AFGHANISTAN: Uphill struggle for potato farmers in Bamyan Province

BAMYAN, 17 June 2009 (IRIN) - Farmers in Afghanistan’s top potato-producing province are complaining about declining profits, mainly because of cold weather, lack of storage facilities and bad roads.

Rural Democrats differ with Barack Obama - Lisa Lerer and Jonathan Martin - POLITICO.com

Angered by White House decisions on everything from greenhouse gases to car dealerships, congressional Democrats from rural districts are threatening to revolt against parts of President Barack Obama’s ambitious first-year agenda.

“They don’t get rural America,” said Rep. Dennis Cardoza, a Democrat who represents California’s agriculture-rich Central Valley. “They form their views of the world in large cities.”

Pre-COP15 activities, events and gatherings on horizon | Students on Ice Blog

SOI is pleased to highlight some upcoming events, activities and gatherings in advance of COP15 - the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change meeting to be held in Copenhagen, Denmark in December 2009.

Sandor Got Obama’s Nod for Chicago-Style Climate Law (Update1) - Bloomberg.com

June 16 (Bloomberg) -- A Brooklyn-born economist who gave up teaching at the University of California at Berkeley in 1973 to trade the first Treasury-bond futures is getting his way with the biggest change in U.S. environmental policy in 20 years. And he has an unwitting ally from Chicago.

Legislation to let polluters buy and sell carbon-dioxide emissions like pork bellies is the outgrowth of Richard L. Sandor, founder of the Chicago-based network of people trading pollution permits from Beijing to Brussels known as Climate Exchange. It doesn’t hurt that the six-year-old market got $1.1 million of seed money from the city’s Joyce Foundation, whose board included a little-known state senator named Barack Obama. Now the 44th president is determined to enact America’s first limits on greenhouse gases. [Via Terry Frank]