What is needed is a rational and concerted effort to broker a peace deal which maximizes justice, and which creates new realities on the ground that will help to sustain the peace once it is in place. And so, if you get a call, in the middle of the night, from President Obama, informing you that you have just been appointed U.S. Middle East Envoy; what would you do to bring peace to the Middle East? Here are a few suggestions. Perhaps you have something to add.

Gaza: Negotiate a ceasefire, and then a truce, between Israel and Hamas, on the basis of an Israeli pullout, accompanied by a cessation of missile and mortal fire by Hamas, to be monitored by U.N. observers. Suggest to Hamas to give up their military ambitions in exchange for: an easing of border restrictions, a lifting of an economic blockade, and an opportunity to partner with Fattah to provide a democratic government for the Palestinian people. If Hamas agrees, launch an international investment program for Gaza, with the purpose of: creating jobs, building infrastructure, growing the economy, and weakening the hold of extremist thinking. Along with the hope that comes from economic growth, launch a series of programs to sustain the hope: a more balanced and modern approach to education, a student exchange, a cultural exchange, an empowerment of women, an expanded Peace Corps presence, a media campaign, international conferences, etc.

West Bank: Continue to train Palestinian soldiers, so as to enable the duly elected government to defend itself from outside threats, including the threats posed by Hamas and other extremist factions. Encourage Fattah to reach a workable agreement with Hamas so that the two could work together to negotiate a comprehensive peace deal with Israel for the creation of a Palestinian state, along the lines of the understandings that have been reached between President Abbas and Foreign Minister Livny, and reminiscent of the deal offered by President Clinton and Prime Minister Ehud Barack to President Arafat in the year 2000. Continue to develop the four industrial zones in the West Bank, and launch an international effort to invest in good paying jobs, jobs which grow the economy, jobs which protect the environment, and jobs which help to neutralize extremist thinking. Work to inspire Palestinians with a Vision of Hope, and support that economic effort with Public Diplomacy Programs which are specifically designed to prop the vision up and to carry it forward. Use an Ideology of Common Sense to speak to Palestinians with common sense and with a sense of personal dignity.

Israel: Encourage Israel to embrace and enhance the possibility of peace, and to take positive action in that regard by: negotiating a truce with Hamas, allowing Hamas to partner with Fattah for the sake of democratic rule, helping Hamas to build infrastructure and to grow Gaza’s economy, and helping Fattah to do the same in the West Bank. Encourage Israel to negotiate a final status agreement, one that protects Israel’s security, but one that also allows Palestinians to achieve at least most of their political aspirations. To the extent possible, convince Israel to become actively involved in orchestrating the economic growth of the new fledgling state so that the ordinary Palestinian citizen is finally given a place at the table, a stake in his or her future.

Syria: Encourage Syria to negotiate peace with Israel on the basis of an Israeli pullout from the Golan Heights, along with a U.N. monitored military free zone in that area. Structure a series of economic and diplomatic incentives to lure Syria away from Iranian control, and to cause Syria to stop its support of terrorist organizations, and to stop interfering with internal Lebanese affairs.

Lebanon: Continue to bolster Lebanon’s democratically elected government. Try to steer Hezbollah away from military confrontation, in favor of a political role as part of a duly elected government. Use a Vision of Hope to empower the Lebanese people to embrace the possibility of peace among themselves, and with Israel.

Egypt: Encourage the international community to continue to invest to grow Egypt’s economy and to create good paying jobs. Support Egypt’s efforts to mediate regional disputes. Empower the man on the street with the notion that his life could get better, and use that hope to weaken the hold of extremist thinking. Push for warmer relations between Israel and Egypt on the basis of peace in Palestine, and on Israel’s efforts to help orchestrate an economic revitalization of the Middle East with her technological know-how and her economic drive.

Saudi Arabia: Give Saudi Arabia credit for proposing a comprehensive peace deal with Israel. Encourage Saudi Arabia to continue mustering Arab support in this regard. Encourage Saudi Arabia, in light of lower oil prices, and worldwide green demand, to diversify its investment portfolio by investing in green technology in Palestine, and throughout the Middle East. Use oil profits to create green profits, and use these profits to create even more good paying green jobs, jobs which will grow the economies, jobs which will protect the environment, and jobs which will weaken the strangle hold of extremist thinking. Use a growing economy, and the prospects for Middle East peace, to shift the thinking on the street from an extremist ideology to an ideology of common sense. Use the momentum of change to gear the educational system to a more modern and balanced approach, and to gear religious practice to be more in keeping with the more peaceful aspects of Islam.

Iran: Try to convince Iran that its nuclear ambitions are not in keeping with Iran’s best interests long term. Make the point that a nuclear Iran will be in the crosshairs of many a potent foe, and that the least bit of miscalculation could spell a doomsday scenario. Use diplomacy and economic incentives to convince Iran to give up its nuclear aspirations. As such, Iran could begin to play a vital role in pushing a comprehensive peace process forward, based on mutually shared economic and political interests. Iran could also cooperate by having Hezbollah and Hamas play political, as opposed to military roles. Iran would also be able to quell dissatisfaction from within by delivering to its people the promise of a better day.

With this much on your plate, you may think twice about taking the job. But don’t you agree that a chess game of this sort is what is called for, given current realities on the ground? Don’t we have to table at least some of the emotions and passions, for there to be even the slightest chance for peace? And do we have any choice but to try, even against all odds?

For more information, please visit our website www.sellingavisionofhope.org

Perhaps “who believes that global warming is man-made” is a better way of putting it.

Anyway: the man hotly tipped to be named the new American energy secretary, Steven Chu, is a breath of fresh air. Quite literally, given his views on greenhouse gases.

Here’s Chu in action. As it were (I’m sure other ‘in action’ footage could include him being boffin-like, in a white coat in a laboratory somewhere). This is long, but fascinating (well, the part I’ve watched so far ):

(Source: Oliver Willis via Bob Cesca)

The JDD website, a paper close to the government, notes:

Des affiches représentant un portrait de Nicolas Sarkozy au-dessus de la mention “Yes, we can!”, slogan de campagne du président américain élu Barack Obama, fleurissent depuis quelques jours dans Paris. Un portrait peint dans les tons bleu-blanc-rouge du président français est représenté sur chaque affiche et les mots “Yes, we can!” sont écrits en réponse à différentes questions telles que “Une énergie propre et durable en Europe?“, “Faire économiser 1000 euro/an à chaque ménage?” ou “Créer trois millions d'emplois non délocalisables en Europe?“. Des porte-parole au siège de l'UMP et à la Fédération de l'UMP de Paris ont affirmé ne pas être à l'origine de cet affichage sauvage.

As the infamous posters crossed the Atlantic three days later, via a contributor to Andrew Sullivan's Daily Dish on The Atlantic, naming Sarkozy “nothing if shameless,” the buzz started growing in some media and on the French blogosphere. 

Some cool stuffs, a blog about graphic arts, and more, follows up on the story, saying he was outraged.

Assuming Sarkozy and/or the UMP are behind the posters, the blogger words a scathing attack against this takeover of  Obey aka Shepard Fairey's notorious creation for Barack Obama's presidential campaign, denouncing…

un leader politique, cynique au point de détourner à son profit une image qui disait fondamentalement le contraire de ce qu'elle dit aujourd'hui, maintenant que sa tronche remplace celle d'Obama […]

 Electrostories showed  pictures of the poster displays, stressing the eco-friendly inspiration of their proposals, recalled the original poster with its word Hope and 150 hilarious posters it generated with various characters and slogans, and noted:

Un happening plutôt original dans la démarche !

The websites of a few mainstream media joined in. Weekly L'Express pondered business and law issues, but doubted that a big environment company would want to launch an illegal flyposting, and recalled that using the president's image without his permission can be very costly, adding:

Cela ressemble en tous cas à une belle opération de buzz.    

Updating late on Monday night, the magazine expressed its feeling of having been manipulated:

Surtout, en vous demandant de nous aider à le résoudre, nous savions vaguement que tout cela ne devait, au mieux, n'être pas sérieux, au pire, entrer dans un subtil plan marketing.

Marianne2 wondered whether it is a business buzz for green economy and stresses: 

Les quartiers où l'affiche a été placardée n'ont pas été choisis au hasard  […] Tous à gauche, tous “obamaniacs”. […] Le service de communication de l'ONG Greenpeace, occupée à une autre campagne, dément également être à l'origine de cette opération.                               

With hours passing, the action prompted comments ranging from thorough analysis to mere sarcasm. André Gunthert, from EHESS, an upscale research institution, writes under the title: Sarkobama, a meaningless picture ?  an in-depth analysis  from a “visual history” point of view.

His conclusion :

Quel que soit son véritable objectif, tout se passe comme si sa lecture était contaminée par le second degré. Cette oscillation tient probablement à la nature de son message explicite - la peinture de Sarkozy en Obama - qui ne peut passer que pour sa propre caricature.                               

Satirical bloggers, such as sarkostique, also chose the tongue-in-cheek explanation:

[…] Il a l'air tellement ridicule ainsi.  […] En tous cas, y avait mieux à faire comme slogan.[…]                              

Is the incident political after all, as some latest developments could suggest? On Tuesday afternoon, on Twitter, the mystery seemed almost unveiled. After more photos posted on Flickr ”galerie de photos de Sarkobama“,  and even a video of shadows sticking up the posters, 

a sarkobama blog appeared, writing:

Tout d'abord, nous devons vous avouer que nous sommes assez surpris du buzz que nous avons créé bien malgré nous. Le but initial de nos affichages était de montrer aux parisiens les similitudes frappantes qu'il existe entre Barack Obama et Nicolas Sarkozy.  […]    La sarkobama team                       

A turn of events?  unique et commun was not convinced:

Non, franchement, comparer Nicolas Sarkozy, héritier illustre du Bushisme à la française, à Barack Obama, symbole d'un espoir d'un retour vers plus de justice sociale, plus de respect de la démocratie et des libertés politiques, comment ne pas créer le buzz?    

Rue.89 underlined the parallel drawn by the “Sarkobama team” between a “Black (or mixed race according to some)” and “a dwarf of Hungarian extraction.” Would things turn politically ugly?

On wednesday morning, after a gallant last stand with accusations of usurpation and hacking between the “real” and “fake” Sarkobamas, the plot was finally revealed by L'Express itself:  

L'association écologique [Greenpeace] a révélé ce matin qu'elle était à l'origine de l'affichage sauvage, dans Paris, […]. Objectif: pousser les chefs d'Etat européens à retoquer le plan Climat/Energie.

Ecologist NGO Greenpeace gave away this morning being at the origin of the flyposting in Paris,  […]. The aim: To urge European heads of state to review the Climate/Energy Plan. (at the European summit of Dec. 11-12.) 

 

 

Bloggers take their hats off to Greenpeace's operation :

Politiciens, pour une fois, montrez la même énergie et intelligence que Greenpeace  dans cette campagne!  

Perhaps Mr. Obama didn’t heard about the whales trapped in the fast-moving arctic ice north of Baffin Island.  Meanwhile the siege in Mumbai continues with over 100 now known to have been killed.  Is the debate over global warming really that important?

Regarding Mumbai, CNN had Deepak Chopra on the air yesterday and while I’m loathe to put much stock in the Love Guru’s arch-rival, he did raise important, oft-asked and oft-ignored questions [emphasis mine]:

…who is financing this? Where is the money coming from? We have to ask very serious, honest questions. What role do we have in this? Are our petrodollars funding both sides of this war on terrorism? Why are we not asking the Saudis where that money is going that we give them? Is it going through this supply chain to Pakistan?

It’s pretty obvious that the answer is yes.  It has to be, even if only through the trickle-down effect of the Saudis’ oil money distributions.

That’s where the national priority ought to be, squarely on developing domestic energy sources.  Doing so would have the beneficial effects of deflating the artificial importance that oil-producing countries have in the world while ensuring a stable energy market at home on which business decisions can be made.

With respect to Michael’s opinion that oil-producing countries deserve special consideration vis-a-vis the economic shock that a move away from petroleum might create, I don’t think that’s true.  It would do the much-beset-upon youth of Saudi Arabia, et al, good to lose their cash cow so that they must learn to compete in a world in which the value of their ideas earns them their livelihoods rather than geological happenstance.  In the end, it’s up to oil-producing countries to pursue a political and economic course that maximizes and safeguards their long-term position, not their consumers. 

That same long-term perspective must be applied to the problem of man-made C02 emissions.  President-elect Obama should realize that, given that the U.S.’s natural resources point to coal and nuclear, it may be the case that the country’s pollution problems - and investment in nuclear energy - actually need to increase over the next few decades while research into efficient, sustainable clean energy sources continues.

©2008 PoliGazette. All Rights Reserved.

I would first call attention to the rhetorical trick Joyner is playing here. He insists that conservatives (and everyone else, for that matter) must accept the premise of his issues as assumed or else stand convicted of being intellectually bankrupt. Apparently, arguing that global warming is exaggerated (and there is growing evidence of exaggeration and even outright fabrication by global warming activists) or that perfect income equality is not economically or socially desirable is just out-of-bounds. In a sense, Joyner’s argument reduces to the trivial truism that conservatives are failing to proactively make intrinsically liberal arguments. Well, duh.

Second, I would note that conservatives are not totally silent on the broader issues within which global warming and income inequality are embedded as liberal foci. Contrary to breezy and self-righteous liberal stereotypes about conservatives, conservatives are not in fact reflexively hostile to the environment. While they resist government and international mandates as ineffective and even counter-productive, conservatives often promote private conservation and stewardship as moral issues and encourage market-based mechanisms for additional environmental protections, such as purchasing Brazilian rain forest tracts to protect these essential carbon sinks and biodiversity reservoirs from slash-and-burn agricultural use. If — IF — global warming advocates would stop exaggerating their “consensus” and holding witch-hunts against skeptics long to actually do the work of building a persuasive (rather than coercive) case that global warming was both real and man-made, many if not most conservatives would probably be willing to explore ways to create market incentives for reducing CO2 outputs and speeding transitions to cleaner energy forms. Because Al Gore’s disingenuous demagoguery on the issue has made many conservatives leery of the potential for government action on global warming to take away with one hand while giving corrupt handouts to certain friends of the activists themselves (e.g. the companies who claim, often deceptively, to counteract a “carbon footprint” by using contributions to plant trees), advocates of government-based global action still have a lot of persuading to do, but conservatives hardly bear sole blame for their credibility deficit.

A similar problem holds with regards to income inequality. Aside from their highly questionable premise that income equality is either economically efficient or socially desirable, liberals who hold conservatives responsible for inaction in this area presume too much moral and intellectual authority on their own side. Leftist philosopher Peter Singer wrote over 30 years ago arguing for a moral obligation to spend oneself into near poverty in order to alleviate others’ suffering, but many of the liberals who want to use the government to force others to give seem to be living quite well themselves. In fact, when it comes to actually taking personal action instead of just advocating for government action, studies have shown that conservatives are more giving than liberals, even controlling for income levels. Joyner seems to be just trying to conservatives responsible for not joining liberals’ hypocrisy on helping the poor.

Even in regards to government policy towards the poor, Joyner gives short shrift to conservative thinking on the issue. He characterizes conservative responses as being limited to “education”, but that is just not true. Conservatives argue that private-sector employment is a better solution to low income than dependency on government handouts or government make-work jobs. And the proven conservative method for creating such jobs is to reduce whenever possible the tax load that the government places on those who do the investing and the hiring. The fact that Joyner or other liberals don’t like this solution for emotional reasons (it is often characterized deceptively as a “handout to the rich”) doesn’t mean conservatives are avoiding the issue. If anyone is avoiding substantive discussion in favor of easy pejorative labels and changes of subject, it is liberals, not conservatives.

Now, is there room for conservatives to refresh and improve their commitment to serious policy ideas? Of course there is. The fixation among many conservatives for social issues like abortion, religious purity, and cultural objections to immigration is poorly suited to the critically important economic issues that confront the country today. Conservatives need to step back from their sweeping electoral defeats and their Pyrrhic gay marriage victories and reassess which issues are important and, more to the point, amenable to practical action.

But Joyner’s attempt to skew the ground for that debate by smuggling in assumed conclusions and misrepresenting conservative contributions is, quite frankly, just self-serving and petty.

©2008 PoliGazette. All Rights Reserved.

GrodsCorp do not tolerate fools gladly, especially conservative ones. You could even say they’re unforgiving. They certainly don't forget. They’ve put together a collection of bloggers who called it for McCain, with their way-out predictions laid bare:

The US election came and went, and now it’s time to laugh ourselves stupid at those who predicted an overwhelming win for McCain.
Owned. Every last one.
Goodness! There’s skullduggery afoot!

These dismal failures haven’t stopped the political soothsayers who fancy themselves as futurologists. John Passant of En Passant is a self-styled socialist who is “a liberationist - I believe in Marx’s idea of the self-emancipation of the working class.” His take on the election is couched in terms of old-fashioned class warfare:

I put Barack Obama’s victory down to one thing - class. Working people are scared. Scared for their jobs. Scared for their families. Scared for the future.

US workers have had 16 years of rule for the rich from Clinton and Bush. They’ve had eight years of foreign adventures which are or will be defeats.

The wages of low and middle income earners have not increased in real terms over the past 8 years. The minimum wage has fallen. The reward for all this sacrifice - bailouts for the fat cats on Wall Street and more sacrifices for workers on Main Street.

…Obama will not be able to deliver substantive change because to do so would require a challenge to the very structures of US capitalism.
All change at Obama station?

Homepage Daily brings us a video of a panel discussion - Obama: What Can We Expect?

Australian Broadcasting Corporation journalist Leigh Sales recently chaired a panel at the University of Sydney’s United States Studies Centre: David Brady (Stanford University), Michael Parks (former editor of the Los Angeles Times) and Geoffrey Garrett (US Studies Centre).

From Michael Parks:

Nothing is going to happen in international relations and foreign policy, nothing is going to happen well, without getting the economy right.

From David Bradbury:

Of course he’s going to fail on foreign policy… European and Australian expectations are way too high.

From Geoffrey Garrett:

There is something to be said for the amount of political capital that Obama comes in with… Extraordinary times sometimes generate extraordinary leadership… I wouldn’t rule success out but it would be naïve to underestimate the magnitude of the challenges he is going to inherit.

Parts 1 and 2 of this program are available through Slow TV on The Online Monthly

Exempting Industrial-size animal farms from the Clean Water Act and air pollution controls.

Exempting the interior department from consulting wildlife managers about the impact of mining and logging before it approves such developments.

Easing restrictions so power plants can operate near national parks and wilderness areas.

Downgrading pollution controls on new power plants.

Not regulating the dumping of waste into rivers and streams by mountain-top mine operators.

Opening 2m acres of land in Utah, Wyoming and Colorado to the development of oil shales, the dirtiest fuel on Earth.

If that wasn’t enough, expect announcements of further rule changes in the next few days which include one that would weaken regulation of perchlorate (a toxin in rocket fuel that can affect brain development in children) in drinking water.

The office of management and budget website shows 83 rules reviewed from September 1 to October 31 this year - about double its workload in 2007, 2006 and 2005. In addition to forcing things out, the Bush administration is trying its best act slowly on court-ordered actions on the environment.

The Guardian reports on the campaign which got under way in May when the White House chief of staff, Joshua Bolten, wrote to government agencies asking them to forward proposals for rule changes. Bolten had initially set a November 1 deadline on rule-making. The White House denies that the flurry of rule changes is politically motivated.

President-elect Barack Obama spoke via video conference (earning green kudos for low carbon communication) to attendees at the Bi-partisan Governors Global Climate Summit in Los Angeles two days ago and his address was a clear message that with him at the helm the US will be seriously committed to addressing climate change. He made some of the same statements he's been issuing on the election trail, and post election that we blogged about here. But this 4 min clip is really worth checking out to gauge his committment. This guy sounds serious about doing things!

Obama said that although he would not be making the trip to Poland in December for the next round of UN Climate Change talks, he would be following the outcome:

“Let me also say a special word to the delegates from around the world who will gather in Poland next month: your work is vital to the planet. While I won’t be President at the time of your meeting and while the United States has only one President at a time, I’ve asked Members of Congress who are attending the conference as observers to report back to me on what they learn there.”

It will be interesting to see how the talks play out in his abscence and whether the Bush administration will acceed defeat or still try to remain obstructionist. They won't find any more support from Canada or Japan this time around, surely?

Also interesting was his mention of nuclear power and intimating that nuclear safety would have to be addressed: “We'll tap nuclear power by making sure it's safe.”

The official Obama Energy Plan says: “However, before an expansion of nuclear power is considered, key issues must be addressed including: security of nuclear fuel and waste, waste storage, and proliferation.”

As one commentor said - if addressed means solved, then expansion is out of the question any time soon!

The Navy has conducted training exercises off the Southern California coast for more than 40 years. It argues that its current training exercises have taken on added significance since the United States has been engaged in ongoing hostilities.

Concluding a pact could placate Washington by agreeing on tougher emissions standards while recognizing the importance of the tar sands, located in the western province of Alberta. Extracting oil from the sands produces huge amounts of greenhouse gases.

Canada is the largest single supplier of energy to the United States, accounting for around 9 percent of US oil consumption and 15 percent of US natural gas consumption.

The two nations have worked together before on green issues, most notably in 1991, when they signed a landmark agreement to cut acid rain.

“We do want to explore the possibility of a Canada/US agreement similar to what we did on acid rain in the early 1990s,” said a spokesman for Environment Minister Jim Prentice. He would not give further details.

Obama’s targets for emissions cuts are much tougher than those set by Canada’s Conservatives, who — like Bush — walked away from the Kyoto Protocol on climate change.

The energy industry in Canada is immensely influential and Prime Minister Stephen Harper, who comes from oil-rich Alberta, has long stressed that any measures designed to clean up the environment should not overly harm the oil patch.

He said on Thursday that he believed the incoming Obama administration would adopt tougher green policies “but will do so in a way that balances the environmental concerns with economic and energy concerns”.

Harry Clarke’s ‘commentary on economics, politics & other things’ discovered an Obama policy that is already under challenge. He seemed attracted to the idea of community service though his source didn’t:

Gregory Mankiw points out that Barack Obama supports the conscription of youth into community service. I wonder how many aged lefties will now dump on Obama on the basis of past Vietnam Moratorium ideals. Well of course its not this aged lot who now face the prospect of being conscripted so that a certain amount of soundly-justified hypocrisy is plausible.

Maybe spending the last week in China has dented my democratic ideals but I think the Obama suggestion makes a lot of sense.
Obama supports conscription

Nicholas Gruen, CEO of Lateral Economics  who posts at Club Troppo focused on the one big thing which Obama has done since Tuesday:

Paul Krugman was always critical of Obama for not being more partisan. We’ll see what happens. In my ignorance I’m expecting Obama to be like Clinton - a pro when it comes to policy who hires the best advice he can get unlike Republicans who haven’t done that since - well perhaps someone can remind me. But I don’t expect him to be particularly bold. But who knows. The thing that always struck me as ridiculous about Krugman’s critique is that being all post-partisan was a good way to build a coalatition and get into power. You find out how people are going to govern after they get into power - or hasn’t Krugman noticed. FDR was elected on a platform of balancing the budget.

And now we get to see how Obama governs. And his first decision is to go for a hard man as a chief of staff - Obama plays the good cop and everyone is telling us that Rahm Emanuel gets to play the bad cop. I’ll be interested to see if Krugman has anything to say on this - I’ve not seen it yet. But it’s a first sign that Obama is under no illusions about how lovely the Republicans will be towards him.
Rahm Emanuel - the enforcer

Another economist, John Quiggin, whose blog presents itself as a ‘Commentary on Australian & world events from a social-democratic perspective’ looked forward to:

a revival of the progressive politics of the New Deal, in retreat ever since the 1970s. If Obama can combine an economic recovery with a new commitment to social equity, his election victory could prove more significant than any since that of Roosevelt in 1932.

He mentioned several policy areas, one of which is global warming:

… looming over all of this is climate change. Obama has promised a cap-and-trade scheme, and a return to world leadership at Copenhagen. But, as in Australia, there will be powerful voices calling for a continuation of the Bush policy of delay and denial, and putting the financial crisis forward as a pretext. Neither the world nor the position of the US as a world leader can afford this.
A tough road ahead

I feel a ‘three economists in a boat’ joke coming on. So let’s give Tigtog at Hoyden About Town the punch line. She speculated about what Obama’s priorities should be:

Just like a gazillion others, I’ve been thinking about what Obama could/should do, in his first 100 days in office, that would be small in terms of the effort required (falling within executive powers entirely, no Congressional courting/approval required) but that would make an immediate, huge, difference to many people.

I ended up deciding that there were so many things that needed fixing, that I would be better off focussing on what I would be horrendously disappointed to find that he was not going to do. So here’s my One Thing that I will be broken-hearted if he does not do it:

1. negate the Global Gag Rule (aka Mexico City Policy)

Our continuing research shows the gag rule is eroding family planning and reproductive health services in developing countries. There is no evidence that it has reduced the incidence of abortion globally. On the contrary, it impedes the very services that help women avoid unwanted pregnancy from the start.

What's your One Thing?

Just one thing

According to the blog, a hoyden (hoid’n) is a woman of saucy, boisterous or carefree behavior. A match for 3 economists anyday.

On the DotEarth blog, Andrew Revkin muses on the significance of Obama's election, writing…

President-elect Barack Obama on Jan. 20 will become the most important leader of a species that has exploded in just six generations from a total population of 1 billion (around 1830) to a point today when teenagers alone number 1 billion, a species that is on a path toward more or less 9 billion people by mid-century. In numbers, think roughly of adding two Chinas on top of the one that exists today. Expectations that he will exert planet-scale leadership are high, as indicated in this letter from Nelson Mandela to the next president.

He is compiling a list of 10 best proposals to send to Obama's transition team. The proposals will be ranked by readers of his blog.

On the China Dialogue blog, reprints a 2007 Obama speech, reflecting on what Obama's presidency would mean for the environment.

What will a Barack Obama presidency mean for the global environment?

In a policy address delivered in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, in October 2007 – shortly after George W Bush hosted a Washington conference on energy security and climate change — Obama set out his plan. It included a strong focus on energy efficiency and the use of a “cap-and-trade” system. Obama also emphasised his commitment to investing in clean technology, saying that new technology from the United States can help countries like China to fight climate change.

“[W]e will share our technology and our innovations with all the nations of the world,” Obama said. “If we can build a clean coal plant in America, China should be able to as well.”

La Marguerite suggests channeling the magic of community organizing seen in the Obama campaign into tackling climate change.

Sarah Palin should not have mocked Barack Obama for being a community organizer. If anything, tonight’s results proved her wrong. Our new President has given new meaning, and strength to the concept of community organizing. And he has shown us what citizens can do, when given the means to organize towards a cause, that’s greater than themselves.

Tonight I am thinking of the thousands of Obama offices, volunteer networks, and fundraising organizations, along with the sophisticated Internet machine, and the organizing methodology, that went into getting Barack Obama elected. As the signs are coming down, the thank you emails go out, and the temporary offices go back to their original owners, I wonder, is that it? Will we go back to business as usual, each in our homes, going about our private lives?

Or will we use the skills learned during the Obama campaign to mount a national community effort, this time to address the threat of climate change? The last time I checked, we had less than ten years to get our act together. Citizens have a crucial role to play on the conservation end. As someone who has tried for the last year and a half, to curtail my consumerist and energy appetites, I can testify on the difficulty of accomplishing such changes at the individual level. Instead, we need to summon the power of community to help each other.

Omar Basawad of the Safari Notes blog says ‘Congratulations America!'

“If there is anyone out there who still doubts that America is a place where all things are possible, who still wonders if the dream of our founders is alive in our time, who still questions the power of our democracy, tonight is your answer.” So, said the next President of the US.

I, we, have no doubt any more about that. And I do, for the first time truly envy Americans for how you can rise and at what you can do. And how lucky and blessed you are, to have such a democratic system and such ideals! Truly, you are a great people. And that is the reason you will continue leading the World militarily, economically and technologically; and you have just proven too, that you are above the rest of the World, morally. And now you have sent such a great statement across the globe, which will cause ripples and shock waves for a long time to come.

Very hopefully, the ripples and shock waves - will be so powerful so as to bring too, the same kind of change that will, one day, allow our children too - to have such a kind of democracy working in our parts of the World; a democracy that is truly: true, enlightened and ideal.

Tracy Stokes in South Africa had tears of joy on hearing the news that Barack Obama is the next president of USA. She wrote…

I sprang out of bed this morning (very out of character for me) and rushed to the living room, grabbed the remote and had that TV on before you could say “election results”. Obama is the new president of the United States, Bush is on the way out. So here I am, miles and miles away from where it’s all happening, at the southern tip of Africa, a South African of European descent, and it moved me to tears. Why? Because from next January, the most powerful man in the world will no longer be a warmonger, bigot, and dare I say it, village idiot, but an intelligent, compassionate man who has brought to Americans the opportunity to join the rest of the world in working towards peace, upholding of human rights, and fighting climate change. So congratulations to the American people in choosing the right man for the job.

On the 350.org blog, Phil considers the signifance of Obama's win particularly regarding climate change.

It's up to us to make sure Senator Obama follows through with the vision of a world we desperately want that is now a little bit more within reach. Sending him to Poland is a needed first step towards rebuilding the world economy and solving climate change, tasks which will no doubt take years, if not decades, to accomplish.
At this historic turning point, it's up to us to shed the yoke of history and move forward by joining with our new leaders and pushing for a bold new solution to these dual crises. The world is counting on us.

On the GreenPeace Making Waves blog, amid thanks, a reminder of the promises Barack Obama made regarding the environment is stated.

Thank you, Barack Obama, for giving all of us new hope for a changed America.
We're non-partisan here at Greenpeace. We don't have any permanent allies or enemies. We support policies, not politicians. We endorse deeds, not words. So even while a lot of us (in our personal capacity as human beings and not Greenpeace employees) are jumping up and down this morning with glee, we want to take a moment to remind you of the promises you made in your election campaign.

It's delivering on these promises, or bettering them, that will be the true mark of your leadership. …

On ‘Its Getting Hot in Here' blog, Teryn Norris writes of reinventing America.

Few moments in history feel this monumental. It’s the feeling of renewed hope and immense possibility.
Barack Obama has once again tapped America’s power of invention. It’s the same power that led us to invent the first modern democracy. To invent the systems and technologies that continue to drive human progress. To constantly reinvent ourselves in the face of insurmountable hardship and division.
Invention is our greatest power — the very heart of the American spirit. It’s what can renew our promise once again and make this century the next American century.

Teryn concludes the post with:

Obama has rekindled the American spirit. Now he must lead this nation to fully reinvent itself and the world — to lead us in what will be the greatest American project.

Let’s get started.

From South Africa, The Urban sprout blog offers kudos to the the American public for electing Barack Obama.

…how often do we ask ourselves what difference the leaders of New Zealand, Denmark, Germany or Iceland, for instance, will make to us all? But you have to give credit where credit is due and kudos to the American public for electing Barack Obama!

But what can we expect from Obama’s environmental direction, and can he be held accountable to his campaign promises?

We end this post with a quote from the Urban sprout blog.

Obama’s administration has 4 years to turn these visionary promises into something tangible, and that's the real challenge - but right now, there's plenty to be optimistic about.

-It is the end of a dark circle
- It won't be easy to forget
-What will happen to Bush?
- What Bush?

Republishing the cartoon above from a local Portuguese newspaper, Diário de Notícias, Frosado is hopeful that Obama will indeed bring changes:

Como se diz aqui, Bush já não “existe”. Quanto ao futuro, só podemos esperar. Oxalá Obama consiga capitalizar o entusiasmo que conseguiu agregar à sua volta, entre os jovens e pelo mundo inteiro, para a paz e a prosperidade, tão necessárias ao mundo actual. Pessoalmente eu tenho esperança, sem grandes triunfalismos, claro.

As they have said here, Bush no longer “exists.” As for the future, we can only hope. If only Obama manages to capitalize the enthusiasm he kept around him, among young people, around the world, for peace and prosperity, so necessary in the current world. I hope so personally, with no great triumphalism though.

On the other hand, tunku from Malaysia is not very hopeful:

there is so much hope on obama that he will bring changes but knowing the zionist behind the white house administration, it won't happen.the changes will be just good for them not for the rest of the world.now we will see the real obama.

Marcos Tchôla says Obama will represent the interests of any imperialist president, regardless of whether the color of his skin is “white, brown, pink or orange.”

When it comes to Brazil, the blogger is actually worried:

Em meio a campanha e a todas as besteiras que os candidatos prometem e inventam li uma opinião do novo presidente que me deixou preocupado. Ele acredita que a Amazônia - o pulmão do mundo- é área internacional e que o Brasil não tem condições de cuidar de seus interesses sozinho. Com isso ele já antecipa de forma sutil, mas real, o desejo de fincar pé - através de uma base militar na região- para proteger que acha ser dele também. Há algum tempo atrás cicurlava na internet um e-mail que mostrava que nos livros americanos a área da floresta não aparecia pertecente ao Brasil. Esse fato foi no governo Bush!

During the campaign and among all the nonsense that candidates promise and come up with, I read a viewpoint of the new president that got me worried. He believes that the Amazon - the lungs of the world - is an international area and that Brazil is unable to care for it on its own. With this, he anticipates a subtle but real desire to set his foot in, through a military base in the region, to protect the area he believes belongs to him too. Some time ago there was an email making the rounds on the Internet showing that in American books, the forest did not belong to Brazil. This was during the Bush administration!

Green activist and writer and economist from the UK, Derek Wall asks whether things will get better under an Obama presidency.

Well now he has won my fear is that he will disappoint ‘hope', I remember an inspiring young politician who over turned right wing rule and promised that ‘things can only get better', he never convinced me but if there had been a blog o sphere the bloggers would have worshipped him. Obama is no Tony Blair, however my fear is that he will have neither the intention nor the power to break with neo-liberalism, sadly the American dream which is pretty much every one else nightmare will continue…I hope I am wrong!

From Thailand, Jing Reed says that the U.S. and the entire world have at least one reason to celebrate this victory - it is the end of the Bush Era:

Tonight's victory proclaims the end of the dark years of the Bush regression. Obama's victory speech was inspiring and eloquent, as befitting a President of the U.S.

Carlos Serra, from Mozambique, had predicted Obama's victory and now predicts changes:

os fatalistas estruturais dirão que nada irá mudar na história americana, que Obama será, apenas, mais um presidente ao serviço do Capital e do predadorismo militar. Os optimistas estruturais dirão que muita coisa irá mudar, que Obama irá introduzir uma página substancial de Estado social no livro do neo-liberalismo e reduzir o predadorismo. Mas escutem: nunca a história avança com as grandes coisas, mas com as pequenas. A história muda quando, no sovaco da vida, germinou uma diferença, pequena que seja. E Obama é essa diferença, a sua eleição foi e é essa diferença. Ele vai ser uma diagonal entre as duas teses. Pouco a pouco, contra racistas e racializantes. Com África inteira dentro dele, cumprindo seu destino queniano. N'Kosi sikeleli Africa!

The structural fatalistic people will say that nothing will change in American history, that Obama is, simply, another chairman to serve the capital and military predators. The structural optimists will say that many things will change, that Obama will introduce a substantial page of the welfare state in the book of neo-liberalism and reduce predators. But listen: history never moves with the big things but with the small ones. History changes when, in the armpit of life, a seed of difference germinates, even if a small one. And Obama is this difference, his election was and is that difference. He will be a diagonal between the two theses. Little by little, against racists and racialists. With the whole Africa inside of him, fulfilling his Kenyan destiny. N'Kosi sikeleli Africa!

Elsewhere in South Africa, on 6 November, the last and largest batch of ivory stockpiles will be placed on the block in the ongoing CITES-backed one-off auction between southern African states and China/Japan. They waited 9 years for this and no matter who becomes the next president of the United States, the auction will go on.This is not good news.

It is indeed sad news because selling ivory under the guise of raising funds for elephant conservation just doesn’t make sense. South Africa is not poor. As Paula said in her previous blog at Baraza, the South African proponents of “sustainable” utilization of ivory will be rubbing their hands with glee as they salute what is to them a victory. “We won! we sold Ivory!” is not a phrase that you and I should be surprised to hear being spat out of their grinning mouths. For them it’s more of a statement to the effect that ivory can be exploited sustainably. It has nothing to do with conservation.

It is indeed a bounty in southern Africa this week. Zimbabwe sold 4 tons of ivory on Sunday 2 November raking in a tidy 480,000 American dollars. Namibia which was first to sell its stockpile auctioned 9 tons making $1.2-million. Botswana, which auctioned 44 tons made $1.1-million mostly because their ivory is of lower quality (since the country has the lowest humidity) and is relatively difficult to work. South Africa, with 51 tons in the offing, is hoping to raise more than that. All this money, coming from Chinese and Japanese ivory traders, “will be used in conservation work”, they say.

Kenya, the country of Obama’s late father, is mourning the elephant. They campaigned fervently before and during the CITES Conference of Parties held at the Hague this year for a 20 year moratorium on ivory sales: they got 9. And even before they got the 9, the CITES elite had already given the go ahead for this year’s one-off auction. Now the Kenyan conservationists watch helplessly as the southern African nations bath in wads of cash. Blood money if you ask the Kenyans.

Perhaps an Obama victory will lift their spirits tomorrow. A prize bull has been tethered outside the home of Obama’s paternal grandmother. It will fall when Obama rises. The people of Kogelo will sing, dance and make merry. But after this, they will go on with their life. And on the 6th day of November, 51 tons of ivory will be auctioned in South Africa. The people of Kogelo may not get wind of this. But another group of Kenyans, whose business is to conserve wildlife, will be reminded that it is time to swallow yet another bitter pill of sorrow for the elephant. They will ask themselves what will happen in the next nine years. What will happen tomorrow. Will other African states ask CITES if they can sell their ivory?

Perhaps Barack Obama’s message of change and hope: more specifically “change” will get to CITES. They badly need to change their approach to trade. Some people say that they worry more about the trade than the wildlife. It’s all about the money.