Capitalism creates incentives to destroy rainforests
Friday, September 28, 2007
By: Jane Cutter
Profit-system biggest environmental threat
It’s already well known that unchecked industrial capitalism is the main source of green house gas emissions that are causing global warming. However, not only does capitalism actively create emissions through pollution, it also destroys tropical rainforests, which are a significant source of emissions reductions.
How do forests reduce green house gas emissions?
According to the Union of Concerned Scientists, "Forest plants and soils drive the global carbon cycle by sequestering
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Rainforests like this one have been depleted at an alarming rate by capitalist corporations.
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carbon dioxide through photosynthesis and releasing it through respiration. Although carbon uptake by photosynthesis eventually declines as trees age, many mature forests continue to sequester carbon in their soils."
Protecting the planet's forests is a simple way to reduce emissions and halt the trend of global warming. However, forests continue to be destroyed.
The Union of Concerned Scientists notes that "Tropical deforestation is responsible for approximately 20 percent of total human-caused carbon dioxide emissions each year," resulting in the release of 5,000 million metric tones of carbon dioxide between 1980 and 1995.
Why are the forests being destroyed?
"Instead of giving us incentives to protect our forests, the world gives countries like mine incentives to destroy them," said Kevin Conrad, speaking on behalf of Papua New Guinea. Conrad explained that products like coffee, soy beans, sugar, flowers and wood furniture are produced in developing countries through systematic deforestation.
Forests are also destroyed because people need wood for fuel and developing countries need to build roads and other infrastructure.
In Brazil and Indonesia, five million hectares of forest are lost every year. Forests are being cleared there to create palm oil plantations for bio-fuels.
In addition to increased carbon emissions, the loss of rainforest impacts the environment by degrading water quality, reducing biological diversity, damaging ecosystems and preventing natural processes like pollination.
What can be done to protect rainforests?
Right now, many countries—although not the United States or Australia—have signed on to the Kyoto protocol, which set targets for emissions reductions for economically developed nations. Under Kyoto, developed countries can invest in carbon reductions projects in developing nations and have that count toward an overall reduction in their carbon emissions level.
This is an international version of carbon offset schemes, whereby a person can pay a company to plant trees somewhere else in order to "neutralize" your personal carbon footprint. The whole concept of carbon offsetting—as opposed to simply reducing emissions—is criticized by more radical environmentalists. There is no scientific proof that a tree planted in one place will actually offset the damage from carbon emissions pollution somewhere else. Further, such plans basically allow rich nations and polluting corporations to "buy" the right to emit greenhouse gases.
Even within this framework, however, the Kyoto protocol is deeply flawed when it comes to rainforests because rainforest conservation projects do not "count" as carbon reduction projects under Kyoto. Thus, there is no incentive for developed countries participating in Kyoto to invest in rainforest protection. Nor is there any incentive for countries with rainforests to protect them.
Capitalism is the biggest threat to the environment.
The anarchy of the profit-based system leads to convoluted "solutions" like carbon offsetting to address the growing crisis of global warming. These are not solutions at all.
Socialism is the real answer to the dire problems faced by the planet and its inhabitants. Socialism is a system based on centralized economic planning without the profit motive.
While socialist planning by itself cannot resolve the environmental crisis, it lays the basis for us to organize life to meet human needs while protecting the planet that sustains us.
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