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By Global Justice Ecology Project

By Rebecca Sommer At the Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen, Indigenous participants are increasingly concerned about REDD. REDD stands for “Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation”. The idea, as agreed by United Nations climate negotiators in Bali in 2007, is that because preserving forests is good for the climate, governments, companies or forest owners in the South should be rewarded for keeping them standing instead of cutting them down.

According to Wikipedia, “a circus is commonly a travelling company of performers that may include acrobats, clowns, animals, trapeze acts, hoopers, tightrope walkers, jugglers, unicyclists and other stunt-oriented artists.”

A team of biologists and climate modellers at NASA have come up with a very “practical” alternative to phasing out fossil fuels. Their plan is to plant massive blocks of fast growing trees –for example eucalyptus- in the deserts of the Sahara and Australian outback. Lack of water? No problem! The trees would be watered by seawater treated by a string of coastal desalination plants and channelled through a vast irrigation network. Easy.

Some jugglers of the climate circus are tossing up charcoal to catch it again but now with a fancy name. The proposal of turning residues into fine-grained charcoal and ploughing billions of tonnes of it into the soil every year convert charcoal into “biochar”.

Now come the acrobats. The Copenhagen Consensus Centre think-tank is working hard to weigh really true solutions to altering the alterated climate. Let’s see.

Edited by Richard Jonasse, PhD. Institute for Food and Development Policy, 2009 Download as pdf 

There is nothing like creating a problem for finding a good business opportunity . Or at least this is so for seasoned business men and women. It is thus that behind wars one can easily find the arms business. Behind citizen insecurity -largely resulting from social and economic inequity- is the business of security: insurance monitoring systems, bars, alarms and heavy-handed “saviour” politicians.  Behind disease is the “health” business: the drug industry and corporate medical power.

There is no doubt that public opinion has become aware of the climate change issue. However, for most people this is but a headline in the newspapers and they tend to think that although this is in fact a major problem, there is no need to worry about it because the UN is working to solve it and that surely science will invent something to prevent it from happening. 

Unión de Nativos Ayoreo de Paraguay, Iniciativa Amotocodie, Informe IWGIA 4

 WRM information sheets on GE tree research First posted: 25 November 2009 Last update: August 2014 Tree species being manipulated: Acacia mangium and Sengon (Paraserianthes falcataria). GE trees produced in December 2004. (1) Aim of genetic manipulation

 WRM information sheets on GE tree research First posted: 25 November 2009 Last update: August 2014 Forest tree species being manipulated: Rubber tree Aim of genetic manipulation More rapid growth rate to increase yield Those carrying out the research: