klamath
11-05-2009, 12:48 PM
To bad they can't make the connection between this and government interference and that their president is pushing this.
“GM’s Money Trees”: Displacement of Rural Brazilians Highlights Consequences of “Cap and Trade” System
With the Copenhagen climate summit just a month away, a new investigative series looks at how rural Brazilians are being displaced so their forest can be turned into carbon offsets for some of the world’s biggest polluters, including General Motors and Chevron. With deforestation amounting to a fifth of the world’s emissions, planting and preserving trees are seen as key elements to offset pollution. We speak to Mark Schapiro of the Center for Investigative Reporting. After traveling to Brazil, Schapiro writes, “People with some of the smallest carbon footprints on earth are being displaced by companies with some of the biggest.”
With the Copenhagen climate summit just a month away, we look at the lucrative business that global warming has generated. The buying and selling of carbon credits earned from reducing greenhouse emissions is already a $150 billion dollar market. Negotiations in Copenhagen are expected to focus at least in part on how to regulate this fast-growing carbon market.
Central to the debate is how to deal with the world’s forests. Trees are a key commodity in this business because they soak up carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. With deforestation amounting to a fifth of the world’s emissions, planting and preserving trees are seen as key elements to offset pollution.
Well as part of a collaborative investigation by the Center for Investigative Reporting and FRONTLINE/World, Mark Schapiro from the Center for Investigative Reporting traveled to Brazil’s Atlantic coast. He visited a forest that could soon become part of the global carbon economy. In this video clip available at FRONTLINE/World’s Carbon Watch website Brazilian forestry expert Ricardo de Britez tells Mark Schapiro how to measure the amount of carbon sequestered in a tree.
That’s right General Motors, along with Chevron, and American Electric Power–three of the planet’s leading polluters–teamed up with the US-based Nature Conservancy to purchase 50,000 acres of Brazilian forest land. The reserves are managed by the Brazilian conservation group S.P.V.S, the Society for Wildlife Research and Environmental Education.
Nature Conservancy cites the project as “an invaluable contribution to the preservation of the planet’s biodiversity.” In addition of course the corporations get the potentially lucrative rights to the carbon sequestered in these trees.
But what happens to the local communities living in and around the forest? In an article titled “GM’s Money Trees” published in the latest Mother Jones Mark Schapiro writes: “People with some of the smallest carbon footprints on earth are being displaced by companies with some of the biggest.”
Mark Schapiro, the editorial director for the Center for Investigative Reporting joins me now from Berkeley, California.
Mark Schapiro, Editorial director of the Center for Investigative Reporting in San Francisco.
http://www.democracynow.org/2009/11/5/gms_money_trees_displacement_of_rural
“GM’s Money Trees”: Displacement of Rural Brazilians Highlights Consequences of “Cap and Trade” System
With the Copenhagen climate summit just a month away, a new investigative series looks at how rural Brazilians are being displaced so their forest can be turned into carbon offsets for some of the world’s biggest polluters, including General Motors and Chevron. With deforestation amounting to a fifth of the world’s emissions, planting and preserving trees are seen as key elements to offset pollution. We speak to Mark Schapiro of the Center for Investigative Reporting. After traveling to Brazil, Schapiro writes, “People with some of the smallest carbon footprints on earth are being displaced by companies with some of the biggest.”
With the Copenhagen climate summit just a month away, we look at the lucrative business that global warming has generated. The buying and selling of carbon credits earned from reducing greenhouse emissions is already a $150 billion dollar market. Negotiations in Copenhagen are expected to focus at least in part on how to regulate this fast-growing carbon market.
Central to the debate is how to deal with the world’s forests. Trees are a key commodity in this business because they soak up carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. With deforestation amounting to a fifth of the world’s emissions, planting and preserving trees are seen as key elements to offset pollution.
Well as part of a collaborative investigation by the Center for Investigative Reporting and FRONTLINE/World, Mark Schapiro from the Center for Investigative Reporting traveled to Brazil’s Atlantic coast. He visited a forest that could soon become part of the global carbon economy. In this video clip available at FRONTLINE/World’s Carbon Watch website Brazilian forestry expert Ricardo de Britez tells Mark Schapiro how to measure the amount of carbon sequestered in a tree.
That’s right General Motors, along with Chevron, and American Electric Power–three of the planet’s leading polluters–teamed up with the US-based Nature Conservancy to purchase 50,000 acres of Brazilian forest land. The reserves are managed by the Brazilian conservation group S.P.V.S, the Society for Wildlife Research and Environmental Education.
Nature Conservancy cites the project as “an invaluable contribution to the preservation of the planet’s biodiversity.” In addition of course the corporations get the potentially lucrative rights to the carbon sequestered in these trees.
But what happens to the local communities living in and around the forest? In an article titled “GM’s Money Trees” published in the latest Mother Jones Mark Schapiro writes: “People with some of the smallest carbon footprints on earth are being displaced by companies with some of the biggest.”
Mark Schapiro, the editorial director for the Center for Investigative Reporting joins me now from Berkeley, California.
Mark Schapiro, Editorial director of the Center for Investigative Reporting in San Francisco.
http://www.democracynow.org/2009/11/5/gms_money_trees_displacement_of_rural