by Anne Petermann, Executive Director, Global Justice Ecology Project
During Obama’s State of the Union address last night the presence of the star of the reality TV show Duck Dynasty might have been the most real part of a very surreal evening.
Of particular note were Obama’s comments on energy and climate change.
While the US Southeast was being hammered by a highly unusual winter storm which stranded thousands in the metro Atlanta area, (no, this does not disprove climate change you nitwits, climate scientists have warned for years that a warming globe means extreme and unpredictable weather) Obama was proclaiming a desire to address climate change so that “when our children’s children look us in the eye and ask if we did all we could to leave them a safer, more stable world, with new sources of energy, [we can say] yes we did.”
This sounds wonderful until we consider the “all of the above” energy strategy Obama touted earlier in the speech, which gives a nod to some of the dirtiest, most polluting and destructive energy sources. It includes shale oil from the Bakken oil fields in North Dakota–the gas flares of which can be seen from space. This shale oil is so extremely volatile that in the past year two trains carrying bakken oil have exploded. It means more coal; it means more deep water offshore drilling of the type that caused the BP oil spill disaster. It means more nukes, even in the shadow of the ongoing catastrophe at Fukushima. And it means more fracking. Obama made a big show of his support for natural gas “if extracted safely,” which it is not.
Obama spent exactly one paragraph on climate change. He declared it a fact. That anyone even needs to do that in this day and age, decades after global warming was identified as a problem, after the Northeast US was smashed by not one but two hurricanes in two consecutive years, after Super-Typhoon Haiyan devastated the Philippines, after the record droughts in Australia, Africa and the US Midwest–to name just a few climate-related catastrophes of the past 8 years–is astounding. However, climate change is not only a fact. In my opinion it is the single greatest threat to future generations of humans and most other species. Yet it merited only a passing mention. One paragraph out of a 13 page speech.
For the unity and mobilization of the people in defense of life and the common good, social justice and environmental against the commodification of nature and “green economy”
Rio de Janeiro, May 12, 2012
A month before the UN Conference Rio +20, the world’s people do not see positive results of the negotiation process that is taking place in the lead up to the official conference. There is no discussion in the agreements reached in Rio+20 about how to change the causes of the crisis. The focus of the discussion is a package of proposals misleadingly called the “green economy” and the establishment of a new system of international environmental governance to facilitate it.
The real cause of the multiple structural crisis of capitalism, with its classical forms of domination, which concentrates wealth and produces social inequality, unemployment, violence against the people, and the criminalization of those who report it. The current system of consumption and production – maintained by large corporations, financial markets and governments – produces and deepens crises of global warming, hunger and malnutrition, loss of forests and biological and socio-cultural diversity, chemical pollution, water scarcity, increasing desertification of soils, acidification of the seas, land grabbing and the commodification of all aspects of life in cities and the countryside.
The “green economy”, contrary to what its name suggests, is another phase of capitalist accumulation. Nothing in the “green economy” questions the current economy based in the extractive and fossil fuels, nor the patterns of consumption and industrial production, but extends the economy into new areas, feeding the myth of that economic growth can be infinite.
The failed economic model, now dressed in green, aims to bring all life cycles of nature to the market rules and the domain of technology, privatization and commodification of nature and its functions, as well as traditional knowledge, increasing speculative financial markets through carbon markets for environmental services, biodiversity offsets and REDD + (Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation).
GMOs, agrochemicals, Terminator technology, biofuels, nanotechnology, synthetic biology, artificial life, geo-engineering and nuclear power, among others, are presented as “technological solutions” to the natural limits of the planet and the many crises, without addressing the real causes that provoke them.
The Green Economy also promotes the expansion of the agro-industrial food system, which is one of the biggest factors leading to climate change, environmental, economic and social crises; the speculation in food, and the promotion of the interests of agribusiness corporations at the expense of production local peasant family, indigenous peoples and traditional populations and affecting the health of entire populations.
As a trading strategy in the Rio +20 conference, some governments in rich countries are proposing a setback of 1992 Rio Principles, including the principle of common but differentiated responsibilities, the precautionary principle, the right to information and participation, and threatening already established rights, such as the rights of indigenous and traditional peoples, peasants, the human right to water, the rights of workers, migrants, the right to food, housing, the rights of youth and women, the right to sexual and reproductive health, education and cultural rights.
They are also trying to install so-called Sustainable Development Objectives (ODS) to be used to promote “green economy”, further weakening the already inadequate Millennium Development Goals (MDGs).
The official process aims to establish global environmental governance forms that serve as managers and facilitators of this “green economy”, giving prominence to the World Bank and other public or private financial institutions, international and national, which will provide a new cycle of indebtedness and structural adjustments dressed in green.
There can be no democratic global governance without ending the current corporate capture of the United Nations.
We reject this process and call for strengthening and building alternatives demonstrations around the world.
We fight for a radical change from the current model of production and consumption, solidifying our right to develop alternative models based on the multiple realities and experiences of the people that are genuinely democratic, respect human rights and are in harmony with nature and social and environmental justice.
We raise the assertion and collective construction of new paradigms based on food sovereignty, agro-ecology and the solidarity economy, the defense of life and the commons, the affirmation of all the threatened rights, the right to land and territory, the rights of nature and future generations, the elimination of all forms of colonialism and imperialism.
We call on people everywhere to support the Brazilian people’s struggle against the destruction of a major legal frameworks for the protection of forests (Forestry Code), which opens avenues for further deforestation in favor of the interests of agribusiness and enlargement of the monocultures, and against the implementation of mega hydro-electric dam–the Belo Monte, which is affecting the survival and livelihoods of forest peoples and the Amazonian biodiversity.
We reiterate the call to participate in the People’s Summit to be held from 15 to 23 June in Rio de Janeiro, which will be an important point in the trajectory of the global struggles for social and environmental justice that we are building since The first Rio Earth Summit in 1992, particularly building from Seattle, FSM, Cochabamba, where the struggles against the WTO and the FTAA were catapulted, for climate justice and against the G-20. Are also included mass mobilizations as Occupy, and Arab Spring.
We call for a global mobilization on 5 June (World Environment day), on June 18 against the G20 (which this time will focus on “green growth”) and the progress of the People’s Summit on 20 June in Rio de Janeiro and in the world, social and environmental justice, against the “green economy”, the commodification of life and nature and the defense of the commons and rights of peoples.
Group’s international joint People’s Summit for Social and Environmental Justice
Note: The following post regards a new organization, Critical information Collective, set up by our friends Joe Zacune and Ronnie Hall (both ex-campaign coordinators with Friends of the Earth International). This initiative will be a very useful and powerful resource and clearinghouse for our collective struggle for social and ecological justice. Check it out!
–The GJEP Team
From Critical Information Collective:
We really hope that you have time to read this short message introducing a new organisation, Critical Information Collective (CIC). It’s been set up by the two of us, Ronnie Hall and Joseph Zacune (ex-campaign coordinators with Friends of the Earth International), although we hope to expand it to include more researchers and advisors soon.
CIC aims to be a resource for you all, providing social movements, NGOs and communities campaigning against corporate globalisation with a single ‘one stop shop’ of incisive, political and campaign-oriented analysis, images and tools – as well as more visibility for our collective effort to challenge the prevailing economic paradigm.
We aim to cover a broad range of critical issues related to corporate-led globalisation, including agrofuels, climate change, deforestation, food, GMOs, land, mining, poverty, rights, and trade and investment.
If you want to find the key documents on any one topic, from a range of different organisations (including your own), or easily find relevant and free/cheap images for your publications, or point your members to additional information resources and campaign tools, we hope you will visit/link to us.”
Global Justice Ecology Project partners with Margaret Prescod’s Sojourner Truth show on KPFK–Pacifica Los Angeles radio show for a weekly Earth Minute on Tuesdays and a weekly 12 minute Environment Segment every Thursday.
Go to the link below and scroll to minute 44:12 to listen to this week’s Earth Minute:
The European Union’s goal of providing 20% of their energy from renewable sources is coming under attack from environmentalists because of the heavy reliance on energy from burning trees.
On 29 March, a call challenging this goal was launched at the European Parliament. It stated, “We’re paying people to cut their forests down in the name of reducing greenhouse gas emissions, yet we are actually increasing them.”
Because it is mistakenly considered ‘carbon neutral’, wood-based electricity is given numerous government subsidies in the EU, the US and elsewhere.
There is a significant gap in time, however, from when carbon is released from cutting, transporting and burning a tree–to when the carbon is re-stored by a new tree that has grown to the same size. This carbon gap lasts for decades.
The “carbon neutral” label of wood-based energy is ironically creating intense pressure to cut and burn forests in the US and globally for energy production, threatening massive deforestation at the same time that scientists are emphasizing the crucial role forests play in stabilizing the climate.
For the Earth Minute and the Sojourner Truth show, this is Anne Petermann from Global Justice Ecology Project.
Note: Sustainable Energy For All, or SEFA, is a UN initiative focused on “clean” energy development in the developing world. Coincidentally, it might be a scheme to increase the role that multi-national corporations play in delivering energy services to communities, and to decrease pressure on developed countries (US, Canada, EU member-states) to implement energy efficiency and carbon-neutral projects. Check out a BiofuelWatch report on SEFA, Sustainable Energy for All-Or Sustained Profits for a Few? for more background information.
-Gears of Change Youth Media
As soon as Morton Wetland, Norway’s representative to the UN, opened his mouth to moderate a panel discussion on public-private relationships for the Sustainable Energy For All (SEFA) initiative, it was clear on which side of the public-private divide the panelists stood. In a belittling tone he said, “I was informed that the G77 has deleted everything in the text which has not been proposed by the G77,” referring to the attempts of mostly southern countries to defend against the stripping away of all language in the Zero Draft document referring to human rights, social inclusion and equity. Considering the chummy, smug chuckles this comment elicited from the room, it immediately appeared that this discussion of SEFA would be more concerned with what is good for business than with what is best for human and natural communities.
SEFA may seem to be an initiative with good intentions—to increase global access to clean, “modern” energy sources—but what ultimately plays out on the ground looks to have dire consequences. The initiative happens to include members from some of the world’s most lovable institutions: Charles Holliday, current chair of America and former director of DuPont, also chairs SEFA. Statoil, Bloomberg New Energy Finance, and Riverstone Holdings, represented by former BP CEO John Browne, are all there too. Mark Moody Stuart, ex chairman of Shell, is also on the board.
What kind of projects can we expect this not-so-motley crew to promote? According to Rachel Smolker from BiofuelWatch, “The first country commitment for the Sustainable Energy For All initiative is from Ghana, and it is a project which will construct a natural gas pipeline in the country with the assistance of a UK company that has long been seeking to do that.” Since when is natural gas considered sustainable energy? In this case, the private sector is using the legitimate concern of improving the health of rural women to push through business-friendly mandates at the national and international levels. Apparently that is the kind of sustainable energy you get when you put the heads of some of the largest energy and finance corporations in charge.
At first glance, it seems like the old regime has just put on new masks. As Justin Perrettson, a panelist representing biotech giant Novozymes, said, “Business as usual doesn’t work…its all about companies doing what they do better,” and, “Sustainable energy is all about mindset.” Indeed, so long as stopping business as usual means creating new, more attractive markets to investors and business, and the mindset with which sustainability is defined thinks primarily about profit margins, investment opportunity and increased corporate power instead human rights, environmental impact and community control.
Perrettson’s presentation focused primarily on the new market potentials for biotech (bioenergy, bioplastics, biochemicals) that SEFA can create with proper public investment and backing. He hopes that the Rio+20 process can be used to initiate, “…a dialogue around…the bio-based economy,” which involves using more of the planets living communities in a more productive way. What he really means is identifying things like “agricultural residues,” which are often vital to traditional forms of agriculture for maintaining soil fertility, and transforming them into synthetic fuels, plastics and chemical products. Not to mention his apparent infatuation with corn, which he described as a, “ power plant.”
If industrial-scale biomass and biofuels are considered sustainable—which they currently are—than SEFA will serve as a mechanism to make investments in these dangerous technologies more attractive. As no less than three panelists pointed out during the hour and a half long session, “Green [as in the Green Economy being promoted at Rio+20] is a good word because it also means the color of money.”
The 800 pound gorilla in the room, of course, was the actual financing for large scale energy projects. Petter Norre, who has spent decades in the Norwegian oil and gas industry and is now a member of the SEFA technical advisory group, described a subset of SEFA, Energy+. Energy+ was developed last fall by UN Seretary General Ban-Ki Moon and the Norwegian government, and is focused on creating attractive investment opportunities for renewable energy projects in the developing world. It is inspired by the Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and forest Degradation (REDD) initiative, which is vehemently opposed by many civil society and indigenous organization throughout the world. Energy+, like REDD, is all about climate finance and making countries, “Green Fund-ready.”
In Norre’s words, Energy+ is about, “…getting down the country risk for big international investors who live by their spreadsheets and their cost of capital….” In other words, how to get the public sector to subsidize, deregulate or structurally adjust in ways that can make otherwise risky development projects appear attractive to the big multi-nationals. And what is the real role of the public sector here? Unfortunately, it doesn’t seem to be providing a regulatory framework to ensure equity and rights. Quite the contrary, according to Norre, the public sector needs to provide, “…a regulatory framework to have a state that functions that somehow encourages investment.”
Just as Energy+ was making me feel warm and fuzzy about the role the private sector would play in what was now being discussed mostly in terms of finance, decoupling risk from investment, and commercial opportunity, the World Bank reared its ugly head. While I was surprised to hear World Bank Senior Energy Specialist Magnus Gehringer talking about geothermal (I figured they also would have been in the natural gas-as-sustainable energy camp), his presentation came to similar conclusions as Norre’s. Speaking with a starry-eyed gaze about the potentials of geothermal energy, Gehringer explained the Bank’s new push, coming from the Energy Sector Management Assistance Program (ESMAP), to access this below ground energy source. Drill, baby, drill.
While geothermal has a relatively high return on investment, it requires huge upfront costs. The biggest hurdle for countries lacking access to large amounts of cash is the test drilling required prior to geothermal development. It is prohibitively expensive and requires drilling 2-3 km below the ground. And this is to test for geothermal potential.
But high up-front investment costs won’t stop the World Bank. In fact, nothing short of direct community resistance will. Magnus showed a map of geothermal hotspots, most of which are in the southern Pacific Ocean, the western coasts of North, Central and South America, and eastern Africa. While it is true that geothermal is at the “edge of what people think about,” that might be due to the fact that most of the world is looking for solutions that are cheap, don’t require huge amounts of international finance and corporate control, and that won’t result in further ecological destruction. As Gehringer noted, “Japan has an estimated potential…of 23,000 megawatts….And they didn’t use it because most of their geothermal fields are in national protected parks, and they didn’t want to damage their landscape.” Well shame on you, Japan, for placing ecological protection before increased energy development. The Bank will have to see about that.
The scariest piece of what the Bank is proposing, and about all public-private partnerships proposed for Rio+20, are the proposed private sector benefits. Gehringer described a dream project of his, involving, “…a loan [for geothermal development] to the…east African countries for example, that they could then repay by just, for example, tendering out some of their [developed geothermal] fields to the private sector, and they would get their money back and they could repay the loans and still keep some of it.” How much of whose fields? When do they get them back? And at what cost to local people and the planet?
What is so troubling about this initiative, as Ana Belén Sánchez López from Sustainlabour pointed out in a question to the panel, is that increasing access to safe, reliable, sustainable energy is a crucial issue for women, workers and many of the world’s most marginalized people. Energy is necessary for survival. However, it is also imperative that energy is considered in the context of human rights, not market commodities, and that the public sector—trade unions, civil society organizations, local communities—have a real seat at the table.
Sustianable Energy For All needs to focus on making projects that work for public utilities, and that really address the needs of local communities in healthy, sustainable ways. It can’t be used as a Trojan Horse for the corporate world to ride into marginalized urban and rural areas to access newly developing markets. That is not the future we want. As the moderator made clear in his response to Sánchez López’s comments, the focus needs to be on the private sector because right now the private sector is a, “four-letter word,” at the UN. Well, maybe it should stay that way.
Global Justice Ecology Project partners with Margaret Prescod and the Sojourner Truth show at KPFK Pacifica in Los Angeles for weekly Earth Segments and weekly Earth Minutes.
This week’s Earth Segment features Nnimmo Bassey, Executive Director of Environmental Rights Action in Nigeria, West Africa, on the Niger Delta oil disaster and on the move to replace fossil fuels with biofuels.
To listen to the Earth Segment, go to the following link and click on minute 15:35.
Genetically engineered trees (GE trees) are also known as genetically modified trees (GM trees) or transgenic trees. This refers to trees which have been genetically altered through the insertion of foreign DNA to give the trees unnatural characteristics such as the ability to kill insects, resist toxic herbicides, grow faster or have modified wood composition.
This Nov. 11, 2008 photo released by ArborGen shows a field trial of genetically engineered eucalyptus trees in Sebring, Fla. South Carolina-based ArborGen received federal approval to plant 260,000 GE eucalyptus trees in locations around the South for use by International Paper, MeadWestvaco and Rubicon LTD. (AP Photo/ArborGen)
The release of GE trees into the environment is extremely dangerous and the impacts of the escape of these trees into native forest or other ecosystems is unknown, but likely to be extremely destructive. If GE trees are released on a large scale, the escape of pollen or seeds from these trees is both inevitable and irreversible. Contaminated trees would go on to contaminate more trees in an endless cycle. For this reason, we began campaigning to stop GE trees as soon as we learned about them in 1999, when we were still Native Forest Network, launching the official first campaign against GE trees in June of 2000. In April of 2003 we co-founded the STOP GE Trees Campaign.
Below is a brief history of the campaign to stop the release of genetically engineered trees. Thanks to our generous supporters for making our work to protect forests and communities from the dangers of GE trees possible.
GE trees are still one disaster we can stop. To join the campaign against GE trees email globalecology@gmavt.net. To sign the petition calling for a global ban on GE trees, please click here. To read our report on the current status of GE trees, click here.
–Anne Petermann
Coordinator, STOP GE Trees Campaign
Executive Director, Global Justice Ecology Project
History of the Campaign to STOP Genetically Engineered Trees
June 2000: Campaign against GE trees launched at Biodevastation protest during Biotechnology Industry Organization national conference in Boston. Washington Post runs front page article about the campaign.
May 2001: Chapter on the dangers of GE trees published by GJEP Co-Founder Orin Langelle in the book Redesigning Life.
July 2001: Native Forest Network (NFN) report released From Native Forests to Frankentrees: The Global Threat of Genetically Engineered Trees.
July 2001: NFN organizes protest at GE tree conference at Skamania Lodge in Washington state.
GE trees action at International Paper subsidiary in Sacramento, CA. Photo: Langelle
March 2003: Action for Social and Ecological Justice, Rainforest Action Network and Northwest Resistance Against Genetic Engineering organize GE tree protests at the World Trade Organization agricultural negotiations in Sacramento, CA.
December 2003: UN Climate Convention’s Ninth Conference of the Parties (COP 9) in Milan, Italy decides that GE trees can be used in carbon offset forestry plantations.
April 2004: GJEP presents dangers of GE trees to delegates at the UN Forum on Forests in Geneva, Switzerland.
Mapuche activist shows us eucalyptus seedling covered with toxic pesticides responsible for contaminating the watershed. Photo: Langelle, 2004
September 2004: GJEP launches collaborative partnership with Indigenous Mapuche group Konapewman against GE trees and plantations in Chile.
October 2004: GJEP presents social and ecological dangers of GE trees during founding meeting of the Durban Group for Climate Justice in Durban, South Africa.
December 2004: GJEP and WRM organize side event and press conference on social and ecological dangers of GE trees at the UN Climate Convention COP 10 in Buenos Aires, Argentina. Mapuche participant presents threats to Indigenous peoples.
MST camp in Espirito Santo, Brazil. Banner reads "eucalyptus plantations are not forests." Photo: Langelle
November 2005: Global Justice Ecology Project, World Rainforest Movement and FASE host joint international strategy meeting on GE trees in Vitoria, Brazil. Participants attend from five continents.
March 2006: STOP GE Trees Campaign and EcoNexus campaign against GE trees at UN Biodiversity Convention COP 8 in Curitiba, Brazil. UN decides to warn countries about GE trees, calls for application of the Precautionary Principle and launches a study into the ecological and social impacts of GE trees.
July 2006: UN Food and Agriculture Organization releases a report titled, Preliminary Review of Biotechnology in Forestry, Including Genetic Modification. In it, a survey of GE tree researchers reveals that their topmost concern about GE trees is the “unintentional contamination of non-target species.” Their second greatest concern is public opinion of GE trees.
Boat action in Charleston harbor protests industry conference on GE trees and plantations. Photo: Petermann
October 2006: STOP GE Trees Campaign, Rising Tide and Katuah Earth First! organize protests and a boat action organized around the International Union of Forest Research Organizations “2006 Forest Plantations Meeting” in Charleston, South Carolina, US.
May 2007: STOP GE Trees Campaign launches “National Effort to Stop Genetically Engineered Eucalyptus Plantations in US Southeast.”
June 2007: STOP GE Trees Campaign issues press release asking US health and environmental agencies to investigate potential link between pathogenic fungus and genetically engineered eucalyptus trees.
Frankenforests threaten to take over UN Convention on Biological Diversity conference in Bonn, Germany. Photo: Langelle
May 2008: A major series of protests and side events are organized by a large international alliance of groups and Indigenous Peoples’ Organizations at the UN CBD convention in Bonn, Germany calling for a global ban on GE trees. Unanimous support for the ban received from entire African delegation, many Latin American and Asian country delegations, and all NGOs and IPOs present.
May 2009: Belgium Permanent Mission in Manhattan protested by Indigenous Peoples during the UN Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues due to Belgium’s development of test plots of GE poplar trees.
May-June 2009: Living On Earth, an NPR program, interviews GJEP on the impacts of GE trees.
June 2009: The STOP GE Trees Campaign and allies submit nearly 17,500 public comments to the USDA opposing the USDA’s recommendation for approval of an ArborGen proposal to plant over a quarter of a million GE eucalyptus trees in test plots across seven states. Only 39 favorable comments were received by the USDA.
Mapuche woman protests outside of the Belgian Mission in Manhattan. Photo: Langelle
October 2009: La Via Campesina, the world’s largest peasant farmer organization, organizes protests outside of the XIII World Forestry Congress in Buenos Aires, Argentina. GJEP speaks about GE trees.
February 2010: Groups Force USDA to re-release Draft Environmental Assessment on genetically engineered eucalyptus trees after their original EA lacked key US Forest Service hydrological studies.
May 2010: USDA approves ArborGen request to plant 260,000 genetically engineered eucalyptus trees in test plots across the US South despite overwhelming public opposition.
June 2010: Global Justice Ecology Project, Global Forest Coalition and Biofuelwatch release new report, Wood-based Bioenergy: The Green Lie, at the UN climate talks in Bonn, Germany during a European tour on the issues of GE trees and wood-based bioenergy.
July 2010: Global Justice Ecology Project, Dogwood Alliance, Sierra Club, Center for Food Safety, International Center for Technology Assessment and Center for Biological Diversity file suit against the USDA over their approval of ArborGen’s large-scale test plots of GE eucalyptus trees.
September 2010: Global Justice Ecology Project, Dogwood Alliance and the STOP GE Trees Campaign release a 5 minute video on the dangers of large-scale tree plantations and genetically engineered trees.
October 2010: ArborGen announces plan for Initial Public Offering (IPO) to raise funds for research.
Protest against the World Bank's Forest Carbon Partnership Facility at the UN Climate Conference in Bali, Indonesia in 2007. ArborGen is trying to get their GE trees into forest carbon offset projects. Photo: Langelle
2007-2010: GJEP organizes side events and press conferences with World Rainforest Movement, Global Forest Coalition, Climate Justice Now!, Indigenous Environmental Network and other groups at annual UN Climate Conferences linking GE trees to the REDD (Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation) scheme and denouncing the UN’s definition of forests.
January 2011: ArborGen partner Range Fuels shutters taxpayer-subsidized cellulosic ethanol plant in Georgia, due to their inability to manufacture affordable cellulosic ethanol.
January 2011: ArborGen submits request to USDA for full deregulation and commercial approval of their GE eucalyptus trees.
June 2011: STOP GE Trees Campaign Action Alert against ArborGen coincides with Tree Biotechnology 2011 conference in Brazil.
Protest outside of the Sustainable Forestry Initiative conference in Burlington, VT. Photo: Langelle
September 2011: Protest organized to counter the push for GE tree sustainability criteria at the 2011 conference of the Sustainable Forestry Initiative in Burlington, Vermont.
October 2011: USDA grants $136 million for research into GE trees and other wood for bioenergy.
October 2011: Judge in GE trees test plot lawsuit rules in favor of USDA.
February 2012: COST Alliance formed in EU to advance GE tree “sustainability criteria” by “…improving the scientific basis for safe tree development…with the intent to supply the world with fuel, fibre and energy.”
March 2012: Action Alert launched to stop the expansion of ArborGen’s GE eucalyptus test plots in the US South.
March 2012: ArborGen Board announces major changes to Senior Management.
The false solutions circus at VT Yankee Protest. Photo: Dylan Kelley
March 2012: Vermont Yankee Protest–Protesters link nuclear power and GE trees as dangerous “false solutions” to climate change.
For a complete listing of news around genetically engineered trees, go to: http://nogetrees.org
Last week on March 14, ArborGen, a leader in genetically engineered tree research and development, experienced a major shake up when its Board announced “new leadership changes at its senior executive level,” [1] after the failure of the company to go public on the NASDAQ in 2011. [2] Most significantly, Barbara Wells, their CEO and President since 2002 was replaced.
Today, Global Justice Ecology Project announced their new report, An Analysis of the State of GE Trees and Advanced Bioenergy, which details the evolution of the issue of GE trees from 2010 through 2012 and the global campaign to prohibit the release of GE trees.
The report reveals government, industry, university and research institution collusion to advance development of GE trees specifically designed for bioenergy production in the US and globally.
It also describes the impacts of a 2010 lawsuit against GE trees [3] brought against the USDA by a coalition of environmental organizations [4] that had a chilling effect on the GE trees industry by scaring off investors. [5]
“Global Justice Ecology Project published this new report to inform the public about the problems with genetically engineered trees and to highlight what is going on to stop them,” said Anne Petermann, Executive Director of Global Justice Ecology Project, and Coordinator of the STOP GE Trees Campaign. “This exposé reveals government-industry backroom deals that are using the crisis of climate change and the need for renewable energy to stack the deck in favor of the mass-release of millions of GE trees to feed bioenergy production,” Petermann added.
The report critiques a recent USDA announcement regarding forthcoming changes to their regulatory procedures for reviewing genetically modified organisms (GMOs) to enable corporations to bring their GE products to market in half the time it used to take–down from three years to 13-16 months. One of the GMO plants that would be included in this rapid review process is ArborGen’s GE eucalyptus tree. [6]
Scot Quaranda, Campaign Director for the North Carolina-based Dogwood Alliance stated, “The USDA can’t possibly review GE eucalyptus trees in 13-16 months. GE eucalyptus trees are non-native, invasive, explosively flammable and deplete ground water. Developing plantations of them in a region that often suffers from extensive drought would be a disaster.” [7]
“If they rush approval of GE trees, the USDA is risking a huge public backlash and a lengthy legal challenge,” warned Global Justice Ecology Project Board Chair Orin Langelle.
In addition to exposing the rapid, government-supported development of GE trees in the US, the report discusses international strategies used by industry to open markets for GE tree products. This includes attempts to greenwash GE trees by creating phony sustainability criteria for them.
29 March 2012
