The Amazon Is Burning (Again)  

The Guardian reports the forests of the Amazon are on fire once again (via Energy Bulletin).

Veteran Amazon pilots such as Fernando Galvao Bezerra are hard men to shock. During 20 years in aviation Mr Bezerra, 45, has ferried prostitutes and wildcat miners to remote, lawless goldmines. He has taxied wealthy loggers between ranches, lost countless colleagues to malaria and once survived when his plane plummeted out of the sky.

But as his 10-seater Cessna banked over a vast expanse of burning rainforest in the state of Mato Grosso, the pilot, who now works for the environmental group Greenpeace, was virtually speechless. "Holy shit," he blurted over the plane's PA system, as the plane swung sharply to the right towards an image of destruction which owed more to a scene from Apocalypse Now than the Amazon rainforest. "Just look at the size of what this guy is burning."

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It is burning season in Brazil, and across the Amazon region, where illegal loggers, cattle ranchers and a growing number of soy producers continue their advance into their world's largest tropical forest, similar scenes are taking place. In August government satellites registered 16,592 fires across Brazil, the overwhelming majority in the Amazon.

For environmentalists the fires are one of the first indications that deforestation is once again on the rise. Over the last two years fears for the future of the Amazon have been tempered by news of a reduction in deforestation. In August the Brazilian government heralded a 30% drop in rainforest destruction - the result, it said, of a government deforestation plan launched in March 2004. The plan outlined the creation of conservation units and 19 anti-deforestation units in deforestation hotspots such as Novo Progresso and Apui.

Great achievement

Marina Silva, Brazil's environment minister, claimed the drop was a clear indication that the Action Plan for Amazon Deforestation Prevention and Control was working. "It is a great achievement for Brazilian society," she said. Many, however, believe the good news is about to run out.

Already there are signs that rainforest destruction is gathering speed. Deforestation in the states of Mato Grosso and Para is reportedly rising, with chainsaws and forest fires levelling thousands of hectares of pristine forest. Figures released last week by Brazil's space agency, INPE, show that between May and July of this year there was a 200% rise in deforestation in Mato Grosso.

Further north, in the Amazon state of Para, local ranchers and environmental activists claim a similar process is under way. Flying over the south-western corner of Para the tell-tale signs that logging continues at a staggering rate are everywhere: in the illegal dirt tracks that trail through the forest and the trucks that are dotted along them; in the charred trees that litter the landscape; and most strikingly in the newly deforested areas, which have turned the landscape into a messy patchwork of dark green and dull brown.

"It [the level of deforestation] is definitely going to rise," said Agamenon da Silva Menezes, the president of the Rural Workers Union in the Amazon town of Novo Progresso and one of the region's most powerful farmers. "Lula [president of Brazil) says what he says because it is beneficial for him. But this year they have chopped down much more. What I am supposed to say to the guys [to stop them?]" added Mr Menezes.

Mr Menezes compared the illegal actions of the loggers to the American invasion of Iraq. If George Bush could attack a country out of financial interest, why could the loggers not do the same to the rainforest, he wondered.

On the other side of the Atlantic, the forests of the Congo are being chopped down rather than burnt down - a peace dividend for local loggers.

In a strange twist, this general dilapidation--the result of Congo's traumatic history--has inadvertently preserved Congo's massive tropical forests. First, Mobutu Sese Seko's thirty-two-year kleptocracy destroyed what infrastructure the Belgians had built. Then years of civil war and invasion by Uganda and Rwanda took an estimated 4 million lives, through violence and the attendant ravages of disease. All this chaos warded off the great timber interests. As a result the Congo Basin's massive forests--most of which lie within the DRC--are the world's healthiest and most intact.

An estimated 40 million people depend on these woodlands, surviving on traditional livelihoods. At a global level, Congo's forests act as the planet's second lung, counterpart to the rapidly dwindling Amazon. They are a huge "carbon sink," trapping carbon that could otherwise become carbon dioxide, the main cause of global warming. The Congo Basin holds roughly 8 percent of the world's forest-based carbon. These jungles also affect rainfall across the North Atlantic. In other words, these distant forests are crucial to the future of climate stability, a bulwark against runaway climate change.

But the isolation of the DRC's woodlands is ending. Since 2003 a massive United Nations mission has helped create relative stability, though several vicious and overlapping wars continue to gnaw at the country's eastern regions. Now most of the DRC is safe for logging. Over the past four years timber firms have set upon the forest in search of high-priced hardwoods. They control about one-quarter of Congo's forests, an area the size of California.

Blessed by the World Bank as catalysts of development, the companies operate largely unsupervised because the DRC lacks a functioning system of forest control. The government has written a new forestry code that requires companies to invest in local development and follow a supposedly sustainable, twenty-five-year cycle of rotational logging. But many companies ignore these stipulations; some have used intimidation and bribery; others log in blatantly illegal ways with no regard for the long-term damage they are causing.

And now the massive mahogany, afromosia, teak and wenge trees of Congo are making their way downriver, past the lower falls and over the sea to re-emerge as parquet flooring and lawn furniture in the homes of French, Italian and Chinese yuppies.

If these woodlands are deforested, the carbon they trap will be released into the atmosphere. Environmentalists say that if deforestation continues unabated, by 2050 the DRC could release as much carbon dioxide as Britain has in the past sixty years. On the ground, this would likely mean desertification, mass migration, hunger, banditry and war.

But an effort is afoot to halt Congo's plunder. "This is a make or break period," says Filip Verbelen, a forest campaigner with Greenpeace. "Logging is not helping the DRC's economy, and it is destroying the environment. The damage has to be contained now before it is too late."

PhysOrg has an article on an Irish wave energy company that is testing a device called the "Wavebob" and wants Ireland to be the "Saudi Arabia of wave energy".

A prototype wave energy converter has begun harnessing electricity from Atlantic waves off the west coast of Ireland, the Wavebob company said on Tuesday A "Wavebob" floating buoy device that automatically adjusts to the size of the waves to maximise the amount of power it produces is undergoing trials off Spiddal, County Galway.

"This is a giant leap forward for renewable energy production in Ireland," said Wavebob chief executive Andrew Parish. "As an island in the middle of the energetic Atlantic Ocean, Ireland can be to wave-energy what Saudi Arabia is to oil. The more we exploit this unlimited natural resource, the better it will be, not just for the global environment, but also for the Irish consumer's pocket," he said.

The quarter-scale prototype device involved in the trials is not connected to the national grid. At full scale, each Wavebob device will be capable of producing in excess of a megawatt -- enough electricity for 1,000 homes. Part of the strategy of Ireland's Energy Minister, Eamon Ryan, a member of the Green Party, is to have 500 megawatts of ocean energy installed by 2020.

TreeHugger has a post on the bleedin obvious - "Feedback Loop: Global Warming Could Threaten U.S. Oil Output".

Well, duh. A new report from scientists in the Energy Department suggests that global warming may produce stronger hurricanes that could disrupt U.S. oil production in the Gulf of Mexico and damage ports and pipelines along the coast that move fuel supplies.

"Increases in storm intensity could threaten further (energy supply) disruptions of the sorts experienced in 2005," the report said. In addition to seasonal damage from stronger storms, rising sea levels due to global warming permanently threatens many oil refineries, liquefied natural gas terminals and coal import and export facilities located along the U.S. coasts.

So the faster we burn the oil, the faster the global warming, and the more quickly we run out of oil as we drown out our processing facilities. Why not burn less and solve both problems?

Cleantech.com reports that Germany company Hochtief is to build a geothermal plant in southern Germany.

The company is forming a venture with Renerco and SachsenFonds to build and operate a 5 megawatt plant. Essen, Germany-based construction contractor Hochtief said today it's forming a venture to build and operate a 5 megawatt geothermal plant. Hochtief is putting 35 million euros into the venture, which it will control with a 40 percent stake. Called Süddeutsche Geothermie-Projekte, the venture will include Renerco, a renewable energy services company, and financial services provider SachsenFonds. The two companies will each hold 30 percent.

The plant, to be built in Bavaria, is just the first of many for Hochtief, which said it is "positioning itself in good time for the growing geothermal energy market." The company said it plans, with its partners, to build and operate further power plants, each with an output of four to five megawatts in the South German Molasse basin, where the venture already has the necessary permits.

Hochtief said it will initially focus on the geothermal market in Germany, eventually expanding internationally.

The Crikey editorial today was in praise of the Chaser team's pursuit of the Rodent and of their habit to speak their minds.

Everyone got stuck into the Chaser over their Eulogy Song -- watch it here -- talkback seethed, shock jocks fumed, the ABC switchboard took as many as six calls.

What was the worst of it? That Chaser's Andrew Hanson sang that Diana might have died spattered in ''Arab s-men''? That Stan Zemanek was a malignant, bull-necked xenophobe? That Don Bradman was a grumpy old tight-wad? Nope. The worst of it was, it so quickly emerged, that the worst offence was to give offence. Welcome to the age of politeness triumphant, the era of the anodyne. ''Pick on someone who's alive'' the PM told the Chaser crew this morning through gritted teeth and presumably ruling himself out of contention. Spot on we reckon. They should.

For further proof of how over-moderated public life has become, cast an eye over federal politics (and both campaigns have had nothing better to do for the last 36 hours than take pots at The Chaser). The base rule of modern politics is say what you like as long as it has been pre-polled, homogenised and sanitised for broad audience appeal. Whatever you do, don't so much as give a subliminal impression that might startle the horses or offend some demographic segment or other.

Which is all very well, expect that as well as enforcing the dominance of the bland it also argues against conviction and belief. At risk of giving offence, fuck that.

Links:

* Bloomberg - Crude Oil Breaches $90 a Barrel on Dollar Drop Against Euro
* The Australian - Delays slash Woodside forecast
* The Australian - Petsec upbeat despite production hiccup
* The Australian - Keeping natural gas fires burning. If natural gas is the "transition fuel to the low carbon economy" then it better be a quick transition.
* Dave Roberts - Coal is the enemy of the human race: Human race figures it out edition: Bad news abounds for Big Coal
* American Chronicle - Iraq and Iran, Oil, Politics and Religion
* Globe And Mail - Putin pans 'pointless' Iraq war in TV address
* The Australian - Climate brews clean power billions
* The Nation - The Making of a Climate Movement
* Boston Globe - Red, white, blue, and green
* Thisisby.us - Dennis Kucinich, the Unknown Front Runner
* USA Daily - Ron Paul has mandate for equal time during Fox News debate
* John Le Carre - Congo Journey
* Redmond O'Hanlon - Congo Journey