Truthout.org has just published Academy President Rinaldo Brutoco’s latest article, “The President’s Leadership Challenge:  A Call for Bold Action,” written as an open letter to President Obama.  Rinaldo wrote: "Mr. President, there has never been any doubt you are a brilliant orator. And it is also clear that nothing you have said will cause the Republicans in the Senate to break their stranglehold on progress, using threats of filibusters to destroy the majority rule that is the hallmark of every other democracy in the world. People are asking for results they can understand."...more...

Truthout.org and the World Business Academy have launched a partnership to bring their readers more cutting edge stories.  Rinaldo is a member of Truthout's Advisory Board.

All Academy articles published by Truthout can be found on its special Truthout page.

Academy Fellow Lester Brown’s new book, Plan B 4.0: Mobilizing to Save Civilization, is the latest of his Plan B books.

In this one, he “argues that food may be the issue that convinces the world of the need to cut carbon emissions 80% by 2020.  Every major environmental trend, from climate change to deforestation and water scarcity, affect food supplies.  Brown focuses on the details of the plan and how it is already emerging in the energy economy.”  The four main goals of his plan are:

• stabilizing population
• eradicating poverty
• restoring the Earth’s natural support systems
• stabilizing climate

In an Ode Magazine interview, Lester called for restructuring tax systems—"not a change in the amount of tax, but a reduction of income taxes combined with a rise in the carbon tax.  After all, the costs of climate change, of burning fossil fuels, of damage from acid rain, of breathing polluted air on health care and so forth would be reflected in the increase in the carbon tax.  That's crucial.

"I think it was Oystein Dahle, a former vice-president of Exxon in Norway, who once said that socialism collapsed because it did not allow the market to tell the economic truth and that capitalism may collapse because it does not allow the market to tell the ecological truth.  In that pithy statement, he summed up a key issue we're facing in the world today."

Lester Brown is the founder and President of the Earth Policy Institute and a pioneer in environmentally sustainable development.  The Washington Post described him as “one of the world’s most influential thinkers,” and the Telegraph of Calcutta called him “the guru of the global environmental movement.”

We’re glad to see how close the Obama Administration’s energy plan is to the Academy’s, as laid out in its 2007 book, Freedom from Mid-East Oil, by Jerry B. Brown, Ph.D., Rinaldo S. Brutoco, J.D., and James A. Cusumano, Ph.D.

• We called for reducing oil imports by 2015 by 5 million barrels a day, the amount we imported from the Middle East in 2005.  The President, starting later, calls for reducing within 10 years more oil than we now import from the Middle East and Venezuela combined.         

• We called for increasing the fuel economy standards for new passenger vehicles to 40 mpg by 2015.  In January, the President ordered new rules to implement Congress' fleetwide standard of 35 mpg by 2020.  In September, he moved that schedule up four years under a proposed rule that would also require passenger vehicles to get 38 mpg by 2016.

• We called for putting at least 1 million hybrid and plug-in hybrid electric vehicles a year on the road by 2015, along with 100,000 hydrogen fuel cell vehicles.  The President calls for putting 1 million plug-in hybrid cars on the road by 2015.

• We called for producing 20% of our electricity from renewable resources by 2020.   The President calls for producing 10% of our electricity from renewable sources by 2012, and 25% by 2025.

• We called for a nationwide cap-and-trade system or carbon tax, and urged a hard look at the tax (a cap without the trade), realizing that the tax might not be politically feasible.   The President calls for a nationwide cap-and-trade system to reduce greenhouse gases 80% by 2050.

• We called for recognizing that energy efficiency—“negawatts”—are the quickest and cheapest source of energy.  The President calls energy efficiency “the cheapest, cleanest, fastest” energy source.

• We called for investing $180 billion to achieve our energy and climate plan, helping to create 2 million jobs and to save another 1 million. The President calls for spending $150 billion to catalyze private efforts to build a clean energy future, helping to create 5 million jobs.

We differ with the President on his call to use public resources to develop and deploy clean coal technology, which we think is not the answer.   We also believe that when he takes a hard look at nuclear power, he will realize that it creates unacceptable risks to our planet and actually undercuts our ability to solve our intertwined energy and climate change crises.

The World Business Academy has announced the winners of the 2009 EthicMark® Awards.  The EthicMark® Award recognizes outstanding marketing, advertising, and public relations campaigns and communications that uplift the human spirit and society.

Pantene, a division of Proctor & Gamble, won in the for-profit category for its ad, “Chrysalis” (Thailand).  CARE won in the not-for-profit category for its ad, “I Am Powerful” (USA).  The Academy presented the Awards last week at the 2009 Global Forum.

The Global Forum has created a social network site with the EthicMark® Awards videos and other Forum presentations.

This year, the EthicMark® Advisory Board received several dozen nominations from six countries, which the Board narrowed down to a group of five finalists each in the for-profit and not-for-profit categories.  An international jury of marketing, advertising, media and academia professionals selected the winners.

Academy Fellow Hazel Henderson, founder and producer of Ethical Markets Media, founded the Award in 2004.