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Martin Scorsese Asked This Band If He Could Use Their Song When Leonardo DiCaprio Has Sex on Money

by KristinKellway Posted on December 24, 2013

Mother Jones

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Martin Scorsese’s The Wolf of Wall Street is the year’s best film—a towering achievement in humor and sprawling excess. The movie hits theaters on Christmas Day, and dramatizes the testosterone-soaked saga of Jordan Belfort, co-founder and chairman of Long Island brokerage house Stratton Oakmont, who went down for securities fraud and money laundering in the 1990s. The script—overflowing with orgies, Quaaludes, and scandal—is by Terence Winter (The Sopranos, Boardwalk Empire), and the film stars Leonardo DiCaprio, Jonah Hill, Matthew McConaughey, Margot Robbie, and Cristin Milioti.

The Wolf of Wall Street soundtrack is heavy on blues music, and includes some familiar names such as Elmore James, Howlin’ Wolf, and Bo Diddley. (Critics frequently note the quality of Scorsese’s soundtracks, from Mean Streets to The Departed, which often lean heavily on classic rock.) But one of the songs prominently featured in a couple of scenes in The Wolf of Wall Street is by a blues-rock duo you probably haven’t heard of: The band is the Los Angeles-based 7Horse, with Phil Leavitt on drums and lead vocals, and Joie Calio on guitar. (The two previously played together in the alt-rock group Dada, and have been playing together for two decades.)

The song is “Meth Lab Zoso Sticker“:

“Meth Lab Zoso Sticker” is also the first song heard in the film’s second trailer. It’s a catchy and exciting blues number. But how did Scorsese hear it?

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Martin Scorsese Asked This Band If He Could Use Their Song When Leonardo DiCaprio Has Sex on Money

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Is the coal industry about to wreck the Great Barrier Reef?

by MatthiasA Posted on December 17, 2013

Is the coal industry about to wreck the Great Barrier Reef?

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Here’s a conundrum for you: Would it be better to protect Australia’s Great Barrier Reef, which is visible from space, attracts more than a million visitors every year, and is home to thousands of species of fish, sharks, and other marine animals? Or would it be better to build one of the world’s largest coal ports near the reef, dredge the area around the port, dump millions of tons of dredged mud and sand into the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park, and then create a coal-shipping superhighway through the reef so thousands of ships each year can ferry coal from Australia to Asia?

The answer is clearly the latter, according to Australia’s conservative government and the coal industry. The government, now under the control of climate-denying Prime Minister Tony Abbott, has just given the coal industry the go-ahead for its proposed project, despite warnings from environmentalists that the coal port and shipping plans threaten the very future of the reef. From The Guardian:

Unfortunately, soon a massively destructive coal port will be built just 50 km north of the magnificent Whitsunday Islands. The port expansion was approved by the Abbott Liberal National government on Wednesday 11 December, and it will become one of the world’s largest coal ports.

The coal export facility is ironically located on Abbot Point. The construction of this port will involve dredging 3 million cubic metres of seabed. The dredge spoil will be dumped into the Great Barrier Reef World Heritage Area.

To give you an idea of the scale of this dredging, if all of the spoil was put into dump trucks, there would be 150,000 of them lined up bumper to bumper from Brisbane to Melbourne.

This expansion is further proof that the Abbott government is hell-bent on turning Australia into a reckless charco-state that solely represents the interests of fossil fuel and coal companies.

Shutterstock

This fish does not approve of coal-port plans.

Here’s more from The Christian Science Monitor:

Greenpeace estimates the number of coal ships passing through the reef will increase from a current level of about 1,700 a year to 10,150 by 2020, significantly increasing the possibility of accidents.

Environmental groups want the main authority overseeing the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority to abide by its charter and block the Federal government’s approval of the Abbot Point expansion. A decision is expected next week.

With the coal industry contributing more than $20 billion a year to the government’s coffers and local businesses set to benefit from the new development, environmental groups are in for a tough fight.

This time, however, they have the support of the Queensland’s tourism operators. “There’s so much evidence that sedimentation is impacting the Great Barrier Reef … This is the tipping point,” says Bowen reef tour operator Al Grundy.

He fears the port expansion will threaten a nesting ground for green turtles and a humpback whale gathering area in the waters between Abbot Point and the Whitsunday Islands.

Of course, threatening the reef is nothing new for the coal industry. As The Christian Science Monitor points out, carbon dioxide emissions from fossil-fuel burning are warming the ocean waters and turning them more acidic, long posing a threat to the colorful reef ecosystem.


Source
Has a natural world wonder just been approved for destruction by the Australian government?, The Guardian
Australia approves coal port near Great Barrier Reef, Christian Science Monitor

John Upton is a science fan and green news boffin who tweets, posts articles to Facebook, and blogs about ecology. He welcomes reader questions, tips, and incoherent rants: johnupton@gmail.com.

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Is the coal industry about to wreck the Great Barrier Reef?

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Every “serious environmentalist” must support fracking? Seriously?

by Benny Roye Posted on December 15, 2013

Every “serious environmentalist” must support fracking? Seriously?

By

Stop-CSG-Illawarra

If you oppose fracking, then you are not a “serious environmentalist.”

So say U.C. Berkeley physics professor Richard Muller and his daughter Elizabeth Muller in a new opinion paper with a none-too-subtle title: “Why Every Serious Environmentalist Should Favor Fracking.”

Until recently, Muller wasn’t much of an environmentalist himself. He was a prominent climate denier. But last year he wrote in The New York Times that he came to realize the error of his ways after an intensive review of the science.

Now this self-described “converted skeptic” has appointed himself the arbiter of serious environmentalism.

Richard Muller

The Mullers’ paper was published by British think tank. We read it so you don’t have to. Here are the main points: 1. Fracking is mainly used to extract natural gas. 2. Burning natural gas produces less soot than burning other fossil fuels. 3. Airborne soot is a major killer, especially in the developing world. Ergo, if you oppose fracking, then you support the deaths of millions of poor people. You monster.

In the Mullers’ minds, if you don’t like fracking, then you must prefer coal and oil. They imply that solar and wind energy will succeed only with government subsidies, ignoring the $544 billion that governments spent subsidizing fossil fuels last year. They also disregard the falling costs of renewables.

“The developed world has the financial resources to subsidise solar and wind,” the duo writes. “But developing countries are not wealthy enough to do that.” More from the paper:

Environmentalists who oppose the development of shale gas and fracking are making a tragic mistake.

Some oppose shale gas because it is a fossil fuel, a source of carbon dioxide. Some are concerned by accounts of the fresh water it needs, by flaming faucets, by leaked “fugitive methane”, by pollution of the ground with fracking fluid and by damaging earthquakes.

These concerns are either largely false or can be addressed by appropriate regulation.

For shale gas is a wonderful gift that has arrived just in time. It can not only reduce greenhouse gas emissions, but also reduce a deadly pollution known as PM2.5 [tiny pieces of particulate matter, aka soot] that is currently killing over three million people each year, primarily in the developing world. …

Europe can develop shale gas far more rapidly than it can move to solar and wind, largely because of the low cost, the absence of an intermittency problem, and good existing gas infrastructure. To the extent that shale gas replaces coal, it will save hundreds of thousands of deaths each year, lives that will be lost if we choose the slower and more expensive transition to renewables.

All this despite the conclusion of experts that America’s fracking boom is having only “modest impacts” on greenhouse gas emissions. That’s because it’s not just displacing coal but also holding back renewables.

And for anybody who thinks natural gas doesn’t contribute to air pollution, we would suggest a day trip to poor neighborhoods in Contra Costa County east of San Francisco, where growing clusters of gas-burning plants in already-industrialized areas are hurting residents’ health.

It turns out there’s more behind the Mullers’ paper than meets the eye. Elizabeth Muller has a clear financial stake in the fracking industry. She is managing director of the China Shale Fund, a venture capital fund set up to export American fracking technology to Asia.

The Mullers’ paper was published by the Centre for Policy Studies, which was cofounded in 1974 by Margaret Thatcher “to promote the principles of a free society.” Why would a British think tank be promoting the Mullers’ views? Because fracking is a white-hot issue in the U.K. right now. The conservative national government desperately wants to expand fracking, but many citizens remain unconvinced of its benefits.

A free society, hey? It would sure be nice to free our society from fracking industry propaganda.


Source
Why every serious environmentalist should favour fracking, The Center for Policy Studies

John Upton is a science fan and green news boffin who tweets, posts articles to Facebook, and blogs about ecology. He welcomes reader questions, tips, and incoherent rants: johnupton@gmail.com.

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Every “serious environmentalist” must support fracking? Seriously?

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Panel Set to Recommend Modest Changes to NSA Surveillance Programs

by RamonitaPalladi Posted on December 13, 2013

Mother Jones

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I’ve been wondering recently whatever happened to that task force on surveillance activities, and today brings news that they’re just about to release their recommendations. First up is this:

The proposal likely to gain the most attention would revamp the NSA phone records program….The proposal to have that data held by a phone company or a third party would effectively end the controversial NSA practice known as bulk collection. NSA could collect data only after meeting a new higher standard of proof.

That would be a step in the right direction. If the phone record program continues, there’s no reason the data can’t be held by a separate agency, available to the NSA only after they obtain a particularized subpoena for it. Done properly, this would provide access to all the information they need and is unlikely to slow them down in any serious way. There’s also this:

Another likely recommendation, officials say, is the creation of an organization of legal advocates who, like public defenders, would argue against lawyers for the N.S.A. and other government organizations in front of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, the nation’s secret court that oversees the collection of telephone and Internet “metadata” and of wiretapping aimed at terrorism and espionage suspects. Mr. Obama has already hinted that he objects to the absence of any adversarial procedures in front of the court’s judges.

That’s also a good step. It’s absurd that the FISA court works without anyone arguing against the government’s position. Other expected recommendations include:

Civilian leadership for the NSA.
Splitting the NSA’s code making group away from the rest of the agency.
Presidential approval for spying on foreign leaders.
Codifying and announcing stricter standards to protect the privacy of foreign citizens.

In the end, I suspect that most of this will amount to very little. But it’s better than nothing. Thanks, Edward Snowden.

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Panel Set to Recommend Modest Changes to NSA Surveillance Programs

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New Cockroach Invades New York’s High Line

by 7MelansonHayden940 Posted on December 10, 2013

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New Cockroach Invades New York’s High Line

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The Latest Legal Attack Against Obamacare

by julyye56 Posted on December 3, 2013

Mother Jones

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Today, the US District Court for the District of Columbia* will hear arguments in one of the last lingering legal challenges to the Affordable Care Act. The suit, Halbig v. Sebelius, argues that a single phrase in the law creates a loophole big enough to drive a truck through and nullify the whole thing.

The argument goes something like this: When Congress wrote the ACA, it said that premium subsidies would be available for certain qualifying citizens who were “enrolled through an Exchange established by the State.” (Emphasis added.) The law doesn’t say that those subsidies are available to people in the 34 states that declined to set up exchanges, where residents must utilize the now-infamously buggy Healthcare.gov, the federal exchange.

That’s where Obamacare opponents see a fatal flaw in the law. The plaintiffs in Halbig claim that they won’t be eligible for tax credits because their states didn’t start an exchange, so they won’t be able to afford insurance. As a result, they argue that they’ll be subject to the fine for not buying insurance, or to avoid the fine, they’ll have to pay a lot for insurance they don’t want. They want the court to block the IRS from implementing the law.

The complaint is pretty convoluted, and it’s clearly a political attack. Indeed, one of the plaintiffs was also a plaintiff in the lawsuit filed by the National Federation of Independent Businesses challenging the legality of the individual mandate, an argument rejected by the Supreme Court. The other plaintiffs are also conservative operatives, including the lead plaintiff, Jacqueline Halbig, who was a senior policy adviser to the Department of Health and Human Services under George W. Bush. (She’s also been the source of a host of conservative rhetoric about “baby death panels” in the ACA.) The lawyer spearheading the suit, Michael Cannon, is a health care expert at the libertarian Cato Institute who has spent the last few years urging states to refuse to set up insurance exchanges as a means to sabotage Obamacare.

The Obama administration argues that the language Cannon’s case is premised is merely a drafting error common in legislation and routinely reconciled after passage. (Indeed, if Congress were functioning normally, such copy mistake would have been corrected by now, but given the level of polarization in that body, it’s been impossible to make such fixes that were once routine.) An amicus brief in the case filed by Families USA, a nonprofit health care advocacy group helping the administration combat some of the bad PR surrounding Obamacare, argues that the plaintiffs are disregarding the vast body of evidence showing that Congress intended for all low-income Americans to be eligible for tax subsidies, regardless of which exchange they used to purchase insurance.

Timothy Jost, a law professor at Washington and Lee University, has said that Congress essentially fixed the drafting error in another piece of legislation requiring the federal exchange to report information to the IRS and to promulgate regulations around Obamacare. The Congressional Budget Office has also treated the law as if the subsidies are available on the federal exchange.

So far, though, the lawsuit has survived. US District Court Judge Paul Friedman, a Clinton appointee, declined to dismiss the suit, though he did refuse the plaintiffs’ request for an emergency injunction to prevent the IRS from implementing the law. Friedman will hear summary judgment arguments in the case this afternoon.*

The case seems destined for the Supreme Court, where a conservative majority is already hostile to Obamacare. The Roberts court has also shown little interest in considering congressional intent when interpreting the law. (See its history on the Voting Rights Act.) John Roberts has proven to be something of a literalist when it serves his interests. That record alone ought to give the administration and health care reformers pause. If Halbig et al. prevail in the case, Mother Jones‘ Kevin Drum has suggested that premium subsidies could end up available only to people in the 16 mostly blue states that have chosen to run their own exchanges, while the rest of the country (all the red parts) would keep paying taxes to underwrite those subsidies. But Halbig and her backers are clearly hoping that a decision in their favor will kill Obamacare completely.

Correction: An earlier version of this article erroneously stated that an appeal of a trial court decision in the case is being heard in the DC Circuit Court of Appeals on Tuesday. The story has since been fixed.

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The Latest Legal Attack Against Obamacare

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Why Is Obama’s Department of Labor Bringing On a Top McDonald’s PR Person?

by hedsdfx Posted on November 23, 2013

Mother Jones

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Labor Secretary Tom Perez has taken a lead role in President Barack Obama’s push to increase the federal minimum wage. The fast food industry is one of the nation’s largest employers of low- and minimum-wage workers. So why has the labor secretary brought on a top McDonald’s PR person as a senior adviser?

Ofelia Casillas worked as a national media relations manager for McDonald’s until she was hired as Perez’ director of public outreach. At McDonald’s, Casillas was in charge of overseeing “media crises” for the company. That would include the wave of fast-food strikes designed to draw attention to poverty wages. McDonald’s average wage is $7.81 an hour.

During a national strike in August, in which workers were demanding that fast-food joints pay a $15 minimum wage, Casillas told Bloomberg that the strikers were not “providing an accurate picture of what it means to work at McDonald’s.”

At the Department of Labor, Casillas will be meeting with business and community groups about the secretary’s policy priorities, one of which is raising the minimum wage. That means she will inevitably be dealing with companies like McDonald’s as well as the striking fast-food workers, says Craig Holman, a government ethics expert at the consumer watchdog Public Citizen. Her previous work for McDonald’s could color how she presents their concerns to Perez, he argues, which means there is “clearly an appearance of a conflict of interest.”

(The White House did not respond to a request for comment. The SEIU, which has helped organize the national movement of fast-food strikes, and the AFL-CIO, which is active in the minimum wage fight, declined to comment, as did Berlin Rosen, a public relations firm promoting the SEIU’s Fast Food Forward Campaign.)

Carl Fillichio, senior communications adviser at the DoL, says the hire does not represent a contradiction. “The Secretary is committed to raising the minimum wage and so is the Obama administration,” he says. Fillichio notes that prior to her job at McDonald’s, Casillas was a regional press secretary for the Obama campaign, and before that she worked at the American Civil Liberties Union. At the DoL, she does not influence policy, he adds, but merely serves as a liaison between the labor secretary and outside groups.

Critics are not convinced. “If she’s a gatekeeper for who the DoL is meeting with, that’s a problem,” says a top organizer in the minimum-wage fight who did not want to be identified. He adds that McDonald’s officials clearly don’t have an “understanding of where workers are… The hire certainly sends a troubling message.”

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Why Is Obama’s Department of Labor Bringing On a Top McDonald’s PR Person?

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CHART: These Members of Congress Are Bankrolled by the Fracking Industry

by Margherita4998 Posted on November 20, 2013

Mother Jones

The growing fracking industry is “yielding gushers” of campaign donations for congressional candidates—particularly Republicans from districts with fracking activity—according to a new report from the watchdog group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington.

The report, “Natural Cash: How the Fracking Industry Fuels Congress,” examines a period spanning from 2004 to 2012. In that time, CREW finds, contributions from companies that operate hydraulic fracturing wells and fracking-related industry groups rose 180 percent, from $4.3 million nine years ago to about $12 million in the last election cycle.

These donations are flowing to members of Congress at a time when some legislators are trying to increase regulation of fracking, a process in which drillers inject a mixture of water, sand, and chemicals into the bedrock to release oil and natural gas reserves. The most serious of these legislative efforts is the FRAC Act. First introduced in 2009, the act would require EPA regulation of the industry and would force fracking companies to disclose the chemicals that they inject under high pressure into the ground. Both the House and Senate versions of the bill are stalled in committee.

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CHART: These Members of Congress Are Bankrolled by the Fracking Industry

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U.N. climate talks: Four countries behaving badly

by AnnetteLorenzo Posted on November 18, 2013

U.N. climate talks: Four countries behaving badly

By

Oxfam International

Climate activists are not happy with Japan, Poland, Australia, and Canada.

There have been more disappointments than encouraging signs at the U.N. climate talks in Warsaw, Poland, which have just passed the halfway mark. They’re intended to lay the groundwork for a new global climate treaty to replace the Kyoto Protocol, but it’s not going well so far. Rich countries are not outlining how they will fund the planned $100-billion-a-year Green Climate Fund. Discussions involving agriculture have been taken off the table, even though farming reforms could substantially reduce global carbon emissions. And nobody can agree on how best to protect carbon-soaking forests.

But of the 190 countries that have sent delegates to Warsaw, four in particular have been the target of international anger over recent announcements, acts of obstructionism, and failure to commit to protect the world from global warming.

Japan

Japan is the fifth biggest greenhouse gas polluter, but it had committed to reducing its carbon emissions 25 percent below 1990 levels by 2020.

Then Fukushima melted down and the country switched from a nuclear-powered diet to a fossil-fueled one. Now the country’s leaders are pointing to that tragedy as they walk away from their climate-change goals. Japan’s new goal? Emissions in 2020 that are 3.5 percent below 2005 levels. Which is even worse than it sounds. That means a 3.1 percent emissions increase from 1990 to 2020.

Japan’s chief cabinet secretary said the previous goal, which had been set by a government that is now in opposition, “was totally unfounded and wasn’t feasible.”

Poland

Poland is hosting this round of climate negotiations in its capital, but just because it’s welcomed a huge congregation of climate negotiators to a football stadium doesn’t mean the country is ready to begin acting like a responsible global citizen.

Poland expects to rely on climate-changing coal – the worst of the fossil fuels — for most of its electricity for the next 50 years. The country may soon spend billions of dollars doubling the size of one of its biggest coal-fired plants, and new coal plants are planned. As if that weren’t bad enough, the country is also hosting a major international coal summit this week. Many climate activists feel the timing of that summit is a deliberate affront to everything that the climate negotiators are working toward.

“Coal is still the basic source of energy in many countries in the world,” Polish official Beata Jaczewska told Reuters when asked about the World Coal Association meetings being held today and tomorrow. “A transition period is needed.”

Australia

Australia has morphed quickly from a global leader in the fight against climate change to an international pariah. Climate-denying Prime Minister Tony Abbott has jubilantly pursued two agendas related to global warming since taking office two months ago: ending climate action and undermining research and development. (Isn’t it interesting how climate deniers so often hate science?) Abbott has moved to axe the country’s carbon tax. He is cutting $409 million from the Australian Renewable Energy Agency. He intends to dismantle a program designed to invest $9.4 billion in clean energy. And he is hacking away at the staff of the country’s preeminent research agency, the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation.

For the first time since 1997, Australia is not being represented at international climate talks by any federal ministers. Abbott has decided that his ministers are all needed back home to help convince a hostile senate to repeal the country’s carbon tax. Bureaucrats make up the country’s entire climate delegation, and those bureaucrats have not arrived bearing any gifts.

There is widespread confusion over what Australia’s delegation actually wants, with routine briefings for journalists and diplomats canceled. Abbott has ruled out making any new commitments to fight global warming through these talks. He bizarrely insists the country will somehow meet its longstanding commitment to reduce greenhouse gas pollution 5 percent below 2000 levels by 2020 — “We have made one commitment and one commitment only, which is to reduce our emissions by 5 percent,” he said – but he continues to dismantle efforts to curb emissions.

Scientists, the bane of spinmeisters like Abbott, are calling bullshit. Climate Action Tracker, which tracks and analyzes countries’ climate pledges, is projecting a 12 percent rise in Australia’s emissions by 2020 under Abbott’s policies.

Canada

Canada and Australia have a lot in common — they are both Western powers rich in mineral resources that they’re only too happy to plunder. And while much of the world jeers the climate developments down under, Canada, which last year abandoned its own efforts to meet its commitments under the Kyoto Protocol, has taken the unusual step of cheering them.

“Canada applauds the decision by prime minister Abbott to introduce legislation to repeal Australia’s carbon tax,” Paul Calandra, parliamentary secretary to Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper, said in a statement. “The Australian prime minister’s decision will be noticed around the world and sends an important message.”

And the love affair between the countries is not just idle pillow talk. During a recent Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting in Sri Lanka, Australia and Canada joined forces and refused to contribute any funds to a program that would help small and poor countries cope with climate change.

Meanwhile, more than 100 protests were held in Canada over the weekend by those who want more action on climate change. And an estimated 60,000 protestors fighting for the same cause turned out in Australian streets. There seems to be a severe disconnect here.

John Upton is a science fan and green news boffin who tweets, posts articles to Facebook, and blogs about ecology. He welcomes reader questions, tips, and incoherent rants: johnupton@gmail.com.Find this article interesting? Donate now to support our work.Read more: Climate & Energy

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U.N. climate talks: Four countries behaving badly

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As world dithers on climate treaty, funding for climate projects dwindles

by Romona Traywick Posted on November 14, 2013

As world dithers on climate treaty, funding for climate projects dwindles

By

Shutterstock

The Clean Development Mechanism helps solarize poor, rural communities.

Failure thus far to agree on a successor to the Kyoto Protocol means the world’s largest carbon-offset program is poised to shrink.

Since it began operating in 2004, the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) has supported 7,432 projects to rein in greenhouse gas emissions in poor and developing countries. Those projects have included wind, solar, and bioenergy installations, forest plantations, and energy-efficiency efforts. (Controversially, they have also included coal- and other fossil fuel-based projects considered cleaner than alternatives.) The $315 billion in funds for those projects came from wealthy countries looking to invest in opportunities abroad to help meet their domestic Kyoto Protocol commitments.

But that cash pipeline is starting to dry up as demand for such greenhouse gas-reducing projects shrivels.

The U.N. board that oversees the CDM voted Friday to cut its administrative budget by 14 percent for the coming year. “[R]equests for registration have declined significantly, and are now at levels not seen since 2005,” the board noted. “They may be expected to remain low for 2014 and 2015, and potentially beyond.” That’s because of uncertainty over the fate of an agreement now being negotiated to replace the Kyoto Protocol — an agreement that would not take effect before 2020.

As Reuters explains, “the failure of nations to craft a new climate change deal to force emission cuts on the biggest emitting countries has left the market for carbon offsets oversupplied, sending prices crashing and nearly bankrupting many of the companies that invested in CDM projects.”

But there’s another, more heartening reason for the funding slowdown: The need for carbon credits is falling as more countries find ways to reduce their own emissions at home. The rise of carbon taxing and trading schemes around the world is reducing demand for CDM-issued credits. And companies operating in the developed world are reducing their own carbon footprints.

Even if nations succeed in crafting a new climate pact in Warsaw this month, it might not help the CDM. Again, from Reuters: “The final deal will likely include new market-based mechanisms designed to allow the private sector to fund emissions cuts at the cheapest cost, but the CDM’s role alongside any new mechanism is unclear.”


Source
U.N. carbon panel slashes budget amid weak offset demand, Reuters

John Upton is a science fan and green news boffin who tweets, posts articles to Facebook, and blogs about ecology. He welcomes reader questions, tips, and incoherent rants: johnupton@gmail.com.

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As world dithers on climate treaty, funding for climate projects dwindles

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