Category Archives: Climate Justice

by | 2013-05-23 · 09:00

Debate: Should California cap and trade use forestry offsets?

Note: Jeff Conant is a good friend and former Communications Director at Global Justice Ecology Project.  Global Justice Ecology Project has been tracking the California-Acre-Chiapas REDD deal since it was unveiled at the UN climate negotiations in Cancun, Mexico in 2010.

In 2011, GJEP’s Co-Director/Strategist Orin Langelle and Communications Director Jeff Conant travelled to Chiapas, Mexico to the Village of Amador Hernandez, an Indigenous village in the Lacandon Jungle of Chiapas threatened with relocation due to the REDD project.  Langelle took hundreds of photos in the community and the region which were assembled into a poignant photo essay.  And GJEP’s work in Chiapas broke the story of and documented the emerging impacts of REDD.  In 2012, GJEP released a short documentary from the trip, A Darker Shade of Green: REDD Alert and the Future of Forests, highlighting the California REDD deal.

-The GJEP Team

By Chris Lang, May 21, 2013. Source: REDD-Monitor

2013-05-21-152400_252x244_scrotThe debate about whether California should allow REDD carbon offsets in its cap and trade scheme (AB 32) continues. Over the weekend, theSacramento Bee published two opinion pieces, one opposing REDD credits and one in favour.

Jeff Conant, International Forests Campaigner for Friends of the Earth, argues against REDD credits. In favour of REDD are Dan Nepstad, director and president of the Amazon Environmental Research Institute (IPAM), and Tony Brunello, the executive director of the Green Technology Leadership Group, partner at California Strategies and former California deputy secretary for climate change and energy.

So far, the discussion in the comments on the Sacramento Bee website following these two articles is dominated by climate sceptics. What follows is a summary of the arguments in the hope of generating a more sensible discussion (either here or on the Sacramento Bee website).

Conant argues that AB 32 is “one of the most forward-thinking pieces of climate legislation in the country”, but one that is already undermined by the inclusion of carbon offsets. It would only be undermined further by the inclusion of REDD credits from a “dubious and untried scheme to protect rain forests in Mexico and Brazil”. Continue reading →

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Filed under Carbon Trading, Chiapas, Climate Change, Climate Justice, Corporate Globalization, Ending the Era of Extreme Energy, Energy, False Solutions to Climate Change, Forests, Green Economy, Indigenous Peoples, Latin America-Caribbean, REDD

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by | 2013-05-08 · 10:00

Environmental and human rights organizations call on California to reject REDD forest offset credits

Note: Global Justice Ecology Project has been tracking the California-Acre-Chiapas REDD deal since it was unveiled at the UN climate negotiations in Cancun, Mexico in 2010.  In 2011, GJEP’s Co-Director/Strategist Orin Langelle and Communications Director Jeff Conant travelled to Chiapas, Mexico to the Village of Amador Hernandez, an Indigenous village in the Lacandon Jungle of Chiapas threatened with relocation due to the REDD project.  Langelle took hundreds of photos in the community and the region which were assembled into a poignant photo essay.  And GJEP’s work in Chiapas broke the story of and documented the emerging impacts of REDD.  In 2012, GJEP released a short documentary from the trip, A Darker Shade of Green: REDD Alert and the Future of Forests, highlighting the California REDD deal.

-The GJEP Team

May 7, 2013. Source: Global Justice Ecology Project

Photo: Langelle/GJEP-GFC

Photo: Langelle/GJEP-GFC

We appreciate the opportunity to submit comments on the REDD Offsets Working Group “Recommendations to Conserve Tropical Rainforests, Protect Local Communities and Reduce State-Wide Greenhouse Gas Emissions” for the state of California. California’s Global Warming Solutions Act, AB32, and the goals of reducing emissions from deforestation of remaining tropical rainforests are important and admirable efforts. However, in order to achieve the goals of AB32 and reducing deforestation we believe that allowing jurisdictional REDD offset credits to meet California’s emissions reduction targets will not be effective. REDD credits threaten to diminish the results of AB32 in California and the efforts of partner jurisdictions, including Chiapas and Acre, to protect their forests. Using subnational REDD initiatives, financed through offsets, to meet the targets of AB32 will be inefficient, ineffective, and create unintended consequences. Continue reading →

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Filed under Carbon Trading, Climate Change, Climate Justice, Corporate Globalization, Ending the Era of Extreme Energy, False Solutions to Climate Change, Forests, Green Economy, Indigenous Peoples, Land Grabs, Latin America-Caribbean, REDD

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by | 2013-05-02 · 15:00

KPFK Sojourner Truth Earth Watch: Jeff Conant on REDD forest offsets and California’s carbon market

Note: Jeff Conant is a good friend and former Communications Director for Global Justice Ecology Project.

-The GJEP Team

kpfk_logoJeff Conant, International Forests Campaigner for Friends of the Earth, discusses the dangers of including REDD forest offsets in California’s Global Warming Solutions Act.  Global Justice Ecology Project teams up with the Sojourner Truth show on KPFK Pacifica Los Angeles for a weekly Earth Minute each Tuesday and a weekly Earth Watch interview each Thursday.

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Filed under Carbon Trading, Chiapas, Climate Change, Climate Justice, Corporate Globalization, Ending the Era of Extreme Energy, Energy, False Solutions to Climate Change, Forests, Green Economy, Indigenous Peoples, Land Grabs, Latin America-Caribbean, Pollution, REDD

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by | 2013-04-30 · 17:00

“We reject REDD+ in all its versions” – Letter from Chiapas, Mexico opposing REDD in California’s Global Warming Solutions Act (AB 32)

By Chris Lang, 30th April 2013.  Source: REDD-Monitor

Organisations based in Chiapas, Mexico have written to California’s Governor, Jerry Brown, to oppose the inclusion of REDD in California’s Global Warming Solutions Act (AB 32).

Young girls in Amador Hernández Photo: Langelle/GJEP-GFC

Young girls in Amador Hernández Photo: Langelle/GJEP-GFC

In March 2011, Global Justice Ecology Project travelled to Chiapas and documented the problems that REDD and other conservation projects were causing for communities in the Lacandón jungle. Jeff Conant, who was then Communications Director for GJEP, wrote a series of articles based on the visit. The articles are collected on GJEP’s blog, Climate Connections. And Orin Langelle, GJEP’s Board Chair, produced a photo essay about the visit to Chiapas.

GJEP also produced a video about REDD: “A Darker Shade of Green”, which includes interviews with communities in Chiapas (the part about Chiapas starts at 10:45). One of the villagers describes REDD from his perspective:

“They see our Mother Earth as a business, and for us you should never see it like that, it’s our Mother, she can’t be sold. Now they’re developing this REDD Project that’s about carbon capture, it doesn’t serve us. We struggle simply to feed ourselves.”

In December 2012, an article was published in Truthout about the impact of REDD on communities in Chiapas. The title is very appropriate: “Colonialism and the Green Economy: The Hidden Side of Carbon Offsets”. The impacts of carbon offsets on the communities in Chiapas, it seems, remain largely hidden from view in California.
Continue reading →

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Filed under Actions / Protest, Carbon Trading, Chiapas, Climate Change, Climate Justice, Ending the Era of Extreme Energy, False Solutions to Climate Change, Forests, Green Economy, Indigenous Peoples, Land Grabs, Latin America-Caribbean, Pollution, REDD, Rights, Resilience, and Restoration

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by | · 10:58

Audio: Stop the spread of GE trees in the South before it starts!

Note: Anne Petermann is Executive Director of Global Justice Ecology Project, which coordinates the Campaign to STOP Genetically Engineered (GE) Trees.  Click here for the link to the radio interview, and for info on the upcoming protests, click here: http://www.treebiotech2013.org/.

-The GJEP Team

April 28 2013. Source: The Final Straw Radio

STOP GE Trees Campaign

Anne Petermann, of Global Justice Ecology Project, joins us this week to talk about the threats posed by Genetically Engineered Trees getting released into the U.S. as the USDA considers allowing Arborgen to found millions of acres of plantations across the southern U.S. These plantations, reaching from Texas to South Carolina, where the company is based, could destroy forest diversity, kill wildlife, exacerbate droughts, feed fire storms (not Firestorm), and spread quickly with the help of cold-resistant gene modification.

In the last week of May, Asheville will be hosting a Biotech Tree conference. Concurrently, Katuah Earth First! and GJEP (along with other projects) will be holding protests and workshops around the issues of GE Trees to educate the public and grow resistance.

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Filed under Actions / Protest, Climate Change, Climate Justice, Ending the Era of Extreme Energy, False Solutions to Climate Change, GE Trees, Genetic Engineering, Green Economy

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by | 2013-04-24 · 09:00

KPFK Sojourner Truth Earth Watch: Dustin White on the struggle to stop mountaintop removal coal mining in Appalachia

kpfk_logoDustin White, an organizer from Boone County, West Virginia, discusses recent actions targeting the EPA’s failure to address the grave impacts of mountaintop removal coal mining on rural communities.  Global Justice Ecology Project teams up with the Sojourner Truth show on KPFK Pacifica Los Angeles for a weekly Earth Minute each Tuesday and a weekly Earth Watch interview each Thursday.

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Filed under Actions / Protest, Climate Change, Climate Justice, Coal, Ending the Era of Extreme Energy, Mining, Mountaintop Removal, Pollution, Water

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by | 2013-04-17 · 09:00

KPFK Sojourner Truth Earth Minute: First Nation challenging Shell tar sands expansion denied hearing in Canadian Supreme Court, vows to join Idle No More direct action campaign

Global Justice Ecology Project teams up with KPFK’s Sojourner Truth show for weekly Earth Minutes every Tuesday and Earth Watch interviews every Thursday.

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Filed under Climate Change, Climate Justice, Corporate Globalization, Earth Minute, Ending the Era of Extreme Energy, Energy, Indigenous Peoples, Political Repression, Rights, Resilience, and Restoration, Tar Sands

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by | 2013-04-11 · 11:59

New Langelle Photography Program website launched

“The concerned photographer finds much in the present unacceptable which he tries to alter. Our goal is simply to let the world also know why it is unacceptable“- Cornell Capa (1918-2008)
Young girls in Amador Hernández Photo: Langelle/GJEP-GFC

Young girls play in Amador Hernández

Today Global Justice Ecology Project is proud to launch the new website PhotoLangelle.org for Langelle Photography, a program dedicated to using the power of photojournalism to expose social and ecological injustice.

The website features the work of photojournalist Orin Langelle.  Langelle is Co-founder of Global Justice Ecology Project and from 2003 to 2012 was the Co-director/Strategist for the organization.  He now is the board chair and is focused on compiling his four decades of concerned photography.

We invite you to tour this beautiful new website, which is loaded with poignant portraits, dramatic protest photos and photos from Indigenous communities all over the world, among many others.

During the march against the Conference of Polluters. Photo: Langelle/GJEP

Protest during Durban, South Africa’s United Nations Climate Conference, 2011.

For more information, contact: langellePhoto@PhotoLangelle.org

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Filed under Actions / Protest, Climate Change, Climate Justice, Independent Media, Photo Essays by Orin Langelle

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