http://zcommunications.org/zmag/viewArticle/16106

Global Warming and the Struggle for Justice

The disturbing and sometimes catastrophic reality of worldwide climate collapse

January, 01 2008 By Brian Tokar

Excerpt:

One of the most disturbing consequences of the push for cellulose-based fuels is a resurgence of interest in the genetic engineering of trees. A company known as Arborgen, partly owned by International Paper and Mead-Westvaco, received USDA approval last summer to expand its experimental plots of a variety of eucalyptus that is genetically engineered to withstand cold temperatures. This would allow these highly invasive and resource-consuming trees to be planted throughout the southeastern U.S., as well as in other moderate temperate zones. Backers of this technology continually invoke the idea that such trees are needed to make fuel to replace petroleum, in an attempt to disarm critics and dismiss wider ecological concerns. Throughout the global South, people whose lands have been appropriated by corporations for conversion to commercial tree plantations have joined the worldwide campaign to prevent the commercial growing of genetically engineered trees. Ultimately, there is not enough biomass on earth, whether on fields, grasslands, or forests, to replace the millions of years of accumulated biomass that produced the once abundant reservoirs of fossil fuels, consumed at an ever accelerating pace during the past century.

Similarly, the growing practice of purchasing carbon dioxide credits in order to “offset” affluent consumers’ excessive greenhouse gas emissions is increasingly opposed by people on the receiving end. Carbon offsets, whether sold on the Internet or negotiated through the Kyoto Protocol’s Clean Development Mechanism, also favor the conversion of forests into monoculture plantations and further the displacement of traditional communities. Intensive monitoring required by the UN may be necessary to prevent profiteering and outright fraud, but also significantly favors homogeneous and biologically deficient plantations owned by transnational timber companies, in contrast to richly biodiverse tropical and subtropical forests inhabited by indigenous communities.

Most of us tend to view planting trees as an inherently benign activity, but as Larry Lohmann has documented in his study, “Carbon Trading: A critical conversation on climate change, privatization and power” (www. thecornerhouse.org.uk), international funding for tree planting (also for various industrial conversions and even for solar electricity) often exacerbates inequalities and semi-feudal economic relations in the recipient regions. Further, the process of global warming has begun to measurably decrease the ability of trees to absorb carbon dioxide, as nighttime respiration begins to emit more carbon than the trees can absorb through photosynthesis during the day. The added damaging effects of hurricanes and other catastrophes can quickly turn even the healthiest forest into a net emitter of carbon dioxide.