Probe International's blog

As rich countries continue with plans to pour money into forestry programs in the developing world as a way to combat climate change they should heed warnings that the programs will fail to reduce carbon emissions, strip local citizens of their ownership rights, and be ridden with fraud and corruption. Yet, governments in the developed world seem intent on ignoring these warnings, as they recently pledged another $500-million—on top of the $3.5-billion they promised at Copenhagen’s UN Climate Conference in December—to carbon-reducing forestry programs in the developing world.  read more »

As calls for a “Marshall Plan for Haiti” continue to make headlines, an increasing number of reports are beginning to ask: is aid the answer? A recent report from PBS interviews a number of aid supporters and critics, asking them if a massive aid program to Haiti is the best option.  read more »

Banks and other investors are pulling out of the carbon market after government leaders at last month’s meeting in Copenhagen failed to come up with new emissions targets beyond the current Kyoto Treaty, which ends in 2012. According to a recent report in the UK Guardian, a number of carbon financiers have already begun leaving banks in London due to a lack of activity and a pull-back in investment demand.  read more »

For Haiti, just about every conceivable aid scheme beyond immediate humanitarian relief will lead to more poverty, more corruption and less institutional capacity, says Bret Stephens, writing in the Wall Street Journal. After the immediate impact of the earthquake has passed, and the immediate relief efforts subside, “the arrival of the soldiers of do-goodness, each with his brilliant plan to save Haitians from themselves” will take root.  read more »

CBC’s Rex Murphy weighs in on the controversy surrounding the hacked documents from servers at the University of East Anglia’s Climatic Research Unit (CRU).  read more »

59% of Americans say it's at least somewhat likely that some scientists have falsified research data to support their own theories and beliefs about global warming, according to a Rasmussen survey released yesterday. 35% say it's Very Likely and just 26% say it's not very or not at all likely that some scientists falsified data.  read more »

Report from Al Jazeera on rising costs of the Three Gorges dam.  read more »

Dambisa Moyo, author of Dead Aid, talks to the CBC about finding new and more innovative ways to help residents in the developing world. Moyo argues that the aid model of institutions such as the World Bank have helped to stifle economic growth in the developing world.  read more »

Environmentalist and dissident writer Dai Qing provides her take on what the future holds for China.  read more »

India and China may differ in their political structures—the former the world's most populous democracy, the latter the most populace one-party state—but they share a ruinous use of ground water in which each is draining their aquifers faster than they can be replenished.  read more »