Unintended Consequences: Greens protect coal deposits and destroy rainforest

Brought to you by the same kind of people who regulate free markets to the point where you can get detained for selling light bulbs heat balls, comes the cry for a “free market solution” on carbon emissions. These people wouldn’t know a free market if it was the only bridge across a swamp full of crocodiles. Is that a stable path; a simple choice; a tested way through the quicksand? No No! There’s a log (it looks like a log)… “it’s natural”. (It’s two hundred million years of natural selection.)

Playing with fake markets is begging to be bitten, and what do you know? A carbon market puts a price on life, but it only applies to some goods (all pigs are equal… but some are more so). The loop-holes pile on loop-holes until out the other end of all those angelically good circular intentions pops the exact one answer they were trying to avoid.

Figure it out. If global policies devalue concentrated energy underground and prize diffuse photosynthetic sources of energy above ground, will we protect and retain dirty rocks at the expense of historic surface biodiversity? I think so!

That’s right, carbon credits, alternative energy, and the holy-quest for biofuel promises to raze natural rainforests so vast they cover five times the area of England and deliver us a mass monoculture of palm oil plantations instead. And your tax dollars help make this possible.

The REDD scheme was supposed to reduce emissions from deforestation by helping to restore damaged land, but like any bureaucratic decree the problem lies in how you define what was “damaged” in the first place. And if that ancient forest wasn’t damaged enough to qualify last year, it could become more degraded quite soon.

The “good news” is that Indonesia might meet part of it’s promised greenhouse gas emissions reductions. Let’s hope the 50% of homeless Indonesian Orangutans in 2020 appreciate that.

Memo to Greenpeace — Coal power just might be more biodiversity friendly than biofuel. Sucks eh?

Indonesia eyeing $1bn climate aid to cut down forests, says Greenpeace

Vague legal definitions may allow Indonesia to class forests as ‘degraded’ and ‘rehabilitate’ the land with palm trees and biofuel crops
Indonesia plans to class large areas of its remaining natural forests as “degraded” land in order to cut them down and receive nearly $1bn of climate aid for replanting them with palm trees and biofuel crops, according to Greenpeace International.
According to internal government documents from the forestry, agriculture and energy departments in Jakarta, the areas of land earmarked for industrial plantation expansion in the next 20 years include 37m ha of existing natural forest – 50% of the country’s orangutan habitat and 80% of its carbon-rich peatland. More than 60m ha – an area nearly five times the size of England – could be converted to palm oil and biofuel production in the next 20 years, say the papers.
“The land is roughly equivalent to all the currently undeveloped land in Indonesia,” says the report. “The government plans for a trebling of pulp and paper production by 2015 and a doubling of palm oil production by 2020.”
The result, says the environmental group in a report released in Jakarta today, would be to massively expand Indonesia’s palm, paper and biofuel industries in the name of “rehabilitating” land, while at the same time allowing its powerful forestry industry to carry on business as usual and to collect international carbon funds.
“[Money] earmarked for forest protection may actually be used to subsidise their destruction with significant climate, wildlife and social costs,” said the report.
But weak legal definitions of “forest” and “degraded land”, have allowed the global logging industry and officials in some governments to take advantage of an ambitious UN forest-reform scheme known as Redd (Reduced emissions from deforestation and degradation). This would pay countries to replant trees and restore land. Indonesia has pledged drastic action to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions by 26% on its own and 42% with international climate aid. If it agrees to a binding deal to limit deforestation, says Greenpeace, this would send a powerful message to other forested countries.

Read more at The Guardian

Image: By Sandra Díaz, via Wikimedia Commons.

Biodiversity Loss Threatens Human Well-Being. Díaz S, Fargione J, Chapin FS, Tilman D, PLoS Biology Vol. 4/8/2006, e277. http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pbio.0040277

From the comments:

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Rereke Whaakaro:
November 25th, 2010 at 5:23 am

The whole REDD scheme was intended as a scam from the start.

1. Pay countries with existing forests, to not cut them down.

2. Pay countries with “degraded” forests to encourage “rejuvenation”.

3. Allow countries to introduce exotic species into the “rejuvenation” process.

4. Allow countries to “extract resources” from the “rejuvenated” forest on a sustainable basis.

5. Forget to stipulate that “like must be replaced with a like”, in the definition of “sustainability”.

And the scam? Several of the large environmental NGO’s have been granted “management rights” over large tracts of “degraded” forest, so they get to clip the ticket at every stage of the process.

Follow the money.

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Biofuel from Indonesia would probably qualify as "Good" biofuel via the C.A.R.B. requirements....

However biofuel from corn does not as I understand it....

Basing that on what I heard on the John and Ken show...KFI.

California to get cleaner consumer products

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Sounds Good.

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New regulations protect state from ozone and toxic chemicals
SACRAMENTO - Today the Air Resources Board adopted regulations that will reduce air pollution from 11 categories of consumer products including bug sprays and a variety of household and professionally-used cleaners.

The new regulations target volatile organic compounds and toxic air contaminants and when fully implemented will cut these emissions by about 7 tons per day, reduce airborne carcinogens, minimize potential greenhouse gas emissions and protect aquatic species from chemical runoff. The regulations will be fully effective December 31, 2013.

“ARB works with manufacturers to assure their products are effective but safe for the environment,” said ARB Chairman Mary D. Nichols. “These regulations are an example of how ARB balances public health with business interests.”

The new regulations address the emissions from a range of consumer product categories including insecticides, general purpose cleaners and degreasers, glass cleaners, and oven and grill cleaners.

ARB estimates the reduction of air pollution to be the equivalent of removing 500,000 vehicles from California’s roads.

ARB is required to reduce volatile organic emissions from the widest possible range of sources in an effort to minimize the state’s ozone levels. The volatile organic compounds mix with other air pollutants and ‘cook’ when exposed to sunlight to form ozone. Ozone inflames the respiratory tract, causes coughing, chest tightness and aggravation of asthma symptoms, and poses a serious threat to sufferers of cardio-pulmonary disease. Ozone can also substantially damage crops, forests and native plants.

ARB efforts to reduce ozone are required in order to comply with federal clean-air standards. Missing compliance deadlines could result in the loss of federal transportation funds and other sanctions.

To date, ARB consumer-product regulations have eliminated 225 tons per day of volatile organic compound emissions compared to 1990 levels. Still, ARB estimates that emissions from consumer products continue to produce 245 tons per day, about 12 percent of the state’s total burden of these smog-forming compounds.

The Air Resources Board is a department of the California Environmental Protection Agency. ARB's mission is to promote and protect public health, welfare, and ecological resources through effective reduction of air pollutants while recognizing and considering effects on the economy. The ARB oversees all air pollution control efforts in California to attain and maintain health based air quality standards.

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No mention directly of CO2......

But I believe it is considered a pollutant.....

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