Brazilian President Defends Biofuels, Says Increased Production Won't Hurt Amazon Forest

[hatrack]

:rofl:

BRASILIA, Brazil - President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva insisted Thursday that rich nations must bear most of the cost of fighting global warning, and blasted critics who fear Brazil's expanding biofuels industry could threaten the Amazon rain forest.

Speaking at an international conference on climate change and deforestation, Silva said industrialized countries are to blame after polluting the planet for centuries and failing to make meaningful efforts to reduce greenhouse gases while consuming most of the world's resources.

"How can we ask the poor countries to take on the sacrifices the others didn't take on? The polluting countries must pay," Silva told 100 legislators from across the planet who gathered in the Brazilian capital.

Silva said Brazil is doing its part to combat ecological devastation in the Amazon brought on by logging and land-clearing for cattle and soy, but angrily denied accusations from critics in Europe that the sugarcane Brazil uses to produce ethanol could end up carpeting the planet's largest standing forest. Instead, he said Latin America's largest nation has millions of acres outside of the Amazon that can be used to cultivate biofuel crops and help Brazil build on its role as the planet's largest ethanol exporter.

EDIT

http://www.insidebayarea.com/green/ci_8325916

[robinlynne]

1. and you are laughing because?

[phantom power]

2. Because Luiz is fibbing when he says it won't hurt the Amazon.

He's making a funny.

[robinlynne]

4. I lived in Brasil for 20 years. American and German corporations are the ones

who cut down the Amazon. paper corporations. Brazilians get pretty fed up with Americans saying it is the Brazilian farmers' fault!

[phantom power]

5. I don't doubt it.

But what is the impact of biofuel industry on the Amazon?

[robinlynne]

6. That isn't really where it is located. It is in other states.

Jeb Bush did sign a contarct with brasil to import biofuels, which may create a problem in the future. but Brasil is larger than the United states. And sugar cane grows anywhere in Brasil, quite easily.. it does not need the amazon jungle rich soil to grow. I am here now, and cannot say I know everything that is happening in the Amazon today. But the United States screaming that Brazil is chopping down the Amazon is ridiculous! Scream at International Paper, if you care about the Amazon.
And remember, Brazil hosted the first international environmental conference. Then vice president Al Gore was one of the speakers.

[phantom power]

8. I believe the main concern is what happens assuming a huge biofuel expansion.

It's obviously a controversial topic, but many people are pitching biofuel production literally thousands of times greater than what's going on today. That's either coming out of previously unused land, or it's coming out of land currently being used for people's calories, or some combination of the two.

[robinlynne]

9. Bush put it into the last energy bill. his brother owns a biofuel company and is on

the ethanol council board, whatever it is called. this is all about money for the Bushes. It is true that it is not the answer for the United States' energy needs. It IS the answer for Brasil's cars, and has been successful since around 1980. The reason ethanol is being pushed HERE is money for the Bush family. Electric cars and solar are definitley better answers for the US.

[NNadir]

11. Since you lived in Brazil, you must know everything there is to know about Brazil.

Of course, Francisco Anselmo de Barros, is rumored to have had some familiarity with the Portuguese language as spoken in Brazil.

http://www.celsias.com/2007/10/22/ethanol-fueling-amazon-fires/

He seems to have disagreed with you - at least the argument could be made that he disagreed with you - but since you lived in Brazil, you must clearly speak for him. We certainly can't solicit his opinion on whether you speak for him though, since he's um, well, dead.

I live in New Jersey, and of course this means that I know everything about the opinions of all the peach tree growers in New Jersey and I speak for them all. In fact, I am automatically spokesperson for all of New Jersey's agricultural industry because I have eaten Trenton Pizzas and eaten New Jersey peaches.

Give.

Me.

A.

Break.

[robinlynne]

14. Well I do know how ridiculous it looks from down there to hear Americans

complaining about the Amazon, and worse, how the American ngos who scream about it manage to keep all the money they collect from the Americans who are worried about the rainforest.

[hatrack]

3. Because it keeps me from screaming

Did you have any other questions?

[Peace Patriot]

7. Well, Food First agrees that corporate monoculture is bad for the environment,

bad for the Amazon (in so far as it encroaches on the Amazon, which is does), and bad for small farmers and workers--especially biofuel production.

And I'd have to agree with them, and not Lulu, on this one--but he certainly has a great argument as to who is doing most of the polluting and who should bear the costs of global warming. The U.S. produces 25% of the greenhouse gases that are causing this potentially planet-killing crisis. And we--or rather, the global corporate predators whom we permit to operate from our shores--have been brutally exploiting and repressing the vast poor majority of Latin America for decades, and centuries. Solution to this crisis? Fairness, justice, compassion and smart, creative thinking in "first world" governments, which we, as the citizens of the "first world," must demand. In the U.S. especially, we MUST find the way to regain control of our own government--first of all, in my opinion, by restoring TRANSPARENT elections. And then we need to put our sense of justice, and our ingenuity, to work, to convert to a "green" economy and take the pressure of the planet, and off of very poor, struggling populations like those in South America. Hugo Chavez could be criticized equally with Lulu, for pumping oil and using the profits to bootstrap the poor. But who are we to judge such actions--the use of what resources they have, to solve immense problems of poverty? When we wipe out of 25% contribution of pollutants, and begin giving back to our planetary environment, then we might have a right to criticize poor countries--but rather than criticizing them, we should be helping them to go "green," too.

[robinlynne]

10. yes, yes, and yes.

[losthills]

12. I don't think the destruction of the rain forest

can be conveniently blamed on the United States. I have read Jorge Amado and others. They have been burning down the forest for agriculture and murdering the indigenous people there for a long time without any assistance from the imperialist yankees....

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=1127246

[robinlynne]

13. without any assistance from the US? really. And the companies who did it would be....

[losthills]

15. I can understand my own country's problems.

And I work to correct them every day.

Many of your own countrymen are doing that, and even risking their lives to do so. I think that you should join them and stop looking for a boogyman....