Today's Stories

February 25, 2009

M. Shahid Alam
Israel in 1948: Poised for Expansion

Nadia Hijab
The First Waltz

February 24, 2009

Paul Craig Roberts
How the Economy was Lost

Uri Avnery
Coalition Theory

Peter Morici
Is Nationalization Inevitable?

Jonathan Cook
Arab Parties Face Most Hostile Knesset in History

Paul Fitzgerald /
Elizabeth Gould
The Man Who Shouldn't be King (of Afghanistan)

Andy Worthington
Who is Binyam Mohamed?

Brian Horejsi
Crisis Creates Hope for Reality

Julia Stein
I was a Writer for the Government

Norm Kent
How Judges Disgrace the Bench

Rachel Smolker /
Brian Tokar
Biofuels, Promise or Threat?

Dennis Loo
The Water Line: Doing What Must be Done

James McEnteer
The Oscar for Denial

Website of the Day
How to Destroy a Fox News Anchor

February 23, 2009

Michael Hudson
The Language of Looting

Mike Roselle
On Cherry Pond: Going Up Against Big Coal in W. Virginia

Patrick Cockburn
The New War in Iraq

Franklin Spinney
Obama Steps on the Pentagon Escalator

Einar Már Guðmundsson
A War Cry From the North

Ralph Nader
How Credit Unions Survived the Crash

Jordan Flaherty
A New Orleans Intifada?

Helen Redmond
Ted's Table: Kennedy and the Corporate Lobbyists Craft a Health Plan

Dennis Loo
The Water Line

Harvey Wasserman
Jet Crashes and Nuclear Reactors: Feds Ignore a Serious Risk

Terry Lodge
The Intelligence is Wrong

Website of the Day
BadCreditReport.Com

February 20 / 22, 2009

Alexander Cockburn
The Lawyer's Tale

Michael Neumann /
Osha Neumann
Remove Our Grandmother's Name from the Wall at Yad Vashem

Ismael Hossein-zadeh
Herbert Hoover Copycats

Paul Craig Roberts
Bill of Rights Under Fire

Linn Washington Jr.
The NY Post's Chimpanzee Cartoon

Saul Landau
On the Road Again

Marjorie Cohn
War Criminals Must be Prosecuted (And Their Lawyers Too)

Binoy Kampmark
Cricket and Cartels: the Fall of Sir Allen Stanford

Dave Lindorff
Using the Recession to Hammer Workers

David Yearsley
Edward Said's Greatest Musical Writings

David Macaray
A Closer Look at the Employee Free Choice Act

James McEnteer
Last Mambo in Minnehaha

Rick Salutin
A Canadian Looks at Obama

Wayne Clark
South Carolina Nears the Abyss

Richard Rhames
Got Farms?

Stephen Martin
Silver Mist Descending

Mitu Sengupta
Slumdog Millionaire's Dehumanizing View of India's Poor

Charles R. Larson
Slumdog Reality?

Richard Morse
Carnival Ramble in Haiti

Lorenzo Wolff
Desperation in an Unavoidable Groove

Poets' Basement
Three Poems of Tu Fu (Trans. K. Rexroth)

Website of the Weekend
Ron Paul: What If the People Wake Up?

February 19, 2009

Norman Finkelstein
The Cleanser: Lobbyists Whistle Up Cordesman to "Prove" Israel Waged a Clean War in Gaza

Harry Browne
How Ireland Went Bust

Robert Bryce
Why the Promise of Biofuels is a Lie

Brian M. Downing
The Winding Road: From Western Europe to Kyrgyzstan

Fred Gardner
The DEA Chief's $123,000 Flight

Andy Worthington
Obama's Uighur Problem

Wajahat Ali
Aftermath of a Beheading

Laura Carlsen
A New Attitude at the White House Toward Bolivia and Venezuela?

Deb Reich
Gaza: Choose Life!

Christopher Ketcham
Crisis? What Crisis?

Website of the Day
Taking Back NYU

February 18, 2009

Paul Craig Roberts
President of Special Interests

Mike Whitney
Trouble at Treasury

M. Shahid Alam
Afghan Pitfalls

Patrick Cockburn
A Real Surge at Last

Conn Hallinan
Death's Laboratory

Dave Lindorff
Whatever Happened to Antitrust?

Rannie Amiri
The Perils of Blogging in Egypt

Gareth Porter
Pushing Back Against Petraeus on Pullout Risks

Eric Hobsbawm
Remembering V. G. Kiernan

Christopher Brauchli
The Pope's Predicament

Martha Rosenberg
It's the Cymbalta Stupid

Website of the Day
Red Gold

February 17, 2009

Michael Hudson
The Oligarchs' Escape Plan

Mike Whitney
The Global Ditch

Ralph Nader
The One-Dimensional Congress

Joanne Mariner
Benchmarking Obama: How to Evaluate the New Administration's Counter-Terrorism Policies

John Ross
Commodifying the Revolution: Zapatista Villages Become Hot
Tourist Destinations

Belén Fernández
The Venezuelan Referendum From the Back of a Pickup Truck

Mats Svensson
Who is a Terrorist?

David Macaray
Why America Needs Labor Unions

Gregory Vickrey
$400 in Change

M. Junaid Levesque-Alam
Another Hamastan?

Michael Dickinson
Unrest in Istanbul

Website of the Day
Take a Stand for Open Access

February 16, 2009

Patrick Cockburn
Iraq Reconstruction: the Greatest Fraud in US History?

Oscar Guardiola-Rivera
The Truth About Colombia's New Emperor

Paul Craig Roberts
Who Remembers Guns and Butter?

Uri Avnery
Livni's Bitter Options

P. Sainath
The Meltdown: Whose Crisis Is It?

Dedrick Muhammad / Michael Brown
White Recession, Black Depression

Carla Blank
A New New Deal for the Arts

Patrick Irelan
Venezuela Ends Term Limits

Dan Bacher
Is Delta Pumping Driving Salmon and Orca Decline?

Fidel Castro
Chavez's Clarion Call

Harvey Wasserman
Hail to the Spleef: Did George Washington Smoke Pot?

Website of the Day
Mining Black Mesa

February 13 - 15, 2009

Alexander Cockburn
On the Rocks

Joshua Frank
The Myth of Clean Coal

Mike Whitney
Geithner's Coming Out Party

George Ciccariello-Maher
Venezuela's Term Limits: More Hypocrisy From the NYT

Nikolas Kozloff
Venezuela Beyond the Referendum

Brian M. Downing
Pakistan on the Brink

Paul Craig Roberts
Deficit Nonchalance

Christopher Ketcham
Israel's Ball Boys

Ron Jacobs
At a Campus Sit-In Against Israeli Occupation

Dave Lindorff
Why Can Judd Gregg See What Obama Can't?

Alan Maass
Lincoln at 200

Chuck Spinney
Grassley Sounds Off on Obama's Man at the Pentagon

Phil Gasper
Mr. Darwin's Reluctant Revolution

Stephen Lendman
A Short History of Business Handouts

Charles Thomson
Tate Cruises: Caveat Emptor on the High Seas

Kathy Sanborn
The Suicide Rush

Saul Landau
Bowled Over

Len Wengraf
The Nightmare in Somalia

Harvey Wasserman
Striking a Blow Against Nuclear Power

David Macaray
An Easy Call for Obama on Joining a Union

Tom Stephens
Four Freedoms, Four Changes

Seth Sandronsky
Lincoln and the Collective Mind

David Yearsley
On the Road Again

Lorenzo Wolff
Freaking Out With Danny Barnes

Kim Nicolini
The Body of the Worker: What "The Wrestler" Says About the State of America

Poets' Basement
Anderson, Buknatski and French

Website of the Weekend
The Iranian Revoution and the US Dual Containment Policy: a Presentation

February 12, 2009

P. Sainath
Neo-Liberal Terrorism in India: The Largest Wave of Suicides in History

Jean Bricmont
French Echoes of the Israeli-Palestine Conflict

Michael Hudson
Trying to Revive the Bubble Economy: Obama's Awful Financial Recovery Plan

Peter Lee
Pakistan, Not Afghanistan, is the Main Event

Dave Lindorff
Judges Nabbed, Jailing Kids for Kickbacks

February 11, 2009

Neve Gordon
Few Peacemakers in the New Israeli Knesset

Peter Morici
Anatomy of a Hemorrhage

Andy Worthington
Who's Running Guantánamo?

Marjorie Cohn
A Call to End All Renditions

Fred Gardner
Change We Can Smoke?

Niranjan Ramakrishnan
The G & O (Geithner and Obama) Bank

Zoe Blunt
Vancouver Island Hippies: Top Security Threat for 2010?

Belén Fernández
Politics on the Panamericana

Martha Rosenberg
Don't Breathe the Meat

Website of the Day
George Dyson on Project Orion

Blues of the Day
David Vest on the CBC

February 10, 2009

Kathy Kelly
How Do People Keep Going?

Nikolas Kozloff
The Stimulus Imbroglio

Uri Avnery
Dirty Socks

Michael J. Berg
Will South Carolina be the Center of the Nuclear Revival?

Russell Mokhiber
Et Tu, Atul?

Joe Bageant
A Commodity Called Misery

Gareth Porter
Petraeus' Subterfuge

Dave Lindorff
Seek Truth, But Prosecute Liars

Rannie Amiri
The Implications of Recognizing Israel's "Right to Exist"

Harvey Wasserman
Nukes and the Stimulus

Niranjan Ramakrishnan
What We Didn't Learn at Obama's Press Conference

Website of the Day
RIAA Takes Over DoJ Under Obama

February 9, 2009

Vicente Navarro
Why Sanjay Gupta is the Wrong Man for Top US Health Job

Paul Craig Roberts
Driving Over the Cliff

Julio Sanchez /
Feliz de Bedout
The Threat of Peace in Colombia: an Interview with Hollman Morris

National Lawyers Guild
Strong Indications of Israeli War Crimes

Jonathan Cook
Israeli University Welcomes "War Crimes" Colonel

Alana Smith
The Nightmarish Case of Fahad Hashmi

Binoy Kampmark
Taking the Bong

Sam Bahour
End the Occupation First

Nicole Colson
Can You Afford College?

Ron Jacobs
Remembering the Second Intifada

Website of the Day
The Legacy of Ed Grothus and the Black Hole

February 6-8, 2009

Alexander Cockburn
Obama's First Bad Week

Ishmael Reed
Saint Thelma's Book

James Abourezk
Obama, Mitchell and the Palestinians

William Blum
Obama and the Empire

Patrick Cockburn
Maliki's Triumph

Henry A. Giroux
Educating Obama

Manuel Garcia, Jr.
Darwin's Living Legacy

Mouin Rabbani
A New Low on Gaza?

David Yearsley
Ein Volk, Ein Reich, Ein Springsteen!

Saul Landau
The Wrestler: an American Tragedy

Jules Rabin
Israel's Disproportionate Responses

Raymond J. Lawrence
A Country Awash in Money But Going Broke

Janette Habel
Castro's Socialism in Crisis

Dave Lindorff
Economy on a Thread

Missy Beattie
Blackout at the Gaza Zoo Massacre

Dale Gieringer
The Opium Exclusion Act of 1909: Marking 100 Years of Failed Drug Prohibition

John Ross
Davos vs. Belem; Swine vs. Pearls

Richard Rhames
Jobs is a Four Letter Word

Bob Wing
Obama, Race and the Future of U.S. Politics

Robert Bryce
Corn Dog Update: Another Study Exposes Bio-Fuel Scam

David Macaray
AFL-CIO and Change to Win in "Re-Wed" Talks

James L. Secor
Inaugural Questions Nobody Asks: Notes from Kuala Lumpur

Jason Flom /
Anthony Papa
The Scourging of Michael Phelps

Norm Kent
Ten Reasons to Get High About Pot in 2009

Kim Nicolini
When Utopia Crumbles: Why Revolutionary Road was Shut Out of the Oscars

Lorenzo Wolff
Ridiculous Flow: How Cee Lo Green Sells Soul

Poets' Basement
Emily Dickinson (with Commentary by Daniel Wolff)

Website of the Weekend
S.J. Gould: Darwin's Untimely Burial

February 5, 2009

Michael Mandel
Self-Defense Against Peace

Saul Landau /
Philip Brenner
Killing the Monroe Doctrine

Ralph Nader
Tax the Speculators!

Robert Bryce
The Unraveling of the Ethanol Scam

Russell Mokhiber
Occupied Territory

Sameh Habeeb /
Janet Zimmerman
Innocents Lost

Dave Lindorff
Small Change

Carmelo Ruiz-Marrero
Beyond Green Capitalism

George Ochenski
A Blow to Big Coal in Montana

Website of the Day
Putting CEO Pay in Context

February 4, 2009

Arno J. Mayer
On Corruption

Paul Craig Roberts
The War on Terror is a Hoax

Patrick Cockburn
The Iraqi Elections

Jonathan Cook
An IDF Jihad?

Fred Gardner
Obama's Mixed Messages on Marijuana

Stan Cox
Slumwrecking Millionaires: India's Fragile New Temples

Margaret Kimberley
The Deepening Economic Crisis

Lawrence Velvel
Agony & Desperation: Madoff's Victims

Dave Lindorff
A Generals' Revolt?

Doug Giebel
A Helping of Bitter Beltway Baloney

Serge Quadruppani
Student Protests Sweep Italy

Website of the Day
The San Francisco 8

February 3, 2009

David Price
Counterinsurgency & Anthropology: Roberto Gonzalez on Human Terrain Systems

Bill Moyers
Obama's Wars: an Interview with Pierre Sprey and Marilyn Young

Kirkpatrick Sale
Obama's Lincoln Thing

Conn Hallinan
When Mind Wounds Don't Count

Peter Morici
The Slippery Slope of Stimulus

George Ciccariello-Maher
From Oakland to Santa Rita: "Fired Up, Can't Take It No More"

Muhammad Idrees Ahmad
The BBC's Nadir

Allan Nairn
What Does It Take to Get a Meal Here, an Earthquake?

Norman Solomon
Why are We Still at War?

David Macaray
The Late, Great UAW

Website of the Day
The Bloody Cove

February 2, 2009

Uri Avnery
Under the Black Flag: Israeli War Crimes

Ralph Nader
What to Do About Wall Street

Gareth Porter
Generals Move to Obstruct Obama's Iraq Withdrawal Orders

Paul Craig Roberts
The Death of American Leadership

Harvey Wasserman
The Nuclear Industry's Latest Money Grab

Rannie Amiri
Gaza and the Crimes of Mubarak

Cal Winslow
Stern's Gang Seizes UHW Union Hall

Steve Early
Checking Out of Stern's Hotel California

Alan Farago
Superbowl as Panopticon

Diane Farsetta
Banning Domestic Propaganda

January 30 / February 1, 2009

Alexander Cockburn
Obama and the Oddsmakers

Michael Hudson
Obama's New Bank Giveaway

Ismael Hossein-Zadeh
"Too Big to Fail:" a Bailout Hoax

Dave Lindorff
The Ugly Truth: the American Economy is Not Coming Back

Saul Landau
Freedom Fighters, Terrorists or Schlemiels?

Andy Worthington
Blame the Chef: How Cooking for the Taliban Can Get You Life in Gitmo

Subcomandante Marcos
Gaza Will Survive

Robert Jensen
Future Farming: an Interview with Wes Jackson

Ron Jacobs
Return of the Democrats

Gareth Porter
Is Gates Undermining Another Opening to Iran?

Allan Nairn
Hope for the Dump Cities?

Laura Carlsen
NAFTA's Dangerous Security Agenda

Rev. William E. Alberts
The Feelings of a Stranger

Christopher Brauchli
From Gitmo to Supermax?

Jules Rabin
Israel and the Bomb

Col. Dan Smith
Thoughts From an Inauguration Refugee

Missy Beattie
The US Garden of Evil

Tom Barry
Obama's Immigration Challenge

J. Michael Cole
The Downfall of an Academic

Manuel Garcia, Jr.
Burning the First Amendment

Dan Bacher
How Dam Removal Can Save the Klamath River

David Rosen
Last Gasp of the Culture Wars?

Don Monkerud
Religion in the American Bedroom

Binoy Kampmark
Updike: Apostle of the Middlebrows

Lorenzo Wolff
Playing Down a Bad Reputation: the Lovin' Spooful's Near Perfect Record

David Yearsley
When Orfeo and Euridice Lived Happily Ever After in Upstate New York

Poets' Basement
Valentine and Rihn

January 29, 2009

Peter Linebaugh
Tom Paine's Birthday

Paul Craig Roberts
Is It Time to Bail Out of America?

Riz Khan
The Future of Gaza: an Interview with Jimmy Carter

M. Reza Pirbhai
Pakistan: a New Cambodia?

Wajahat Ali
Obama's Al-Arabiya Interview

Gregory Vickrey
What About the Environment? Cap and Trade and Selling Out

Dina Jadallah-Taschler
Whither the Two State Solution?

Alison Weir
Killing Palestinians Doesn't Count: Fact-Checking Ceasefire Breaches

Alan Farago
Economy Without Escape Routes

Walter Brasch
Taxing a House of Cards

Website of the Day
Madoff Inc.

January 28, 2009

Norman Finkelstein
Behind the Bloodbath in Gaza

Noam Chomsky
Obama's Emerging Policies on Israel, Iraq and the Economic Crisis

Patrick Cockburn
Is Mitchell's Mission Already Doomed?

Rob Larson
The Clinton Foundation Donors

George Wuerthner
Who Will Speak for the Forests?

Allan Nairn
South-East Asian Groups Threaten Retaliation Over Gaza Invasion

M. Junaid
Levesque-Alam
A Muslim's Memo to Obama

Stefan Simanowitz
The Silent Trade

Charles R. Larson
The Autumn of the Patriot

Website of the Day
Veggie Love: PETA's Banned Superbowl Ad

January 27, 2009

Winslow T. Wheeler
Save the Economy by Cutting the Defense Budget

Yigal Bronner /
Neve Gordon
Fueling the Cycle of Hate

Joshua Frank
Obama's Neocon: the Curious Case of Richard Holbrooke

Jordan Flaherty
Torture at a Louisiana Prison

Ralph Nader
Access to Economic Justice

Rev. José M. Tirado
How Iceland Fell: a Hundred Days of (Muted) Rage

Benjamin Dangl
Bolivia Looking Forward

Russell Mokhiber
What If Israel Were in Your Neighborhood?

Martha Rosenberg
Who Says Technology Transfer Doesn't Pay?

C. G. Estabrook
The Inaugural Address: the Digested Read

Website of the Day
Who Profits From the Occupation?

January 26, 2009

Paul Craig Roberts
Speaking the Truth is a Career-Ending Event

Deepak Tripathi
The BBC's Day of Shame

Vijay Prashad
The India Lobby: Drunk with the Sight of Power

Peter Lee
Geithner's Pop Gun Volley at China

Allan Nairn
The Torture Ban That Doesn't Ban Torture

Uri Avnery
On the Wrong Side of History

John Sayen
The Next Shoe to Drop

Dave Lindorff
Afghanistan is No Threat to America

Lawrence R. Velvel
Investing with Madoff

David Macaray
Obama vs. Labor

Roger Burbach
Winds of Change in Cuba

Norman Solomon
The Ghost of LBJ

Website of the Day
Landscapes of Occupation

January 23 / 25, 2009

Alexander Cockburn
The Ghosts at Obama's Side

P. Sainath
The Freefalling Economy

Patrick Cockburn
In Israel, Detachment From Reality is the Norm

Saul Landau
Reasons for War?

Sasan Fayazmanesh
Our Current Economic Crisis: the Monks' Cure

Alan Farago
The Problem with the Stimulus

Christopher Brauchli
When Due Diligence is a One-Way Street

Andy Worthington
Return to Law?

Ron Jacobs
Obama's Pentagon: Bowing to the Masters of War?

Lawrence Velvel
Investing with Madoff: My Experience (Part Four)

Henry A. Giroux
The Audacity of Educated Hope

David Yearsley
The Music That Wasn't There: Chamber Music for Obama's Masses

Raymond F. Gustavson
Here We Go Again: General Shinseki and Veterans

Dave Lindorff
The Way Forward

Roberto Rodriguez
Fighting for Migrant Justice in the Desert

Dina Jadallah-Taschler
The Struggle of an Un-People

Fidel Castro
Meeting Cristina

J. Michael Cole
Can Obama's Shift on Terror Succeed?

Bob Fitrakis /
Harvey Wasserman
It's Time to Free Leonard Peltier

Ramzy Baroud
Breaking Gaza's Will

Mohammad Ali Shabani
The Aftermath of the War on Gaza

Richard Rhames
Panning for Pyrite on a Cold Day at the Mall

Stephen Martin
Voices in the Mirror

Lorenzo Wolff
Jurassic Radio

Kim Nicolini
Katrina's Endless Loop

Poets' Basement
Fleming, Henson, First, Jaramillo and Glendinning

Website of the Weekend
Cartoon Love

January 22, 2009

Paul Craig Roberts
Another Real Estate Crisis is About to Hit

Kathy Kelly
Worse Than an Earthquake

Allan Nairn
US Intel Nominee Lied About Church Murders

Lawrence Velvel
Investing with Madoff: My Experience (Part Three)

Andy Worthington
Halting the Gitmo Trials

Peter Morici
How to Fix the Banks

Joseph G. Davis
The First MBA Presidency and the Business Academy: a Damage Assessment

Adriana Kojeve
The Democrats on Israel: a Brief Oral History

Benjamin Dangl
Bolivia Poised for Historic Vote

Website of the Day
Support the Gaza Community Mental Health Program

January 21, 2009

Gabriel Kolko
Understanding Gaza

Harry Browne
Obama's Work Ethic

Michael Colby
Ready. Aim. Organize.

Lawrence R. Velvel
Investing with Madoff: My Experience

Audrey Stewart
Starting Over in Gaza

Wajahat Ali
Obama and the Muslims

Binoy Kampmark
The Marketing of Hope

David Kεr Thomson
Abolition

John Ross
In My Own Bones

Allan Nairn
Killer in Chief: Will This President Murder Civilians?

Sheldon Richman
The Peaceful Transfer of Violent Power

Website of the Day
Globistan

January 20, 2009

Chuck Spinney
Hosing Obama Israeli Style

Kathy Kelly
The Strongest Weapon of All

Raymond Deane
The EU, Gaza and the Lisbon Treaty

Ralph Nader
State Terrorism Against Gaza

Audrey Stewart
Why I am in Gaza

Jonathan Cook
Israel's Doctrine of Destruction

Harvey Wasserman
A Ten-Point Solar Agenda for Obama

Christopher Ketcham
Inauguration Ad Nauseam

Robert Jensen
A Citizen's Oath of Office

Dave Lindorff
Commie Chorus on the Mall: This Land Really is Made for You and Me

David Macaray
SAG Watches It All Slip Away

February 25, 2009

Where Globalization Doesn't Rhyme with the Environment

Neoliberals Do The Amazon

By RACHEL GODFREY WOOD

Ever since its opening to the double edged sword known as “development,” debates over the Amazon rainforest repeatedly have degraded into an international tragi-comedy of hypocrisy and shirked responsibilities. Development’s fate, in reality, has been shaped by two contradictory trends: on the one hand, shrill opposition to ecological destruction from large swathes of the developed conservation-minded world, and on the other, runaway deforestation. This duality has intensified in recent years, with ever greater awareness of the importance of the rainforest failing to hold the line against the prevention of the acceleration of its destruction.

The precarious state of the Amazon rainforest was starkly highlighted by data released in early 2008, which showed a rapid increase in Brazil´s deforestation rate in the second half of 2007. This alarming fact was caused primarily by high demand for such products as beef, soya, and timber, as well as the impact of various developments which had the effect of pushing small landholders deeper into the forest. Claims made in the early 1990s by free market economists that an opening of markets and reduction of inflation would reduce incentives to clear forests, have been long forgotten. If it were ever true that deforestation was, in its earlier stages, driven by government subsidies and the distortions of an inflationary economy, this is no longer necessarily the case. If anything, the opening of Latin America´s economies has left its natural habitats more vulnerable to the global demand for products that necessitate the clearing of forests on a prodigious scale.

Recent developments in the Amazon demonstrate the limits of “ecological modernization” theory, which claims that human development will, via technological improvements, require an increasingly “rational” use of resources, de-linked from environmental destruction. But recent technological advances in the region have done exactly the opposite. Eradication of foot-and-mouth disease, and agricultural innovations, for example, that allow for new monocultures, have only intensified the pace of the rainforest’s destruction. Current predictions suggest that up to 50% of Brazil´s rainforest could be lost by 2030, releasing between 15 and 26 billion tons of carbon into the atmosphere. Expected side effects such as the warming of the world´s climate and disruption of water supplies raise a point of the greatest urgency that has long been ignored by policy makers: environmental degradation will have a significant negative impact on both the market economy that helps cause it, and on human well-being.

Reduced Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation - REDD

In spite of the failure of market economics to deliver a rational relationship with the environment, most proposals for conserving the forest focus on market-based instruments. This appears to be the case with “Reduction of Emissions From Deforestation and Degradation” (REDD), a new scheme originally proposed by developing countries like Costa Rica and Papua New Guinea, and now adopted by international institutions such as the World Bank and the United Nations. The core thesis behind REDD is that deforestation can only be significantly reduced if existing environmental laws and regulations are accompanied by significant economic incentives to conserve the forest. These incentives would be provided by funds coming from developed countries, reaching governments, private entities, and local communities in the “rainforest nations” of the developing world. The scheme has mustered significant international backing, primarily because developed countries and development agencies view avoided deforestation as one of the most cost-effective ways of combating climate change. At the same time, many South American countries view REDD as a means of securing financing for the environmental services they offer to the world. Given the history of many of the region´s governments of subsidizing the clearing of forests, this could mark a fundamental about-turn in the relationship between incentive structures and avoidable environmental damage in the Amazon region.

Saving the Forest by Making Money

Daniel Nepstad, a highly respected scientist and conservationist, maintains that REDD can encourage all agents of deforestation, from small landowners to large scale ranchers, to dramatically reduce their destructive activities. Payments would have to be considerable, and sustained, to ensure it is worthwhile for these actors to forego such activities. As yet, it is not absolutely clear whether such funds predictably could be raised by South American governments and private entities inserting themselves into the international carbon markets, or whether they would more likely come from voluntary donations. It is known, however, that many of the biggest movers behind REDD (for example, the World Bank), are openly committed to using carbon markets to generate funding for avoided deforestation. Supporters such as Dr Tom Lovejoy of the Heinz Centre envisage a system whereby financiers and businessmen would guarantee the survival of the Amazon rainforest simply by seeking to make a profit from selling its “environmental services.” In anticipation, some firms already are investing, like the London-based Canopy Capital, which has purchased the rights to environmental services generated by the 371,000 hectare Iwokrama Reserve in Guyana.

Shouldn´t the Polluter Pay?

This focus on “for profit” motives, among other things, has invited a high degree of criticism from some environmental groups. Two recent reports, one from Friends of the Earth International (FOEI), and another by the Forests and European Union Resource Network (FERN) and the Forest People´s Program, accuse REDD as it is currently constituted, of failing both the Amazon rainforest and its inhabitants. FOEI points out, for example, that REDD allows governments and corporations to continue destructive activities by putting plantations in the same category as forests. This is perverse from an environmental and social perspective, given that plantations only account for about 20% of the carbon stored by forests, reduce biodiversity and often have been linked to the displacement of local communities.

Both reports assert that REDD is, by attempting to pay off some of the biggest destroyers of the Amazon rainforest, contrary to basic environmentalist principles. FOEI claims that the greatest beneficiaries would be those nations, companies, and individuals currently engaged in some significant degree of deforestation. In order to preserve the largest areas of forest possible, REDD would indeed target large-scale landowners, essentially by paying them enough to make it economically rational for them not to contribute in any important way to cutting down the forests. It will come as little surprise that the Maggi brothers, soya growers renowned for causing severe deforestation in the Brazilian state of Matto Grosso, have pronounced themselves in favor of the concept. Such a policy infuriates environmentalists the world over for riding rough-shod over one of the most basic principles of environmental protection: that the polluter must pay.

Nepstad, though, believes that it is precisely because people like the Maggis are predisposed to the work of REDD that the concept might just work. He claims that prohibitive measures have proven unsuccessful in protecting the natural environments across the planet against its foes. It is well known, for example, that the landowners in Matto Grosso regularly ignore government mandates to maintain forest coverage on 50-80% on their land, and any attempts to enforce such laws without a change in incentive structures would only raise the risk of leading to a state of civil disobedience. Nepstad claims that such landowners can, however, be readily encouraged to comply with environmental regulations if they are offered the carrot of funds along with greater market access. He comments positively on recent initiatives by some landowners to reduce the damage done; for example, an agreement among soya farmers to have a moratorium on new forest clearance. However, any advances achieved via REDD would still be highly dependent on the sustained inputs of funds, and it is not clear what would happen if and when such financing dried up. Nepstad claims that after a certain point, payments would indeed decline, but he does not tackle the issue why deforestation would not return to its previous rate in the absence of such finance.

Can Carbon Markets be Trusted?

Can any market really be relied upon to generate the long-term conservation of natural environments? And even if it can, wouldn´t this just allow developed countries to use REDD as a means by which to “buy their way out” of making necessary emissions cuts in their own countries? Indeed, this fear was the main reason that environmental groups like the World Wildlife Fund opposed the inclusion of deforestation in the original Kyoto Treaty, a position they have now reversed. Philip Fearnside, a researcher for the National Institute for Research in the Amazon, claims this preoccupation should not be an argument against REDD, rather it should induce efforts to form a strong policy framework with a clear limit on the number of worldwide credits which may be available. This would link REDD to wider global efforts to reduce emissions and prevent forestry carbon credits from causing a collapse of global carbon prices. Recent developments in Europe have shown, however, that carbon markets are extremely fickle: recent price reductions have often meant a cutback on clean energy development projects.

Moreover, opponents argue that such funding would not in any way address the root cause of deforestation: global demand for environmentally destructive products. Even if landowners such as the Maggis were to transfer their activities to selling “environmental services” on a significant scale, this could have the effect of increasing commodity prices for products like timber, beef, and soya, thereby encouraging greater deforestation in other areas, either by the same people or by new actors. An open market approach could prioritize certain areas of rainforests where carbon is cheap, without discouraging deforestation across the board. Proponents of market based instruments argue that financial incentives and increased market access could be used as carrots to encourage ranchers to comply with environmental laws and encourage better technology, in order to keep expanding output without deforesting. For example, Nepstad points out that advanced grazing systems could allow an eight-fold increase in grazing capacity, thereby meeting rising demand and allowing countries like Brazil to keep benefitting from their export industries without bringing on further deforestation. Such claims, though, have to be treated with caution, given that historical evidence regarding such examples of “ecological modernization” suggests that an absolute demand for resources frequently outweighs the constructive effects of greater technology and efficiency.

Implementation Problems

Implementation of REDD has been laden with problems. Again, Europe´s experience in carbon trading is armed with warnings, showing that such systems can be remarkably susceptible to being picked off by corporate lobbying. This has included the financing of dubious “clean development projects” in developing countries, and the allocation of significant quantities of money by polluting companies without any significant reduction in emissions. This, added to the fact that the majority of “rainforest nations” are institutionally weak, means that REDD can be assumed to be prone to manipulation by landowner and rancher interests alike. Any successful application of REDD would involve a significant degree of monitoring to ensure that participants receiving funds were generally reducing deforestation levels. This is theoretically possible, given that governments such as Brazil´s have improved the technology and efficiency of resources spent on prohibiting illegal logging. Also, any successful deforestation proposal, regardless of whether or not it has been dependent on market-based instruments, would be equally as dependent on extensive improvements in transparency, monitoring, and implementation.

Amazonian Populations: Salvation, or Environmental Imperialism?

REDD´s implications for South America´s indigenous and peasant communities are being highly contested. Supporters claim that it could benefit indigenous groups who have prevented environmentally destructive activity on their land. Nepstad claims that the program is inherently “pro-poor”, and that over 200,000 low-income rural families in Brazil would have their incomes doubled and social needs looked after, if they would either maintain or switch over to forest-based livelihoods. However, many indigenous organizations are suspicious of REDD, fearing that by increasing the value of forests, REDD could trigger competition in controlling indigenous and peasant land, to the detriment of the people currently living there. Such fears are understandable, but there is no inherent reason why such negative impacts must be a consequence of REDD. In the last decade, Amazonian indigenous communities have won legal recognition of their ownership of large forest parcels. As long as REDD is implemented in a way which does not way dilute such gains, communities could indeed stand to receive considerable resources from REDD. Nepstad goes even further and envisages that the percentage of Brazilian Amazon forest under indigenous or peasant ownership would actually rise from 27% to 40% in the next 10 years.

On the other hand, very few supporters or even critics of the proposal appear willing to challenge the cultural desirability of paying people simply for not exploiting a resource. Evidence from existing policies indicates the tendency for such communities to become dependent on such funds for their economic viability: like in the case of the rubber tapper reserves in Acre, for example. While such schemes may reduce deforestation levels, it is clear, according to many, that advances are solely dependent on the handouts on offer, and do not automatically constitute a genuine shift towards a non-environmentally destructive economy. As the UN has pointed out, REDD will only be considered a success if it manages to alter economic strategies in ways that permanently reduce pressure on the forest. As yet, there is no clear blueprint for how this could be achieved. Nepstad proposes that finance would need to be directly linked to the development of non-destructive economic activities, but it is not clear how these activities would remain profitable once the financing declines.

Are South America´s Governments Waking up to the Issue?

While the world´s international agencies have been trying to develop methods of reducing deforestation, there are also signs of South America´s governments waking up to many aspects of the issue. Until recently, traditionally a defensive reaction to international criticism of deforestation in the Amazon has been taken. There has long existed a broad regional consensus that the region’s forests and natural resources are the legitimate property of the nation, and that governments therefore have the right to use them for colonization, resource extraction, and the development of industries such as logging and cattle ranching. International criticism has frequently been denounced as being hypocritical on the grounds that Western countries had long destroyed their native forests, and therefore had no right to lecture the south on such issues.

Now, however, these very same countries are increasingly aware that protecting their natural heritages is essential for the long term security of their own human populations, and such countries are responding with eye-catching schemes designed to reduce deforestation with the enlightened help of developed countries. The most notable of such plans has been Brazil`s establishment of a fund to raise $21 billion from international donors by 2021. The donations would be on a voluntary basis, something which reflects Brazil´s opposition to the use of carbon trading (on the basis that it could allow developed countries to keep contaminating in their own countries, and threatens the national sovereignty of other nations). The Norwegian government has responded to the Brazilian challenge by making an offer of $1 billion with remarkably few conditions attached. Peru quickly followed suit, aiming to achieve “zero deforestation” in 10 years, although unlike Brazil´s fund, Peru explicitly aims to raise funds via the sale of carbon credits on the international market.

United in Hypocrisy

Despite such moves, there are still serious doubts over the sincerity of such governmental initiatives. The faith of the Brazilian and Peruvian governments has been called into question by environmental campaigners. Both retain the right to intensify traditional development projects in the region, a position which prompted the resignation of Marina Silva, a staunch defender of the Amazon, from Brazil´s Ministry of Environment earlier last year. Peru´s President Alan Garcia, notorious for his untrustworthiness on such matters, repeatedly has attempted to alter laws which protect indigenous territory from sale to energy companies, and even denied the existence of the country´s voluntarily isolated indigenous people, in order to further justify gas and oil exploitation in Peru´s Amazon. Given these caveats, it is suspected that governments are using such schemes to lend legitimacy to opening up the area.

If indeed it is the case that the Brazilian and Peruvian governments are essentially seeking to boost aspects of environmental protection in order to legitimize further degradation through development projects and natural resource extraction, they could not be considered any more hypocritical than any of the other debased actors. The World Bank, for example, may be increasingly encouraging conservation projects and carbon emissions reduction, but the funds it designates are still negligible in comparison to the amount it spends on encouraging environmentally destructive activities. It even made a loan to the Bertin meat-packing plant in Brazil. Critics leap on such examples of double standards as proof that the World Bank has not structurally changed from the dark old days of the 1970s and 80s, when it provided loans for destructive road-building, mining and hydroelectric dam projects, and then wrung its hands over the ensuing ecological disasters.

Whatever Happened to the Yasuní-ITT?

Amidst the hype aroused by REDD and the Brazilian and Peruvian conservation funds, the most innovative proposal of all – that made by the Ecuadorian President Rafael Correa – has slipped out of the limelight virtually unnoticed. Correa, in September 2007, amazed the world by adopting a long standing proposal from Ecuador´s environmentalist movement to forsake oil development in the Ishpingu Tambacocha Tiptuni oilfield, located in the highly bio-diverse Yasuní National Park, in return for international “compensation” to offset half of the estimated lost revenue. The Ecuadorian initiative went much further than the Brazilian and Peruvian conservation funds by explicitly tackling the link between large scale natural resource extraction and environmental degradation, and by confronting climate change at its root – avoiding carbon emissions by leaving resources underground. However, despite receiving an avalanche of praise from various European countries, the international community´s contribution has, to date, been woefully inadequate. With the economic recession already underway, it appears likely that the ITT will be exploited sooner or later. It should be noted that in spite of its leftist inclinations, the Ecuadorian government has openly promoted the proposal on the basis of selling climate credits on both voluntary and involuntary climate markets. The level of indifference from the developed world, though, demonstrates that carbon markets as they are currently constituted do not necessarily work. Any effective carbon market would have made the “carbon bonds,” as offered by the Ecuadorian government, a fantastic bargain. The probable failure of the ITT Initiative shows that while it is relatively easy for developed countries to channel funds towards the Amazon, it is a totally different issue to support any policy which threatens the root cause of climate change: unsustainable levels of consumption in the developed world.

What Would a Sustainable Planet Actually Look Like?

Despite a flurry of rhetoric and initiatives about the Amazon, it is far from clear whether deforestation can, and will, be reduced in the long term. Actors on all sides present themselves as committed environmentalists, while lustily rejecting any innovations which demand anything resembling sacrifice. While the current international economic recession may, paradoxically, offer the Amazon some respite due to falling demand for its products, it would be morally perverse to consider this development positive per se, and it certainly does not guarantee against an upswing in deforestation in the near- or middle-term future.

Perhaps the main problem is that the troubled legacy of development and economic growth in the Amazon is so profound that few people, including both proponents and opponents of REDD, can genuinely envisage a world system which could meet the needs and desires of its human population without irrevocably destroying the natural base upon which such advances are based. Focusing exclusively on large scale actors such as transnational corporations and international agencies is valid up to a point, but it can also lead discussants to ignore the uncomfortable reality that the majority of human beings have a short term, material stake in continued environmental destruction. This is made clear by the fact that most developing countries are themselves unwilling to directly confront environmentally destructive industries that are key to their own economic growth. Investigations reveal that even indigenous communities, so often lauded as being “guardians of the forest,” have frequently opted to cooperate with environmentally destructive activities and institutions in order to guarantee their own incomes. In the absence of a clear articulation of what an environmentally sustainable world would look like, the only option is to implement policies which genuinely confront the overwhelming scientific evidence of the need to make serious changes, ensuring that the burden of such policies do not fall on the world´s poor. In spite of good grounds for legitimate doubts, initiatives like REDD could be an effective way of doing this.

Carbon Markets Need to have Teeth.

Rather than the ideological issues which have proved so unpalatable to sectors of the environmental movement, the key issue regarding REDD is the nature of the details, implementation and regulation. Controlling the amount of carbon credits being offered, tight monitoring and regulation, along with key guarantees on land rights could address many legitimate criticisms, while reducing the level of polarization that exists between the supporters and critics of REDD. For this to happen, though, there needs to be a recognition by REDD proponents that it can only ever work if they make a good faith effort to accept and comprehensively deal with the failures of carbon trading to date. For many people, carbon trading would be better described as an under-regulated, easily manipulated, poorly implemented scam, rather than an effective tool for tackling climate change. Too often, carbon trading and REDD advocates talk about such game plans as if they were painless “win-win” scenarios, capable of saving the world without affecting anyone´s lifestyle.

It should by now be clear that any rational response to the problem will, at some level, place restrictions on unsustainably high levels of consumption in developed countries along with high usage levels by the elite classes of developing ones. If we follow the optimists’ line that carbon trading is indeed the most rational way of combating climate change, then they must also accept that the amount of available carbon credits must be consistent with scientific evidence rather than determined by political and economic expediency. It is axiomatic that the demand for environmentally damaging products must be repressed, and that all forms of “offsets” must be religiously monitored and regulated, with serious fines leveled at offenders. Moreover, if the market is indeed to be the savior, it will need to incorporate other fundamental aspects of a market economy; this means an escalating tax on, and ending of all subsidies in favor of, destructive fossil fuel extraction and consumption.

These policies could also fund REDD, and already have at least the ostensible support of many developing countries. Along with the transition from a voluntary carbon market to an obligatory one, environmental taxes would ensure the price of carbon remains high. The responsibility for ensuring the implementation of REDD and that carbon trading has the required teeth would fall on all actors, but predominantly on the private sector, international agencies, and governments which most strongly support them; if they continue to dilute such components enough so that they are either ineffective or grossly unequal, then such systems are bound to lose legitimacy, and the most vociferous critics will have been proved right. More importantly, the flag bearers of globalization will have missed a fleeting opportunity to save it from its own contradictions and the skepticism of its critics.

Rachel Godfrey Wood is a research fellow at the Council on Hemispheric Affairs, where this piece originally appeared.

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