October 29, 2009

News From TreeHugger: Thursday, October 29

photo: <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/fitri-agung/3103398633/">friti agung</a> via flickr.

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Editor’s Note: A weekly roundup from our friends over at TreeHugger. Enjoy!

Only One-Sixth of European Retailers Showing Sustainable Palm Oil Progress

Back in May, WWF said it would starting outing companies not living up to their sustainable palm oil commitments. After all, only a fraction of the certified sustainable palm oil being produced is actually being purchased. Well, their Sustainable Palm Oil Scorecard for 2009 has been released and only one-sixth of European retailers are making much progress.

In What World Can You Call Tetra Pak Green?

All sorts of effort has gone into making Tetra Paks using greener materials, but is it enough? No way. Green is reusable. Green is refillable. Green is not disposable and downcylable, for the lucky 20 percent of Americans who have access to it, and landfill for the 80% who don’t. Tetra Pak is the most elaborate greenwashing scheme ever, and they are doing a very good job of it.

Ecuador Moves Forward With Plan to Not Drill the Amazon in Exchange of Funds

We spoke about this campaign being in the making before, and about a presentation of it a month ago at the UN, but now it’s a fact: Ecuador is promoting the measure internationally to get funds, and says Germany, Spain and France have shown interest in backing up the plan. The country is also considering forming a consortium of countries with natural resources.

Illegal Logging Makes Indonesia World’s Third Largest Emitter of Greenhouse Gases

Indonesia is made up of 17,508 islands, most of which were totally covered by forest until about 50 years ago when that number dropped to 80 percent. But now, illegal logging and the burning of forests are making the country the third biggest emitter of GHG in the world (!) behind the U.S. and China.

More COP15 Expectation Management: UN Plans Post-Copenhagen Talks – Kerry Says We’ve Done All We Can

Though the grand exercise of managing expectations regarding the possibility of actually getting a global climate deal signed at the COP15 talks has been going on for a couple months now, here are the latest examples courtesy the United Nations, which is talking now about just having a framework in place for a legally binding deal, and Senator John Kerry, who is saying the Senate’s done all it can before December.

Good Way to End Paper Recycling Completely: Make Ethanol Motor Fuel From Paper Waste

Today’s printing and writing papers commonly have 20-30 percent recycled content. For fiber packaging materials, 60 to 100 percent recycled content is typical. It took decades for industry to reach those levels. Can you imagine what would happen if the paper industry had to price-compete against oil companies for waste paper feedstock? Recycled content of all manner of papers would surely decrease.

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So we urgently need this specific ask, what you're reading right now, to start bringing in more donations than it ever has. The reality, for these next few months and next few years, is that we have to start finding ways to grow our online supporter base in a big way—and we're optimistic we can keep making real headway by being real with you about this.

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WE CAME UP SHORT.

We just wrapped up a shorter-than-normal, urgent-as-ever fundraising drive and we came up about $45,000 short of our $300,000 goal.

That means we're going to have upwards of $350,000, maybe more, to raise in online donations between now and June 30, when our fiscal year ends and we have to get to break-even. And even though there's zero cushion to miss the mark, we won't be all that in your face about our fundraising again until June.

So we urgently need this specific ask, what you're reading right now, to start bringing in more donations than it ever has. The reality, for these next few months and next few years, is that we have to start finding ways to grow our online supporter base in a big way—and we're optimistic we can keep making real headway by being real with you about this.

Because the bottom line: Corporations and powerful people with deep pockets will never sustain the type of journalism Mother Jones exists to do. The only investors who won’t let independent, investigative journalism down are the people who actually care about its future—you.

And we hope you might consider pitching in before moving on to whatever it is you're about to do next. We really need to see if we'll be able to raise more with this real estate on a daily basis than we have been, so we're hoping to see a promising start.

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