A half hour interview on the dangers of genetically engineered trees and their relation to climate mitigation schemes. With Climate Challenge host, Karen Strickler:
(click on the link above–we were not able to embed the video in this blog post)
Category Archives: UNFCCC
Climate Challenge Media With GJEP’s Anne Petermann on GE Trees
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Filed under Biodiversity, Climate Change, Corporate Globalization, Energy, False Solutions to Climate Change, Food Sovereignty, GE Trees, Genetic Engineering, Posts from Anne Petermann, REDD, UNFCCC
REDD-Monitor open thread: Capitalism, climate change and carbon trading
By Chris Lang, 28th August 2011
In this open thread are six links covering two themes, followed by a seventh as a postscript. First, the global economy is in serious trouble. Second, runaway climate change seems to be getting ever nearer. While neither of these are strictly REDD issues, I think they are both relevant to REDD (for reasons that I hope I don’t have to spell out).
Capitalism
1. Nouriel Roubini, “Is Capitalism Doomed?”, Project Syndicate, 15 August 2011.
Nouriel Roubini is Professor of Economics at New York University’s Stern School of Business and is known as “Dr. Doom”. He is one of the few economists that predicted the financial crisis of 2007-2008. In his book “Crisis Economics”, Roubini and his co-author Stephen Mihm argue that the meltdown was not a black swan, or an unpredictable exception, but an inherent part of capitalism.
Here’s what he writes in a recent piece on the Project Syndicate website:
Now a combination of high oil and commodity prices, turmoil in the Middle East, Japan’s earthquake and tsunami, eurozone debt crises, and America’s fiscal problems (and now its rating downgrade) have led to a massive increase in risk aversion. Economically, the United States, the eurozone, the United Kingdom, and Japan are all idling. Even fast-growing emerging markets (China, emerging Asia, and Latin America), and export-oriented economies that rely on these markets (Germany and resource-rich Australia), are experiencing sharp slowdowns.
2. Carlo Rotella, “Can Jeremy Grantham profit from ecological mayhem?”, New York Times, 11 August 2011.
Every three months, Jeremy Grantham of investment firm GMO puts out a quarterly letter. April’s letter was titled, “Time to Wake Up: Days of Abundant Resources and Falling Prices Are Over Forever”. This, according to the New York Times is the gist:
“The prices of all important commodities except oil declined for 100 years until 2002, by an average of 70 percent. From 2002 until now, this entire decline was erased by a bigger price surge than occurred during World War II. Statistically, most commodities are now so far away from their former downward trend that it makes it very probable that the old trend has changed — that there is in fact a Paradigm Shift — perhaps the most important economic event since the Industrial Revolution.”
Grantham is, as the New York Times puts it, “the public face of a company that manages more than $100 billion in assets, the very embodiment of a high-finance insider in blue blazer and yellow tie”, but he “has serious doubts about capitalism’s ability to address the biggest problems facing humanity”.
He describes himself as an environmentalist. The Grantham Foundation for the Protection of the Environment supports the Environmental Defense Fund, the World Wildlife Fund and “other such organizations”. So that’s all right, then.
“We’re all involved in environmental causes,” Grantham said of his family. “We can’t recall some single moment of conversion. We found our separate ways to it.” His wife, Hanne, sits on the board of the E.D.F. [Environmental Defense Fund] One son, Oliver, buys forests for Harvard Management Company; another, Rupert, manages forests in Massachusetts; his daughter, Isabel, helps run an E.D.F. program that recruits summer interns from top business schools to improve companies’ energy efficiency.
3. A Visualization of United States Debt
What the US debt looks like as piles of US$100 bills:
The debt currently stands at US$14,654,237,323,627 – but by the time you click on the link, it will be somewhat higher.
To read the rest of the post, please got to REDD-Monitor
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Filed under Carbon Trading, Corporate Globalization, False Solutions to Climate Change, REDD, UNFCCC
Report Released on Dangers of Biofuels and Synthetic Biology
From the Foundation for International Environmental Law and Development (FIELD) | www.field.org.uk
FIELD has prepared a new briefing paper on next generation biofuels and synthetic biology.
The paper explores how synthetic biology is being used to create next generation biofuels, their potential risks and harms, and the need for clear thinking on domestic and international regulationFIELD has prepared a new briefing paper on next generation biofuels and synthetic biology.
To download the 5 page paper, click here
Note: while the paper is quite clear on the devastating impacts that have been documented from so-called “first generation” crop-based agrofuels, they do not adequately explain the threats from second generation “ligno-cellulosic” agrofuels–many of which are the same as those associated with first generation agrofuels: competition with food crops for land, deforestation to make room for agrofuel feedstocks (and all the emissions that result from this land use change), and of course the threats from trees genetically engineered to make better fuel.
For more on these threats from second generation agrofuels, download our booklet “From Meals to Wheels,” or our report “Wood-based Energy: The Green Lie
–The GJEP Team
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Filed under Bioenergy / Agrofuels, Climate Change, False Solutions to Climate Change, GE Trees, Synthetic Biology, UNFCCC
Forest Cover: The Official Newsletter of Global Forest Coalition
CONTENTS OF THIS ISSUE (Download the 10 Page PDF by clicking here)
From standing trees to boiled, bleached pulp in one day. Photo: Petermann/GJEP-GFC
Rio+20 must Recognize the Role of Civil Society
by Fiu Mataese Elisara/ Chair of the Board, Global Forest Coalition
REDD and the Feeling of Standing Barefoot in a Peatswamp By Simone Lovera, Sobrevivencia, Paraguay
San Mariano Biofuel Project Should be Rejected as CDM Project By Feny Cosico, Advocates of Science and Technology for the People (AGHAM), the Philippines
Genetically Engineered Tree Developments: GE Cold Tolerant Eucalyptus in the US By Anne Petermann, Executive Director, Global Justice Ecology Project; North American Focal Point, Global Forest Coalition
African Faith Leaders get Organized for Durban COP17 By Nigel Crawhall, Director of the Secretariat of the Indigenous Peoples of Africa Coordinating Committee (IPACC) and member of the Western Cape Provincial Religious Leaders Forum
Calendar of Forest-related meetings
About Forest Cover
Welcome to the thirty-eighth issue of Forest Cover, newsletter of the Global Forest Coalition (GFC). GFC is a world- wide coalition of non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and Indigenous Peoples Organizations (IPOs). GFC promotes rights-based, socially just and effective forest policies at international and national level, including through building the capacity of NGOs and IPOs in all regions to influence global forest policy.
Forest Cover is published four times a year. It features reports on important intergovernmental meetings by different NGOs and IPOs and a calendar of future meetings. The views expressed in this newsletter do not necessarily reflect the views of
the Global Forest Coalition, its donors or the editors.
For free subscriptions, please contact Yolanda Sikking at: Yolanda.sikking@globalforestcoalition.org
Global Justice Ecology Project is the North American Focal Point of the Global Forest Coalition
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Filed under Biodiversity, Bioenergy / Agrofuels, Climate Justice, Corporate Globalization, False Solutions to Climate Change, GE Trees, Indigenous Peoples, Land Grabs, Latin America-Caribbean, REDD, UNFCCC
Radio Interview: The Myth of the Industrial Forest
Listen to Daphne Wysham’s Interview with Global Justice Ecology Project Executive Director Anne Petermann on the threat of genetically engineered eucalyptus trees, for the EarthBeat Radio Segment, The Myth of the Industrial Forest which played on EcoShock Radio.
Go to: http://209.217.209.33/~esnet/downloads/ES_110713_Show_LoFi.mp3
and forward to minute 26:45.
Also on that episode is an interview with Dr. Rachel Smolker of Biofuelwatch on the myth of biochar; and an interview with Dr. Helen Caldicott about the nuclear power threat.
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Filed under Bioenergy / Agrofuels, False Solutions to Climate Change, GE Trees, Genetic Engineering, Posts from Anne Petermann, REDD, UNFCCC
Video: Rehana Dada on Demands for COP-17 Climate Talks in Durban
Interview with South Africa’s Rehana Dada on the demands of non-governmental organizations, social movements and Indigenous Peoples’ Organizations for the upcoming UN Climate Talks (COP-17) that will take place in Durban, South Africa in December of this year.
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Filed under Actions / Protest, Climate Justice, UNFCCC
Listen to GJEP’s Earth Segment from 17 June–Nukes and Bonn Climate Talks
Listen Global Justice Ecology Project’s weekly Earth Segment from last Thursday on The Sojourner Truth show on Los Angeles’ KPFK Pacifica radio station.
On this week: Independent journalist Tina Gerhardt discusses the backlash against nuclear power and the outcomes of the UN climate talks in Bonn, Germany.
To listen, go to the following link. The interview starts at minute 26:55.
http://archive.kpfk.org/parchive/mp3/kpfk_110616_070010sojourner.MP3
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Filed under Climate Change, Energy, UNFCCC
Bolivia’s Indigenous social movements call for urgent action at UNFCCC talks in Bonn, Germany
Instead of trying to agree on a global deal that will actually stop climate change, governments are more worried about privatising Mother Earth.
Press Conference Webcast:
“Our Mother Earth is ill. The development model of unlimited economic growth and overconsumption has broken the balance between human beings and the environment” said indigenous leader Rafael Quispe.
“The countries negotiating in Bonn for the last two weeks are out of touch with reality. Climate change is affecting us now with more floods and draughts. As indigenous peoples we are one of the groups most vulnerable to the negative impacts of climate change”.
“Unless the peoples of the world unite the consequences of climate change will be much worse”, said indigenous leader Lauriano Pari.
“We call on Annex 1 parties to sign a second commitment period of the Kyoto Protocol in Durban that is legally binding, coercive and with the capacity to penalise Parties. We reject the attempt by developed countries to prolong the life of the Protocol to then replace it in 2020 by a treaty that merges the Kyoto Protocol with the Long-Term Group on Cooperative Action.”, underlined Lauriano Pari.
The Developed countries and their allies are not serious about reducing their emissions. They want to use existing markets and create new ones to pay others so that they take no action to confront the climate crisis. And now they want to put a price on “blue carbon” in the oceans.
All outcomes of the Kyoto Protocol must recognize and respect the rights of native indigenous peoples, consistent with the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, and with the right to consultation and free, prior and informed consent.
“In order to achieve a net reduction of carbon emissions REDD plus cannot be financed by market-based mechanisms or used in carbon offsetting. Instead funds should come from developed countries and innovative funding sources should be explored. For example, by establishing a new mechanism for a tax on financial transactions that would generate funds without any conditionality”, added Lauriano Pari.
Forests are not providers of environmental services as some United Nations agencies and NGOs see them. Forests have multiple values, uses and functions and shall not be considered only as carbon sinks. There needs to be a study on the potential impact of issuing emission-reduction certificates on the rights of indigenous peoples, in particular the impact on land rights, collective rights, and traditional livelihoods.
“It is clear the current proposals on the table in the climate change negotiations are not enough to stop climate change. We propose the model of living well in harmony with Mother Earth as the way forward to re-establish the balance between humans and nature. We believe Mother Earth has rights. She owns us. We do not own her. This is why we have developed a proposal for a Law of Mother Earth that will be approved soon in Bolivia”, said Rafael Quispe.
Notes to editors: A webcast of the full press conference at Bonn UN climate change talks is available here
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Filed under Climate Change, Climate Justice, Indigenous Peoples, Latin America-Caribbean, UNFCCC
