El Banco del Sur en perspectiva ambiental

Héctor Alimonda

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El día 20 de septiembre, el presidente de Venezuela, Hugo Chávez, en entrevista por televisión, manifestó su urgencia en implementar el Banco del Sur. Según dijo, Evo Morales y él ya tienen definida una fecha en el mes de noviembre próximo, en la cual el Banco deberá comenzar a funcionar.

Sin entrar en el mérito de la urgencia del presidente Chávez, la instalación del Banco del Sur, un banco de desarrollo regional, será una iniciativa muy positiva para los países que a él se vinculen, fortaleciendo sus lazos de cooperación solidaria y sus perspectivas de autonomía en relación a las instituciones financieras internacionales.

Sin embargo, creemos que vale la pena puntualizar algunas consideraciones en la víspera del nacimiento de este organismo financiero regional. Aún no están claramente definidas las definiciones y orientaciones estratégicas del denominado “Socialismo del Siglo XXI”, pero debe tratarse, seguramente, de un modelo de desarrollo diferente del que han soportado más mal que bien los países de la región durante las últimas décadas.

Si esto es así, bueno sería que el Banco del Sur, desde su concepción, definiera una agenda operacional orientada hacia estilos alternativos de desarrollo. De no ser así, si el nuevo organismo financiero proyectado pretende apenas ser un instrumento para el cumplimiento de una agenda desarrollista predeterminada, como los mega proyectos de obras públicas implicados por la IIRSA (Iniciativa para la Integración Regional Sudamericana), ya consensuados en negociaciones reservadas entre los gobiernos sudamericanos y el BID, tendremos como resultado, lamentablemente, apenas más de lo mismo, obras faraónicas que tendrán tremendos impactos ambientales y sociales (en especial entre los sectores más vulnerables de nuestros pueblos) y que enriquecerán aún más a los grandes contratistas de esos proyectos. Otra perspectiva catastrófica es la de un nuevo banco orientado prioritariamente a la reconversión agrícola en la dirección de los monocultivos de agro combustibles.

En estas circunstancias, nos parece apropiado referirnos a un estudio que coordinamos en FLACSO Brasil, a partir de un convenio con el Ministerio del Medio Ambiente de ese país, que consistió en una evaluación de la política ambiental de seis grandes instituciones financieras federales, y que fue publicado en libro durante el año pasado (“As instituizoes financieras públicas e o meio ambiente no Brasil e na América Latina”, FLACSO, Brasilia, 2006, disponible en www.flacso.org.br http://www.flacso.org.br )

Contamos en ese estudio con la consultaría del economista Ruy de Villalobos, de amplia experiencia en organismos internacionales y en equipos económicos del gobierno argentino, quién realizó una evaluación de las políticas ambientales de las instituciones financieras de desarrollo de la región.

El análisis de Villalobos demostró un desempeño general muy pobre de estas instituciones en ese ámbito, que contrasta con el panorama internacional. Desde fines de la década de 1980 (específicamente 1987, para el Banco Mundial) las instituciones internacionales de crédito vienen incorporando la perspectiva ambiental en sus operaciones. La Iniciativa Financiera del Programa de las Naciones Unidas para el Medio Ambiente (PNUMA IF) convocó con éxito a los grandes bancos privados internacionales a establecer compromisos ambientales. Quizás algunas de las conclusiones de ese estudio puedan ser útiles para la discusión en curso sobre el Banco del Sur, según perspectivas que, como dijimos, ya han sido incorporadas desde la década pasada por las mayores instituciones financieras del mundo.

En efecto, nos parece que esta nueva institución financiera regional debería incluir, desde su propia concepción, las consideraciones de una perspectiva ambientalmente informada, de manera de orientar sus acciones en el sentido de una recomposición de la dramática situación de la región en ese aspecto. Desde nuestro punto de vista, esto supondría:

a) la incorporación de una severa consideración de los impactos ambientales y sociales de los proyectos a ser financiados, con la participación y fiscalización de la población afectada (aquí no se trata ni más ni menos que de cumplir estrictamente con lo que establecen los textos constitucionales de nuestros países, como el capítulo V de la Constitución Política de la República del Ecuador actualmente vigente);

b) consolidar rígidos mecanismos de auditoria ambiental que acompañen el desarrollo de los proyectos financiados;

c) establecer líneas específicas de crédito destinados a 1) recomposición de áreas degradadas, en la perspectiva de ir recuperando el pesado pasivo ambiental que legaremos a las generaciones futuras; 2) reconversión tecnológica en una dirección “ambientalmente amigable” de instalaciones industriales, sistemas de transporte, etc.; 3) apoyo a micro proyectos locales que aseguren la sustentabilidad territorial de comunidades rurales, a partir de sus propios saberes y tecnologías, tal como lo establece la Constitución ecuatoriana de 1998. Singularmente, nuestra investigación comprobó que ninguno de los bancos de desarrollo latinoamericanos opera en estas líneas estratégicas.

d) establecer también consorcios con universidades y centros de investigación regionales destinados al desarrollo de investigaciones sobre recuperación ambiental y sobre tecnologías de bajo impacto. Con sus resultados se podría formar un banco de datos, que sería puesto a la disposición de los clientes del Banco del Sur.

e) Definir una política activa en relación a las instituciones financieras públicas de la región, llevándolas a adoptar criterios equivalentes.

De esta forma, creemos, el Banco del Sur, con o sin “Socialismo del Siglo XXI”, podría contribuir significativamente para una paulatina modificación de los perfiles más negativos de los estilos de desarrollo que fueron seguidos en la región durante las últimas décadas. Pero, de no de hacerlo, estará desde su nacimiento dando la espalda a las más urgentes necesidades de nuestros pueblos

- Héctor Alimonda es profesor del Curso de Posgrado en Desarrollo, Agricutura y Sociedad, Universidad Federal de Rio de Janeiro (CPDA UFRJ). Coordinador del Grupo de Trabajo Ecologia Política de CLACSO

http://gristmill.grist.org/story/2007/9/27/12312/0380

Environmentalism's existential moment

Shellenberger & Nordhaus respond to critics

Posted by David Roberts

The following is a guest essay by Ted Nordhaus and Michael Shellenberger, authors of Break Through: From the Death of Environmentalism to the Politics of Possibility and "The Death of Environmentalism." Nordhaus and Shellenberger are managing directors at American Environics and the founders of the Breakthrough Institute.

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This month the world celebrates the 20th Anniversary of the international treaty that phased out ozone-destroying chemicals. For environmentalists, the Montreal Protocol has long been a model for action on global warming. In the words of David Doniger, the climate director of the Natural Resources Defense Council, "The lesson from Montreal is that curbing global warming will not be as hard as it looks."

Indeed, when one looks back at the pollution problems of old, none of them were as hard or as expensive to solve as the affected industries claimed they would be. Scrubbers on smokestacks, catalytic converters on cars, lead out of gasoline, and alternatives to ozone-depleting chemicals -- these technical fixes came at a very low cost to the economy, industry, and consumers.

The same will be true, environmentalists say, when it comes to global warming. All the alternatives we need -- efficiency, conservation, renewables, sequestration, and even nuclear -- already exist. We just need to scale them up.

Sure, global warming is a bigger problem, they acknowledge. But it will be solved just like we solved acid rain: by auctioning emissions permits and allowing firms to trade them. To reduce U.S. emissions by 80 percent between 2010 and 2050, we simply need to reduce the total allowable emissions by two percent each year.

By limiting the amount of emissions each year, and auctioning or giving away a limited number of emissions permits to firms, governments will effectively create a price for carbon dioxide emissions. This price will create value for reducing emissions, and the free market -- firms trading emissions permits for emissions reductions -- will find the most efficient way to reduce our greenhouse gases by 80 percent by 2050. And as dirty energy sources like coal and oil become more expensive, clean energy sources will become cost-competitive and more widely used.

It is true, environmental leaders acknowledge, that China and the rest of the developing world haven't agreed to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions. But they are just waiting for the U.S. to act. These countries, China in particular, are receiving billions of investment from European firms purchasing emissions reductions. They will see the wisdom of limiting their emissions so that, in the future, they can stay in the emissions trading system. And while the developed nations that ratified Kyoto saw their emissions go up, not down, they are just getting started. The U.S. will learn from Europe's mistakes, and the next version of the Kyoto treaty will be executed much better.

Read the rest: http://gristmill.grist.org/story/2007/9/27/12312/0380

Over the Top: The New (and Bigger) Cultural Industry in Brazil Paula Martini · Rio de Janeiro (Brazil) · Sep 28th, 2007

CC BY 3.0 Calypso performing live in a stadium - renard494, Public Domain The most popular artist in Brazil is not signed by a record label. The group, called Calypso, is responsible for the most popular music in all regions of the country. Their albums are sold primarily through street vendors, who sell CDs and DVDs of the band in the streets, not because they are pirated, but because that is the preference of the group itself. This is the result of a recent research published by F/Nazca Saatchi & Saatchi, one of the largest advertising agencies in the country. The research interviewed more than 2,000 people in all regions. They were asked what music they were listening to at that particular moment, and, quite surprisingly, results showed that the most popular artists were not the ones pushed by the big industry and traditional media: alongside Calypso, two other bands in the top 10 are not signed by any label, and distribute their records just like the number one band. Those results reveal something that could be empirically seen in Brazil before, although there has been no data available to prove it: there is a new reality in the Brazilian (and possibly the global) culture industry. The fact that a band like Calypso, neither signed with a recording company , nor having had any airtime on TV or radio, is the most popular artist in the country means that a big change is occuring. “It just proves something that you see when you travel in Brazil”, says the anthropologist Hermano Vianna, probably the first person in the country to detect this new trend. The research made the cover of the most important newspaper in the country (Folha de São Paulo) and launched debates on socially-based business models that are now flourishing in Brazil. There are new business models that follow a new logic, adapted to reality as it is. They're still about market economy, but a market that relies on new production means and new distribution channels, powered by a wider access to new technologies. In other words, it is the dissemination of the “open business” ideal throughout the peripheries: anyone can distribute the content freely (the street vendors included) but you make money by reinventing your revenue sources. Copyright’s role becomes basically irrelevant in this new model. On the fringes: the periphery becomes the center Calypso does not use CDs as a source of revenues, but rather as marketing pieces. The little profit (each copy is sold for about US$1.50) is in most cases kept by the street vendors, responsible for distributing the albums countrywide. The copies do not need to be authorized before they are sold – again, copyright is not the engine of this model. Due to low pricing, the band's CDs are massively sold in Northern Brazil, pushing forward the band's success. Nowadays, one concert by Calypso is capable of attracting around 20,000 people in any city in Brazil. The band keeps an intense agenda. Their music is popular both in the rich Southeast of Brazil, as well as other poorer regions. If they sold CDs in the traditional manner for US$ 15 their popularity would not be so probable (and the profits could risk being kept mostly in the hands of the recording labels). The band also makes money by selling CDs and DVDs of their live performances at their concerts. More recently, Calypso has been able to strike deals with supermarket chains to sell whole packages of their CDs directly, without any intermediation. For adopters of those new business models, value is not in the media anymore, but in the relationship between artist and audience. Value becomes “present value”, and they move out from an economy of “reproduction” to an economy of “production”, keeping up with what their fans want and making it easy for them to get it. The use of technologies transforming cultural production It took Calypso a few good years of work to get to be famous even in its own Northern region. Only when its popularity became incontrovertible and grew in national appeal – a completely independent goal – was it that the band, formed by the couple Joelma and Chimbinha started being nationally broadcast on TV. Chimbinha, Calypso's guitarist and band founder who used to work in a fish market, invested all the money he earned as a studio musician in the maintenance of his group in its first years, when they were not hired for any concerts. He used to ask every "lamp post radio" – stations whose speakers are spread over lamp posts in Belém streets – to play his songs. It was through one of those speakers that Calypso was listened to by a local agent, who invited the band for a tour in the south of the state of Pará. It was the first step: success took place little by little, at the cost of many months of daily performances, almost for free. Ten years later, Calypso is now one of the few music acts in Brazil that owns its own jet plane – and Chimbinha's hometown doesn't even have a landing strip. He basically covered both ends of the Brazilian social pyramid through persistence. Chimbinha is a different kind of “self-made” artist. He made it big without the support of any recording company, television, radio or praising reviews. But triumph doesn't work as a shelter against criticism. It is easy to see people saying that they occupy a place that they do not deserve; that it should be occupied by musicians with "qualified" backgrounds. Some critics that formerly blamed the “media” for spreading “popularesque” music, now blame the educational system. If the Brazilian population was better educated, they say, people would prefer to listen to more “high-quality” music, such as samba, ignoring the fact that samba was considered “poor quality music” in its beginnings, until it eventually became the symbol of the national cultural identity. Long-live Calypso. * For more information on the emergence of culture industries not driven by intellectual property incentives, one can find online on iCommons website the paper From Legal Commons to Social Commons: Brazil and the Cultural Industry, wrote by Professor Ronaldo Lemos for the Centre for Brazilian Studies at Oxford University. ** This article contains translated excerpts from Isso é Calypso, ou A Lua Não Me Traiu ("This is Calypso"), article by Hermano Vianna, CC BY-NC-SA 2.5, and from Uma Outra Economia Está Nascendo? ("Is a New Economy Being Born?"), by Lino Bocchini, CC BY 2.5.

TALKING POLITICS IN JAIL

We had a great rally yesterday in downtown Portland. Excellent speakers, good music, and even poetry from the newly crowned City of Portland poet laureate Martin Steingesser. We handed out 750 leaflets that explained to the public our reasons for protesting and urged folks to call our Congressman, Rep. Tom Allen, and urge his support for impeachment.

While people listened we passed around 250 copies of the letter we wanted to deliver to Tom Allen and asked folks to sign it.

At 1:30 pm we crossed the street and 150 climbed the three flights of stairs to Allen's office and one by one, as you can see in the photo above, they handed their letter to Allen's staff. This process took just over one hour to complete. People very patiently waited in the stairway until it was their turn. The whole thing was very moving and the spirit of the people was magical.

At the end two of our folks read of the names of those who had signed the letters out on the street but could not stay to personally deliver it. In all 250 letters were delivered.

By 2:30 pm about 20 of us settled into Allen's office and began reading the Declaration of Independence and the U.S. Constitution. One in our group read a detailed list of impeachable offenses committed by Bush-Cheney.

The office officially closed at 5:30 pm and Allen's staff told us we had to leave. We continued with our readings. Then at 6:00 pm the police came and gave us our last warning. At that point those not willing to be arrested left the office and eight of us were then handcuffed and taken down the elevator to the police wagon waiting in the street. A good crowd had formed and folks cheered as we were put in the police vehicle.

Our time in jail was short, all but one of us paid the $40 bail bond and were released around 10:00 pm. One person, Kathe Chipman, refused to pay the bail and spent the night in jail. I'd venture to guess she will be released from jail today.

As we gathered last night in the jail lobby I noticed one of our group of eight talking with a jail guard in a corner. Come to find out the guard was saying that he completely agreed with us. The guard who released me spent a considerable amount of time talking with me about the declining condition of the nation and I was later to learn that each person that was released by him had a similar experience.

He told me that he was a Republican and had been in the Air Force. I told him I had been the Vice-Chair of the Okaloosa County Florida Young Republican Club in 1968 and had entered the Air Force in 1971. We talked about the true role of the U.S. military today - that of protector of global corporate interests. He said to me, "I don't want to believe you, but I think you are right."

One man who spent time in the jail holding cell with us had seen our protest on the jail TV and then when the eight of us were brought into the jail for booking he noticed our bright orange T-shirts and was thrilled to meet us. He told us he was a handy man who lives in Bethel and had been picked up for not paying a 15 year old fine. We spent a good hour talking politics with him and he was adamant in his belief that our American democracy had been hijacked by the corporate interests. He asked if we could send him one of our impeachment T-shirts.

For those who say that civil disobedience is a waste of time, these jail interactions last night made it all worth while.

This morning we leave for Bangor where our friends from the north in Maine will be doing a similar action at the office of Rep. Mike Michaud, Maine's other Democratic party congressman. He too refuses to support impeachment.

The leadership of the national Democratic Party have told their members in Congress to refuse to budge on impeachment.

It is our job to apply the pressure on them. As we read the Constitution yesterday in Tom Allen's office we came to the conclusion that our members of Congress have the Constitutional obligation to pursue impeachment. And we concluded that the citizens are also obligated to demand impeachment as well.

We either live by the rule of law or we do not. Tom Allen applies the law to eight of us for sitting in his office. But he refuses to apply the law to Bush-Cheney when they shred the Constitution. That kind of double-standard can not pass.

Bruce K. Gagnon
Coordinator
Global Network Against Weapons & Nuclear Power in Space
PO Box 652
Brunswick, ME 04011
(207) 443-9502
http://www.space4peace.org
globalnet@mindspring.com
http://space4peace.blogspot.com (Blog)
http://www.myspace.com/brucekgagnon (MySpace profile)

Dyncorp fuera de Puerto Rico

Comunicado de Prensa

Movimiento Independentista Nacional Hostosiano

Calle 25 NE 339, Urb. Puerto Nuevo, San Juan, Puerto Rico 00920

(San Juan, 26 de septiembre 2007). Puerto Rico es un blanco militar de los enemigos de Estados Unidos, aseguró uno de los copresidentes del Movimiento Independentista Nacional Hostosiano (MINH). "El gobierno de Puerto Rico dirigido por Aníbal Acevedo Vilá, ha puesto a Aguadilla en inminente peligro de ser objeto de un ataque miltar. Exigimos que se ponga fin de inmediato a su sociedad con la compañía Dyncorp que opera en el Aereopuerto de Aguadilla".

El gobierno de Puerto Rico es el socio mayoritario en esa corporación que está ligada a la contratacion de mercenarios y a manejos turbios alrededor del planeta. "En los angares provistos por el Gobierno en Aguadilla desde el 2004, Dyncorp repara helicópteros decomisados por la milicia de Estados Unidos para enviarlos nuevamente a Irak y Afganistán, donde son utilizados nuevamente para operativos militares contra la poblacion. "Las bajas civiles causadas mayormente con el uso de estos helicópteros en Irak suman 1,500 semanales, lo que representa una verdadera masacre. Esto convierte a Puerto Rico en un blanco de guerra de los enemigos de Estados Unidos" aseguro Héctor L. Pesquera, Copresidente del MINH.

Hay innumerables instancias donde esta compañía ha sido acusada y relacionada con actos en contra de los mejores intereses de la humanidad. En 1999, empleados de DynCorp en Bosnia fueron acusados de comprar y traficar niñas, para utilizarlas como esclavas sexuales, y en Colombia, en el 2000, sus hombres se involucraron el tráfico de drogas.

"Es inaceptable que el gobierno de Puerto Rico sea socio de una compañía como ésta. Es increíble que el Secretario de Estado Sr. Fernando Bonilla esté considerando renovar el contrato y continuar en asociacion con esta compañía. El Gobernador de Puerto Rico es totalmente inconsistente al estar pidiendo el regreso de las tropas durante la pasada Convension de la Guardia Nacional y simultáneamente promover el negocio de la guerra al asociarse como accionista mayoritario con los mercenarios de Dyncorp en Puerto Rico, Se/nos Gobernador: aleje a Puerto Rico de la guerra. Desagase de su relación con esa gente y expulselos de Puerto Rico", concluyó Pesquera.

Contacto: Dr. Héctor Pesquera: 787-616-8194

YA PUEDEN COMPRAR
"BALADA TRANSGENICA"
POR INTERNET

Para comprar este libro sólo tienen que escribir a la Librería Mágica de Puerto Rico: libreriamagica@yahoo.com. Dependiendo del país en que usted esté y el número de ejemplares que solicite, ellos le dirán cuanto le costará. Cualquier duda o problema me pueden escribir a ruizcarmelo@gmail.com.

Uno de los capítulos, "Satyagraja contra los Transgénicos", está disponible gratuitamente en: http://www.biodiversidadla.org/content/view/full/19640

BALADA TRANSGENICA: Biotecnología, Globalización y el Choque de Paradigmas

Desde hace varios años estamos consumiendo alimentos genéticamente alterados, también llamados transgénicos. ¿Qué efectos pueden tener sobre la salud humana y el medio ambiente? ¿Qué interrogantes éticas nos presentan? ¿Qué impactos económicos tienen, especialmente sobre el pequeño y mediano agricultor? ¿Es cierto que estos novedosos productos agrícolas pondrán fin al hambre, como alegan sus proponentes?

Carmelo Ruiz Marrero aborda estas interrogantes en "Balada Transgénica". El autor analiza críticamente las premisas científicas y sociales de la tecnología de la manipulación genética y argumenta que ella está inseparablemente ligada al llamado proceso de globalización económica e implica la integración forzosa de agricultores y consumidores a un orden mundial gobernado por corporaciones transnacionales que conforman un complejo biológico industrial.

Lejos de ser un relato fatalista y lapidario, este libro muestra, a través de las luchas de movimientos sociales alternativos alrededor del mundo, ventanas de lucha y triunfo que muestran el camino hacia una sociedad ecológica y socialmente justa.


Contenidos:

PROLOGO: De Orocovis a Point Reyes

INTRODUCCION: La batalla campal del siglo XXI

1- EL FUTURO YA NO ES LO QUE ERA ANTES

2- DE LA CONQUISTA COLONIAL AL COMPLEJO BIOLOGICO INDUSTRIAL

3- ¿QUE DICEN LOS CIENTIFICOS?

4- DE LA REVOLUCION VERDE A LA REVOLUCION GENéTICA

5- MARIPOSAS MONARCAS Y VACAS AFLIGIDAS

6- CONTAMINACION GENETICA: UN EXXON-VALDEZ BIOLOGICO

7- BIOPIRATERIA Y BIOCOLONIAJE

8- SEMILLAS SUICIDAS Y GUERRAS BIOLOGICAS

9- LA COSECHA BIOFARMACEUTICA

10- MAS ALLA DE LA BIOTECNOLOGIA: LA INVASION DE LOS NANOBOTS

11- LOS RIESGOS TECNOLOGICOS Y LA “OBJETIVIDAD” DE LA CIENCIA

12- ARROCES DORADOS Y CABALLOS DE TROYA

13- SATYAGRAJA CONTRA LOS TRANSGENICOS

14- EL ESPIRITU DE PORTO ALEGRE

15- AGRICULTURA ECOLOGICA: MáS ALLá DEL PARADIGMA CARTESIANO

16- OTRO FUTURO ES POSIBLE


SOBRE EL AUTOR.

Carmelo Ruiz Marrero, nacido en Santurce en 1967, es un periodista y educador dedicado a esclarecer la problemática ambiental en Puerto Rico y a nivel internacional. Posee un bachillerato en humanidades de la Universidad de Puerto Rico (1991) y una maestría en ecología social de Goddard College en Vermont, EEUU (1995). En 1992 comenzó a publicar escritos en el periódico Claridad, en cuya redacción trabajó de 1997 a 2004. Es además catedrático del Instituto de Ecología Social, fellow del Oakland Institute (oaklandinstitute.org) y senior fellow del Environmental Leadership Program (elpnet.org). De 2002 a 2004 fue becado también de la Asociación de Periodistas Ambientales (sej.org).

Con gran frecuencia ofrece charlas y talleres sobre temas como el periodismo ambiental y los impactos de la ingeniería genética a variadas instituciones, incluyendo universidades, escuelas secundarias, grupos comunitarios, ambientalistas, religiosos y de agricultores, el Servicio de Extensión Agrícola y la Junta de Calidad Ambiental.

En 2004 fundó el Proyecto de Bioseguridad de Puerto Rico (http://www.bioseguridad.blogspot.com/) entidad sin fines de lucro que busca educar a la ciudadanía sobre las implicaciones éticas, ecológicas, políticas, económicas y de salud pública de los cultivos y productos genéticamente alterados. También opera la página de internet Haciendo Punto en otro Blog (http://carmeloruiz.blogspot.com/).

Ruiz Marrero además escribe regularmente para la revista dominical de El Nuevo Día.

“A un Paso” la Conservación del Corredor Ecológico del Noreste

martes, 25 de septiembre de 2007

San Juan – La Coalición Pro Corredor Ecológico del Noreste (CEN) solicitó al Gobernador Aníbal Acevedo Vilá a actuar proactivamente a favor de la conservación y desarrollo sostenible de esta área, luego de que la Cámara de Representantes aprobara en votación unánime la versión del proyecto de ley endosada por el Senado, y que fuera criticada por numerosos sectores en las pasadas semanas.

“La medida según fue aprobada no es lo que impulsábamos idealmente, sin embargo, ordena el inicio de los trabajos dirigidos a la adquisición de los terrenos privados y la conservación del Corredor durante los próximos 18 meses, eliminando a su vez la amenaza inmediata ante la propuesta construcción de proyectos residenciales turísticos que destruirían su integridad ecológica. Con todo esto en mente, logramos que no se siga atrasando todo el proceso y que finalmente se encamine de forma concreta la conservación y desarrollo ecoturístico del CEN para beneficio de todos los ciudadanos” expresó Luis Jorge Rivera Herrera, científico ambiental de Iniciativa para un Desarrollo Sustentable (IDS), una de las organizaciones pertenecientes a la Coalición.

Este explicó que la Coalición promoverá la aprobación de enmiendas al proyecto de ley durante el periodo de los 18 meses, luego de que el Gobernador firme el mismo, de manera de poder subsanar así las deficiencias que habían identificado en la versión senatorial y que malograban su implantación efectiva.

Entre las enmiendas aprobadas en el Senado se encuentran limitar al Departamento de Recursos Naturales y Ambientales a realizar todos los trabajos conducentes a la compra de los terrenos privados en el Corredor en un periodo no mayor de 18 meses, o de lo contrario, éstos perderían su designación de reserva natural. También se incluían nuevos terrenos como parte de la reserva, lo que tendría el efecto de encarecer los costos de adquisición, además de limitar seriamente el desarrollo ecoturístico del área.

La Coalición había solicitado previamente a la Cámara a que no concurriera con la versión senatorial con el fin de que ambos cuerpos legislativos se reunieran en comité de conferencia y adoptaran nuevas enmiendas acorde con los fines del lenguaje original del proyecto de ley, conocido como el Proyecto de la Cámara de Representantes 2105 (P. de la C. 2105). Sin embargo, y en vista de cómo los senadores Carlos Díaz, De Castro Font y Kenneth McClintock han manejado la medida durante los pasados meses, desistieron de ese curso de acción.

“Por recomendación de los representantes, y ante la actitud de estos tres senadores, nos resultó evidente de que nos corríamos un gran riesgo al colocar el proyecto de ley nuevamente en las manos de estos tres legisladores, dado a que una vez se conformara el comité de conferencia, no existe límite de tiempo alguno para exigir su aprobación. En términos prácticos, existía una gran probabilidad de que la medida quedara en un limbo” destacó Rivera Herrera.

El desarrollo ecoturístico del CEN junto a su designación como reserva natural ha recibido el endoso de un gran número de agencias federales y estatales, líderes religiosos y científicos, entidades profesionales y empresariales, organizaciones conservacionistas internacionales y grupos comunitarios, así como representantes de la comunidad puertorriqueña en Estados Unidos. Personalidades como el actor Benicio del Toro, el cantante Andy Montañez, el abogado Robert F. Kennedy, hijo, y el Ing. Alexis Massol, de Casa Pueblo, también la han favorecido.

Contactos:

Luis Jorge Rivera Herrera (IDS): (787) 460-8315

Camilla Feibelman (Sierra Club): (787) 688-6214

The Shock Doctrine

“Only a crisis – actual or perceived – produces real change. When that crisis occurs, the actions that are taken depend on the ideas that are lying around.”
–Milton Friedman, godfather of the modern market.

In THE SHOCK DOCTRINE, Naomi Klein explodes the myth that the global free market triumphed democratically. Exposing the thinking, the money trail and the puppet strings behind the world-changing crises and wars of the last four decades, The Shock Doctrine is the gripping story of how America’s “free market” policies have come to dominate the world-- through the exploitation of disaster-shocked people and countries.

At the most chaotic juncture in Iraq’s civil war, a new law is unveiled that would allow Shell and BP to claim the country’s vast oil reserves…. Immediately following September 11, the Bush Administration quietly out-sources the running of the “War on Terror” to Halliburton and Blackwater…. After a tsunami wipes out the coasts of Southeast Asia, the pristine beaches are auctioned off to tourist resorts.... New Orleans’s residents, scattered from Hurricane Katrina, discover that their public housing, hospitals and schools will never be reopened…. These events are examples of “the shock doctrine”: using the public’s disorientation following massive collective shocks – wars, terrorist attacks, or natural disasters -- to achieve control by imposing economic shock therapy. Sometimes, when the first two shocks don’t succeed in wiping out resistance, a third shock is employed: the electrode in the prison cell or the Taser gun on the streets.

Based on breakthrough historical research and four years of on-the-ground reporting in disaster zones, The Shock Doctrine vividly shows how disaster capitalism – the rapid-fire corporate reengineering of societies still reeling from shock – did not begin with September 11, 2001. The book traces its origins back fifty years, to the University of Chicago under Milton Friedman, which produced many of the leading neo-conservative and neo-liberal thinkers whose influence is still profound in Washington today. New, surprising connections are drawn between economic policy, “shock and awe” warfare and covert CIA-funded experiments in electroshock and sensory deprivation in the 1950s, research that helped write the torture manuals used today in Guantanamo Bay.

The Shock Doctrine follows the application of these ideas though our contemporary history, showing in riveting detail how well-known events of the recent past have been deliberate, active theatres for the shock doctrine, among them: Pinochet’s coup in Chile in 1973, the Falklands War in 1982, the Tiananmen Square Massacre in 1989, the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, the Asian Financial crisis in 1997 and Hurricane Mitch in 1998.

Read Klein's "Democracy Now" interview: http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=07/08/15/1432250

El pasamontañas de Filiberto Ojeda Ríos

Por Amber Lee Vélez Burr

Especial La Escena

Periódico Cultural del Taller Cé, coop.

23 de septiembre de 2007

"Una vez oí que en las entrañas del bosque,

suena la trompeta de la libertad" –Mikie Rivera, H.F.

San Juan – A veces hay que escoger. Le pasó al Che Guevara y por qué no habría de pasarle a Filiberto. Se trataba de decidir el camino frente a un cruce que bifurcaba sus pasiones más queridas. En el caso del guerrillero argentino: la medicina y la lucha antiimperialista. Para Filiberto: la trompeta y el clandestinaje. El sonido o el silencio. O músico o combatiente. Todos sabemos su elección. Por eso La Escena dedica este espacio para difundir la voz de Enrique "Kike" Lucca, director de La Ponceña, quien comandó –cosa que pocos pueden decir– los pasos del trompetista que dirigió a Los Macheteros.

La sonora trompeta

Desde los surcos que bordean sus ojos se pude percibir la historia comprimida que guardaba Enrique "Kike" Lucca, fundador de La Sonora Ponceña. Con 94 años, Don Kike recordó fechas, nombres, y sobre todo anécdotas que el tiempo no consigue percudir y que, por el contrario, logra conservar en su memoria como narraciones intactas que le reiteran lo valioso que ha sido su paso por la vida.

Este señor, que ha recorrido el mundo entero con su orquesta –la más antigua de Puerto Rico, ¡64 años de trayectoria! –, nos esperó en su casa "blanca y azul, cerca del parque de pelota" en el pueblo de Ponce para contarnos que él no solo había contratado a Filiberto como trompetista para su sonora en el 1963, sino que había alimentado un gran respeto y una interminable amistad por el músico más revolucionario que pasó por la orquesta de las cuatro trompetas.

Don Kike, quien asegura que llegó a memorizar los números de seguro social de todos en la familia, arrancó con su alegre caravana de recuerdos así:

"Fíjate al extremo que llegamos con él que mi esposa y yo le dejábamos nuestra cama para que se quedara. El llegaba a casa los jueves, ensayábamos, tocábamos los viernes, sábado y domingos…Después se iba para San Juan los lunes a su casa que quedaba en la calle Hoare".

Lucca conoció al trompetista por unos colegas que participaban en la Federación de Músicos de Puerto Rico, quienes se lo recomendaron para cubrir la plaza de trompetista que hacía falta en La Sonora. El director no vaciló en contratarlo.

"Donde primero tocamos con Filiberto fue en San Thomas. Precisamente en ese viaje nos habían tirado atrás al FBI. Más tarde, cuando el FBI buscaba el paradero de Filiberto, vinieron unos agentes y me mostraron unas fotos que una muchacha de nuestro mismo grupo había tomado", aseguró Lucca con ciertas reminiscencias de indignación, como quien cuenta la historia del ya tradicional chota que ha rondado las conspiraciones criollas desde Lares hasta nuestros días.

Mientras el FBI filtraba agentes en las giras de La Sonora, Don Kike nos cuenta que El Indio, como llamaban a Filiberto, se desempeñaba como un trompetista excepcional de la música de cuarteto, boleros y guarachas. Según el fundador de la orquesta, el naguabeño no tenía tan siquiera la necesidad de repasar los arreglos musicales pues sabía interpretar las partituras de manera magistral.

"Filiberto nunca ensayó. El empezó a tocar sin ensayar porque era un músico extraordinario", coincidieron tanto Kike como Papo Lucca en entrevistas separadas. "Era un lector a primera vista", anadió Kike.

Y no crean que Filiberto no presumía de ello. "Me decía, ¿tú sabías que yo le di clase a Arturo Sandoval en Cuba?", apuntó Don Kike mientras ponía una cara de "guillú", imitando a Filiberto quien bromeaba a echárselas con los resultados que sus clases habían producido en el trompetista cubano.

Sobre esto, Filiberto pudo describir en vida su experiencia de ser maestro en Cuba y así lo esbozó en un texto que escribió a estos efectos titulado ¿Libre de Música? Notas Biográficas Musicales de Filiberto Ojeda Ríos. El escrito fue publicado por el licenciado Enrique Ayoroa Santaliz en la Revista La Canción Popular en el 2003.

En palabras de Filiberto

"Uno de los profesores del Conservatorio de Música de la Habana de Cubanacán, sabiendo que yo había estudiado unas técnicas muy especiales en Estados Unidos, me pidió que le transmitiera estas técnicas a cinco jóvenes muy talentosos. Naturalmente, acepto esta petición y paso a dar clases a estos jóvenes gratuitamente en el Conservatorio de Cubanacán. Todos eran verdaderamente candidatos a solistas en la trompeta. Entre ellos, Arturo Sandoval", narró Ojeda.

Por otro lado, Don Kike Lucca recuerda las palabras de Filiberto durante sus conversaciones de camino a las presentaciones.

"Nosotros íbamos discutiendo de política desde Ponce hasta San Juan. Hablábamos mucho de política durante esos viajes y él me escuchaba con todo respeto. Él, muy atento, escuchaba mis argumentos y en ocasiones me decía, `Caray, ahora tú me has puesto a pensar'. Éramos todos contra él", relató Don Kike entre risas.

Su hijo Papo, también supo escuchar con atención aquello que el machetero y trompetista había reservado para él, un consejo que en palabras de Filiberto buscaba "evitar que algunas características negativas que rodeaban el ambiente musical y artístico puertorriqueño fueran a ejercer influencias en él".

"Filiberto era una persona a la que había que tomarle los consejos. Yo escuché su consejo y me dediqué a la música completamente", apuntó Papo Lucca agradecido.

La balanza se inclina hacia el candestinaje

Luego de haberle dado viento a su trompeta para melodías de orquestas como La Sonora Ponceña, la orquesta de Miguelito Miranda y –del 1958 al 1960– la orquesta de Vicentico Valdés, Filiberto no tuvo más remedio que dejar caer el pasamontañas musical.

A finales del 1963, Filiberto dejó a La Sonora sin previo aviso. Esto suscitó una serie de visitas del FBI a la casa del director de la orquesta para averiguar el paradero del músico fugitivo.

Ya para la década de los '90, Don Kike Lucca tuvo ocasión de reencontrarse con él –un encuentro lleno de alegría y complicidad musical– en la emisora WPAB de Ponce mientras Filiberto ofrecía una entrevista desde el clandestinaje.

Como sabemos, el FBI dio con su paradero en el 2005.

"Cuando él murió yo hablé con la esposa y me dijo que él siempre me estaba mentando", expresó Don Kike notablemente compungido hasta quedar en silencio por un momento. "Yo lo sentí mucho (la muerte de Filiberto)…". Al recomponerse de la emoción que lo invadía añadió, "nosotros tocábamos en Hormigueros a cada rato. Sabrá Dios si él iba a vernos tocar".

_____________________________

""Filiberto habla

"A finales del 1948 la Escuela Libre de Música lleva a cabo un concurso para los estudiantes de trompeta, ofreciendo como premio una trompeta. Participé en ese concurso que se celebró en el Ateneo Puertorriqueño. Me otorgaron el premio que me fue entregado en una actividad especial por el Sr. Ramos Antonini. El periódico El Mundo publicó entonces una reseña y la fotografía del Sr. Ramos Antonini entregándome la trompeta. Esa trompeta me acompañó hasta que llegó el momento en que me fue indispensable un instrumento de mejor calidad… Por razones muy personales, abandoné a Puerto Rico, y me trasladé a la ciudad de Nueva York… Fue entonces cuando compré mi primer y único instrumento, el que me acompañó por el resto de mi vida como músico: una trompeta de renombre, de marca Vincent Bach-modelo Stradivarius, que había sido construida en 1932. La compré en una tienda en la zona musical cercana a Times Square y pagué por ella doscientos cincuenta dólares, además de entregar la trompeta que había ganado en el concurso".

Fragmento extraído de ¿Libre de Música? Notas Biográficas Musicales de Filiberto Ojeda Ríos, publicado en la revista Canción Popular, 2003.

http://www.corpwatch.org/article.php?id=14700

The Boys from Baghdad: Iraqi Commandos Trained by U.S. Contractor by Pratap Chatterjee, Special to CorpWatch September 20th, 2007

Cartoon by Khalil Bendib “Starting the month with a bang, the boys from Baghdad executed two baited ambushes … and further confirmed the [Emergency Response Unit’s] ability to conduct operations with stealth and violence of action,” writes an unofficial historian for the ERU, in Unit History of 1st Battalion, a report obtained by CorpWatch.(1) The “boys” that the report praises are members of one of dozens of elite Iraqi commandos units that function as a "third force” to augment the Iraqi police and army, both of which are widely considered to be failures. On this mission in early July 2005, the Emergency Response Unit, backed by the First Battalion of the Fifth Infantry Regiment of the U.S. Army, had detained “anti-Iraqi forces” and intercepted roadside bombs. Their tactics owed much to a secretive U.S. private contractor, U.S. Investigations Services (USIS), which conducted ERU trainings on U.S. military bases in Iraq -- including at Camp Dublin and Camp Solidarity. The trainings began under General David Petreaus as an effort to bolster security in Iraq, and soon evolved into a system for providing support to the deeply sectarian Ministry of the Interior. Beginning in May 2004, U.S. authorities contracted with USIS to create the first ERU. The non-sectarian force is supposed “to respond to national-level law enforcement emergencies. The four-week training runs recruits through SWAT-type emergency response training focusing on terrorist incidents, kidnappings, hostage negotiations, explosive ordnance, high-risk searches, high-risk assets, weapons of mass destruction, and other national-level law enforcement emergencies” according to the Pentagon. Who Owns USIS? For the first 11 years of its existence as a private company USIS was owned by the Carlyle Group. In May 2007 USIS was sold again to Providence Equity Partners (PEP) for $1.5 billion. The Rhode Island private equity group specializes in media, entertainment and communications companies. PEP’s most famous acquisition was the purchase of Clear Channel’s television network.(41) The top advisor to PEP is Michael Powell, a former policy advisor to Dick Cheney, when Cheney was U.S. Secretary of Defense. But Powell is better known for two other reasons: He is the son of Colin Powell, a former secretary of state and chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the highest military position in the Department of Defense. Michael Powell's other claim to fame was that when George W. Bush appointed Colin Powell secretary of state, the president chose Michael to be chairman of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC). There he presided over the deregulation that allowed Clear Channel to acquire the television stations in a way that would have been previously illegal.(42) Two years after Michael Powell resigned from the FCC, his client, PEP, bought up the very same television stations. By April 2006, the ERUs had conducted 117 “Close Target Reconnaissance” missions in Baghdad alone, completing 104 of them, and capturing 236 “suspects,” according to estimates by Lieutenant Colonel Jeffrey Voss, military advisor in charge of the ERU program. The ERUs are now officially controlled and paid by the Iraqi Ministry of Interior and are accompanied by U.S. trainers or soldiers throughout their training. But a high-level State Department report issued in 2005 explains that the Iraqi commandos were initially rejected by the very Ministry of the Interior that they were intended to support when they were created more than three years ago. Instead, U.S. officials and contractors controlled the ERUs, which became an unofficial Iraqi face to provide local cover for U.S. operations. With no support from the Iraqi government at the time, the ERU had to rely on USIS for salaries, thereby becoming a privately financed militia. Michael John, a spokesperson for USIS, told CorpWatch that the company is still under contract with the Pentagon for ERU training, but says that the support is provided strictly as part of training. “We are in a training and not in an operational capacity. The National Police Support Team (NPST) operates under the jurisdiction of Iraq's Ministry of Interior and the U.S. Department of Defense.” Dozens of interviews conducted by CorpWatch with high-ranking military and government officials over the past 12 months suggest that even at the level of Petreaus’s staff, few appeared to know the specific role and scope of ERU activity. What is clear is that the ERU is just one of at least six different U.S. “security” training programs worth over $20 billion that a variety of U.S. agencies have provided to the many factions in Iraq. (See accompanying boxes for examples of other programs.) It is becoming increasingly clear that such training programs may be causing or at least exacerbating civil war. Part of the blame lies within the complex failures of the U.S. occupation and part with the loyalties and skills of the forces recruited into the myriad security training programs that are associated with different ministries and thus with different, and often rival, political factions. “Of course, they are fucking things up,” Robert Young Pelton, author of “Licensed to Kill, Hired Guns in the War on Terror” told CorpWatch. “Because the U.S. is arbitrarily putting weapons and power in the hands of those who choose to fight, rather than those who are in the moral right,”(2) explaining that few who sign up have any previous law enforcement credentials.

http://www.thenation.com/doc/20071008/scahill0921

This is an edited transcript of the prepared testimony of Jeremy Scahill before the Senate Democratic Policy Committee, September 21, 2007.

My name is Jeremy Scahill. I am an investigative reporter for The Nation magazine and the author of the book Blackwater: The Rise of the World's Most Powerful Mercenary Army. I have spent the better part of the past several years researching the phenomenon of privatized warfare and the increasing involvement of the private sector in the support and waging of US wars. During the course of my investigations, I have interviewed scores of sources, filed many Freedom of Information Act requests, obtained government contracts and private company documents of firms operating in Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere. When asked, I have attempted to share the results of my investigations, including documents obtained through FOIA and other processes, with members of Congress and other journalists.

I would like to thank this committee for the opportunity to be here today and for taking on this very serious issue. Over the past six days, we have all been following very closely the developments out of Baghdad in the aftermath of the fatal shooting of as many as 20 Iraqis by operatives working for the private military company Blackwater USA. The Iraqi government is alleging that among the dead are a small child and her parents and the prime minister has labeled Blackwater's conduct as "criminal" and spoke of "the killing of our citizens in cold blood." While details remain murky and subject to conflicting versions of what exactly happened, this situation cuts much deeper than this horrifying incident. The stakes are very high for the Bush administration because the company involved, Blackwater USA, is not just any company. It is the premiere firm protecting senior State Department officials in Iraq, including Ambassador Ryan Crocker. This company has been active in Iraq since the early days of the occupation when it was awarded an initial $27 million no-bid contract to guard Ambassador Paul Bremer. During its time in Iraq, Blackwater has regularly engaged in firefights and other deadly incidents. About 30 of its operatives have been killed in Iraq and these deaths are not included in the official American death toll.

http://www.alternet.org/workplace/63178/

Why Can't the U.S. Have the Debate about Naomi Klein's Book That Europe Has?

By Jan Frel, AlterNet. Posted September 21, 2007.

In Europe and Canada debate is raging about Naomi Klein's new book on disaster capitalism, The Shock Doctrine. This interview with Klein considers why U.S. public debate is unable to ask fundamental questions about our economic system.

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Naomi Klein's new book, The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism, tells the history of how the American version of "free market" capitalism has spread in moments of crisis and catastrophe, when societies are too traumatized and disoriented to challenge the introduction of radical economic policies that go against their own interests.

The Shock Doctrine has already been published and translated in several countries. Excerpts from Klein's book were published in the British newspaper, The Guardian, and discussion about the book has raged onThe Guardian's online site, Comment Is Free as well as in the German, French and Canadian press. I attended Klein's U.S. book launch event at the New York Society for Ethical Culture on September 17 where she described her work and her experiences dealing with a foreign press frequently hostile to her arguments.

At least the foreign press is willing to tangle with writers who offer critiques the capitalist system. There is plenty of economic coverage in the U.S., but fundamental questions on issues such as whether privatization of public assets benefits the public and if the focus on short-term economic growth is harmful in the long run are simply not discussed. I wondered how Klein's book, which has hit the best-seller lists all over Europe, would fare in the U.S. and what Klein's expectations were for the U.S. audience. I spoke with her on the phone about this and the issues she raises in The Shock Doctrine on September 19.

Jan Frel: Your book has 70 pages of footnotes and has citations from over 1,000 sources. At the book launch in New York, you referred to this as your "body armor." The thinking seems to be that if you can back up what you're saying, then it has to be accepted. Is this what will give it legitimacy in the mainstream media?

Naomi Klein: It's more for the debate about my work. In the attempts to dismiss my work as conspiracies theories, the footnotes help.

Frel: It's often times the case that books that make powerful and damning claims with complete accuracy still don't break into public debate or hit the audience that ought to confront them. Isn't there something else that prevents radical interpretations of society and economics and buried history from reaching public debate?

Klein: I think that's true -- it's certainly true in this country. I wasn't talking about the problem my book would have getting into the mainstream, it's more about the debates around it. My books do get into the mainstream -- outside the US. That doesn't mean they aren't contested, but in Canada for example, The Shock Doctrine is already at #3 on Amazon. [Currently at #43 in the U.S.]

Another book I did, No Logo was a mainstream book, in most of the countries where it was published, except for the US. In the U.S. it never was. The context I talked about the need for support for my arguments is in cases where my book is being debated and argued. So in the U.S., I totally agree that having solid footnotes are no guarantee that you can start a mainstream debate. I don't have any confidence that this book will be in the mainstream debate in the United States.

Frel: A lot of what you're taking on in The Shock Doctrine, is a concept that is fused in deep into a big part of the American psyche -- that "the free market" and "free enterprise," which we don't typically debate or condemn in the mainstream but are to blame for a lot of the things the public does discern as problems, like our health care system. But how do you get people to see that they are being screwed by their own dominant economic beliefs?

Klein: It's actually not that hard. The hard part is getting past the media wall.

Frel: At your U.S. book launch on Monday you talked about getting past the "intellectual police lines" that prevent discussion.

¿DIA INTERNACIONAL DE LA PAZ? ¡GIVE ME A BREAK!

He estado examinando la literatura promocional del llamado Día Internacional de la Paz (http://www.lachiwinha.com/Paz.html), y debo decir de mala gana que este tipo de actividad no me huele nada bien. Le pregunté a una de las personas involucradas si habría alguna expresión de oposición a la guerra en Iraq, y me respondió que esta actividad no es en relación a un evento específico. ¿QUE QUE?

Si los organizadores no tienen las agallas para identificar y denunciar con nombre y apellido a los autores de las guerras y las instituciones que generan violencia, entonces esta actividad no me interesa. Ya yo estoy muy familiarizado con este tipo de actividad, que es completamente inofensiva a quienes nos gobiernan y oprimen, y en lugar de abrir claridades lo que hacen es enmascarar y ocultar los mecanismos de violencia y opresión, y dejar a sus participantes con la creencia falsa de que han logrado algo en contra de la violencia.

A mí no me sorprendería que fueran los mismos señores de la guerra los que financian estas iniciativas, pues estorban la labor de quienes hacen trabajo de verdad en contra de, por ejemplo, la brutalidad policíaca, el imperialismo, el reclutamiento militar y el fanatismo religioso, entre otros males. Me da pena que haya gente que crea que la paz se puede alcanzar sin confrontar la injusticia, sin sacrificio, controversia o riesgo alguno.

Están nuestros opresores que ejercen violencia y están quienes luchan contra la opresión. Pero hay un tercer grupo: pacifistas liberalotes asustadizos que sólo hablan de la paz en abstracto, que tienen un discurso vacío de contenido y que no se atreven a tomar partido ni a favor ni en contra de nada. Este tercer grupo debería largarse de la esfera pública pues no aporta nada en lo absoluto.

CARMELO RUIZ MARRERO

http://gristmill.grist.org/story/2007/9/17/21135/7701

This piece, which appears in the October 11, 2007, issue of the New York Review of Books, is posted in Grist with the kind permission of the editors of that magazine.

-----

CAN ANYONE STOP IT?
Bill McKibben

Cool It:
The Skeptical Environmentalist's Guide to Global Warming
by Bjørn Lomborg.
Knopf, 253 pp., $21.00

Break Through:
From the Death of Environmentalism to the Politics of Possibility
by Ted Nordhaus and Michael Shellenberger.
Houghton Mifflin, 344 pp., $25.00

What We Know About Climate Change
by Kerry Emanuel.
MIT Press, 85 pp., $14.95

Climate Change:
What It Means for Us, Our Children, and Our Grandchildren
edited by Joseph F.C. DiMento and Pamela Doughman.
MIT Press, 217 pp., $19.95 (paper)

During the last year, momentum has finally begun to build for taking action against global warming by putting limits on carbon emissions and then reducing them. Driven by ever-more-dire scientific reports, Congress has, for the first time, begun debating ambitious targets for carbon reduction. Al Gore, in his recent Live Earth concerts, announced that he will work to see an international treaty signed by the end of 2009. Even President Bush has recently reversed his previous opposition and summoned the leaders of all the top carbon-emitting countries to a series of conferences designed to yield some form of limits on CO2.

The authors of the first two books under review have some doubts about a strategy that emphasizes limits on carbon emissions, Lomborg for economic reasons and Nordhaus and Shellenberger for political ones. Since any transition away from fossil fuel is likely to be the dominant global project of the first half of the twenty-first century, it's worth taking those qualms seriously.

In his earlier book, The Skeptical Environmentalist, Bjørn Lomborg, a Danish statistician, attacked the scientific establishment on a number of topics, including global warming, and concluded that things were generally improving here on earth. The book was warmly received on the editorial pages of The Wall Street Journal, but most scientists were unimpressed. Scientific American published scathing rebuttals from leading researchers, and its editor concluded in a note to readers that "in its purpose of describing the real state of the world, the book is a failure." A review in Nature compared it to "bad term papers," and called it heavily reliant on secondary sources and "at times ... fictional." E.O. Wilson, who has over the years been attacked by the left (for sociobiology) and the right (for his work on nature conservation), and usually responded only with a bemused detachment, sent Lomborg a public note that called his book a "sordid mess." Lomborg replied to all of this vigorously and at great length,¹ and then went on, with the help of The Economist magazine, to convene a "dream team" of eight economists including three Nobel laureates and ask them to consider the costs and benefits of dealing with various world problems. According to his panel, dealing with malaria ranked higher than controlling carbon emissions, though again some observers felt the panel had been stacked and one of the economists who took part told reporters that "climate change was set up to fail." Lomborg later conducted a similar exercise with "youth leaders" and with ambassadors to the United Nations, including the former U.S. emissary John Bolton, with similar results.

In his new book, Cool It, Lomborg begins by saying that the consensus scientific position on climate change -- that we face a rise in temperature of about five degrees Fahrenheit by century's end -- is correct, but that it's not that big a deal. "Many other issues are much more important than global warming." In fact, he argues, it would be a great mistake either to impose stiff caps on carbon or to spend large sums of money -- he mentions $25 billion worldwide annually on R&D as an upper bound -- trying to dramatically reduce emissions because global warming won't be all that bad. The effort to cut emissions won't work very well, and we could better spend the money on other projects like giving out bed nets to prevent malaria.

Lomborg casts himself as the voice of reason in this debate, contending with well-meaning but woolly-headed scientists, bureaucrats, environmentalists, politicians, and reporters. I got a preview of some of these arguments in May when we engaged in a dialogue at Middlebury College in Vermont²; they struck me then, and strike me now in written form, as tendentious and partisan in particularly narrow ways. Lomborg has appeared regularly on right-wing radio and TV programs, and been summoned to offer helpful testimony by, for instance, Oklahoma Senator James Inhofe, famous for his claim that global warming is a hoax. That Lomborg disagrees with him and finds much of the scientific analysis of global warming accurate doesn't matter to Inhofe; for his purposes, it is sufficient that Lomborg opposes doing much of anything about it.

Declaración de Lampung. En contra de la Acuacultura Industrial de Camarón

Nosotros, en representación de las comunidades locales, ONGs, movimientos sociales e investigadores de 17 países de África, Asia, Europa, América Latina y Norteamérica, nos reunimos en Lampung, Indonesia del 4 al 6 de Septiembre del 2007 para tratar sobre la continua expansión y los impactos asociados con la acuacultura industrial de camarón. A pesar de la abrumadora evidencia de sus efectos devastadores, la industria continúa creciendo y ampliándose hacia nuevos territorios y países dejando atrás a los terrenos degradados y a las comunidades empobrecidas

La continua transformación de los humedales, especialmente manglares, en piscinas camaroneras contribuye al cambio climático al liberar el carbono almacenado en el suelo hacia la atmósfera y al anular las funciones del manglar de retención de carbono. La acuacultura de camarón es también responsable de remover los cinturones verdes que protegen a las comunidades costeras de desastres tales como huracanes, oleadas de tormenta, tsunamis, etc.

La reciente expansión de la industria sobre áreas salinas, suelos fangosos y lagunas, que son parte de los ecosistemas costeros, es igualmente destructiva.

Nos preocupa que los camarones de cultivo se promocionen como alimento saludable y que los consumidores no tengan la información completa de los peligros para su salud que pueden entrañar como resultado de los antibióticos, hormonas, pesticidas y otros químicos utilizados durante las diferentes fases de producción del camarón.

Hacemos un llamado a los pueblos de los países consumidores para que reduzcan considerablemente el consumo de camarones de cultivo importados, dado que todos ellos son producidos a expensas de la degradación del ambiente; pérdida de biodiversidad; pérdida de la calidad de vida, diversidad cultural y seguridad de las comunidades locales, y violación de los derechos humanos incluyendo asesinatos.

Demandamos de los gobiernos que conozcan estos temas e implementen la Resolución VII.21 de la Convención de Ramsar de 1999, que hace un llamado a los gobiernos para suspender la promoción, creación de nuevas instalaciones y expansión de las actividades no sustentables de acuacultura que son perjudiciales para los humedales costeros.

Además, demandamos a los comerciantes minoristas que tomen la responsabilidad de limitar el consume del camarón de cultivo, en lugar de la práctica actual de promocionarlo.

Instamos a las Instituciones Financieras Internacionales, tales como el Banco Mundial, Banco Interamericano de Desarrollo, Banco Asiático de Desarrollo, y a las agencias intergubernamentales que detengan la promoción y apoyo a la acuacultura industrial de camarón.

En la actualidad, la industria con el apoyo de ciertas ONGs internacionales, está tratando de mejorar su imagen pública desarrollando procesos de certificación y sellos erróneos tales como “Camarón Ético” y “Camarón Orgánico”, para poner una máscara al daño ecológico, las violaciones a los derechos humanos, la ampliación de la brecha de ingresos, pérdida de empleos y otros problemas reales ocasionados por la industria. Estos esquemas ignoran los derechos a la seguridad y soberanía alimentaria de las comunidades locales en donde se produce el camarón y nos las toma en cuenta.

Por tanto, instamos a los consumidores, minoritas, ONGs y gobiernos que rechacen todo esquema de certificación desarrollado hasta el momento y aquellos que se encuentren actualmente en desarrollo.

Lampung, Indonesia - Septiembre 6 del 2007

Red Manglar - Red Internacional para la Defensa de los Ecosistemas Marino Costeros y la Vida Comunitaria