tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33087583836490614412024-03-13T08:44:36.903-07:00Lungs of the EarthEnvironment and sustainability in Brazilquasecariocahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06596846743937514638noreply@blogger.comBlogger54125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3308758383649061441.post-63425657700517038942012-06-27T19:32:00.004-07:002012-06-27T19:32:33.229-07:00Vale building wind farms?<div style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">
I'm honestly intrigued. The Brazilian mining giant is teaming up with Australia's Pacific Hydro to build two wind farms with 140 MW of capacity as part of a <a href="http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-06-27/pacific-hydro-plans-500-megawatts-of-wind-for-brazilian-industry.html">500 MW in capacity </a>that Hydro is building throughout all of Brazil. </div>
<div style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">
</div>
<a name='more'></a><br />
<div style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">
Sited in the new wind capital of Brazil - Rio Grande do Norte - the projects require an estimated investment of $315 million, not a huge amount given the company's mammoth size. </div>
<div style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">
<br /></div>
<div style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">
"Vale's global demand for energy should increase by 150 percent by 2020 and we are looking for sustainable alternatives to supply this energy using renewable energy sources," said Vale executive Vania Somavilla. </div>
<div style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">
<br />
</div>
<div style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">
The company is Brazil's biggest consumer of energy, so I think this is good news. My one nerdy observation to add here is that Vale and Pacific already have the environmental licensing and are slated to start up in 2014. This suggests to me that the consortium created by the two companies has gone out and bought up a project from someone who bid in one of the recent wind auctions. That means some wind project developer has done a bunch of a legwork for the big dogs to come in and run the show - it's the kind of thing that's likely to get more people into a budding market.</div>
<div style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">
<br /></div>
<div style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">
A wind farm is ideal for a company like Vale which gets most of its energy from hydro power, because the wind and hydro naturally <a href="http://lungsoftheearth.blogspot.com/2011/08/yes-its-true-brazils-wind-power-kicks.html">complement each other</a> better than any other combination of renewable energy. It's a relatively small amount of energy for the company, so I'm curious to see if they continue adding capacity.</div>
<div style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">
<br /></div>
<div style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">
<br /></div>quasecariocahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06596846743937514638noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3308758383649061441.post-42393183945742106792012-06-19T19:53:00.002-07:002012-06-19T19:53:22.904-07:00Rio+20 and the struggle with hot air<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">I've been in dozens of meetings where a Fearless Leader (TM) stands up and says "We must do this." Which is followed by a Greek chorus of Timid Followers saying "Yes, we must do this," at which point nothing more is said about this Thing That Must Be Done. Everyone present knows This Thing will not be done because no responsibilities are assigned, no evaluation mechanisms are created and no sanctions proposed for those who fail to do This Thing. </span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">There are going to be a lot of those Fearless Leaders in Rio this week, and I'm afraid Rio+20 is going to look like one of those oft-repeated meetings. A lot of hot air is not very convincing solution to the world's hot air problem.</span><br />
<a name='more'></a><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">Of course climate summits are easy to take the piss out of, as I mentioned <a href="http://lungsoftheearth.blogspot.com/2012/05/rio20-paints-target-on-its-back.html">here. </a></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">The difference for me is that previous conferences mattered in ways that this one doesn't. It was pretty easy to tell from the outset that the Copenhagen summit in 2009 <a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/8426835.stm">was going to be a disaster </a>because developed nations (notably the U.S.) and developing countries were not going to agree on who should pay the bill. Still, one could have held out the fleeting hope that the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kyoto_Protocol">Kyoto Protocol</a> emissions treaty would be extended to developing nations - crucial given that China is now the top carbon polluter. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><br /></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">The Durban meeting at least gave us some news. Three of the world's biggest economies agreed to agree on a climate treaty ten years from now, creating the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2011_United_Nations_Climate_Change_Conference#Durban_Platform">"Durban Platform,"</a> -- yes, still kinda lame, but still noteworthy that these countries managed to agree to something. And Canada got off the fence to take its toys and <a href="http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/story/2011/12/12/pol-kent-kyoto-pullout.html">went home</a>, which was refreshing at least in its honesty. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><br /></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">There's just not much skin in the game in Rio+20. No binding cuts, no required overhauls of industrial policy, no obvious jousting among world powers. Just lots of people talking about the Thing We Must Do.</span><br />
<div style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">
<br /></div>
<div style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">
<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
<w:WordDocument>
<w:View>Normal</w:View>
<w:Zoom>0</w:Zoom>
<w:TrackMoves/>
<w:TrackFormatting/>
<w:PunctuationKerning/>
<w:ValidateAgainstSchemas/>
<w:SaveIfXMLInvalid>false</w:SaveIfXMLInvalid>
<w:IgnoreMixedContent>false</w:IgnoreMixedContent>
<w:AlwaysShowPlaceholderText>false</w:AlwaysShowPlaceholderText>
<w:DoNotPromoteQF/>
<w:LidThemeOther>EN-US</w:LidThemeOther>
<w:LidThemeAsian>X-NONE</w:LidThemeAsian>
<w:LidThemeComplexScript>X-NONE</w:LidThemeComplexScript>
<w:Compatibility>
<w:BreakWrappedTables/>
<w:SnapToGridInCell/>
<w:WrapTextWithPunct/>
<w:UseAsianBreakRules/>
<w:DontGrowAutofit/>
<w:SplitPgBreakAndParaMark/>
<w:DontVertAlignCellWithSp/>
<w:DontBreakConstrainedForcedTables/>
<w:DontVertAlignInTxbx/>
<w:Word11KerningPairs/>
<w:CachedColBalance/>
</w:Compatibility>
<w:BrowserLevel>MicrosoftInternetExplorer4</w:BrowserLevel>
<m:mathPr>
<m:mathFont m:val="Cambria Math"/>
<m:brkBin m:val="before"/>
<m:brkBinSub m:val="--"/>
<m:smallFrac m:val="off"/>
<m:dispDef/>
<m:lMargin m:val="0"/>
<m:rMargin m:val="0"/>
<m:defJc m:val="centerGroup"/>
<m:wrapIndent m:val="1440"/>
<m:intLim m:val="subSup"/>
<m:naryLim m:val="undOvr"/>
</m:mathPr></w:WordDocument>
</xml><![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
<w:LatentStyles DefLockedState="false" DefUnhideWhenUsed="true"
DefSemiHidden="true" DefQFormat="false" DefPriority="99"
LatentStyleCount="267">
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="0" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" QFormat="true" Name="Normal"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="9" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" QFormat="true" Name="heading 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="9" QFormat="true" Name="heading 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="9" QFormat="true" Name="heading 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="9" QFormat="true" Name="heading 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="9" QFormat="true" Name="heading 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="9" QFormat="true" Name="heading 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="9" QFormat="true" Name="heading 7"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="9" QFormat="true" Name="heading 8"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="9" QFormat="true" Name="heading 9"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="39" Name="toc 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="39" Name="toc 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="39" Name="toc 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="39" Name="toc 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="39" Name="toc 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="39" Name="toc 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="39" Name="toc 7"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="39" Name="toc 8"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="39" Name="toc 9"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="35" QFormat="true" Name="caption"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="10" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" QFormat="true" Name="Title"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="1" Name="Default Paragraph Font"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="11" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" QFormat="true" Name="Subtitle"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="0" Name="Hyperlink"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="22" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" QFormat="true" Name="Strong"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="20" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" QFormat="true" Name="Emphasis"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="59" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Table Grid"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Placeholder Text"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="1" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" QFormat="true" Name="No Spacing"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="60" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light Shading"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="61" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light List"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="62" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light Grid"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="63" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Shading 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="64" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Shading 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="65" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium List 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="66" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium List 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="67" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="68" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="69" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="70" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Dark List"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="71" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful Shading"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="72" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful List"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="73" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful Grid"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="60" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light Shading Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="61" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light List Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="62" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light Grid Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="63" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Shading 1 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="64" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Shading 2 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="65" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium List 1 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Revision"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="34" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" QFormat="true" Name="List Paragraph"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="29" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" QFormat="true" Name="Quote"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="30" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" QFormat="true" Name="Intense Quote"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="66" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium List 2 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="67" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 1 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="68" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 2 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="69" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 3 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="70" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Dark List Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="71" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful Shading Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="72" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful List Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="73" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful Grid Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="60" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light Shading Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="61" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light List Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="62" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light Grid Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="63" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Shading 1 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="64" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Shading 2 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="65" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium List 1 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="66" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium List 2 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="67" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 1 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="68" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 2 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="69" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 3 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="70" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Dark List Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="71" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful Shading Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="72" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful List Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="73" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful Grid Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="60" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light Shading Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="61" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light List Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="62" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light Grid Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="63" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Shading 1 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="64" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Shading 2 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="65" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium List 1 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="66" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium List 2 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="67" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 1 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="68" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 2 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="69" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 3 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="70" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Dark List Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="71" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful Shading Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="72" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful List Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="73" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful Grid Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="60" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light Shading Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="61" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light List Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="62" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light Grid Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="63" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Shading 1 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="64" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Shading 2 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="65" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium List 1 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="66" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium List 2 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="67" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 1 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="68" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 2 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="69" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 3 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="70" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Dark List Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="71" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful Shading Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="72" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful List Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="73" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful Grid Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="60" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light Shading Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="61" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light List Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="62" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light Grid Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="63" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Shading 1 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="64" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Shading 2 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="65" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium List 1 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="66" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium List 2 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="67" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 1 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="68" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 2 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="69" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 3 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="70" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Dark List Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="71" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful Shading Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="72" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful List Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="73" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful Grid Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="60" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light Shading Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="61" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light List Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="62" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light Grid Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="63" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Shading 1 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="64" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Shading 2 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="65" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium List 1 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="66" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium List 2 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="67" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 1 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="68" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 2 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="69" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 3 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="70" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Dark List Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="71" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful Shading Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="72" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful List Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="73" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful Grid Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="19" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" QFormat="true" Name="Subtle Emphasis"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="21" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" QFormat="true" Name="Intense Emphasis"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="31" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" QFormat="true" Name="Subtle Reference"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="32" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" QFormat="true" Name="Intense Reference"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="33" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" QFormat="true" Name="Book Title"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="37" Name="Bibliography"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="39" QFormat="true" Name="TOC Heading"/>
</w:LatentStyles>
</xml><![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 10]>
<style>
/* Style Definitions */
table.MsoNormalTable
{mso-style-name:"Table Normal";
mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0;
mso-tstyle-colband-size:0;
mso-style-noshow:yes;
mso-style-priority:99;
mso-style-qformat:yes;
mso-style-parent:"";
mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt;
mso-para-margin:0in;
mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt;
mso-pagination:widow-orphan;
font-size:11.0pt;
font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";
mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri;
mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin;
mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman";
mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-fareast;
mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri;
mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin;
mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman";
mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;}
</style>
<![endif]-->
</div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">There's the usual </span><a href="http://switchboard.nrdc.org/blogs/jscherr/reflections_on_the_race_to_rio_1.html" style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">boring
triumphalism</a><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"> about said Thing. There’s the </span><a href="http://www.rtcc.org/policy/greenpeace-%E2%80%9Cpolluters-are-in-charge-at-rio20%E2%80%9D/" style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">holier-than-thou </a><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">outrage that polluting industries are in charge of the whole <span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">affair. </span></span><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">And it wouldn't be complete without days of wire reports breathlessly publishing the </span><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS","sans-serif";"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">vagaries of negotiations over what the final </span><a href="http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5haMQk8_eJ5JvEmMo4dC15Ir3xu5w?docId=CNG.58c14f67f250993f74e6b415fb20e657.961" style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">declaration
won't say</a><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">. Oh, and some stuff that just plain falls into the <a href="http://en.tedxrio20.com/index.php/conteudo/show/22/about-tedxrio-20">"I don't get it" </a>category.</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS","sans-serif";"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">To pretend I'm not a total crank, I will give a nod to some </span></span><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
<w:WordDocument>
<w:View>Normal</w:View>
<w:Zoom>0</w:Zoom>
<w:TrackMoves/>
<w:TrackFormatting/>
<w:PunctuationKerning/>
<w:ValidateAgainstSchemas/>
<w:SaveIfXMLInvalid>false</w:SaveIfXMLInvalid>
<w:IgnoreMixedContent>false</w:IgnoreMixedContent>
<w:AlwaysShowPlaceholderText>false</w:AlwaysShowPlaceholderText>
<w:DoNotPromoteQF/>
<w:LidThemeOther>EN-US</w:LidThemeOther>
<w:LidThemeAsian>X-NONE</w:LidThemeAsian>
<w:LidThemeComplexScript>X-NONE</w:LidThemeComplexScript>
<w:Compatibility>
<w:BreakWrappedTables/>
<w:SnapToGridInCell/>
<w:WrapTextWithPunct/>
<w:UseAsianBreakRules/>
<w:DontGrowAutofit/>
<w:SplitPgBreakAndParaMark/>
<w:DontVertAlignCellWithSp/>
<w:DontBreakConstrainedForcedTables/>
<w:DontVertAlignInTxbx/>
<w:Word11KerningPairs/>
<w:CachedColBalance/>
</w:Compatibility>
<w:BrowserLevel>MicrosoftInternetExplorer4</w:BrowserLevel>
<m:mathPr>
<m:mathFont m:val="Cambria Math"/>
<m:brkBin m:val="before"/>
<m:brkBinSub m:val="--"/>
<m:smallFrac m:val="off"/>
<m:dispDef/>
<m:lMargin m:val="0"/>
<m:rMargin m:val="0"/>
<m:defJc m:val="centerGroup"/>
<m:wrapIndent m:val="1440"/>
<m:intLim m:val="subSup"/>
<m:naryLim m:val="undOvr"/>
</m:mathPr></w:WordDocument>
</xml><![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
<w:LatentStyles DefLockedState="false" DefUnhideWhenUsed="true"
DefSemiHidden="true" DefQFormat="false" DefPriority="99"
LatentStyleCount="267">
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="0" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" QFormat="true" Name="Normal"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="9" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" QFormat="true" Name="heading 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="9" QFormat="true" Name="heading 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="9" QFormat="true" Name="heading 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="9" QFormat="true" Name="heading 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="9" QFormat="true" Name="heading 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="9" QFormat="true" Name="heading 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="9" QFormat="true" Name="heading 7"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="9" QFormat="true" Name="heading 8"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="9" QFormat="true" Name="heading 9"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="39" Name="toc 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="39" Name="toc 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="39" Name="toc 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="39" Name="toc 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="39" Name="toc 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="39" Name="toc 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="39" Name="toc 7"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="39" Name="toc 8"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="39" Name="toc 9"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="35" QFormat="true" Name="caption"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="10" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" QFormat="true" Name="Title"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="1" Name="Default Paragraph Font"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="11" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" QFormat="true" Name="Subtitle"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="0" Name="Hyperlink"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="22" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" QFormat="true" Name="Strong"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="20" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" QFormat="true" Name="Emphasis"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="59" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Table Grid"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Placeholder Text"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="1" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" QFormat="true" Name="No Spacing"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="60" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light Shading"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="61" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light List"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="62" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light Grid"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="63" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Shading 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="64" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Shading 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="65" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium List 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="66" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium List 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="67" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="68" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="69" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="70" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Dark List"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="71" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful Shading"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="72" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful List"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="73" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful Grid"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="60" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light Shading Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="61" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light List Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="62" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light Grid Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="63" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Shading 1 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="64" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Shading 2 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="65" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium List 1 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Revision"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="34" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" QFormat="true" Name="List Paragraph"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="29" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" QFormat="true" Name="Quote"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="30" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" QFormat="true" Name="Intense Quote"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="66" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium List 2 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="67" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 1 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="68" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 2 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="69" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 3 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="70" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Dark List Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="71" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful Shading Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="72" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful List Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="73" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful Grid Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="60" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light Shading Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="61" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light List Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="62" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light Grid Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="63" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Shading 1 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="64" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Shading 2 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="65" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium List 1 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="66" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium List 2 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="67" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 1 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="68" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 2 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="69" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 3 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="70" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Dark List Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="71" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful Shading Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="72" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful List Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="73" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful Grid Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="60" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light Shading Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="61" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light List Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="62" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light Grid Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="63" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Shading 1 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="64" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Shading 2 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="65" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium List 1 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="66" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium List 2 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="67" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 1 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="68" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 2 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="69" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 3 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="70" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Dark List Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="71" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful Shading Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="72" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful List Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="73" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful Grid Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="60" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light Shading Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="61" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light List Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="62" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light Grid Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="63" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Shading 1 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="64" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Shading 2 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="65" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium List 1 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="66" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium List 2 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="67" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 1 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="68" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 2 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="69" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 3 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="70" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Dark List Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="71" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful Shading Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="72" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful List Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="73" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful Grid Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="60" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light Shading Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="61" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light List Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="62" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light Grid Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="63" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Shading 1 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="64" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Shading 2 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="65" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium List 1 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="66" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium List 2 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="67" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 1 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="68" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 2 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="69" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 3 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="70" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Dark List Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="71" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful Shading Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="72" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful List Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="73" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful Grid Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="60" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light Shading Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="61" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light List Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="62" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light Grid Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="63" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Shading 1 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="64" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Shading 2 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="65" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium List 1 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="66" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium List 2 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="67" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 1 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="68" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 2 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="69" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 3 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="70" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Dark List Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="71" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful Shading Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="72" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful List Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="73" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful Grid Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="19" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" QFormat="true" Name="Subtle Emphasis"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="21" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" QFormat="true" Name="Intense Emphasis"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="31" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" QFormat="true" Name="Subtle Reference"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="32" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" QFormat="true" Name="Intense Reference"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="33" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" QFormat="true" Name="Book Title"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="37" Name="Bibliography"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="39" QFormat="true" Name="TOC Heading"/>
</w:LatentStyles>
</xml><![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 10]>
<style>
/* Style Definitions */
table.MsoNormalTable
{mso-style-name:"Table Normal";
mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0;
mso-tstyle-colband-size:0;
mso-style-noshow:yes;
mso-style-priority:99;
mso-style-qformat:yes;
mso-style-parent:"";
mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt;
mso-para-margin:0in;
mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt;
mso-pagination:widow-orphan;
font-size:11.0pt;
font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";
mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri;
mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin;
mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman";
mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-fareast;
mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri;
mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin;
mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman";
mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;}
</style>
<![endif]--><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;"><a href="http://c40.org/home">relevant things relating to cities</a></span><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS","sans-serif";"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"> and mayors, who from what I can tell are in a much better position than heads of state to actually do something about climate change, energy efficiency, water conservation and the actual bread and butter issues. </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS","sans-serif";"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS","sans-serif";"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">It was important that Rio+0 kicked off a global conversation about the environment twenty years ago. Since then the world has started to take these issues more seriously, which is at least in part a result of these efforts.</span></span> </div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">Only now Rio+20 looks to me like a lot more talking when what the world really needs is a lot more doing.</span></div>
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">
</span><br /><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"> </span>quasecariocahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06596846743937514638noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3308758383649061441.post-42604854170378032842012-06-17T18:42:00.002-07:002012-06-17T18:45:55.423-07:00No styrafoam for Guyana?<div style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">
The government of Donald Ramotar is considering restrictions in importing products that are <a href="http://www.businessweek.com/ap/2012-06-15/guyana-to-ban-imports-using-styrofoam-other-items">packaged with styrofoam</a>. Somehow, I think Guyana is a place this would actually work.</div>
<div style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">
<br /></div>
<a name='more'></a><div style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">
On the one hand, Guyana has so much sprawl that you'd think the country would have ample landfill storage space. Its the main reason that throwing stuff away is so cheap in the United States compared to places like Europe and Japan.</div>
<div style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">
<br /></div>
<div style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">
The difference in Guyana is that there hardly any proper roads. You could have plenty of place to dump stuff, but no highways to haul all the stuff out to. And Georgetown's got a real solid waste problem. It's a low-lying city with a sea wall and a constant drainage and flooding problem, without proper sewers, with pools of stagnant water everywhere. Adding lots of styrofoam and miscellaneous packaging tends to clutter things up any more.</div>
<div style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">
<br /></div>
<div style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">
Will be interested to see if this prospers.</div>quasecariocahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06596846743937514638noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3308758383649061441.post-91824016355438304732012-06-10T18:16:00.000-07:002012-06-10T18:17:46.984-07:00Google helps Amazon tribe get into carbon markets<div style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">
Android to the Amazon's rescue. </div>
<div style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">
<br /></div>
<div style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">
Smart phones running Google's operation system together with Google Earth satellite technology have helped the Surui tribe create a forest carbon inventory, says blog <a href="http://mashable.com/2012/06/08/android-brazil-rainforest/">Mashable</a>, and as a result have been approved to sell carbon credits.</div>
<div style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif; text-align: center;">
</div>
<a name='more'></a><br />
<br />
<div style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif; text-align: center;">
The tribe members submitted a proposal to the Rainforest Alliance, which
was approved last month, enabling the tribe to sell their carbon offsets
on the global carbon market. </div>
<div style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif; text-align: center;">
The approval makes the Surui’s project the first emmissions reduction
effort in Brazil to be certified by both the Verified Carbon Standard
(VCS) and the Climate, Community and Biodiversity (CCB) Gold Standard.
The tribe will now be able to trade carbon offsets from its forests on
the global market for the next three decades.</div>
<div style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">
<br /></div>
<div style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">
The Surui live on the southwestern edge of the Amazon in the state of Rondonia, which has for years been favored by cattle ranchers. Ironically the place is named for Candido Rondon, the Brazilian military officer who led early 20th century explorations of the Western Amazon. The son of an indigenous Brazilian woman, he was an early crusader for the rights of indigenous people and carefully avoided conflict with even the most violent of tribes as he carried out jungle surveys for a planned telegraph. That technology died shortly thereafter, leaving only the beginnings of a road, which paved the way for settlement and today's mess.</div>
<div style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">
<br /></div>
<div style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">
I'm curious how the carbon offset sales actually work. That market is not doing to well these days, like many markets. The Mashable post mentions the "global carbon market," though I'm guessing this is more likely to be the voluntary market for carbon offsets, where credits fetch around 10 percent of the value of credits qualified under the U.N. Clean Development Mechanism. </div>
<div style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">
<br /></div>
<div style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">
Will they actually be able to sell this stuff?</div>
<div style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">
<br /></div>
<div style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">
<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=auA2RByXAGg&noredirect=1">Chief Almir </a>of the Surui seems savvy enough to figure it out. He has caught the attention of a lot of tech gurus with his Google partnership. The image of a tattooed head-dressed indigenous chief <a href="http://www.fastcompany.com/most-creative-people/2011/chief-almir-surui-amazon-tribe">posing with a Mac book pro</a> is also a pretty clever form of marketing.</div>quasecariocahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06596846743937514638noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3308758383649061441.post-74949263190932817532012-06-10T17:55:00.000-07:002012-06-10T17:55:14.520-07:00PDVSA tries something mildly intelligent<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">Much as I love to take the piss out of PDVSA, they've got an interesting biofuels experiment I thought worth mentioning. </span><br />
<br />
<a name='more'></a><br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">Venezuela was of course in favor of biofuels <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2007/apr/07/energy.cuba">before it was against them</a></span>, <span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">to coin a phrase. But truth be told, the yelling and screaming from Havana and Caracas during the biofuels heyday five years ago was evidenced to be hot air by the fact that both Cuba and Venezuela continued to develop sugar cane ethanol. Most of this came from them having their knickers in a twist about Bush and Lula signing biofuels cooperation deals (again, highlighting my relatively dim view of the food-vs.-fuels debate.)</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">Sorry. Back to not taking the piss out of PDVSA. </span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">Brazil is able to extract more energy from sugar cane ethanol than U.S. corn ethanol in large part because it burns the leftover roughage known as cane bagasse and uses that heat to generate electricity. Corn ethanol producers use left-over corn solids to feed cattle, which is less generally less productive because it never made much sense to feed so much corn to cows. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><br /></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">PDVSA's ethanol program is now trying find something new to do with cane bagasse -- compost it into fertilizer. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><br /></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">Yes, I admit this is a stellar moment of my inner environment geekiness, but I genuinely think composting is cool and would save the world billions of dollars if done correctly. </span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">As the company said in a press release</span><br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">With the aim of reusing the byproducts of sugar cane milling, PDVSA subsidiary PDVSA Agricola plans to generate 500 tonnes of fertilizer per day that will be used for the cultivation of sugar and other crops. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">PDVSA Agricola is currently carrying out basic and conceptual engineering for the area that will process the compost.</span></div>
<br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">Given how difficult it's been for Venezuela to build and maintain power plants, turning this stuff back into dirt seems like a better way to do something productive with cane bagasse. If developed, it would help to reduce the use of chemical fertilizers that are copiously applied thanks to absurd subsidies applied to everything under the sun (especially things related to fossil fuels). </span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">I genuinely like the idea. I genuinely hope PDVSA actually does it. </span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">There, I said something nice about somebody. </span><br />quasecariocahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06596846743937514638noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3308758383649061441.post-79425277391866972502012-06-10T16:58:00.002-07:002012-06-10T16:58:35.566-07:00Can Brazil’s plastic bag bans give a lift to Amazon jute growers?<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
For decades it was the main fiber used in making shopping bags and coffee sacks – jute, also known as burlap, a plant grown in various locations along the <place w:st="on"><placename w:st="on">Solimoes</placename> <placetype w:st="on">River</placetype></place>. Between the 1950s and the 1970s, demand for the product collapsed with rise of plastic bags that became an unfortunate symbol of prosperity throughout the developed world. Now the clock may be turning back as cities around <place w:st="on"><country-region w:st="on">Brazil</country-region></place> join a growing global trend toward plastic bag bans or taxes. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<br />
<a name='more'></a><br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
Three private Brazilian companies and a fourth government-backed joint venture are hoping jute production can provide an alternative for some 15,000 families in the northern <country-region w:st="on"><place w:st="on">Brazil</place></country-region>, according to a fascinating story by Martha San Juan Franca in Brasil Economico. Small farmers in remote areas of Amazon state grow the crop along riverbanks, harvest it, and then soak them to separate the fibers from the stalk. From there they send the fiber off to <city w:st="on">Manaus</city> and then <place w:st="on"><city w:st="on">Belem</city></place> to factories where it is processed and turned into cloth. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
Since <country-region w:st="on"><place w:st="on">Brazil</place></country-region> is the world’s biggest coffee producer, a major outlet for jute production is the 60-pound sacks used to export coffee beans. Making reusable shopping bags out of a natural fiber that is produced by Brazilians in Brazil could become a niche market product in cities such as Sao Paulo and Belo Horizonte that cut down on supermarket plastic bag distribution (Rio de Janeiro says it has “discouraged” their use, which I can’t say I’ve seen many signs of). </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
This strikes me as an interesting take on packaging, which is at the heart of the world’s growing solid waste problem. I have to admit I find it considerably more practical than the <a href="http://lungsoftheearth.blogspot.com/2011/09/folks-can-we-get-over-green-plastic.html"><span style="color: purple;">“green plastic”</span></a> solution that relies on the country’s ethanol behemoths without providing a boost for small businesses, and still more innovative than the usual nylon bags that get passed out at eco-friendly events.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
But at the same time jute sacks seem to create at least some of the same problem as green plastic – they’re both biodegradable, but nobody seems to know quite what to do with them when they’re done. I was unable to find any reference online to any significant reuse of coffee sacks. What actually happens to that burlap sack after it arrives at an upscale <state w:st="on"><place w:st="on">New York</place></state> coffee shop carrying its prized organically-grown coffee? From the number accouterments <a href="http://www.etsy.com/listing/82136632/number-one-java-change-purse?ref=sr_gallery_22&ga_includes%5b0%5d=tags&ga_search_query=recycled+coffee+bag&ga_search_type=all&ga_facet=">like these</a> made from coffee sacks, it’s hard to imagine there’s much reuse really going on. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
I’d be interested to see how this develops, particularly if burlap shopping bags start replacing the nylon ones. </div>quasecariocahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06596846743937514638noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3308758383649061441.post-5330208647190723062012-05-14T19:31:00.001-07:002012-06-10T18:20:27.602-07:00Rio+20 paints a target on its back<div style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">
</div>
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">It’s always easy to take the piss out of climate
conferences. Thousands of activists and diplomats flying across the planet to
sign a milquetoast, watered-down, pre-negotiated statement (when they </span><a href="http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/5b49f97a-ed96-11de-ba12-00144feab49a.html" style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">even
manage to do that</a><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">) are crying out to be lampooned by anyone who follows the
issue (and of course, a plethora of indignant environmentalists angry they didn’t
get invited). </span>
<br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">
In a rare display of maturity I’ve decided not to bang this
particular drum when it comes to the Rio+20 meeting scheduled for June, a United
Nations sponsored meeting on sustainable development that marks the 20<sup>th</sup>
anniversary of a 1992 Rio environment summit. But when it comes to the venue
for the event, I simply can’t keep my trap shut. </div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">
<br /></div>
<a name='more'></a><br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">
The <a href="http://www.riocentro.com.br/cgi/cgilua.exe/sys/start.htm?tpl=home">Rio
Centro</a> convention center is a hallmark icon of the disastrous, planet-warming,
urban-planning-done-wrong that Rio+20 is supposed to be working to counteract. Rio
Centro is located in the rapidly expanding Barra da Tijuca suburb that turns the walkable, pedestrian-friendly center of Rio completely on its head with a maze
of highways, shopping malls, parking lots and gated communities. It’s easy to rattle off the laundry list of
things wrong with Barra’s premier convention center.<br />
<br style="mso-special-character: line-break;" /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">
- Egregious lack of public transportation? Check.</div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">
- Horrid traffic congestion caused by limited entrances
and excessive reliance on cars? Check.</div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">
- Built in an area that was once wetlands and is now
urban sprawl with <a href="http://usask.academia.edu/GabrieladaCostaSilva/Papers/970731/Environmental_Impacts_on_Lagoon_Tijuca_and_Lagoon_Camorim_Barra_da_Tijuca_Rio_de_Janeiro_Brazil">extensive
watershed contamination</a>? Check.</div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">
- Overly air conditioned environment that requires
everyone in attendance to wear sweaters despite the tropical climate? Check.</div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">
Oh, and good luck trying to get from one end to the other
if you happen to get in at the wrong entrance. That usually requires a second
taxi ride, because the place is so big and there’s no way to walk around it
without risking getting hit by a car.</div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">
On this blog I usually at least attempt to conceal my
contempt for things I dislike; in this case I’ve decided to make an exception. Not
just because of how much Rio Centro’s obscenely counter-intuitive,
anti-environment design makes me want to vomit, but also because this is now
being touted as a venue for a conference about how to do exactly the opposite
of what this place has done. </div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">
One usually finds that common sense solutions to these
sorts of problems (find a different venue?) are tied in knots by political and
diplomatic realities – this is Brazil’s big moment to show the world its commitment
to the environment, it needs a huge venue so it can host everyone. </div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">
I remember going to a pre-Copenhagen event in Rio that
billed itself as a press conference on the challenges for the developing world
in transitioning to a low-carbon economy. I was handed about 100 pages of glossy
magazines and flyers about the importance of slowing global warming, packaged
in a sleek nylon folder. Two U.N. climate officials got up and gave unsurprising
and non-newsworthy comments – via two simultaneous translators – to less than
10 journalists in assistance. An entire table of sandwiches lay untouched in
one corner. I approached one of the two speakers to squeeze a bit more out of
him in hope of writing something and being able to justify having gone to the
event in the first place. He was too busy, he said, waving me off as he ran to
his next meeting. Not a single reporter in attendance published a story the
next day. </div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">
It hadn’t seemed to dawn on any of the organizers, but
their best shot at helping the climate that day would have been to simply email
a press release and skip the whole to do. The number crunchers could probably
figure out how many kilos of CO2 emissions would have been saved by scrapping press
conferences about how to reduce CO2 emissions. It would make more sense, though
would probably be more difficult, to get people to think about doing less dumb
shit. It’s no wonder this climate issue is such a pickle. </div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">
Call me snarky, call me petty, but I still believe leading by example is the only way to lead.</div>quasecariocahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06596846743937514638noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3308758383649061441.post-13780360719126482842012-04-30T16:02:00.000-07:002012-04-30T16:03:42.141-07:00Argentina oil grab fuels Brazil’s biodiesel confusion<div style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">
</div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">
</div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">
Possibly the last unexplored angle on Argentina’s <a href="http://settysoutham.wordpress.com/2012/04/17/ypf-in-argentina-weve-seen-this-movie/">abrupt
nationalization</a> of oil company YPF that snatches the stake held by Spain’s Repsol
– a perpetuation of the confusion over Brazil's potentially lucrative but currently
struggling biodiesel industry. </div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">
<br />
<a name='more'></a></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">
Spain is hot and bothered that its flagship energy
company is not going to get anything near what it wants in compensation for the
takeover. So among the <a href="http://af.reuters.com/article/energyOilNews/idAFL6E8FIEZA20120423">few
response measures</a> it has to chase after a country still overshadowed by its
massive debt default is to slash purchases of Argentine soy-based biodiesel.
Spain buys that fuel from Argentina, the world’s top biodiesel exporter, to
meet mandated fuel blending requirements. </div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">
Brazil is jumping to <a href="http://revistagloborural.globo.com/Revista/Common/0,,EMI303965-18531,00-USINEIROS+MIRAM+MERCADO+ESPANHOL.html">the
rescue</a>. Its incipient biodiesel program is seeking to replicate the success
of the sugar cane ethanol industry that now provides about half the fuel for
the country’s growing fleet of cars. What could be better for a nascent
industry than the promise of a huge new market? </div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">
This is where things get confusing. The industry already
has a huge new market, it’s called Brazil. But the government has restricted
the growth in the domestic market because it’s worried that rapid expansion of
soy-based biodiesel will reduce grain available for consumption by humans (OK,
let’s be realistic, consumption by animals that are later consumed by humans), which
risks <a href="http://lungsoftheearth.blogspot.com/2011/12/will-brazils-biodiesel-put-food.html">pushing
up food prices</a>. Ah, the old food vs. fuel debate (I’ll skip my customary
diatribe about this intellectual pissing match). The industry has for months
been pushing the government to raise the mandatory biodiesel blend in fossil
diesel from the current 5 percent to the 15 or 20 percent that the industry
hoped for when it launched its wave of investments. </div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">
Now Brazil's industry has its eyes on Spain, hoping to fill
the void left by Argentina, and the government seems keen to help them.
Authorities have already approved a handful of export licenses.</div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">
I have to admit, I don’t get it. Yes, Spain’s a great
market and Argentina’s doctrinaire stupidity is handing it to them, but there’s
rarely a better market than the one in your backyard. Brazil’s is an obvious
one not just because of its size, but also because most of its products are hauled
by trucks along poorly paved roads – which means it has a huge demand for
diesel. The whole point of creating the biodiesel program to begin with was the
reduce diesel imports.</div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">
Sure, Brazil could get some additional export revenue
from sending biofuel to Europe, which would help improve its trade balance. But
whatever biodiesel is exported will have to be made up for at home with fossil
diesel produced or imported by Petrobras. Robbing Peter to pay Paul. </div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">
So in other words, if food vs. fuels is a concern for
boosting domestic use of biodiesel, why isn’t there similar concern over
exporting the same fuel? </div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">
BTW, hat tip to @viasimonromero.</div>quasecariocahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06596846743937514638noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3308758383649061441.post-48069976496131446692012-03-26T18:27:00.000-07:002012-06-10T17:01:47.416-07:00Brazil's dam fish cultivation<div style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">
Brazil's taking a bad idea and teaching it to swim. </div>
<div style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">
<br /></div>
<div style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">
As I mentioned <a href="http://lungsoftheearth.blogspot.com/2011/08/yes-its-true-brazils-wind-power-kicks.html">not long ago</a>, dam reservoirs are really nasty things to create but once you have them in place they provide enormous advantages for advancing alternative energy. Now Congress is proposing that dam operators find another way to take advantage of them -- raising fish. And not just any fish. We're talking about non-native species like carp and tilapia. </div>
<a name='more'></a><div style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">
<br /></div>
<div style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">
According to my environmental blogger friends over at <a href="http://www.oeco.com.br/salada-verde/25845-projeto-de-lei-quer-introduzir-especies-exoticas-em-represas">O Eco</a>, Congressional deputy Nelson Meurer argued that</div>
<div style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">
<br /></div>
<div style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.8in 0pt 0.5in;">
"Aquiculture has among the greatest potential to increase production of fish in our country, and we have a number of advantages including climate, technology, and abundant hydro resources."</div>
<div style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif; margin-right: 0.8in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">
Claudio Angelo over a Folha de Sao Paulo opens his story about the scientific backlash to this with an apropos Jurassic Park reference about trying to control species artificiallly introduced into an environment. Angelo interviews scientists who rightfully point out that the fish not only escape, but also their movement messes with the oxygen content in the water. </div>
<div style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">
<br /></div>
<div style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">
Maybe try installing some sewer systems so that waters sheds aren't so contaminated and more fish can live in them? Maybe try making better use of the fish already in been caught? Seems like there are much more logical solutions to the problem.</div>quasecariocahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06596846743937514638noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3308758383649061441.post-75609995198158743252012-03-25T13:23:00.002-07:002012-06-10T17:01:54.619-07:00Belo Monte nearly bankrupts the OAS?<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
Interesting tidbit pops up in this week’s edition of <a href="http://www.semana.com/nacion/sos-oea/174316-3.aspx">Semana</a>, Colombia’s premier news magazine. The Organization of American States came close to running out of cash at the end of last year, with December’s paychecks hanging delicately in limbo as the agency struggled to with a growing deficit. Finally OAS Secretary General Jose Miguel Insulza managed to scrape together $3.5 billion that kept the group afloat.</div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
</div>
<a name='more'></a><div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<br />
As per Semana:</div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0pt;">
To achieve this, Insulza had to tap his diplomatic abilities and convince Brazil, one of the organization’s 34 members, to pay some of its back quotas. This was not easy. As of a year ago, the Brazilian representative does not go to meetings and the country froze its contributions in response to the ruling by the Inter-American Human Rights Commission, which said Brazil should stop work on enormous <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Belo_Monte_Dam">Belo Monte dam</a> that will force 50,000 peasants and indigenous people to abandon their land.</div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<br />
I’ve seen the conflict over this dam bring in the likes of <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/11/world/americas/11brazil.html">Hollywood celebrities</a> as well as protests <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/internationalrivers/sets/72157627495828650/detail/">around</a> the <a href="http://www.birdwatch.co.uk/channel/newsitem.asp?c=11&cate=__11076">world</a>, but I’ve never seen this level of actual fall-out. </div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
Brazil has gotten pretty sensitive to criticism about this one. Belo Monte, an 11,233 megawatt behemoth to be built on a tributary of the Amazon, is a hold-over from dictatorship era plans that included the creation of five different dams. Back then it was considered OK to flood huge areas to create reservoirs, which actually turn out to be a marvelous way to store energy that give Brazil a leg up when it comes to <a href="http://lungsoftheearth.blogspot.com/2011/08/yes-its-true-brazils-wind-power-kicks.html">wind power</a> (though exactly how “clean” Brazil’s hydrower is has become a matter of <a href="http://lungsoftheearth.blogspot.com/2011/10/how-dirty-is-clean-hydro-power.html">some debate</a>). Belo Monte was designed without a reservoir, but will still flood a large area and push quite a few people off their land. </div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
I can understand where Dilma and her people are coming from on this one. It’s a growing country with a growing need for electricity. But this project is such an absurd boondoggle that it’s hard to understand why Brasilia is so tenaciously clinging to a project that is such a bad idea for so many reasons. </div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
For one, the protests and vows by activists and environmentalists to block progress at every step of the way ensure delays will abound (the 2010 auction that gave way to the project was suspended twice in the space of several hours by court injunctions that were issued, overturned, then issued again), meaning its start date will likely get pushed back over and over again. Meanwhile the government has set such a low price for the power to be produced there, part of an eternal effort to keep power artificially cheap, that the return on investment of the project is considered to be negative. Private contractors bowed out of the project, leaving state-run Eletrobras and its subsidiaries putting in most of the investment, along with mining giant Vale as part of its eternal quest to <a href="http://settysoutham.wordpress.com/2011/04/11/brazil%E2%80%99s-government-ousts-the-ceo-of-vale-vale-%E2%80%93-but-this-saga-ain%E2%80%99t-over-guest-post/">suck up</a> to the government.</div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<br /></div>
<div style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">
<span style="font-size: 12pt;">I wonder how much more of stink this project is going to create. And I wonder if the OAS will ever say anything again.</span></div>quasecariocahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06596846743937514638noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3308758383649061441.post-45526804080968675122012-03-06T14:00:00.001-08:002012-06-10T17:02:03.460-07:00Venezuela's Dept. of WTF, officially lost in outer space<div style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">
I think Setty's <a href="http://settysoutham.wordpress.com/2012/02/28/chavez-to-partl-privatize-pdvsa/#more-2933">Dept. of WTF </a>post most clearly summed up how the world should see the Chavez government's plan to partially privatize Venezuela's state oil company PDVSA. (Yes, *that* Chavez, the one who has spent a decade yelling about the evils of privatizations and the better part of five years nationalizing everything in sight.)</div>
<div style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">
<br /></div>
<div style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">
Which is why I'm not sure where to look now that top government dog Diosdado Cabello is accusing the opposition of riling up public opinion about the <a href="http://lungsoftheearth.blogspot.com/2012/03/sorry-sir-we-cant-afford-to-staunch.html">massive oil spill at the Jusepin field</a> as an way of ... <a href="http://www.noticias24.com/venezuela/noticia/94977/diosdado-cabello-recibimos-solicitudes-desde-varios-estado-para-realizar-actos-en-apoyo-al-presidente/">privatizing PDVSA??</a></div>
<div style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">
<br /></div>
<div style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">
Whiskey Tango Foxtrot indeed.</div>quasecariocahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06596846743937514638noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3308758383649061441.post-50346866944738554692012-03-06T13:45:00.000-08:002012-03-06T13:45:52.118-08:00Sorry, sir, we can’t afford to staunch this torrential oil spill<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I'm now officially one month behind on the horrid oil spill in eastern Venezuela, which is pretty inexcusable, though I have to thank the </span><a href="http://www.economist.com/node/21547829"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The Economist</span></a><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">, Gustavo at </span><a href="http://caracaschronicles.com/2012/03/02/to-drink-or-not-to-drink-the-water/"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Caracas Chronicles</span></a><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> and </span><a href="http://settysoutham.wordpress.com/2012/03/03/venezuela-oil-spills-roundup/"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Setty</span></a><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> for keeping an eye on this one.</span></div><div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Some absolutely staggering details about what happened out in the Guarapiche river in the state of Monagas at the Jusepin oil field surfaced in the last couple days. State oil company PDVSA still has not released any detailed information on how much crude was spilled, (Setty's got a great roundup of what has been said), but it's quite obvious that it was a lot worse than it needed to be. </span></div><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">An excellent story by David Gonzalez in El Nacional lays out the most glaring problem: at least two PDVSA managers refused to halt output even after the severing of a pipeline had been confirmed and a 30-meter column of oil was shooting into the air. They determined -- I shit you not -- that it would take too long to restart production if they shut it down. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><a name='more'></a><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Text message exchanges documented in a report acquired by an opposition legislator show Edgar Sifontes, Deputy Operations Manager for PDVSA's El Furrial division, ordered employees not to shut the wells in because it would take some 20 days to get them back up and running. A second manager, Jose Marin, later refused orders from a higher-level PDVSA official to halt Jusepin's output, citing an order by Sifontes. The result? The pipeline ruptured at 8:40 a.m., and the field was still producing as late as 3:30 in the afternoon. Who knows how much longer the oil continued spilling.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I spent a while trying to fathom what could justify such mind-boggling, reckless incompetence. Even if the damages are considerably less than infamous Macondo Gulf of Mexico spill, the level of negligence here is simply head and shoulders above what BP was guilty of.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">My first instinct is that these PDVSA types have an almost visceral association with shutting things down because of their experience fighting off the 2002 oil strike, a clumsy and failed attempt to push Chavez out by force. This event has taken on the status of a creation myth in Venezuela's industry that oil workers invoke like a pastor preaching about the book of Genesis, and has led to a gut reaction that shutting anything down is tantamount to sabotage, treason and subversion. </span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">But the reference to not wanting to lose 20 days of production makes me think these guys are under enormous pressure to produce oil revenue for a company already overstretched by commitments to build everything from houses to grocery stores. Somewhere in that calculus, Sifontes appears to have forgotten the irreparable damage that has likely been done to the Guarapiche River, the public health problems caused by fisherman cleaning out crude with their bare hands, and the monumental losses dumped on ranchers and farmers.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Gonzalez's story shows the contingency planning was almost equally frightening. </span><br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">“’We have to activate the National Contingency Plan, the situation is critical,’ reads the text message received by Felix Merchan, Manager of the El Furrial Division, from a subordinate. The executive firmly agrees in a clear message from his Blackberry: ‘Let’s activate it.’ The subordinate then asks a disconcerting question: ‘What is the procedure?’”</span></div><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">PDVSA has kept details of these plans from being published, which was apparently standard procedure before Chavez and is similar to what other countries do. But the basic outlines are clear. </span><br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">“Within four hours the goal is clear: to carry out the deployment of ‘all the equipment specified by the local plan … and to protect sensitive environments.’ But during this period, the managers were still debating what steps should be taken.”</span></div><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">National Assembly deputy Hiram Gaviria has filed a copy of the report containing these exchanges to the prosecutor’s office. What will likely follow is a charade in which state prosecutors explain this incident away as a minor mishap that warrants no further investigation, much less criminal sanctions against employees of the state oil company. </span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">It would have been nice for PDVSA to be able to blame this incident on an oil major, like possibly Total, which ran the field until was nationalized in 2006. The Brazilians, after all, have managed to lodge </span><a href="http://lungsoftheearth.blogspot.com/2011/12/brazil-gets-tough-on-oil-industry-wish.html"><span style="color: purple; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">an $11 billion complaint against Chevron</span></a><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> for spilling close to 3,000 barrels of oil – by most accounts as little as 5 percent of the Monagas spill. But then again it’s easy to go after the Seven Sisters and their ilk, and a lot tougher for a government to crack down on an oil company it owns and runs. </span><br />
</span>quasecariocahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06596846743937514638noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3308758383649061441.post-17544445578359345152012-03-04T18:53:00.000-08:002012-03-04T18:53:01.674-08:00I'm still not dead yetI swear. I've just been struggling to keep my head above water at work. I'll soon rise from the ashes like the Phoenix. Wait, that would contradict the idea that I'm not dead. <br />
<br />
I've got some stuff in the pipeline. Thanks for remembering me.quasecariocahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06596846743937514638noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3308758383649061441.post-2299119893770390052012-02-04T16:13:00.001-08:002012-06-10T17:02:18.544-07:00Nordic journeys in financing tropical environmentalism<div style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">
Find a worthy environmental cause around the world, a group of tropical do-gooders looking for cash, a well-intentioned project to fight global warming, you can bet the Norwegians have it on their radar screen. I honestly find it commendable. Someone asks for help protecting the environment and Norway – with generous income available due to its offshore oil operations – raises its hand. It’s sure a nice contrast to America’s “what’s in it for me?” approach or Canada’s “we’re part of the deal until we’re not” plan. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif; margin: 0.1pt 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif; margin: 0.1pt 0in;">
But my hunch is the Norwegians are getting antsy. They’ve put up funds for environmental projects around the world and the going is slow. <br />
<a name='more'></a><br />
That’s the sense I get reading this <a href="http://af.reuters.com/article/commoditiesNews/idAFL1E8CDB8Z20120114?pageNumber=1&virtualBrandChannel=0">Reuters story</a> quoting an unnamed Norwegian official complaining that Brazil’s Amazon Fund – which received cash from the Norwegian government – has been far behind in actually disbursing the loans it had planned. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif; margin: 0.1pt 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif; margin: 0.1pt 1in;">
An international fund to protect the Amazon forest launched by Brazil in 2008 has gotten bogged down in red tape and donors are frustrated their $466 million contributions are hardly put to use, a Norwegian official said.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif; margin: 0.1pt 1in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif; margin: 0.1pt 1in;">
So far Brazil has only used $39 million on 23 sustainable growth projects, with another $53 million under contract. This poor performance has weakened Brazil's voice as a leading advocate for the protection of the developing world's forests with funding from rich nations.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif; margin: 0.1pt 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif; margin: 0.1pt 0in;">
The fund is run by state development bank BNDES, which is Brazil’s largest provider of long-term financing. The funds contracted by BNDES for the Amazon Fund, which is supposed to finance projects that will help provide jobs and reduce deforestation, dropped by half between 2010 and 2011, according to the Reuters story. Loan recipients found the paperwork so abusively cumbersome that they wondered whether it was even worth the effort. It’s probably not surprising that the BNDES is having a harder time finding creditworthy babacu coconut oil production facilities or rubber tapper cooperatives than soy farmers, cattle ranchers and hydroelectric dam developers. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif; margin: 0.1pt 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif; margin: 0.1pt 0in;">
To some extent, the BNDES is between a rock and a hard place. The choice of the BNDES as a the custodian of these funds in 2008 spurred a collective snicker among Brazilian environmentalists, who were quick to point out that the BNDES has traditionally been the financier of the Amazon’s most notorious predators – cattle slaughterhouses owned by the likes of JBS (anyone guess where those cows have been grazing?) or local sawmills (are they using “locally-sourced wood”?) BNDES has taken the cautious approach here and avoided dumping money into dicey fly-by-night sustainability schemes that turn out to be bogus. It’s also trying to make sure the Amazon Fund is making loans that it can later recover rather than simply passing out cash. This isn’t easy. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif; margin: 0.1pt 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif; margin: 0.1pt 0in;">
But for a Norwegian official to travel to Brasilia and tell an English-language wire service that they’re fed up with the delays suggests to me people are starting to ask questions back in Oslo about where all this money’s going. Somebody’s losing patience. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif; margin: 0.1pt 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif; margin: 0.1pt 0in;">
This isn’t the only part of the Amazon where this is happening. Norway was one of the first to join Ecuador’s <a href="http://www.sosyasuni.org/en/index.php">Yasuni project</a> promising $250 million for a proposal by President Rafael Correa that foreign donors pay the Andean country not to develop oil fields buried under a pristine natural forest. Few others have come forth, and the leftist Correa government is likely preparing for the funds to come up short and the project to be scrapped. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif; margin: 0.1pt 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif; margin: 0.1pt 0in;">
Norway also promised Guyana it would put up as much as $250 million for sustainable development projects such as creating a hydroelectric dam, building a fiber-optic cable, installing solar panels, etc. – in exchange for Guyana keeping a relatively low rate of deforestation. Three years after the agreement went into effect, <a href="http://www.theecologist.org/News/news_analysis/1144823/whats_happened_to_guyanas_rainforest_deal_with_norway.html">no funds</a> have been disbursed. Of course Guyana’s a different case – a country with less than a million people with little capacity to administer funds transparently is not Brazil, with nearly 200 million inhabitants and an increasingly sophisticated financial system. But the delay in Guyana is symptomatic of much the same problem. If it’s hard for the BNDES to find creditworthy projects that are good for the earth, it’s going to be that much more difficult for the notoriously corrupt government of Guyana to come up with proposals that can pass the smell test. The Guyanese are not happy about all the bureaucracy and have been complaining for years that the process isn’t quick enough. As noted in The Ecologist, critics believe the government never had the intention of making any proposals but rather believed that they would receive the money to spend themselves. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif; margin: 0.1pt 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif; margin: 0.1pt 0in;">
Opposition leaders in Guyana, and probably in many parts of the world, enjoy pillorying the Norwegians as naïve and uninformed do-gooders with more cash than the know what to do with. This is probably true in part, though somewhat unfair given the complexity of what they’re trying to do – take money and turn it into sustainable development. I can understand why it’s taking time. But I can also understand why they’re getting antsy. </div>quasecariocahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06596846743937514638noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3308758383649061441.post-3343379660992280842012-01-25T18:22:00.001-08:002012-06-10T17:02:31.383-07:00Boring Amazon coverage<div style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">
Bloggers love to pick on reporters, so here we go. </div>
<div style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">
<br /></div>
<div style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">
This latest New York Times story on <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/25/world/americas/in-brazil-protection-of-amazon-rainforest-takes-a-step-back.html?pagewanted=2&_r=1&src=rechp#">Brazil sliding back into deforestation </a>oblivion is just plan dull and lazy. I would note that for a fancy newspaper correspondent it shouldn't be that tough to get on a plane and at least walk through some part of sketchy deforested southeastern Para. This most recent story seems almost entirely based on an interview with former environment minister Marina Silva and a few phone calls to some environmental types.</div>
<div style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">
<br /></div>
<a name='more'></a><div style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">
<br /></div>
<div style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">
There are plenty of interesting ways of writing about what's going on in the Amazon, like this AP take on the <a href="http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2011/12/24/BUVN1MAMAK.DTL">success of Paragominas </a>which I mentioned in <a href="http://lungsoftheearth.blogspot.com/2011/08/finding-success-stories-in-brazils.html">this post </a>last August. Notice the reporter actually went the place in question. </div>
<div style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">
<br /></div>
<div style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">
This Times' story is written out of Sao Paulo. It read like a lot of background paragraphs without much of a new hook or angle. And I think what bothered me most -- OK, this might sound strange for a blogger of my political persuasion -- is that just about everyone in the story is an environmental advocate. Talking to only one side makes for more of an echo chamber than a story about conflicting visions. </div>
<div style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">
<br /></div>
<div style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">
Despite extensive mention of the farm lobby and the "ruralists," the only actual human being remotely on that side of the fence is the head of Brazil's sugar association. Sugar cane is actaully quite far down on the list of threats to the Amazon, trailing behind cattle, soy, dams, and illegal mining. Yes, there are some Amazon areas of in the states of Piaui and Tocantins that are now are becoming new fronteirs for cane fields, but again, far down on the list. Possibly a bigger issue for sugar cane would be encroachment on the Pantanal near the border with the Bolivia (clarification: this has nothing to do with the Amazon.)</div>
<div style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">
<br /></div>
<div style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">
Sugar cane, it may not surprise you to know, is most concentrated in the state of Sao Paulo. Which is where this story is datelined. Oh well. I hope to see better down the road.</div>quasecariocahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06596846743937514638noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3308758383649061441.post-1412964998533432792012-01-24T16:38:00.001-08:002012-03-25T13:41:40.172-07:00Hey, who’s been putting fungicide in my OJ?<span style="font-family: 'Times','serif'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-fareast-font-family: Cambria;">Brazil, apparently. The price of orange juice hit an all-time high this week because of a flap over US imports of OJ from Brazil. The culprit: the chemical carbendazim, a chemical used to kill fungus that in high enough quantities has been linked to infertility. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Times','serif'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-fareast-font-family: Cambria;"><a name='more'></a></span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Times','serif'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-fareast-font-family: Cambria;">The US FDA reported that it found low levels of it in Brazilian OJ, and began inspections of orange juice concentrate imported from all over the world for traces of the carbendazim, which is banned in the United States. That could lead to a ban on imports of orange juice from Brazil, which has got markets all in a tizzy.</span> <br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0.1pt 0in; mso-para-margin-bottom: .01gd; mso-para-margin-left: 0in; mso-para-margin-right: 0in; mso-para-margin-top: .01gd;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0.1pt 0in 0.1pt 0.5in; mso-para-margin-bottom: .01gd; mso-para-margin-left: .5in; mso-para-margin-right: 0in; mso-para-margin-top: .01gd;"><span style="font-family: 'Times','serif'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-fareast-font-family: Cambria;">"Florida doesn't produce enough orange juice for the entire U.S.," said Liberty Trading Group President James Cordier told <a href="http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970203718504577179183058268906.html?mod=googlenews_wsj">The Wall Street Journal</a>. "Everyone's going to be crunching numbers trying to figure out what we're going to do without Brazilian orange juice."</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0.1pt 0in; mso-para-margin-bottom: .01gd; mso-para-margin-left: 0in; mso-para-margin-right: 0in; mso-para-margin-top: .01gd;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0.1pt 0in; mso-para-margin-bottom: .01gd; mso-para-margin-left: 0in; mso-para-margin-right: 0in; mso-para-margin-top: .01gd;"><span style="font-family: 'Times','serif'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-fareast-font-family: Cambria;">The exports are worth $2 billion per year to Brazil, which provides a whopping 85 percent of the world’s total exported orange juice, according to <a href="http://money.cnn.com/2012/01/17/markets/brazil_orange_juice_fungicide.cnnw/">CNN</a>.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0.1pt 0in; mso-para-margin-bottom: .01gd; mso-para-margin-left: 0in; mso-para-margin-right: 0in; mso-para-margin-top: .01gd;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0.1pt 0in; mso-para-margin-bottom: .01gd; mso-para-margin-left: 0in; mso-para-margin-right: 0in; mso-para-margin-top: .01gd;"><span style="font-family: 'Times','serif'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-fareast-font-family: Cambria;">Here’s what I think this so interesting in this case – this chemical is legal in Brazil. I’m surprised this sort of cross-border pesticide dispute doesn’t come up more often, because pesticides are getting more common and their usage increasingly intensive. Orange juice crops are subject to a number of pests including one called greening, or molds such as blackspot that can wreck a crop. The issue of GMO rarely turns into a cross-border environmental regulation dispute, even though about 70 percent of Brazil’s soy is now grown with genetically modified seeds. Is this the new ground for environmental protectionism? My guess is these disputes will become more frequent. Crops are being grown more intensely and closer together, which means greater levels of monoculture, which means more diseases are coming into the fore or ones that we didn’t pay much attention to will all of a sudden gain new relevance, which means new forms of pesticides. </span></div>quasecariocahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06596846743937514638noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3308758383649061441.post-62751030590189351352012-01-15T12:53:00.001-08:002012-06-10T17:02:39.300-07:00Breathe free and easy, Venezuela, refinery emissions are under control<div style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">
I have to admit being a bit puzzled after stumbling over this press release from Venezuela’s state oil company PDVSA. The company for no apparent reason in late December put out a statement trumpeting the fact that the El Palito refinery’s emissions are up to code, based on a study done by a company that is not identified. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif; margin: 0.1pt 0in;">
<br />
<a name='more'></a><br />
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif; margin: 0.1pt 0in;">
I’m really having trouble with this one. El Palito has for years been the butt of oil industry jokes because of its frequent unplanned shutdowns and unfortunate track record of accidents. This of course gives oil traders a lot to chuckle about, particularly since many already enjoy laughing about the Chavez government’s inept management of the country’s oil industry.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif; margin: 0.1pt 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif; margin: 0.1pt 0in;">
But from an environment point of view, this is neither irrelevant nor funny. A refinery that abruptly shuts down its operations in most cases will have to burn off large quantities of partially refined petroleum, sending a huge plume of black smoke into the air and considerably increasing the likelihood for the release of noxious chemicals including things like sulfur dioxide or hydrogen sulfide. If you’re going to shut down a refinery, you need to do it with time and planning. Refineries that are constantly shutting down on a dime should not be regarded as safe, and are not likely to be up to environmental code.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif; margin: 0.1pt 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif; margin: 0.1pt 0in;">
And there are plenty of examples of El Palito not having it together. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif; margin: 0.1pt 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif; margin: 0.1pt 0in;">
Just this month it announced a <a href="http://www.eluniversal.com/economia/120103/pdvsa-announces-maintenance-works-at-el-palito-refinery">five-day shutdown</a> due to a problem with some kind of valve system. That was less than a month after it failed to properly restart following an earlier unplanned shutdown related to heavy rains, which also struck me as a bit odd. So PDVSA’s now excited about El Palito being up to emissions code. They commissioned a study from “a specialized company, approved by the Ministry for the Popular Power of the Environment,” of 11 of the refineries chimneys. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif; margin: 0.1pt 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif; margin: 0.1pt 0in;">
“Among the most relevant results were the emissions of carbon monoxide and nitrogen monoxide, which were below the legal limit, which shows El Palito’s refinery operations work toward the conservation of the environment,” PDVSA said in a statement. The company hasn’t responded to my phone calls trying to get more details about who did the study, when it was conducted, and what levels of the toxic gas emissions were found. Most of all, I’d like to know whether they’re talking about average emissions levels throughout the entire year or if this refers to the “peak” emissions that are most likely take place during unplanned shutdowns. My suspicion is these guys not telling the whole truth.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif; margin: 0.1pt 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif; margin: 0.1pt 0in;">
There are not a lot of reasons to think PDVSA is really taking care of the environment, in large part because there are few signs that anyone’s making them. Much like the problem I mentioned <a href="http://lungsoftheearth.blogspot.com/2011/12/brazil-gets-tough-on-oil-industry-wish.html"><span style="color: purple;">here</span></a>, Venezuela’s environment ministry is simply never going to go after a much bigger and more powerful PDVSA. One of the few cases of environmental negligence cited by the company was against El Palito itself on charges that an engineer running a maintenance program allowed more than one hundred spills. PDVSA responded by naming that person to head one of its recently nationalized projects in the Orinoco belt. So much for working toward the conservation of the environment.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif; margin: 0.1pt 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif; margin: 0.1pt 0in;">
And El Palito isn’t alone. According to <a href="http://www.eluniversal.com/economia/120111/refineries-hit-by-eight-failures-in-the-past-30-days">El Universal</a>, the country’s refining circuit has been hit by eight refinery outages in the last 30 days alone, without a mea culpa from PDVSA or any evidence of action by the environment ministry. That’s a good sign that PDVSA and the government are comfortable flushing Venezuela’s environment down the toilet.</div>quasecariocahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06596846743937514638noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3308758383649061441.post-70386458286114822422012-01-05T18:10:00.002-08:002012-03-25T13:48:41.010-07:00Sao Paulo’s plastic bag war and its discontents<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0.1pt 0in; mso-para-margin-bottom: .01gd; mso-para-margin-left: 0in; mso-para-margin-right: 0in; mso-para-margin-top: .01gd;"><span style="font-family: 'Times','serif'; font-size: 10pt; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-fareast-font-family: Cambria;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">Brazil’s biggest city is jumping on the plastic-bag-banning-bandwagon. We’ll, actually it’s trying to. The municipal government of the 20 million strong city of Sao Paulo last year issued a decree blocking supermarkets from passing out plastic bags for free, a move backed by the state’s environment ministry. That follows bans and taxes in cities around America including Seattle and Washington D.C. and much more comprehensive efforts in European countries such as Italy and Ireland. </span></span><br />
<br />
<a name='more'></a></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0.1pt 0in; mso-para-margin-bottom: .01gd; mso-para-margin-left: 0in; mso-para-margin-right: 0in; mso-para-margin-top: .01gd;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0.1pt 0in; mso-para-margin-bottom: .01gd; mso-para-margin-left: 0in; mso-para-margin-right: 0in; mso-para-margin-top: .01gd;"><span style="font-family: 'Times','serif'; font-size: 10pt; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-fareast-font-family: Cambria;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">The country’s plastics industry association isn’t having any of it, and has won a court injunction blocking the measure from taking effect. In the meantime, both sides have launched a ferocious campaign plugging themselves as the true defenders of sustainability, leaving consumers under an advertising assault of contradicting claims. </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0.1pt 0in; mso-para-margin-bottom: .01gd; mso-para-margin-left: 0in; mso-para-margin-right: 0in; mso-para-margin-top: .01gd;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0.1pt 0in; mso-para-margin-bottom: .01gd; mso-para-margin-left: 0in; mso-para-margin-right: 0in; mso-para-margin-top: .01gd;"><span style="font-family: 'Times','serif'; font-size: 10pt; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-fareast-font-family: Cambria;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">Unlike the lobbying efforts to halt the D.C. plastic bag tax that was centered around protecting the poor from higher costs, the Sao Paulo plastics industry is instead arguing the measure doesn’t actually have an environmental impact.</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0.1pt 0in; mso-para-margin-bottom: .01gd; mso-para-margin-left: 0in; mso-para-margin-right: 0in; mso-para-margin-top: .01gd;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0.1pt 0in; mso-para-margin-bottom: .01gd; mso-para-margin-left: 0in; mso-para-margin-right: 0in; mso-para-margin-top: .01gd;"><span style="font-family: 'Times','serif'; font-size: 10pt; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-fareast-font-family: Cambria;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">“Bags are not disposable, they’re reusable, mostly as a trash bag,” the group says in a </span><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=USbDPMOYjLA"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">radio ad</span></a><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;"> being played on Sao Paulo airwaves. “You’d have to buy a lot more trash bags, so it doesn’t make a difference for the environment. Don’t prohibit plastic bags, use them wisely.”</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0.1pt 0in; mso-para-margin-bottom: .01gd; mso-para-margin-left: 0in; mso-para-margin-right: 0in; mso-para-margin-top: .01gd;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0.1pt 0in; mso-para-margin-bottom: .01gd; mso-para-margin-left: 0in; mso-para-margin-right: 0in; mso-para-margin-top: .01gd;"><span style="font-family: 'Times','serif'; font-size: 10pt; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-fareast-font-family: Cambria;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">Marc Gunther, one of my favorite sustainability bloggers, makes much the same point </span><a href="http://www.marcgunther.com/2011/12/22/in-defense-of-the-plastic-bag/"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">here</span></a><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;"> – plastic bag bans miss the point that they often used for other things. I also agree that the absurd proliferation of nylon shopping bags is creating many of the same problems that they’re supposed to be resolving – they’re made from oil, require a lot of energy to produce, and take up a lot of landfill space. Paper bags can be equally problematic, and unfortunately carry the stigma of being “natural” and therefore more environmentally friendly, when in fact the pulp and paper industry is horridly pollution and is actually responsible for more greenhouse gas emissions than the airline industry.</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0.1pt 0in; mso-para-margin-bottom: .01gd; mso-para-margin-left: 0in; mso-para-margin-right: 0in; mso-para-margin-top: .01gd;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0.1pt 0in; mso-para-margin-bottom: .01gd; mso-para-margin-left: 0in; mso-para-margin-right: 0in; mso-para-margin-top: .01gd;"><span style="font-family: 'Times','serif'; font-size: 10pt; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-fareast-font-family: Cambria;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">I do, however, think that plastic bag <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">taxes</i> are not necessarily a bad idea simply because put a cost on something that we have mistakenly come to believe is free. Plastic bags in the United States on average cost about $0.03 each for retailers, a cost which is either incorporated back into the prices of the rest of the products in the supermarket or comes out of the store’s bottom line. Then there are the indirect costs associated with plastic bags, like their accumulation in landfills and their tendency to block storm drains and cause flooding. The city of Sao Paulo last year suffered days of flooding, which put hundreds out of their homes, that authorities said were worsened by the abundance of plastic trash. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In DC the revenues from the plastic bag tax have gone to cleaning up the highly polluted Anacostia River.</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0.1pt 0in; mso-para-margin-bottom: .01gd; mso-para-margin-left: 0in; mso-para-margin-right: 0in; mso-para-margin-top: .01gd;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0.1pt 0in; mso-para-margin-bottom: .01gd; mso-para-margin-left: 0in; mso-para-margin-right: 0in; mso-para-margin-top: .01gd;"><span style="font-family: 'Times','serif'; font-size: 10pt; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-fareast-font-family: Cambria;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">I think it’s a mistake to ban people from something as obviously useful as a plastic bag, for the same reason I don’t think people should be banned from driving fossil-fuel powered cars, heating their homes with natural gas, or using electricity derived from coal. </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0.1pt 0in; mso-para-margin-bottom: .01gd; mso-para-margin-left: 0in; mso-para-margin-right: 0in; mso-para-margin-top: .01gd;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0.1pt 0in; mso-para-margin-bottom: .01gd; mso-para-margin-left: 0in; mso-para-margin-right: 0in; mso-para-margin-top: .01gd;"><span style="font-family: 'Times','serif'; font-size: 10pt; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-fareast-font-family: Cambria;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">The point is they should pay for it – the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">whole</i> cost of it. When things are free, people tend not to use them in proportion to the impact they have on society. My mom has to open her apartment windows in the winter because the her building has central heating – not only does she have no incentive to save on heating, she had to dump energy out the window. The cost of plastic bags, like the other things mentioned above, should reflect the cost – including the messes they make during production and disposal. To put it in fancy economics talk, the price should reflect not only the marginal cost of production but also the negative environmental and social externalities that they create. </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0.1pt 0in; mso-para-margin-bottom: .01gd; mso-para-margin-left: 0in; mso-para-margin-right: 0in; mso-para-margin-top: .01gd;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0.1pt 0in; mso-para-margin-bottom: .01gd; mso-para-margin-left: 0in; mso-para-margin-right: 0in; mso-para-margin-top: .01gd;"><span style="font-family: 'Times','serif'; font-size: 10pt; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-fareast-font-family: Cambria;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">Sao Paulo’s grocers’ association apparently agrees and is backing the campaign. I’ll be curious to see whether they in out – and how <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">paulistas</i> change their behavior in response.</span></span></div><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;"></span>quasecariocahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06596846743937514638noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3308758383649061441.post-23284847601540313952011-12-27T07:54:00.000-08:002012-06-10T16:49:31.095-07:00Sugar slavery is still big business – even with mechanization<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0.1pt 0in; mso-para-margin-bottom: .01gd; mso-para-margin-left: 0in; mso-para-margin-right: 0in; mso-para-margin-top: .01gd;">
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">The most effective criticism of Brazil’s biofuels program has not been the food vs. fuels diatribe but rather the excoriation of abhorrent and retrograde conditions of sugar workers. Descriptions of workers cutting cane from dawn to dusk with little access to water and frequent exposure to dangerous crop fires has left the sugar cane ethanol industry with a major public image problem. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0.1pt 0in; mso-para-margin-bottom: .01gd; mso-para-margin-left: 0in; mso-para-margin-right: 0in; mso-para-margin-top: .01gd;">
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"></span><br />
<a name='more'></a><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0.1pt 0in; mso-para-margin-bottom: .01gd; mso-para-margin-left: 0in; mso-para-margin-right: 0in; mso-para-margin-top: .01gd;">
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">Brazil’s ethanol industry, which now provides almost half the fuel consumed by Brazilian cars, has promised to address this problem by mechanizing the sugar cane harvest that is the most labor intensive – and cruelest – part of the process. Though this threatened to leave a lot of sugar workers without jobs and accelerate a migration toward cities, mechanization has by and large been seen as a logical way to improve working conditions while keep the industry competitive.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0.1pt 0in; mso-para-margin-bottom: .01gd; mso-para-margin-left: 0in; mso-para-margin-right: 0in; mso-para-margin-top: .01gd;">
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0.1pt 0in; mso-para-margin-bottom: .01gd; mso-para-margin-left: 0in; mso-para-margin-right: 0in; mso-para-margin-top: .01gd;">
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">Turns out even with machines, wage slavery ain’t over – and the money it makes is going far beyond Brazil into the pockets of investors in America. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0.1pt 0in; mso-para-margin-bottom: .01gd; mso-para-margin-left: 0in; mso-para-margin-right: 0in; mso-para-margin-top: .01gd;">
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0.1pt 0in; mso-para-margin-bottom: .01gd; mso-para-margin-left: 0in; mso-para-margin-right: 0in; mso-para-margin-top: .01gd;">
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">Reporter Brasil, the country’s most widely respected snoops on issues of wage slavery and environment, reports that a government operation in the state of Goias recently found 39 combine operators that were working 24 hours shifts plus an additional 3 hours transit to get to and from the cane fields. The story, </span><a href="http://www.reporterbrasil.org.br/exibe.php?id=1976"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">here</span></a><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"> in Portuguese only, provides a detailed account: </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0.1pt 0in; mso-para-margin-bottom: .01gd; mso-para-margin-left: 0in; mso-para-margin-right: 0in; mso-para-margin-top: .01gd;">
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0.1pt 1in; mso-para-margin-bottom: .01gd; mso-para-margin-left: 1.0in; mso-para-margin-right: 1.0in; mso-para-margin-top: .01gd;">
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">Sugar-cane harvester operators and tractor drivers, as well as truck drivers, were among those that were freed. They were forced to work 27 hours at a time from the start of the harvest in May 2011. “We highlight that the work being done by the majority of the workers in question involved activities requiring considerable physical and mental effort and, as such, the workday should never be extended beyond the legal limit (of 8 hours), much less to 24 hours, which is absurd,” said Roberto Mendes of the Regional Superintendence of Labor and Employment for the state of Goias.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0.1pt 1in; mso-para-margin-bottom: .01gd; mso-para-margin-left: 1.0in; mso-para-margin-right: 1.0in; mso-para-margin-top: .01gd;">
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0.1pt 1in; mso-para-margin-bottom: .01gd; mso-para-margin-left: 1.0in; mso-para-margin-right: 1.0in; mso-para-margin-top: .01gd;">
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">Proof of the risks of these exhausting conditions was the occurrence of two accidents involving two employees that were part of the team that were rescued. After more than 20 continuous hours of work, two cane collection drivers were involved in accidents caused by exhaustion at the wheel.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0.1pt 0in; mso-para-margin-bottom: .01gd; mso-para-margin-left: 0in; mso-para-margin-right: 0in; mso-para-margin-top: .01gd;">
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0.1pt 0in; mso-para-margin-bottom: .01gd; mso-para-margin-left: 0in; mso-para-margin-right: 0in; mso-para-margin-top: .01gd;">
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">Cane cutting has for decades been known as one of the world’s most brutal forms of work, and folks got it into their heads that there was just no way that a guy with a machete under the blazing sun was ever going to be treated well. Machinery to the rescue is a common leitmotif throughout the history of industrial labor. But the problems of wage slavery in Brazil evidently go much beyond that. These things tend to happen in places that are exceedingly isolated, filled with poor itinerant workers, and far beyond the reach of the law. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0.1pt 0in; mso-para-margin-bottom: .01gd; mso-para-margin-left: 0in; mso-para-margin-right: 0in; mso-para-margin-top: .01gd;">
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0.1pt 0in; mso-para-margin-bottom: .01gd; mso-para-margin-left: 0in; mso-para-margin-right: 0in; mso-para-margin-top: .01gd;">
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">I at times thought the term “trabalho escravo” had a certain melodrama to it, until I heard a pretty clear explanation of what it denotes: situations in which workers are in such isolated places that their food, housing, and transportation all depend on their employer. Something akin to sharecropping in which white farm owners would credit black farmers with a certain amount for the cotton they produced while debiting them for the groceries and materials they consumed – a formula which almost always left the farmers in debt to the owner. This is a problem that strikes me as endemic to Brazil given its enormous land mass, patchy infrastructure and tradition of plantation culture.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0.1pt 0in; mso-para-margin-bottom: .01gd; mso-para-margin-left: 0in; mso-para-margin-right: 0in; mso-para-margin-top: .01gd;">
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0.1pt 0in; mso-para-margin-bottom: .01gd; mso-para-margin-left: 0in; mso-para-margin-right: 0in; mso-para-margin-top: .01gd;">
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">A cursory check through the supply chain also turns up some interesting things. The estate in question where these folks were found is called the Fazenda Santa Laura in the town of Goiatuba that belongs to the Association of Bom Successo Cane Suppliers. That group provides sugar cane to the Bom Sucesso mill, a 1 million tonne per year cane crushing facility that was purchased last year by a group called Vital Renewable Energy Company, or VREC. A glance at the VREC’s </span><a href="http://www.vrec.com.br/index.html"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">website</span></a><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"> turns up a couple of names including private equity groups </span><a href="http://www.paladincapgroup.com/"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">Paladin Capital Group</span></a><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"> and </span><a href="http://www.leafcleanenergy.com/"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">Leaf Clean Energy Group</span></a><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"> that are both investors. With Paladin’s help, VREC has recently raised </span><a href="http://www.reuters.com/article/2008/11/10/idUS230267+10-Nov-2008+PRN20081110"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">more than $1 billion</span></a><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"> from investors in the US, Europe, and the Middle East to launch ethanol and power generation projects in Brazil.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0.1pt 0in; mso-para-margin-bottom: .01gd; mso-para-margin-left: 0in; mso-para-margin-right: 0in; mso-para-margin-top: .01gd;">
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0.1pt 0in; mso-para-margin-bottom: .01gd; mso-para-margin-left: 0in; mso-para-margin-right: 0in; mso-para-margin-top: .01gd;">
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">My take on Paladin and Leaaf from looking at their websites is that they’re responsible investors doing some pretty interesting work. I don’t get the sense they’re trying to squeeze a few extra bucks out of their ethanol business by keeping truck and tractor drivers working three or four times the hours they could reasonably be expected to. They are not directly implicated in this. But one of the things I keep trying to stress in this blog, like </span><a href="http://lungsoftheearth.blogspot.com/2011/08/soy-and-cows-destroy-amazon-so-do-cars.html"><span style="color: purple; font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">here</span></a><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">, is that people interested in environmental issues need to get a better understanding of the supply chains that they’re part of. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0.1pt 0in; mso-para-margin-bottom: .01gd; mso-para-margin-left: 0in; mso-para-margin-right: 0in; mso-para-margin-top: .01gd;">
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0.1pt 0in; mso-para-margin-bottom: .01gd; mso-para-margin-left: 0in; mso-para-margin-right: 0in; mso-para-margin-top: .01gd;">
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">Investors, particularly those interested in clean energy, are going to have to do the same thing. Brazilian mining behemoth Vale, for example, had to revamp its supply contracts after it got called out for selling iron ore to pig-iron makers that were using deforested wood for charcoal. It’s no longer enough for a company, investor, or even a conscientious individual to say “Not my problem, I wasn’t directly involved in that transaction.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0.1pt 0in; mso-para-margin-bottom: .01gd; mso-para-margin-left: 0in; mso-para-margin-right: 0in; mso-para-margin-top: .01gd;">
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0.1pt 0in; mso-para-margin-bottom: .01gd; mso-para-margin-left: 0in; mso-para-margin-right: 0in; mso-para-margin-top: .01gd;">
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">Biofuels investments in Brazil appear to carry a certain level of “headline risk” or risk of negative press and potentially debilitating press coverage – you just never know when a contractor supplying you with cane is buying from a farm that’s got children on its fields, workers in wage slavery or drivers being forced to stay behind the wheel for 27 hours. Twenty years ago that sort of media exposure was a minor annoyance. Today it’s a major business risk.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0.1pt 0in; mso-para-margin-bottom: .01gd; mso-para-margin-left: 0in; mso-para-margin-right: 0in; mso-para-margin-top: .01gd;">
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0.1pt 0in; mso-para-margin-bottom: .01gd; mso-para-margin-left: 0in; mso-para-margin-right: 0in; mso-para-margin-top: .01gd;">
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">Just ask Cosan, the world’s largest sugar and ethanol producer, which in early 2010 saw its </span><a href="http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=newsarchive&sid=a7nxeycdMICM"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">shares plummet</span></a><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"> and its customers avoiding it like </span><a href="http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=newsarchive&sid=ayekdvjwQyY8"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">the bubonic plague</span></a><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"> after it found itself on a government list of companies that used slave labor. It was quickly removed, which was crucial because staying on that list would have left it off the list of companies that receive financing from all-powerful state development bank BNDES. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0.1pt 0in; mso-para-margin-bottom: .01gd; mso-para-margin-left: 0in; mso-para-margin-right: 0in; mso-para-margin-top: .01gd;">
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0.1pt 0in; mso-para-margin-bottom: .01gd; mso-para-margin-left: 0in; mso-para-margin-right: 0in; mso-para-margin-top: .01gd;">
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">I still hope Brazil’s ethanol sector gets it together when it comes to labor. Sugar cane ethanol does provide a significant amount of energy for Brazil, displaces a lot of oil that would be used in gasoline and contrary to pop environmentalist sentiment, is not the primary threat to the Amazon. But it’s obvious that swapping in machines for exploited cane cutters is not going to do the trick.</span></div>quasecariocahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06596846743937514638noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3308758383649061441.post-56100339782406118092011-12-26T15:28:00.001-08:002012-06-10T16:49:16.240-07:00LotE’s new horizons<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0.1pt 0in; mso-para-margin-bottom: .01gd; mso-para-margin-left: 0in; mso-para-margin-right: 0in; mso-para-margin-top: .01gd;">
<span style="font-family: 'Times','serif'; font-size: 10pt;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">Happy holidays everyone! I’m taking advantage of the year-end slowdown to let folks know that I’ve decided to expand the focus of Lungs of the Earth beyond just Brazil. </span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Times','serif'; font-size: 10pt;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"></span></span><br />
<a name='more'></a><span style="font-family: 'Times','serif'; font-size: 10pt;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"> </span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Times','serif'; font-size: 10pt;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">Don’t get me wrong, Brazil is a great environment story, with everything from oil spills to deforestation and carbon abatement programs. But I’ll be spending more time outside of Brazil and wanted to take the opportunity to think about things that are going on in other parts of Latin America. I’ve gotten curious about what’s happening with the Yasuni project in Ecuador. I’m convinced the continued decay of Venezuela’s oil industry is creating environmental problems that the country won’t be able to keep ignoring. Guyana’s forestry programs get very little ink anywhere. Setty’s gotten me curious about Chile’s dams. I’m not going to stop writing about Brazil, but I’m going to be throwing new things into the mix.</span> </span></div>quasecariocahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06596846743937514638noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3308758383649061441.post-84159794421813171412011-12-24T08:57:00.000-08:002012-06-10T16:49:40.286-07:00Rio’s new take on carbon markets<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0.1pt 0in; mso-para-margin-bottom: .01gd; mso-para-margin-left: 0in; mso-para-margin-right: 0in; mso-para-margin-top: .01gd;">
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;"></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0.1pt 0in; mso-para-margin-bottom: .01gd; mso-para-margin-left: 0in; mso-para-margin-right: 0in; mso-para-margin-top: .01gd;">
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">Rio de Janeiro next year will launch a market for carbon credits with an interesting twist – it’s based primarily on forestry. Most emissions trading systems evolved from the 1980s campaign to cut pollution that was causing acid rain, and are generally focused on emissions of carbon dioxide from factories and power plants. Rio had talked about a system like this, but it didn’t make a huge amount of sense because most of Rio’s emissions come from cars and trucks and from illegal landfills. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0.1pt 0in; mso-para-margin-bottom: .01gd; mso-para-margin-left: 0in; mso-para-margin-right: 0in; mso-para-margin-top: .01gd;">
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"></span><br />
<a name='more'></a><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0.1pt 0in; mso-para-margin-bottom: .01gd; mso-para-margin-left: 0in; mso-para-margin-right: 0in; mso-para-margin-top: .01gd;">
<span style="font-size: 10pt;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">Rio Environment Secretary Carlos Minc this week said the program, which starts next April, will be based on credits for government-mandated reforestation. Companies that cannot or do not manage to replant as much forest as required by environmental regulations can buy up credits from other forestry groups that do so. Firms that want to go above and beyond their required forestry replanting can sell their credits to others. The system also gives the market an additional form of demand by requiring that some environmental fines be paid off by purchasing such credits. </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0.1pt 0in; mso-para-margin-bottom: .01gd; mso-para-margin-left: 0in; mso-para-margin-right: 0in; mso-para-margin-top: .01gd;">
<span style="font-size: 10pt;"><br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">The system is also expecting to create certificates representing recycling and reduction of industrial pollution into Rio’s scenic Guanabara Bay that borders that Sugar Loaf mountain. </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0.1pt 0in; mso-para-margin-bottom: .01gd; mso-para-margin-left: 0in; mso-para-margin-right: 0in; mso-para-margin-top: .01gd;">
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0.1pt 0in; mso-para-margin-bottom: .01gd; mso-para-margin-left: 0in; mso-para-margin-right: 0in; mso-para-margin-top: .01gd;">
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">I think this is a good idea, and hope the cariocas can pull it off. The cynics of course enjoy the contradiction of Rio on its way to becoming one of the world’s biggest producers of oil and gas (offshore albeit) while trumpeting its status as the future Green Capital of the world. I’m actually willing to overlook this as long as they’re willing to do something smart with the money. And creating a standard CO2 cap and trade system was never going to happen. A large part of that bill would be have to be borne by Rio’s steel industry, which is already kicking and screaming so much about high costs and getting eaten alive by the Chinese. But the steel companies know they’ve got plenty of environmental fines to pay. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0.1pt 0in; mso-para-margin-bottom: .01gd; mso-para-margin-left: 0in; mso-para-margin-right: 0in; mso-para-margin-top: .01gd;">
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0.1pt 0in; mso-para-margin-bottom: .01gd; mso-para-margin-left: 0in; mso-para-margin-right: 0in; mso-para-margin-top: .01gd;">
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">I would be a bit worried about what would constitute “forest.” I’m guessing more than one enterprising carbon cowboy would run out to put up a eucalyptus plantation that could double for pulp production and carbon storage. I do hope Rio’s environment ministry is smarter than that. We’ll see how it shakes out in April. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0.1pt 0in; mso-para-margin-bottom: .01gd; mso-para-margin-left: 0in; mso-para-margin-right: 0in; mso-para-margin-top: .01gd;">
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;"></span></div>quasecariocahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06596846743937514638noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3308758383649061441.post-42255594881488717502011-12-23T08:28:00.000-08:002012-06-10T16:50:04.851-07:00Will Brazil’s biodiesel put food supplies at risk? Brazil hasn’t decided …<div style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">
<span style="font-size: 10pt;">Six years after launching a push for biodiesel in efforts to repeat the sugar cane ethanol program, Brazil’s government is facing a dilemma – can it forge ahead with the effort without disrupting food supplies? </span><br />
<br />
<a name='more'></a><br /><br />
<span style="font-size: 10pt;">The country is now at a decision point. It can increase the required mix of biodiesel in its fossil diesel, which would help dozens of biodiesel producers that the government encouraged to get into the business -- but this could push up the price of soy and have a ripple effect on food. Or it could leave current 5 percent blend in place to protect food prices, at the risk of weakening the business it helped bring into existence. It certainly is a pickle. So government officials have for the moment decided to put up with industry grumbling and keep kicking the decision down the road.</span> </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif; margin: 0.1pt 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif; margin: 0.1pt 0in;">
<span style="font-size: 10pt;">Biodiesel in Brazil like in most of the rest of the world is made from soy, which is one of the country’s main cash crops. The country made a tepid entrance into the biodiesel sector in 2005 and now has a mandatory 5 percent mix of biodiesel in all of its commercially distributed fossil diesel. This came after the vast expansion of its support for sugar cane ethanol, which now provides nearly half the fuel for Brazil’s cars. The mandatory ethanol blend in gasoline ranges from 20 to 30 percent, depending on availability. But ethanol is pretty much only in cars. Trucks ranging from 18-wheelers for hauling merchandise to municipal busses that get people to work run on diesel. It made sense to do the same thing with diesel, which Brazil has to import large amounts of at considerable costs. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif; margin: 0.1pt 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif; margin: 0.1pt 0in;">
<span style="font-size: 10pt;">The ideal was for it to work out like the sugar cane ethanol program, but the moral quandary is quite different. Sugar does not feed people, it is in fact making people sick and is starting to be regarded in some circles <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/17/magazine/mag-17Sugar-t.html?pagewanted=all">as toxic</a>. There are some lame arguments about how sugar cane ethanol is driving Amazon deforestation – I say lame because sugar takes up 2 percent of Brazil’s arable land is far away from being the <a href="http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/03/110304091504.htm">primary driver</a> of rainforest destruction. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif; margin: 0.1pt 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif; margin: 0.1pt 0in;">
<span style="font-size: 10pt;">Soy is a different animal. It’s a primary provider of cooking oil, it’s a large source of protein, and its price can ripple into the prices of products throughout the food chain. Chicken and cattle feed often comes from soy. And according to at least one study I’ve seen, the climate merits of soy-based biodiesel can be about a wash depending on what type of fertilizers and tilling processes are used. And soy appears to be the only way to go -- Brazil’s efforts to make biodiesel out of new and untested crops that grow on marginal lands have been a <a href="http://lungsoftheearth.blogspot.com/2011/09/petrobras-second-generation-biofuels.html"><span style="color: purple;">real disaster</span></a>.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif; margin: 0.1pt 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif; margin: 0.1pt 0in;">
<span style="font-size: 10pt;">Meanwhile the industry is getting antsy. Biodiesel makers want the minimum blend to go from five percent to 15 or 20 percent. They’ve got idle capacity, they’re not sure what to do with workers, their loans are coming due, their venture capitalists want to get into other things. They’ve been invited to a party and now being told by their hosts to wait outside in the rain until they figure out if the party’s actually going to happen. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif; margin: 0.1pt 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif; margin: 0.1pt 0in;">
<span style="font-size: 10pt;">Food vs. fuels is a difficult nut for Brazil to crack. The issue is just too easily politicized, the Manichean mantras of “feed people, not cars” so emotionally charged in a world that faces significant problems with hunger, and yet so ignorant of how food and energy systems actually intersect. I get the sense Brazil was very much stung by this debate, genuinely hurt by the widespread perception they were sacrificing the environment and the food of the world’s poorest in order to fuel their middle class’ driving habits. The criticism reached a fever pitch at the height of the commodities boom in 2007 and 2008, and I think was what spurred these maligned experiments in growing castor beans and jatropha for biodiesel. I believe there are genuine merits for moving soy out of the mouths of chickens and cows and into the tanks of trucks that could deliver healthier food for a growing population. But that would of course only work if the world would agree to give up some of their hamburgers and chicken fingers. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif; margin: 0.1pt 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif; margin: 0.1pt 0in;">
<span style="font-size: 10pt;">Brazilian officials have a tough choice to make on this one. I don’t know which way they’ll go, and I don’t envy them. </span></div>quasecariocahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06596846743937514638noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3308758383649061441.post-87450897229619824992011-12-22T06:31:00.000-08:002011-12-22T16:59:30.154-08:00Brazil gets tough on the oil industry? Wish I believed it …<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Brazil is taking Chevron to the wall. After spilling 3,000 barrels off the coast of Rio de Janeiro, the company is facing an </span><a href="http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-12-15/chevron-s-oil-spill-in-brazil-prompts-10-6-billion-lawsuit.html"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">$11 billion lawsuit</span></a><span style="font-family: Calibri;"> and a </span><a href="http://www.businessweek.com/news/2011-12-22/chevron-transocean-face-brazil-indictment-over-oil-leak.html"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">criminal indictment</span></a><span style="font-family: Calibri;"> together with driller Transocean, the </span><a href="http://localizedusa.com/2011/11/25/offshore-oil-spill-causes-suspension-of-chevron%E2%80%99s-drilling-rights-in-brazil-nyse-cvx/"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">suspension of its drilling rights</span></a><span style="font-family: Calibri;">, and calls for it to be expelled from the country. There’s nothing I like better than seeing oil companies called out for pollution – but unfortunately this one strikes me as more political theater than an actual hard line against the oil industry.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Chevron didn’t do itself any favors in this case. It took more than a week to accept responsibility for the incident, initially describing the spill as a “sheen” caused by natural geological seeps. But an American oil company will have a target painted on its back wherever it goes. The real litmus test will be how Brazil reacts to an incident like this from a local company. Or rather *the* local company – Petrobras, which produces close to 90 percent of Brazil’s crude.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">This is the company with its hands on Brazil’s ultradeep water fields that over the last five years that have given the country an extra bounce in its already cocky I’m-gonna-take-over-the-world swagger. It’s the guardian angel that jumps into everything from </span><a href="http://settysoutham.wordpress.com/2011/04/14/fuel-prices-rise-brazilians-go-after-big-sugar/"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">sugar cane ethanol</span></a><span style="font-family: Calibri;"> to power generation to carnaval school sponsorships. The government has built its entire industrial policy around creating a domestic oil services industry that will supply Petrobras with oil platforms and drilling rigs. Petrobras is Brazil’s largest company, its transnational par excellence, and the government’s golden boy. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">So what happens when Petrobras spills a few thousand barrels on it of its dozens of offshore platforms? Their exploration chief says it’s totally ruled out, and that water depth has nothing to do with the likelihood of an accident. We believed the same sort of thing at the start of last year, when no one had ever heard of a blowout preventer and nobody imagined that failing to control well pressure when transitioning from exploration to production phases could result in America’s worst-ever environmental disaster. This time the problem was that Chevron misgauged the reservoir pressure where it was drilling, which popped a hole in the ocean floor a few hundred meters from the well. It’s hard to know how many other unexpected oil field accidents are lurking out there. None of them seem real up until the moment they are.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">And it’s not as if Petrobras has a completely clean bill of health when it comes to safety. There have been plenty of recent issues including </span><a href="http://online.wsj.com/article/BT-CO-20111126-701226.html"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">platform problems</span></a><span style="font-family: Calibri;">, </span><a href="http://www.advfn.com/nyse/StockNews.asp?stocknews=RIG&article=43983801"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">union complaints</span></a><span style="font-family: Calibri;">, and a working dying when a </span><a href="http://www.estadao.com.br/noticias/geral,incendio-em-navio-com-diesel-da-transpetro-e-controlado,774459,0.htm"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">diesel tanker caught fire</span></a><span style="font-family: Calibri;">. Not to mention <a href="http://home.versatel.nl/the_sims/rig/p36.htm">this infamous incident</a> that seems to have escaped public memory, and based on my cursory searches, did not cost Petrobras anything in the region of $11 billion. With its ambitious plans to drill at unprecedented depths to find new oil reserves and its budget already stretched thin, the company has little interest in replacing or upgrading ageing platforms at its shallower water fields that are closest to the shore.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">I’ve noticed Petrobras’ larger than life presence in Brazil has left oil almost entirely off the radar screen of one of the world’s most active environmental movements. It’s the pride and joy of the new Brazil, its logo is on everything, its shares are present in probably 99 percent of Brazilian retirement portfolios. No hot-to-trot state prosecutor is going to sex themselves up by chasing after Petrobras.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">I remember calling around to environmental organizations a few months back looking for some rabble-rousing agitation about a start-up company that was looking to tap into what could be huge oil reserves in the Amazon. Here they were together – environment public enemy No. 1 and the world’s most famously threatened ecosystem. And yet the response I got from Brazil’s conservationists, so used to talking about soy, cattle, mining and hydroelectric dams, was one of baffled confusion. At least two representatives of well-regarded organizations said something to the effect of “Oil, uh, when that spills it’s bad for the environment, you know?” </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">My guess is that will be more typical of the reaction to a major Petrobras incident than the legal firing squad being deployed against Chevron.</span></div>quasecariocahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06596846743937514638noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3308758383649061441.post-81602947231160033572011-12-19T15:59:00.000-08:002011-12-19T15:59:30.797-08:00I'm not dead yet ...My life got a little turned upside down in the last couple months, and eventually so will this blog. I'm planning to keep it going, but will be including more posts about things outside Brazil. I'll explain in due time. A lot's been going on that I haven't been able to blog about -- the Chevron spill being the most notable of that. I'm working on a reasoned response to this, since it's brought some real focus to the issue of the environment in Brazil's offshore oil exploration plan. <br />
<br />
So I'm still here, gathering strength, hoping to use the Christmas holidays to keep back into the habit.quasecariocahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06596846743937514638noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3308758383649061441.post-73791355941488506392011-11-03T16:30:00.000-07:002012-06-10T16:50:15.746-07:00Greening the ghetto, Rio style<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<a href="http://www.majoracartergroup.com/">Majora Carter’s</a> story of how she helped transform a <place w:st="on">South Bronx</place> landfill into a park while raising awareness about environmental problems is one of the most inspiring of any in the green movement. Her Greening the Ghetto motto gets to the heart of one of the environmental movement’s biggest challenges – escaping the stigma that it’s an affectation of liberal yuppies and demonstrating that environmental injustice is at the core of poverty. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<br />
<a name='more'></a><br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
Which is why I’m glad to see <city w:st="on"><place w:st="on">Rio de Janeiro</place></city> projects to green the favelas, like the recently created Fabrica Verde in the slum of Complexo do Alemao. The place was until last year run by drug-lords who were pushed out in a high-profile military raid that made international headlines as tanks rolled through the slum hillsides, and again several days later when children were shown swimming in the backyard pool of a fallen drug-slinger. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
In late October the city opened a factory to receive electronic waste and teaches at-risk teenagers how to turn old junked computers into working machines. The program includes environmental education to teach people about the importance of recycling old electronics as well as basic waste management that in many <place w:st="on">Rio</place> favelas is currently based on tossing garbage off the edges of steep hills. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
A group of 720 kids will receive classes in computer maintenance over two years and will help create reverse logistics systems to reduce e-waste and guarantee a supply of old computers to be refurbished. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
Local television news coverage of the story <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fr8OraB92j4">here</a>. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
Very cool. </div>quasecariocahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06596846743937514638noreply@blogger.com0