information society.” This shift creates the most important and promising structural change of civilisation since the beginning of the industrial age and leads to manifold benefits for societies: mitigating climate change, and overcoming national security issues, addressing the mounting water crisis, cleaning the cities, improving the health of the people, revitalizing the agricultural economy, creating new industrial jobs and fighting underdevelopment and deprivation in the developing world.
In 1988 Dr Scheer founded the non-profit European Renewable Energy Association EUROSOLAR, and in 2001 the non-profit World Council for Renewable Energy (WCRE), serving as President and. General Chairman, respectively, of the two non-governmental organizations on a honorary basis. Through these institutions Dr Scheer elaborated his original policy concepts for renewable energy disseminations, and initiated legal frameworks in Germany and the European Union. He has done so both in his capacity as a Member of Parliament, and by advising governments and parliamentarians in Europe, Africa, Asia and Latin America.
In these roles Hermann Scheer’s most successful policy innovations have been accomplished:
- the fully implemented 100.000 photovoltaic solar energy roof programme, the world’s first mass implementation program;
- the German Renewable Energy Act with 16.000 MW installed decentralized renewable energy capacity below 5 MW per installation (including 14.000 MW wind energy capacity, 40% of total world wind power installations); and
- full tax exemption for all biofuels, affording a lower price level for renewable fuels when compared to fossil fuels.
The revolutionary German National Renewable Energy Act (Erneuerbare-Energien-Gesetz, EEG) provides the major boost for the renewable energy technology industries sector, generating more than 150.000 new jobs and triggering annual renewable energy growth rates of 30 percent. Based on these exemplary results Brazil and China have recently adopted this policy as concept, adapting it to their own requirements." His official website, English version.
In 2002, at the time of the World Summit for Sustainable Development in Johannesburg, South Africa, Time Magazine named him and others, including Vandana Shiva, a Hero for the Green Century.
See also the EUROSOLAR website: Hermann Scheer's ideas live on