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 An assorted alliance of organizations published an open letter [1] this Thursday, January 15, in the U.S. and internationally, warning of the dangers of industrially produced biofuels (called agrofuels by critics).
The letter explains why large-scale industrial production of transport fuels and other energy from plants such as corn, sugar cane, oilseeds, trees, grasses, or so-called agricultural and woodland waste threatens forests, biodiversity, food sovereignty, community-based land rights and will worsen climate change.
With the new Obama Administration slated to take office Tuesday, the letter's originators warn that if Obama's "New Green Economy" runs on agrofuels it may trap the U.S. in a dangerous "Green Bubble" of unrealistic promises from an unsustainable industry.
Indications that the incoming Obama Administration may be ideologically wedded to continuing the agrofuel disaster are clear. President Obama's "New Green Deal" includes support for notoriously destructive agrofuel corporations, the creation of a pro-agribusiness cabinet that includes Tom Vilsack, Ken Salazar and Steven Chu, promotion of cellulosic fuel technologies, and references to increasing the Renewable Fuel Standard biofuel target.
Additionally, Obama, a former Senator from a corn-growing state, has indicated that the already troubled U.S. ethanol industry will receive a financial boost soon, despite mounting evidence that the industry simply cannot meet the demand for fuel in any just or sustainable way.
"This no longer about corn ethanol-turning any plants into fuel is simply not renewable," stated Dr. Rachel Smolker, co-author of the letter and Global Justice Ecology Project agrofuels specialist. "All plants, edible or not, require soils, water, fertilizers and land, all of which are in shortening supply.
"Yet these unsustainable technologies are commanding the vast majority of renewable energy tax incentives, at the expense of genuine cleaner energy solutions like conservation, efficiency, wind, solar, and ocean power. Additionally, because agrofuel crops rely on fertilizers, 44% of which are imported, they cannot even satisfy the calls for U.S. energy independence."
Corn and sugar based agrofuels have already come under extreme scrutiny due to their documented contribution to the food crisis, with venture capital investment in these so-called 'first generation biofuels' dropping to zero.
The open letter exposes the further problems that will result from the so-called 'second generation' of agrofuels. These problems range from wholesale destruction of the world's rainforests and other sensitive forests, to the forced displacement of entire communities to make way for agrofuel expansion, and the biosafety risks of gambling on novel technologies like Synthetic Biology and genetically engineered trees.
The letter also makes clear that agrofuels made from inedible plant feedstocks (cellulosic fuels) will continue to exacerbate the food crisis by monopolizing additional agricultural lands for the growing of agrofuel crops such as grasses and trees, instead of food crops.
The groups originating the letter have called on others to join them in preventing another ill-conceived push into agrofuels similar to that which last year raised food prices and hunger levels to crisis proportions.
"The last administration's enthusiastic foray into biofuels exacerbated global environmental destruction, land theft and hunger in just a very short space of time," explains Kathy Jo Wetter of the ETC Group. "Redoubling that biofuels push is a continuation of disastrous policies rather than the change we need."
The groups originating the letter include some of the same U.S. groups that issued a call in early 2007 for an immediate moratorium on further U.S. incentives for agrofuel development: Global Justice Ecology Project, Rainforest Action Network, Food First, Family Farm Defenders, and Grassroots International. Additional groups making this call include: ETC Group, Institute for Social Ecology, Heartwood, Dogwood Alliance, Energy Justice Network, and Native Forest Council.
OPEN LETTER:
Unsustainable Biofuels: Fueling Climate Change, Poverty and Environmental Devastation
As a diverse alliance of organizations concerned with climate change, agriculture and food policy, human rights and indigenous peoples rights and biodiversity protection, we (Global Justice Ecology Project, Institute for Social Ecology, Heartwood, Energy Justice Network, Grassroots International, Food First, Native Forest Council, Family Farm Defenders, ETC Group, Dogwood Alliance, Rainforest Action Network) issue this open letter in opposition to agrofuels (large scale industrial biofuels). If you would like to join us, please add your organizational signature to this letter.
We strongly oppose the rapid and destructive expansion of agrofuels; the large-scale industrial production of transport fuels and other energy from plants (corn, sugar cane, oilseeds, trees, grasses, waste etc.). Agrofuels are a false solution and a dangerous distraction and they must be halted.
Agrofuels are a "false solution":
Many prominent voices in the United States, including President-elect Obama, have voiced support for the large-scale production of agrofuels as a central strategy for solving the problems of energy supply and global warming. A growing body of scientific evidence, however, indicates that this is a tragic misconception and that continued pursuit of agrofuels will aggravate severely rather than resolve the multiple and dire consequences of the climate, energy, food, economic and ecological crises we face.
Like other dirty and dangerous technologies and devices being promoted by industry to supposedly address climate change-including "clean coal," carbon capture and storage [CCS], coal gasification, nuclear power, carbon offset markets, and ocean fertilization-agrofuels are a distracting "false solution" promoted for their potential to reap profits rather than their capacity to address problems effectively. [1]
Agrofuels worsen climate change and poverty:
A growing body of literature from all levels of society is revealing that, when all impacts are considered, agrofuels create more, not less, greenhouse gas emissions; deplete soil and water resources; drive destruction of forests and other biodiverse ecosystems; result in expanded use of genetically engineered crops, toxic pesticides, and herbicides; and consolidate corporate control over access to land. While claims are made that agrofuels will benefit the rural poor, in reality, indigenous and smallholder farmers are increasingly displaced. Industrial agriculture and the destruction of biodiversity, two leading causes of global warming, will be further facilitated by agrofuels. [2]
Next generation "cellulosic" fuels will not resolve the problems:
With recognition of the role of agrofuels in driving up food prices, there has been increasing attention to the social and ecological costs of corn and sugar cane derived ethanol. In response, there is now a massive push to develop non-food, so-called cellulosic fuels based on claims that these new feedstocks (grasses, trees, and "waste" products) will not compete with food production and can be grown on "idle and marginal" lands. The incoming Obama Administration is clearly positioning to advocate strongly on this platform. [3] Unfortunately, these claims do not hold up to scrutiny.
An enormous additional demand for trees, grasses and other plants, edible or inedible, will not avert the problem of land-use competition. Land that could be used for food crops or biodiversity conservation will be increasingly diverted into energy production. Demand for land for both agriculture and timber is already intense and escalating globally as water, soil and biodiversity dwindle and the climate becomes increasingly unstable. [4]
The scale of demand cannot be met sustainably:
Virtually all of the proposed cellulosic feedstocks (including dedicated energy crops such as perennial grasses and fast growing or genetically engineered trees, agricultural and forestry "wastes and residues", municipal wastes etc.) present serious ecological concerns on the scale required to maintain biorefinery operations and significantly contribute to U.S. energy demands. Furthermore, renewable fuels targets in the U.S. mandate the use of 15 billion gallons of corn ethanol per year, an amount that requires one third of the nations corn crop, and an additional 21 billion gallons a year of "advanced" agrofuels, the definition of which opens the possibility that demand will be met with foreign sources. The massive new demand for agrofuels is escalating deforestation and resulting in conversion of biodiverse and carbon-rich native forests and grasslands into biologically barren and carbon-poor industrial tree plantations and other crop monocultures. [5]
Land use changes resulting from industrial agriculture, including widespread deforestation, are major causes of climate change. Recent research finds that old growth forests sequester far more carbon than was previously estimated, (i.e. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change underestimated carbon stocks for temperate old growth forests by two-thirds). This means that deforestation has been a much larger causal factor in global warming than initially thought, and that intact natural forests are critical for sequestering carbon. It is imperative therefore that we protect remaining forests, grasslands and other carbon-rich ecosystems. [6]
The widespread application of biotechnology for agrofuel production, including genetically engineered (GE) feedstock crops such as GE grasses and GE trees, and plans to use synthetic biology and other genetic engineering techniques to alter and construct microbes, is an unacceptable and dangerous risk. [7]
Sustainability criteria cannot address the problems with agrofuels because they are incapable of addressing many complex and often indirect ecological and social impacts. Neither can they be implemented under globally diverse ecological, social and political situations. Similar efforts to develop criteria for soy, palm oil and timber, for example, have proven vastly inadequate. Finally, these efforts are based on the fundamental and flawed assumption that such massive demands can and should be met.
Agrofuels are not a renewable energy source:
While plants do re-grow, the soils, nutrients, minerals and water they require are in limited supply. The diverse and complex ecosystems that native plants belong to are also limited and not easily regenerated. Subsidies and incentives for renewable fuels should be focused on truly renewable options, like wind and solar energy. Instead, currently in the U.S. close to three-quarters of tax credits and two-thirds of federal subsidies for renewable energy are being wrongly invested in agrofuels. [8]
Agrofuels are a disaster for people:
As governments, investors and corporations recognize the increasing demand for and profitability of land for food, fiber and now energy, we are witnessing a veritable tidal wave of land grabbing on a global scale. This is disastrous for rural and indigenous peoples who are increasingly being evicted or displaced. If tariffs currently limiting international agrofuel trade are diminished or eliminated, social and ecological damages will escalate.
Social movements around the world, including the international peasant movement, Via Campesina, call for "food and energy sovereignty." Via Campesina, along with the independent International Assessment of Agricultural Knowledge, Science and Technology for Development (IAASTD), a long-term independent assessment of agriculture involving over 400 scientists and diverse stakeholders, point to the key importance of a return to locally controlled, diverse, ecologically sensitive, and organic agriculture practices as vital to both addressing climate change and poverty. In demanding a halt to the insanity of agrofuel expansion, we stand in solidarity with peoples around the world who are resisting the loss and destruction of their lands, and with the wildlife and biodiversity being driven to extinction for corporate profit. [9]
Real solutions must be given a chance.
There are numerous better options for addressing climate change. These are generally proven, do not involve risky technologies, return control of resources to local inhabitants rather than profiting irresponsible corporations, and are more equitable. [10]
These include but are not limited to:
* A massive focus on improvements in energy efficiency, public transport and reduced levels of consumption within the United States (and other affluent countries);
* A rejection of industrial agribusiness and biotechnology and a return to locally adapted and community controlled diverse agricultural practices with the goal of feeding people, not automobiles, while conserving soil and water, maximizing carbon sequestration and protecting biodiversity;
* Repeal of the 36 billion gallon per year Renewable Fuel Standard biofuel target in the Energy Independence and Security Act.
* Support for indigenous land rights and community stewardship initiatives as the major focus of efforts to preserve biodiverse ecosystems and the implementation of free and prior informed consent from indigenous peoples with respect to projects proposed on their ancestral lands and territories.
* Reducing demand for forest products and aggressively protecting remaining native forests and grasslands;
* Rejection of coal and nuclear technologies, which are inherently toxic and dangerous;
* Scaling up of decentralized and unequivocally renewable and cleaner wind and solar energies;
* Leaving fossil fuels in the ground, where they cannot contribute to climate change;
* Rejection of ineffective market-based approaches that commodify the atmosphere, biodiversity, and humanity itself.
Signed:
Global Justice Ecology Project
Institute for Social Ecology
Heartwood
Energy Justice Network
Grassroots International
Food First
Native Forest Council
Dogwood Aliance
Family Farm Defenders
ETC Group
Rainforest Action Network
NOTES:
[1] A recent comprehensive review of a variety of technologies proposed for addressing climate change, including wind, solar, nuclear, geothermal, tidal etc. found: "...cellulosic- and corn-E85 were ranked lowest overall and with respect to climate, air pollution, land use, wildlife damage, and chemical waste.... biofuel options provide no certain benefit and the greatest negative impacts."1
Resources and information on the false solutions involving coal, nuclear, incineration, biofuels, natural gas and more are available at: http://www.energyjustice.net/
For information on ocean fertilization: http://www.etcgroup.org/en/materials/publications.html?pub_id=694
For a review of climate geo-engineering technologies: A. Ernsting and D. Rhugani. 2008. Climate geoengineering with "carbon negative" bioenergy. http://www.biofuelwatch.org.uk/docs/cnbe/cnbe.html
Opposition to these "false solutions" is growing.2
[2] Climate: According to recent studies, when all direct and indirect land use change emissions are accounted for, agrofuels produce from 17 to 420 times MORE greenhouse gas emissions than would be saved by avoided use of fossil fuel. Another study revealed that emissions of nitrous oxide from increasing fertilizer use for biofuel crops reduces or even cancels out gains from offsetting fossil fuel use with agrofuels. 3,4,5
People: rural and indigenous peoples are increasingly displaced, often violently from their lands to make way for expanding industrial agriculture. Agrofuels are contributing to this.6,7 The global peasant farmers movement "Via Campesina" states: "small farmers feed the world, industrial agrofuels fuel hunger and poverty" (Jakarta, June 24th 2008: International Conference on Peasant Rights)8
The UN FAO reported that food prices have pushed the number of starving to more than one billion, 14% of the human population.9 A leaked memo from the World Bank stated that 75% of the food price increase could be attributed to diversion of food crops into fuel production.10 The FAO stated that mandated targets may need to be reconsidered. Reports on the impacts of cane ethanol in Latin America paint a grim picture of oppression and destruction.11
[3] Obama, a long standing advocate of corn ethanol has stated that he will increase the renewable fuel standard from the current level at 36 bG/yr to 60 bG/yr. His cabinet appointments include 1) Tom Vilsack (Secretary of Agriculture), known for his advocacy on behalf of biotechnology and his close relationship with Monsanto and support for corn ethanol 2) Steven Chu (Secretary of Energy) who was instrumental in establishing agrofuels as the major focus of Lawrence Berkeley Labs (which he directs) and overseeing the establishment of the Energy Biosciences Institute, a $500 mil partnership involving UC Berkeley (a supposedly public educational institution) and BP, along with the Lawrence Berkeley labs, the goal of which is research and development of cellulosic fuel technologies. 3) Ken Salazar (Secretary of the Interior) has been a major proponent of flex-fuel car production and cellulosic fuel development.12
[4] As demands for food and bioenergy expand, enormous land grabbing is underway with countries, corporations and investors buying up large amounts of arable land in a scramble to gain access to dwindling and profitable resources.13 For example, Daewoo, a South Korean company is seeking to acquire a 99-year lease on a million hectares of Madagascar's agricultural land, Kuwait is looking to acquire millions of hectares in Cambodia, and other investors are moving in on approximately 15 per cent of Laos's agricultural land.
Soil: In the U.S., some of the best agricultural soils occur in Iowa, but over the past century these have declined from an average of 18 to just 10 inches of depth over the past century due to erosion. Erosion rates exceeded soil regeneration rates on close to 30% of agricultural lands in the U.S. in 2001. This loss of topsoil and organic residues results in declining productivity. In an effort to stem the tide of erosion, the U.S. Conservation Reserve Program was introduced in 1985 and paid farmers to plant lands sensitive to erosion with grass or tree cover protection and to use no-till farming, terracing and contour strip farming. These CRP lands are shrinking due to incentives to produce agrofuel feedstocks. Removal of "wastes and residues" from agricultural and forested lands for agrofuel production depletes soil organic matter and nutrients and increases erosion.14
Water: Water resources in the U.S., including major irrigation sources such as the Oglalla aquifer and the Colorado river, are in decline. Agriculture is the largest use of freshwater, and biorefinery processes also require massive amounts of water.15 According to the International Water Management Institute (IWMI): freshwater usage worldwide has increased six-fold over the past 100 years, largely due to irrigation; water resources are dwindling; the price of water is predicted to double or triple over the coming two decades. Meanwhile, severe droughts are resulting in water shortages in Australia, India and South Central China. Droughts and ice melting at high altitudes are likely to result in declining water supplies in many regions of the world.16
[5] According to biotechnology industry estimates, a moderately sized commercial-scale biorefinery using agricultural residues would require harvesting a minimum of 500,000 acres of cropland. Electricity production through the burning of wood is increasing rapidly and creating huge demands for trees. For example, Prenergy Power Limited, of London, England is planning a 350 megawatt power plant, which will be fueled by approximately 3 million tons per year of woodchips imported, in part from the U.S.
Some bioenergy processes claim to utilize wastes and residues, but a recent industry market report stated: "....these operators, hungry for large volumes of wood, and frequently armed with government subsidies, are finding that the perceived overabundance of 'waste wood' in the nation's forests is simply not there. As a result, the increased demand for more traditional forms of woodfiber has already triggered wood price spikes and cross-grade competition in the tightest markets."17
Wood is under demand by expanding pulp and paper industry, timber products industry, rapidly growing chip and pellet production for heat and electricity, and now for liquid transportation fuels as well. This level of demand simply cannot be met sustainably. It is also driving the demand for faster-growing "designer" trees genetically engineered to enhance their ability to be transformed into energy. This in turn is threatening native forest ecosystems with genetic contamination.
[6] Deforestation in the Amazon is directly correlated with the market price of soy, a biofuel feedstock. When farmers in the U.S. switched from soy to corn production to meet the demands for corn ethanol, the price of soy rose, and deforestation increased.18 The push for more land to grow energy crops has resulted in the elimination of set-aside lands in the EU and a reduction of CRP lands in the U.S. The loss of these critical habitats is reducing pollinator and bird populations dramatically.19,20
A recent long-term study of forest carbon in old growth temperate forest (AUS) found that carbon storage was far greater than previously assumed. The IPCC default values for example were one-third the value observed, highlighting the enormous impact of deforestation and the critical relevance to climate change of preserving forests.21
[7] Agrofuels have become the major focus of biotechnology R&D. In addition to a suite of new GE feedstock developments, companies like Arborgen in the U.S. are developing GE tree varieties with 1) reduced lignin content 2) disease, insect and stress resistance, 3) fast growth, 4) cold tolerance, 5) modified oil content (jatropha and oil palm) and 6) sterility - all characteristics deemed profitable for agrofuel and pulp applications. Given that trees spread their pollen and seeds across huge distances and/or have many wild relatives in native forest ecosystems, cross contamination between GE trees and native trees is inevitable and entails unpredictable, potentially disastrous implications for forest ecosystems, wildlife and forest dependent human communities.22
The newly emerging technique of "Synthetic Biology" is focused on developing microbes that can efficiently produce enzymes for fuel production. If genetic modification has raised biosafety concerns, those pale in comparison to the safety and ecological risks of synthetic organisms. Unlike earlier genetic engineering where genes are sourced from existing organisms, synthetic DNA sequences may have no known analogue in nature, and numerous pathways are combined.
The consequences of contamination by such organisms are entirely unpredictable. Currently, the push for microbes for agrofuel production is driving the Synthetic Biology industry forward, making the ability to build dangerous and deadly microbes including bioweapons, cheaper, easier and harder to control.23
[8] True renewables such as wind and solar are losing out in competition with agrofuels. Ethanol accounted for three-quarters of tax benefits and two-thirds of all federal subsidies provided for renewable energy sources in 2007. This amounted to $3 billion in tax credits in 2007, more than four times the $690 million made available to companies trying to expand all other forms of renewable energy, including solar, wind and geothermal power. It is estimated that by 2010, ethanol will cost taxpayers more than $5 billion a year -- more than is spent on all U.S. Department of Agriculture conservation programs to protect soil, water and wildlife habitat.
[9] Almost weekly new reports are made of abuses and violence in the context of land conflicts over the expansion of industrial monocultures and access to land and resources, and social movements working in resistance. Below are just a few of the more recent examples.24,25,26,27,28
These include:
* The civil society organizations in Latin America who protested the International Biofuels Conference, demanding food and energy sovereignty;
* The recently freed "sugar slaves" working in Brazil's ethanol industry;
* The indigenous peoples in the village of Suluk Bogkal, in Riau province in Sumatra who were fire bombed on December 18th 2008 when they resisted eviction from their lands to make way for a pulpwood plantation under Sinar Mas;
* The friends and families of Paraguayan smallholder farmers violently murdered when they resisted eviction to make way for the expansion of soy monoculture;
* The Tupinikim and Guarani in Brazil, who spent twenty years fighting to regain control of their ancestral lands which were taken over by the pulp industry for industrial eucalyptus plantations;
* The over one billion people now suffering from chronic undernourishment while food crops are diverted into fuel for automobiles;
* The diverse plants and animals moving precariously closer to extinction as their habitats are destroyed for conversion to agrofuel monocultures and industrial tree plantations;
People's access to land and the right to feed themselves is fundamental. Via Campesina along with many other social movements around the world call for food and energy sovereignty, not agrofuels.29 Numerous calls for moratoria have been made worldwide, including one from organizations in the U.S.
http://agrofuel-moratorium-campaign.nireblog.com/
Declarations of opposition to agrofuels: www.biofuelwatch.org.uk/declarations.php
[10] A growing global alliance of individuals and organizations is demanding real solutions to climate change based on principles of justice and equity. This position is based on the understanding that the root causes of climate change are the same as the root causes of poverty and injustice. One cannot be addressed without the other and doing so is the only effective path towards a sustainable future.30,31
ENDNOTES:
1 M.Z. Jacobson. Review of solutions to global warming, air pollution and energy security. Energy and Environmental Science Dec 2008
http://www.rsc.org/delivery/_ArticleLinking/DisplayHTMLArticleforfree.cfm?JournalCode=EE&Year=2009&ManuscriptID=b809990c&Iss=Advance_Article#tab4fna
2 Climate Justice groups warn of false solutions to climate change at Convention on Biological Diversity
http://www.tni.org/detail_page.phtml?act_id=18315
3 Fargione, J., Hill, J., Tilman, D., Polasky, S., and Hawthorne, P., 2008, "Land clearing and the biofuel carbon debt", Science, 319, pp. 1235-1238.
http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/abstract/1152747v1
4 Searchinger, T., Heimlich, R., Houghton, R. A., Fengxia Dong, Elobeid, A., Fabiosa, J., Tokgoz, S., Hayes, D., and Tun-Hsiang Yu, 2008, "Use of U.S. croplands for biofuels increases greenhouse gases through emissions from land-use change", Science, 319, pp. 1238-1240
http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/abstract/1151861
5 P.J. Crutzen, A.R. Mosier, K.A. Smith, and W. Winiwarter (2008) 'N2O
release from agro-biofuel production negates global warming reduction by
replacing fossil fuels', Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics 8(2): 389-95
6 Cotula, L., Dyer, N., and Vermeulen, S., 2008. Fuelling exclusion: the biofuels boom and poor people's access to land. IIED, London http://www.iied.org/pubs/display.php?o=12551IIED
7 Biofuelling poverty. Oxfam briefing, November 2007
http://www.oxfam.org/node/217
8 Via Campesina: http://viacampesina.org/main_en/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=598&Itemid=
9 Nearly a Biillion People Worldwide are Starving, UN Agency Warns: Julian Borger and Juliette Jowitt. The Guardian, Dec 10 2008
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/dec/10/hunger-population-un-food-environment
10 Secret Report: Biofuels Caused Food Crisis: Internal World Bank study delivers blow to plant energy drive. Guardian, July 3 2008. A. Chakrabortty
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2008/jul/03/biofuels.renewableenergy
11 Fuelling Destruction in Latin America: the real price of the drive for agrofuels. Friends of the Earth International: September 2008.
http://www.foei.org/en/publications/pdfs/biofuels-fuelling-destruction-latinamerica/view
12 http://www.energytribune.com/articles.cfm?aid=1150
R. Bryce, Dec 29 2008. Obama, Vilsack and Salazar: The Ethanol Scammers Dream Team. Energy Tribune
13 Seized: The 2008 Land Grab for Food and Financial Security: GRAIN
http://www.grain.org/front/
14 Wes Jackson and Wendell Berry: A 50 year Farm Bill. NYT, Jan 4 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/05/opinion/05berry.html?_r=3&th&emc=th
15 "Water Implications of Biofuels Production in the United States," the October 2007 Report in Brief, at this site of The National Academies:
http://dels.nas.edu/dels/rpt_briefs/biofuels_brief_final.pdf
16 Peter McCornick. (International Water Management Institute) Demand For Biofuel Irrigation Worsens Global Water Crisis. Keynote address at "Linkages Between Energy and Water Management for Agriculture in Developing Countries." Hyderabad, India, January 2007.
17 RISI's Wood Biomass Market Report dispels myth of 'overabundant waste wood' myth. http://www.risiinfo.com/technologyarchives/risi-wood-biomass-market-report-woodfiber-supply.html
18 W.F.Laurance. 2007. Switch to corn promotes Amazon deforestation. Science. Vol. 318, no. 5857
19 Increasing Corn for Biofuel Production Reduces Biocontrol Services in Agricultural Landscapes. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Vol. 105 no. 51 Landis, D.A., Gardiner, M. M., van der Werf, W. and Swinton, S.M.
20 S. Kirchoff and J. Martin. Americas Grasslands vanishing amid agricultural boom. USA today April 25, 2008
http://www.usatoday.com/money/industries/environment/2008-03-27-farming-plowing-grasslands_N.htm?loc=interstitialskip
21 Green Carbon: The role of natural forests in carbon storage_Part 1. A green carbon account of Australia's south-eastern Eucalypt forests, and policy implications. Brendan G. Mackey, Heather Keith, Sandra L. Berry and David B. Lindenmayer 2008 http://epress.anu.edu.au/green_carbon_citation.html
22 Petermann, A. and Tokar, B. 2007. Cellulosic fuels, GE trees and the contamination of native forests. In: R. Smolker, et al. The True Cost of Agrofuels: Impacts on Food, Forests, People and Climate.
http://www.globalforestcoalition.org/img/userpics/File/publications/Truecostagrofuels.pdf
23 Extreme Genetic Engineering: an introduction to synthetic biology. ETCgroup
http://www.etcgroup.org/en/materials/publications.html?pub_id=602
24 Civil Society Declaration at International Biofuels Conference in Sao Paolo, Brazil, November 2008
http://www.corporateeurope.org/docs/Agrofuels_as_an_obstacle_to_food_and_energy_sovereignty.pdf
25 T. Phillips. Brazilian taskforce frees more than 4500 slaves after record number of raids on remote farms. The Guardian, January 3 2009
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/jan/03/brazil-slavery-poverty-farm-workers
26 T. Phillips. Brazilian taskforce frees more than 4500 slaves after record number of raids on remote farms. The Guardian, January 3 2009
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/jan/03/brazil-slavery-poverty-farm-workers
27 Paraguay Sojero, on the impacts of soy monoculture on peasant farmers
http://www.lasojamata.org/en/node/12
28 Tupinikim and Guarani peoples reconquer their lands, World Rainforest Movement bulletin: issue 122, September 2007http://www.wrm.org.uy/
29 Position papers: "Agrofuels: small farmers feed the world, industrial agrofuels fuel hunger and poverty" and "Small scale farmers are cooling down the earth"
http://www.viacampesina.org/main_en/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=598&Itemid=
30 Radical New Agenda Needed to Achieve Climate Justice: Climate Justice Now! Poznan, December 2008
http://focusweb.org/radical-new-agenda-needed-to-achieve-climate-justice.html
31 Patrick Bond: From False to Real Solutions for Climate Change. Monthly Review. June 1, 2008
http://monthlyreview.org/mrzine/bond060108.html
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Brazil received a huge boost in its international image with its selection as the host of the 2016 Olympics, but it was really just the cherry on top of the overall recognition of the country's ascension to the ranks of one of the world's most important countries. Now, as it finally takes its place on the world scene, there has been a great deal of concern about what kind of image Brazil hopes to project, now that the world is really paying attention. 
The only good thing to say about the visit to Brazil of Iran's president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, on Monday November 23, is that it was mercifully short and lasted less than 24 hours. Ahmadinejad had his picture taken being hugged by president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva who gave him a warm welcome and said Iran had every right to develop nuclear energy for peaceful purposes. 
The small, coastal town of Condé is located just a twenty minute's drive from João Pessoa, the capital of Paraíba. The Northeast of Brazil has historically been a place of encounter and mixing between peoples. For millenia groups of indigenous people fished, farmed, migrated and sometimes fought along this large, fertile area. 
The Brazilian diplo-MÁ-cia (bad diplomacy) carries on its accelerated course towards the non-acknowledgment of human rights, although sometimes it takes pleasure in saying that it does precisely the opposite. The visit of Iran's president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, is another example of a diplomatic omission that verges on hypocrisy. 
On July 4, 2006, representatives of Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay and Uruguay met in Caracas to sign the protocol for the entrance of Venezuela into the Southern Common Market (Mercosur). After two and a half years, the protocol was approved by the legislative bodies of Argentina and Uruguay, and as of now it may be only days away from being ratified by the continent's economic megalith, Brazil. 
Some sectors of the fight against AIDS have suggested that Thabo Mbeki, the former president of South Africa, committed genocide through his absence from the fight against the illness in his country throughout his two terms. 
One hundred and eleven years after Brazil abolished slavery, the number of workers deprived of their freedom is still huge. They raise cattle, produce charcoal, sugar cane or timber. Some of them, most undocumented Bolivians, work in basements of small apparel factories in São Paulo and other metropolis. 
On November 7, 2009 a few friends and I had an opportunity to take a look inside a Brazilian jail outside the city of Rio de Janeiro. We were able to take some amateur footage of our experience on video (see link below). It's no surprise, of course, that the typical Brazilian jail lacks some of the functionality of those in North America or Europe, but our experience that day was quite shocking. 
Depletion of the Amazon Rainforest is not a new concern facing environmentalists, biologists, ecologists, and a growing number of the Amazonian indigenous peoples. For decades they have feared for the fate of the world's most biologically diverse and species-rich hothouse. 
Geisy Arruda made history this week in Brazil, but for all the wrong reasons. What began as a poorly planned fashion statement has become a worldwide tale. Geisy decided to wear a pink mini-dress to her private college in São Paulo state, and after that, all hell broke loose.
And Robbing Hook will even disagree that sugar is highly calorific !
In my view, he should look at the tens of millions Americans Bibendums that I nickname "Cubic Meter Humanoïds".
Therefore instead of transforming sugarcane into ethanol, why not into even lower price sugar...affordable to the
ONE billion of under nourrished citizens on the planet ???????
And in copying the generous USAID with corn & rice & wheat, Brazil could form BRAZAID AND DONATE millions tons of sugar, soyabeans and corn. This would be good ALSO for Brazilians farmers, since they would be paid anyway by the government the same way U.S. farmers are.
Ohhhh la la, Robbing Hook has again headaches hearing the words...DONATION !
Viva America, Viva Obama, Viva USAID.
Boooooo to Brazil, Booooo to Lulaaaaa !!!!!