• Dr. Claudia Henschke has been criticized for using grants from a cigarette company in conducting a lung cancer study that concluded that 80% of lung cancer deaths could be prevented through widespread use of CT scans.  [New York Times]

• Monks in Wisconsin build a multimillion dollar business and give the money away.  [San Francisco Chronicle]

• The $1.6 million Templeton Prize is awarded to Michael Heller, a priest, cosmologist, and philosopher.  [New York Times]

• The Center for Curatorial Leadership, a fellowship program designed to provide American curators with the management, fundraising, and administrative skills necessary to become museum directors, trains its first class.  [New York Times] 

• Nationwide Children's Hospital, in Columbus, Ohio, takes heat for naming a new emergency department and trauma center after donor (and provocative ad maker) Abercrombie & Fitch.  [New York Times]
  

• As wealthy universities tap into their endowments to offer substantial financial aid packages, other schools struggle to compete.  [New York Times]

• Julianne Moore offers Valentine's Day cards to benefit Save the Children.  [Associated Press]

• The January raids of four museums in Southern California call attention to tax schemes.  [New York Times]

• Some universities and graduate schools wrestle with whether to accept financing from tobacco companies.  [New York Times]

• The American Red Cross is cutting 1,000 jobs at its national headquarters.  [Associated Press]

• Walter and Shirley Wang donate $1 million to UCLA to establish the nation's first endowed academic chair on U.S.-China relations.  [Associated Press]

• Bono turns to the art world to raise money for (Product) Red, as Damien Hirst, Jeff Koons, and Banksy donate their work for a Sotheby's auction.  [Wall Street Journal]

• Martin E. Sullivan, chief executive of the Historic St. Mary's City Commission, will become director of the Smithsonian Institution's National Portrait Gallery.  [Washington Post]

• Google.org will spend up to $175 million in its first round of grants and investments over the next three years.  [New York Times]

• The head of a California-based veterans charity dismisses accusations of mismanagement at a congressional hearing.  [Associated Press]

• Craigslist donates $1.6 million to the University of California, Berkeley to help create the first endowed professorship at its media center.  [Associated Press]

• Eli Broad announces a $23.3 million grant to jump-start at least 17 new campuses run by two charter-school organizations.  [Los Angeles Times]

• Gates Foundation's efforts to fight AIDS, TB, and malaria in Africa have had mixed influences on key measures of societal health.  [Los Angeles Times]

• Corporate neighbors respond to the $30 million capital campaign undertaken by St. Bartholomew's Church.  [New York Times]

• State Bank & Trust in North Dakota gives each employee $1,000 - to donate to people in need. [Associated Press]

• New graduate programs teach management principles to leaders of churches and religious nonprofit agencies.  [New York Times]

• The Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer Foundation files a trademark lawsuit against Smithfield Foods for the use of its "Deli for the Cure" logo.  [Associated Press]

• Travel company operator Hal Taussig gives away all of his company's profits to help the poor.  [Associated Press]

• Goldman Sachs starts a donor-driven philanthropy fund that aims to reach $1 billion over the next few years.  [New York Times]

• Former foundation employees form alumni groups to stay in touch.  [New York Times]

• The New Jersey Symphony Orchestra will sell its collection of rare string instruments for $20 million.  [New York Times]

• Many in "Young Hollywood" align themselves to social causes.  [Los Angeles Times]

• Bono's mission to fight poverty enlists some powerful players.  [Washington Post]

• David Beckham, Anthony LaPaglia, and others play in a charity soccer game to raise funds for wildfire relief.  [Associated Press]

• Smithsonian halts $5 million donation from the American Petroleum Institute after two members of the Board question an oil-industry sponsorship of an ocean exhibit.  [Washington Post]

• Pink marketing strategy brings in money for breast cancer awareness, but lack of regulation on who raises what worries some advocacy groups.  [Los Angeles Times] 

• As Altria prepares to move its headquarters out of New York City, arts organizations brace themselves for a loss in funding.  [New York Times]

• San Diego Diocese asks priests and parishioners to help pay the $198 million settlement for victims of clergy abuse.  [Los Angeles Times]

• Swanee Hunt, oil heiress and philanthropist, enters Women's Hall of Fame for her work in propelling women into politics.  [Associated Press]

• Businesses and charities increasingly cooperate.  [Washington Post]

Commitment is the widest of words here at the Clinton Global Initiative. A "commitment" can range from a small philanthropic gift or the start of a modest foundation to a global investment running to ten figures and more. Nowhere is this flexible definition more in evidence - or perhaps more appropriate - than in the area of climate change and ecology.

Because of the collision of political worlds just outside of CGI - the coming Bali meetings on global warming, the lukewarm response to President Bush's 15-country conference on climate change, and this week's United Nations summit on global warming - commitments to the environment have dominated some of the  proceedings here.

From actor Brad Pitt and eco-warrior Al Gore to teen singer Shakira, Monaco's Prince Albert and media mogul Ted Turner, global warming has been on everyone's lips - and it's amazing to see how, in just a year, almost all skepticism on the science of climate change has been erased, especially on the part of the capitalists and bankers.

"I see New Orleans as a microcosm for the global problem," said Pitt. "If there's anyone who understands the repercussions of climate change it's the people of the Gulf Coast."

Turner called global warming this "the big story of our lives."

"Outside of a nuclear exchange, global warming is the greatest threat humanity has ever faced," he said. "Businessmen are human beings - they're fathers and grandfathers just like all the rest of us - and we do care what happens to the world."

But are the commitments being announced at this year's CGI any more "philanthropy" than, say, last year's headline-inducing announcement by Sir Richard Branson to invest $3 billion in alternative fuels? And perhaps it's not organized philanthropy that can solve the problem, or organize nations to agree in any case.

After committing his company to investing between $4 and $5 billion in debt and equity to underwrite the development of alternative energy sources and renewable fuels in Asia, Africa and the Middle East, the CEO of Standard Chartered Bank was straightforward:

"This is part of our belief in running our business as a sustainable business," said Peter Sands, CEO of the British lender. "We intend to make loads of profits out of this but we also think it's a good thing to be doing."

Earlier in the day, Jim Rogers, the chairman of Duke Energy, said much the same thing about a coalition of U.S. energy companies that committed to increase their investment in energy efficiency to $1.5 billion annually in order to reduce carbon emissions by about 30 million tons. But he also spoke about the value of social action for a corporation.

"We have a special responsibility for this problem," said Rogers, who noted that utilities emit some 35-40 percent of U.S. carbon. "I personally believe we have to act now on this issue. One of our aspirations should be this: to be the most energy efficient economy in the world. That's the right aspiration."

It was lost on no one that major corporations are now a step or two ahead of the Bush Administration in pushing for efficient energy. The President's gathering of European nations to discuss global warming has come in for some strong criticism, including the not-so-veiled uppercut punch thrown by the foreign minister of China - who had to speak at the Clinton Global Initiative to get a voice in the American debate. Some of Yang Jiechi's remarks:

To prevent climate change from endangering human survival and development while maintaining economic development and meeting the legitimate demand of the people, this is an issue that concerns the well being and the future of all mankind.

Economic development and the environmental protection and efforts to tackle climate change should be mutually reinforcing rather than mutually conflicting.For developing countries like China, whose level of economic development is still low and whose people are yet to live a better life, the most depressing issue for them is to grow the economy and raise people's living standards.

Efforts to tackle climate change should promote economic development and not be pursued at the expense of the economic development.

On the other hand, we must not fail to see that the economic development model of high-energy consumption, high pollution, and high emissions is not sustainable.  And the path of pursuing development first and treating pollution next is not a viable one.

The best environment policy is also the best economic policy.

And there was the Republican Governor of Florida, the political heir to President Bush's brother, announcing his own global warming initiative, an innovative plan by Florida Power & Light to build a solar power plant as part of a $2.4 billion clean energy program. And earning the praise of Bush's predecessor, too:

"As we all know, Florida is one of the sunniest places in America, but this is the sort of thing, if they can prove it works, it can be done in sunny places all over the world," he said. "If you mix it in to your overall power mix, the extra cost is not particularly great."

So it's public policy on a massive scale that can and should tackle the carbon problem, along with increased investments in the private sector that leverage new technologies. The consensus here was summed up neatly by former British Prime Minister Tony Blair.

"The problem is now really simple - how do you get a global framework that incentivizes the development of technology toward the elimination of emissions, and how do you get a framework to get China and India and the developing nations incentivized behind that technology. One key is the private sector."

But what about philanthropy? I looked through some of the many commitments announced here and came up with a few that were either powered by philanthropic dollars, or where donor foundations assisted is strategy or organization. When you hit the charitable dollars, the money is much smaller - but it's actual money, given for the cause.

• The Center for International Forestry Research committed $6 million to launch "independent and timely analysis" of deforestation and national climate policies.
• The Wallace Global Fund announced a coalition of NGOs, foundations and universities to support the policy of Ecuador President Rafael Correa to forego the development of a major oil field in the Amazon basin.
• The Rainforest Alliance partnered with Gibson Guitars in a $480 project on forestry management in the manufacture of musical instruments.

And then there's the pledge of the world's richest man, Carlos Slim Helu - who pledged $100 million as part of a partnership with the Clinton Foundation and Vancouver mining and movie mogul Frank Giustra. The charitable dollars will create a coalition of extractive resource industry companies - along with Latin American governments - to help build sustainable economies. Perhaps that's the three-sided partnership model in action after all.