When Clean Energy Is Not Enough

The world's appetite for clean energy has never been so great.  Global warming, with its shadow of impending doom, is largely to blame for this obsession with alternative energy.  And rightly so.   But the world should not miss the forest for the trees in its glorious pursuit of (green) happiness.  Though clean energy is a commendable solution to meet our growing demand for energy, other environmental issues should not be sacrificed in the process.

And that is essentially what a federal court in Brazil avoided last week when it suspended the construction of potentially the world's third largest hydroelectric dam (the "Bel Monte dam") for failure to consult with indigenous communities in the Amazon region.  The federal court's decision stated that the Brazilian Congress acted illegally in giving the green light for the project without consulting with indigenous tribes living in the area.  As this renders the project's environmental license invalid, the consortium conducting the project is liable to a daily fine of 500,000 Brazilian reais (US$247,500) if construction continues.

Brazil has one of the world's most diversified energy matrices. According to Brazilian government data, 45.3% of its energy is generated from renewable sources, such as water, biomass, ethanol, wind and solar sources.  Hydroelectric power plants, such as the would-be Bel Monte dam, generate over 75% of the electricity used in Brazil.   As the Amazon region depends heavily on fossil fuels for energy, the Brazilian government is adamant on pressing ahead with the Bel Monte project to make the region more self-sufficient.

Brazil is also home to almost half a million indigenous people, whose ancestors pre-date Brazil's European discovery by the Portuguese in 1500.  If construction of the dam goes ahead, approximately 500 square kilometers of land along the Xingu River in the Amazon would be flooded.  According to official government estimates, this would displace some 16,000 people, with environmentalists putting the number much higher at 40,000.  The project may also adversely affect large areas of the rainforest and fish stocks upon which indigenous people depend on.

In his ruling, the judge noted the consortium's failure to follow an international law known as the International Labor Organization Convention No. 169 ("the ILO Convention"), ratified by Brazil in 2002, which demands consultations of tribal and indigenous people, before work can commence in areas that may affect them.  The Convention seeks to protect tribal peoples' right to, amongst other things, own the land they live on and to make decisions about projects that may ultimately have an adverse impact on their lives.

The court's decision comes as a surprise given that Brazil's Solicitor-General recently signed a directive that opens up all indigenous lands to mineral, dams, roads, military bases and other developments of "national interest' without the need to consult with or address concerns of indigenous people.  Not only is the directive in clear violation of the ILO Convention, but it has also been described as "unconstitutional" by Brazil's Public Prosecutor's Office.

Ultimately, the court's decision may do little to prevent the construction of the Bel Monte dam.  The consortium may appeal and win.  Alternatively, the Brazilian Congress may expedite consultations with indigenous tribes to satisfy procedural requirements.  The decision highlights inherent tensions in environmental policies that seek to promote clean energy to sustain economic growth on one hand, and sustainable development on the other. Decision-makers are caught in the middle by having to engage in a balancing act that may not always produce the best results, nor protect the most valuable interests.
"The fundamental question that Brazilians must re-examine is not merely how to balance different stakeholder interests, but how do we deal with our growing energy consumption" says Kamila Guimaraes De Moraes, a Brazilian environmental lawyer and Capes Foundation researcher at The Federal University of Santa Catarina in Brazil.

The development of clean forms of energy is a worthwhile pursuit as the world struggles to tame global warming.  But it may not have the impact we so eagerly anticipate if it is not accompanied by a more fundamental -- cultural -- change. That is, recalibrating our hunger for energy writ-large.  Any other solution is likely to merely treat the symptoms of a problem that can arguably only be resolved by an etiological solution.  Says Ms. Guimaraes: "We must therefore reassess our way of life."

Originally published on OpEdNews http://www.opednews.com/articles/When-Clean-Energy-Is-Not-E-by-Lucas-Bento-120827-911.html

The Banker Beggar's Loss

The Banker Beggar’s Loss

The beggar asked the banker,

Sir! Can you spare a dime or two,

The banker ignored the beggar,

So the beggar ignored him too.

The next day the beggar refined,

His fine begging-a-beggar-begot ,

And so he asked, once more, the banker:

Sir may you lend me a dime or two.

Those days were bright and sunny,

And so the banker lent the beggar some change,

Zero interest, the banker said.

“No interest?”

“Yes, I am not interested in you.”

The days went by and the beggar,

With his refined verbal abilities,

Amassed such a big fortune,

That good fortune became his deed.

When the market crashed like a wave

Crashing on a helpless angry rock,

The beggar, now rich, looked at the banker,

And asked him if he’d like to sell his stock.

The banker sold for a loss, all his shares -

And all his stock,

In return for all the beggar’s fortune

(which he kept in his holeless socks).

The beggar then tried selling the stock,

To the people in the streets,

The same people he was begging from

In the early mornings of last week!

But in a tragic turn of events,

The market emerged from defeat,

And the beggar, poor beggar,

Now had worthless stock,

And no socks to warm his feet.

The beggar asked the banker,

Sir! Can you spare a dime or two,

The banker ignored the beggar,

So the beggar ignored him too.

A life of Capital Letters

In the beginning there was something,

Which expired in the end,

An illusion? A trick? A mirage?

A broken toy which you cannot mend.


A sentence starts with a Capital letter

A big, majestic imposter!

Full of character!

But ends timidly,

Lonely,

With a full stop;

Perhaps still (a) character?

But unworthy of a letter.



Live life like an open,

Open-ended sentence

No full stops.

Live big,

Majestically,

Live life like a Capital Letter.

A Plastic Life

He focuses on the plastic.

Looking down at it, focused.

His voice disintegrates into textual ashes.

The world fades away, sober.

His fingertips extend virtual touches,

But fail to capture the soul’s thunder.

Yet he focuses on this plastic.

Like magic.

Looking down at it, hypnotized.

Looking sideways he dares not,

For his life lives in this gadget.

Connected to all,

Yet disconnected from life.

He lives on the plastic.

Reaching out for it, excited!

The mastery of the swipe!

Enslaves his soul to his skill,

Leading him to confound

Fantasy with what’s real.

He owns the thing, yes,

But fails to feel

The warm pleasure of joining a family’s evening meal.

His soul becomes plastic.

A hard processed thing; a lifeless fiction,

With no desires, no Life!

i.e. no dialectical contradictions,

With no fire, no spark!

Nothing

But for the plastic’s cancerous fruition.

On Revolutions, Tectonic Plates and Oil Prices

The price of oil has risen dramatically over the past few months. Oil prices have shot up 20% since December 2010 and are more than double what they were in 2005. What role, if any, has civil unrest in the Middle East and the Japanese tsunami’s aftermath played in this price increase?

Check out my new article at: http://balise.info/EN/balise-issue-2_4.php

Making sense of life

We are, therefore, divided by two great forces,
Our development shaped dualistically,
Our existence, binarily.
Divided by life and death,
Heaven and hell,
Right and wrong,
Positive and negative,
Light and darkness.
What lies in between lives in our memories.
Like a bridge that floats
Isolated from it's destination.

Where time and space intersect,
Where man and nature interact,
Where land and sea meet,
When semen and ovary combine,
The potency of the Divine is witnessed,
No void exists then.
The spirit of life continues to live in linear form.
We do not evolve, nor do we progress.
We merely peel off the next layer
Of what has already been crafted for us.

The magic of life is the experience;
Its tragedy: not being able to make sense of it.

Can Trade Law Prevent War?

Can trade promote cooperation and consequently prevent war?

Can trade law, in promoting trade, prevent war?

I've written a new article exploring these issues - feel free to read it at USLEXCODEX by clicking here.