(“Vaikeu the Jaguar Gazes at Us,” photo by Susan Perz, c. 2018)
What does the Amazon Rainforest “tipping point” really mean? Numerous scientists agree that 80 percent of the Amazon Rainforest must be protected by 2025. If not, it may not be able to recover—and when large areas of trees die, the decaying trees will begin giving off more carbon—as much as 150-200 billion tons of carbon over the next 30-50 years, which the earth’s climate cannot absorb, notes Carlos Nobre, Brazilian climate scientist, who was interviewed recently at the global climate summit, COP27 in Egypt, (by Fermin Koop, published December 9, 2022 in Dialogo Chino, entitled “Carlos Nobre: ‘Nature more powerful for Amazon economy than extraction.’”)
I read about Nobre’s statements in Koop’s article the week before Christmas and I felt as if I was in the twilight zone for several days as I slowly absorbed the seriousness of where we are as an earth family. Yesterday, the New York Times published an article discussing these concerns “Has the Amazon Reached Its ‘Tipping Point.’” by Alex Cuadros. This article provided more details and longer explanations. Both articles emphasize that the destruction of Amazon is preventable, but questions remain about how much damage has occurred. The Amazon creates its own rain, its own weather, and its own atmospheric rivers that hold more water than its land rivers, affecting the weather in Brazil, as far as North America, and even worldwide. The Amazon Rainforest has been called the earth’s air conditioner. If you want to understand the beauty and magnificence of the Amazon’s ecosystem better, “Amazonia’s Flying Rivers—No Forest No Water” is a 25-minute video with captivating scenery and clear explanations (which on the Amazon Regional Observatory website.) The Amazon has cooling affects on the Atlantic and Pacific oceans. If the Amazon Rainforest dies, its decaying trees could raise the earth’s temperature and trigger other climate change tipping points around the world.
The Amazon Rainforest is of course, inherently worth saving to protect the rights of the indigenous people who live there and care for it, for its beauty, for the immeasurable wildlife of its ecosystems, for its benefits to the people of Brazil, for its uniqueness as an environmental world treasure, and for many other reasons that are beyond words.
Newly elected Brazilian President Luis Inacio Lula da Silva has promised to end deforestation in the Amazon. He has reinstated Marina Silva, former environmental minister (who was previously immensely successful in reducing deforestation when in office,) and he has created a new Ministry of Indigenous Peoples and appointed indigenous leader Sonia Guajajara to head the agency. She was elected to Congress in October, is head of the main indigenous umbrella group for Brazil’s tribes, and was named as one of Time Magazine’s 100 most influential people, according to Fabiano Maisonnave’s article, “Brazil will have first indigenous woman chief for key post,” AP News, December 30, 2022.
But the Amazon Rainforest, its indigenous peoples, and the governments wishing to protect it, face strong pressures from outside corporations, especially agribusinesses in soy and cattle, fossil fuels, mining, and logging companies.
Many of these corporations involved are based in the U.S.—including banks that finance these activities and insurance companies that insure them. Amazon Watch and other nonprofits have initiated campaigns to divest from some of these corporations and/or to influence investors and decision-makers to stop their destructive involvement that fosters deforestation and the stealing of land from indigenous people in the Amazon. Blackrock, JP Morgan Chase, Vanguard, Wells Fargo, and others have been named as supporters of deforestation in the Amazon.
What is OUR responsibility in the U.S.?
Divestment—which means moving private investments in stocks and bonds away from corporations that support deforestation—and into investments in organizations that support renewable energies like wind and solar—has become increasingly popular and powerful. New banks are emerging that only invest in renewables. Some religious churches and other organizations have resources for divestment on their websites. Many states have “Interfaith Power and Light” organizations in which many religious groups have joined together to work for renewable energy and other climate solutions. Here is the Utah IP&L site which discusses divestment. Here is the national Interfaith Power & Light site. Catholic Pope Francis’ Laudato si raised ethical responsibilities for addressing climate change—and the Laudatosimovement has resources for divestment. Here are some resource links for how to divest from fossil fuels and reinvest in renewable energies and organic family farms instead of agribusinesses. Greenamerica.org, 350.org, and WECAN, Women’s Earth and Climate Action Network, International.
A fossil fuel Non-proliferation Treaty has been proposed by Pacific Island nations. It is of urgent critical importance in preventing climate change. This means reframing how we think about energy production—and a shift to renewables like wind and solar—which is already happening and is already more cost effective if the subsidies for fossil fuels are removed—which needs to happen ASAP.
Fossil fuels are one of the culprits in Amazon deforestation and the they pose the biggest threat to Africa’s Congo Basin forests which are the second largest rainforests on Earth, according to Climate Home News article, “Oil not charcoal the biggest threat to Congo rainforest, top researcher warns,” by Choloe Farand, August 28, 2022.
A reframe for how we produce food is also happening and resets—really good new models are already here.
A Non-proliferation Treaty for large corporate agribusiness and factory farms is also needed because these corporations are destroying forests and wetlands all over the earth—and they usually increase poverty for displaced (i.e. kicked out) local farmers and local people. In many areas, agribusinesses find ways to bottom-line steal land that is owned and occupied by indigenous peoples. Many indigenous land protectors have been killed as well as some reporters trying to protect the Amazon Rainforest over the past few years. Agribusinesses and plantations make big money for a small group of people at the expense of the environment, the earth’s climate, and increased poverty for local people and small farmers whose small farm livelihoods and ecosystems are often destroyed. As forests are cleared for agribusinesses. local ecosystems are also upended and wildlife habitats are destroyed, which is one of the biggest drivers of the wildlife extinction crisis facing the earth alongside climate change.
Agribusiness and large plantation deforestation drives climate change, poverty, less healthy food production, pesticide pollution, waterways pollution, soil degradation, and wildlife extinction from habitat loss all over the world. Forests in Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand, Nigeria, Guatemala, Columbia, and Ecuador are being destroyed by palm oil agribusinesses and plantations. Palm oil agribusinesses have also deforested areas of Africa’s Congo Basin and Cameroon, according to the Pulitzer Center’s article “Primary Forest Loss in Congo Basin Escalates in 2020,” by Madeleine Ngeunga. Canada’s old-growth Boreal Forest is facing threats from logging, mining, agriculture, and fossil fuels. Two important documentaries, Kiss the Ground, and To Which We Belong, (among others,) have discussed the importance of reframing how we think about food production and the need to move away from factory farms and agribusinesses toward more organic farming methods—because soil—when it is not degraded—stores tremendous amounts of carbon—among other equally important benefits. Animal feed made from soy and palm oil is less healthy than grass-feeding—and sources of soy and palm nuts come mostly from agribusinesses that destroy forests for the benefit of these large corporations—not local small farmers. Grass-fed milk, beef, and other foods is now considered more healthy than grain-fed sources of foods. Organic Valley is a cooperative of small family farms in the United States that banded together so they could stay committed to organic, regenerative ways of farming—and they have successfully resisted the agribusiness model. I personally love their organic milk because it is creamier and lasts as much as a month in my fridge, unlike regular milk that lasts maybe a week. I love that their animals are pasture-raised and they have grass-fed milk. (I have no affiliation with Organic Valley—I am just inspired by organic cooperatives that support small family businesses and operate in truly sustainable ways.). Here is a website for Neighboring Food Co-op Association’s (NFCA), that lists many organic food cooperatives and fair trade food farms. It lists lots of farms in all these categories: dairy, grocery, meat and seafood, produce, refrigerated, wellness (health and beauty aids), bulk products, wine and beer, other products and services.
We can email and call our senators, representatives and the White House comment line to support a national call for a Climate Emergency Declaration, U.S. signing of the Fossil Fuel Non-proliferation Treaty, and the creation of an international Non-proliferation Treaty of Factory Farms and Agribusinesses. The White House phone numbers are the comment line: 202-456-1111 and the switchboard: 202-456-1414.
Small business cooperatives are important models for doing business because they are run by regular local people who care about their communities, neighbors, coworkers and local environments—instead of corporations run by small boards of people who usually don’t live nearby. Cooperatives run by regular people who live nearby or who have small businesses that cooperate—usually live where they are working and doing business—so they care about how their business practices affect themselves, their families, their communities, their wildlife, and their natural environments. Did you know that it is a common practice for industries to not only pollute air and water, but they also often inject polluting chemicals into the ground that they are located on? Also the cumulative effect of air pollution of multiple factories located near each other is often not considered when an individual factory requests a permit from environmental agencies.
Brazil’s President, who often goes by “Lula,” has promised to seek $100 billion in funds from developed countries to help protect the Amazon Rainforest—and rightfully so. I hope you can see how foreign corporations in developed countries, including the U.S., have contributed to the destruction of the Amazon Rainforest. I wish there was an easy way to make those corporations and the individuals who have made the most money from their deforestation pay for Amazon restoration. Those who destroy—are those who should pay to restore. Until governments—or we, as citizens, are ready to create a class-action lawsuit against these corporations and their CEOs, it will fall to our governments to pay for these restorations—or we may all perish.
Other Economic Models
Nonprofit businesses and industries can pay their employees or members well—while earning money doing good for people, the environment, and communities. Industries like healthcare, pharmaceuticals, energy, and food production could all be nonprofit—and as nonprofits could probably pay better salaries that provide a people a good living—unlike many large corporations who have to pay obscene salary packages to CEOs and pay shareholders. However, nonprofits need to NOT be run by for-profit entities, and if they receive donations, their donations need to be restricted to small donations—not dominated by large donations that make them dependent on corporations.
A wonderful positive example is the Tampa Bay Times, which is a profitable for-profit company that is owned by a nonprofit. The Tampa Bay Times continues to serve its larger community instead of just the cities, by delivering its newspaper to large rural areas even though providing newspapers to rural areas is not highly profitable. It also prides itself on its reporting integrity that has been protected for decades by never being dependent on advertising revenue. A nonprofit can own a for-profit business—like the Tampa Bay Times—but when corporations own or make big donations to nonprofits—the profit motive often distorts the nonprofit’s ability to function impartially or ethically—or the nonprofit may feel it must compromise its ethics to please its corporate donors. Some corporations create and fund their own nonprofits as front “citizens” groups to push their own profit-based agendas that are all too often ultimately unhealthy for families and communities.
Nonprofit and Government Banks are desperately needed in every city and state. The Bank of North Dakota is the only government bank in the country and remained incredibly stable through the recessions of the past few decades. Government and nonprofit banks can direct profits toward more community and family supporting projects and use more family and community-friendly criteria for granting loans.
More solution-focused articles to come.