Guest Entry: A short story on Brazil's colonial forests

By: Diogo Cabral

Are there any positive aspects of deforestation? Well, since humanity spent most of its time on Earth devastating forests, there must be! Historians tends to be very careful when judging past human actions. Indeed, for pre-modern humans, the forest had to be used. We can imagine the astonishment with which those men and women would react to the idea of preserving the forest. With the exception of a tiny intellectual elite – in fact, only a small portion within that elite – the conversion of forest was not seen as something bad.

Most people conceived of clearing and burning the forest as the inevitable progress of the great human "home". Snakes, scorpions, spiders, mosquitoes, fleas, ticks, ants and other forest dwellers can be just minor annoyances when one has nylon tents, rubber boots, mosquito repellent, and antidotes to poisons; but not when one’s only weapons are scythes, firebrands and the faith in the Creator. Clearing the forest was not necessarily "destruction", but a natural transition from a dark, messy and dangerous space to a lighted, orderly and reliable place.

In fact, when one speaks of forest destruction or degradation, one misses much of the bigger picture. The “declensionist narrative” – as it is known in the historiographical community – flows in an one-way street: this kind of account tells the story of the decaying forest or that the forest environment was devastated but misses the wider implications. More fruitful is to view deforestation as a two-way street or, to use more philosophical terms, as a dialectical process.

Deforestation is not only an effect suffered by the forest because the deforesters themselves change along the way; conceptions about nature and abundance were transformed; techniques were modified and capital was created; cultural identities and boundaries were recreated; social inequalities were softened or hardened; the world, after all, is hardly the same after deforestation. This is not to say that nothing bad stemmed from past deforestation or that “this is the way things had to happen”. The environmental-dialectical vantage point only stresses that historical events do not occur in isolation but in networks or totalities. It's a more comprehensive approach to write history.

This conception can help us understand more completely the implications of different uses of the forest in the past. Of special importance is the study of the fortunes of the forests of less developed countries like Brazil. “Deforestation is a tragedy”, wrote the American historian Shawn Miller, “deforestation is an unmitigated disaster if little or no benefit is taken in the process”. He was referring to the process of economic appropriation of Brazil’s coastal forests. Unlike the United States or Canada, Brazil did not develop a vibrant timber industry in the colonial period. Most of the tropical rain forest was burned and not timbered. Colonists burned the woods to obtain biomass ashes, a powerful fertilizer for the soil. In fact they obtained huge profits raising sugarcane using this method.

At the end of eighteenth century, the Portuguese America, with half the settled area of British America, exported roughly the same value in commodities. The problem – although not a problem to the colonists themselves at the time – is that sugar plantations generated less economic linkages (or development) than timber exploitation. Because of the gigantic land lots, only the later sugar plantations were driven to market to obtain firewood. So small demand did not encourage competition and entrepreneurship in the timber sector. So capital investment and technological advancement in the milling industry were not present. So the production of iron – an indispensable raw material to the building of sawmills – was not encouraged inside the colony. And so on.

It must be said, however, that the small commercial harnessing of the Brazilian timber was not only due to the workings of sugar plantations. The forest itself posed serious difficulties to the establishment of a staple timber economy. The main problem was that, unlike temperate hardwoods and conifers, tropical hardwood species are pretty much scattered across the landscape. It is very difficult to find a cluster of, let’s say, rosewood. An all extractive economy, by definition, is built on a homogeneous basis of natural resources. In fact, all early modern extractive economies were organized upon large spatial concentrations of resources: animal skins, fish, wood and all kinds of "spice".

Standard products are especially important in international timber markets where demand in most cases is for very specific uses. Ironically, because of their greater wealth, the forests of the tropics provided very little incentive to commercial exploitation on a large scale.

Diogo Cabral is a visiting PhD student in Environmental History at UBC. He is visiting from the Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro in Brazil.

The Future of Oil

Jeff Rubin, author of Why your world is about to get a whole lot smaller, and Canadian journalist, Andrew Nikiforuk discuss the economic, environmental and social implications of conventional oil. The video is courtesy of TVO and was filmed at the Rotman School of Management at U of T earlier this year.

Jeff thinks that we have not reached peak oil per se, but a series of forthcoming commodity price shocks will make the price of oil more volatile and push it over $100 a barrel and eventually to $200 a barrel. Conventional oil is becoming more scarce but the unconventional stuff found in the Alberta's oil sands or in Venezuela, is plentiful but will become really expensive in the near future. Off-shore drilling has provided cheap oil to this planet for many years, but disasters like the recent Gulf Oil spill point to the precarious nature of such a process and the enormous risks posed to ecology and human beings.

"The world isn’t about to run out of oil—it’s just running out of oil that we can afford to burn. And whether we move goods by air, ship, truck or rail, the global economy runs on oil".

"In order to insulate ourselves from even greater oil price shocks in the future, we must move from the hugely energy-intensive model of a global economy to the far more sustainable model of a local economy. And that means we must re-engineer our lives to adapt to the contours of a much smaller world."

Andrew Nikiforuk is an outspoken critique of the Alberta oil sands which he regards as a petro state. He draws our attention to the negative environmental ramifications of the project and how it is tainting our image internationally. He also suggests that there are smart petro states such as Norway who have sovereign funds that help stabilize the oil economy. In essence, they maintain good oil production while diversifying the economy. They invest oil revenue into many sectors of the economy and also put money aside for future generations. Canada has lost over 300,000 jobs in the manufacturing sector because of an appreciating petro dollar. Without diversifying the economy, petro states will inevitably push up their real exchange rate and contract Dutch Disease.

Anyway, check out the video.

Harnessing power from our ocean waves

Image credit: The Future of Things

A recent post from the New York Times' Green Blog provides an optimistic overview of an up-and-coming renewable energy called tidal power. In short, tidal power converts the energy of tides into electricity or other useful forms of power. The tidal forces produced by the Moon and Sun, in combination with Earth's rotation, are responsible for the generation of the tides. The image above is a tidal power generator which simply draws energy from ocean currents in a way similar to how wind turbines draw energy from wind.

Two excerpts from the Green blog:

"Tides are particularly attractive sources of power because they are predictable, unlike sunshine and wind. Not surprisingly, countries with rough seas like Britain and Portugal are leading the way in exploring ocean power".

"The European Energy Association estimates that, globally, the oceans could yield over 100,000 terawatt hours a year if the technology to harness that power can be perfected. That is more than five times the electricity the world uses in a year".

Read more about this form of renewable energy here.

Bike Lane Debate in Vancouver

Urban bike lanes always face opposition. People say they hurt businesses, they take space away from motorists, they are too expensive etc etc. We had a guest post in the summer from the Executive Director of the Toronto Cyclists Union that challenged many of the conventional arguments made against bike lanes.

On a separate note, I was speaking with a physicist who argued that bike lanes make cyclists less conscious of their surrounding environment and are thus more at a risk of colliding into a motorist. He suggested that bike lanes have rumble strips to make both cyclists and motorists more attentive and aware of their lanes.

My friend and classmate, William Dunn, recently wrote a short and excellent story about a new bike lane in Vancouver that has generated a lot controversy. In short, City Council recently approved the Hornby bike trial which is a protected cycling track in downtown Vancouver.

Will writes:

"The City’s decision to re-appropriate public streets for the creation of a protected cycling track has been one of the most divisive civic issues in memory. News1130 and other media have labeled it a misappropriation of public space and funds, business owners along the routes are furious, and motorists grow increasingly frustrated. With City Council’s October 5 decision to approve the Hornby bike trial, the debate seems destined to intensify".

Read more here.

Urban Planning Innovation in NYC

The video below, courtesy of The Infrastructurist, discusses a number of urban planning initiatives underway in New York City. With Mayor Bloomberg's leadership, the city has done a remarkable job at creating more space for pedestrians in Times Square. Once riddled with non-stop motor traffic, Times Square has become safer for pedestrians, a more enjoyable social space for people of New York and has had a positive impact on businesses (more foot traffic instead of motor traffic). There are also many transit initiatives underway which you can see in the video. Well done, NYC.

The environmental impact of right-wing populism...

Incumbents beware. Governments around the world are shaking in their boots as elections, and the prospect of finding new work, loom ever closer. As is common with any recession, incumbent governments take much of the heat. No matter what else is going on in the world, if the economy is performing poorly and unemployment rears its ugly head, people focus on it and only it. And the government is at fault if it isn't fixed soon.

But this recession has been among the worst in recent history. In some places, its impact has been the worst since the Great Depression. The unfortunate reality of a recession is that with less money being made, the government makes less income through taxes. And with less tax income comes a smaller provision of services. Budget gets tight, programs get cut and ties get severed. Any rational thinker knows that if you want to maintain public services -- which are even more important in less prosperous times -- you need to raise taxes. But from a political standpoint, there are few more lethal land mines.

Threats of necessary tax raises have given rise to populism. In the United States, no recent populist movement has been stronger and more influential than the right-wing Tea Party Movement. Among many other things, the Tea Party folks are staunchly opposed to taxes, government regulation and almost all forms of government involvement in the daily lives of people. The November midterms could throw some Tea Party-backed Republicans -- having beaten out other established Republicans in the primaries because they weren't right wing enough -- into Congress.

This could spell disaster for environmental policy in the world's most powerful superpower. The Tea Party Movement -- and I generalize here -- still questions the impact and existence of climate change. Putting cap-and-trade or carbon tax policies into place are a no no, as is banning or reducing the level of offshore drilling, despite the BP disaster earlier this summer. Subsidies for renewable energy or public transit that might cost taxpayers money? Forget it.

Sadly, in order for most environmental programs and projects to be successful, they need to be funded out of the public purse. Privately-funded 'green' projects can be successful, but some tend to be tied to 'greenwashing' or green marketing while delivering very few actual results. Free market proponents argue that if the environment is as important as we claim, the market will reflect it by providing value to it. Well, that isn't quite how it works. And you can be sure it won't happen if Tea Party folks get into Washington.

Even closer to home in Canada, the Toronto mayoral race has given way to populism so strong, many are left dumbfounded. Rob Ford, a controversial City Councillor -- whose colourful history includes rants fuelled by homophobia and racism, drug charges and even getting ejected from a Toronto Maple Leafs game -- has taken everyone by surprise by leading the polls in the October race for leadership of Canada's flagship city. His 'regular guy' approach has attracted those who fear Toronto is becoming the playground of the elite. But if he comes to power, the city's environmentally progressive reputation -- along with much of its progressive reputation -- could fall by the wayside.

Rob Ford believes bike lanes are stupid. Roads are for cars and cars only. Other 'green' programs could see a similar fate.

Dalton McGuinty, the Premier of Ontario, is facing some heat, too. While trying to manage an unprecedentedly large fiscal deficit and wrestling with Ontario's move to a 'have-not' province, his Liberal government has introduced a variety of progressive yet controversial programs, including full day Kindergarten and more relevant to this blog, the omnibus Green Energy Act. The GEA has put Ontario at the forefront of renewable energy policy, but not without a cost. Ratepayers will see higher electric bills and rural communities are protesting the unwelcome introduction of major wind and solar projects in their regions. This rural uprising is contributing to a resurgence of the province's Progressive Conservative Party, which has vowed to do its best to repeal many aspects of the GEA.

Populism is not always a danger for the environment. Indeed, environmental problems -- like other progressive social movements -- have the potential to contribute to a populist cause. But this time around it's not Martin Luther King Jr. or Rachel Carson leading a cause, it's Glenn Beck. This populism doesn't want the next JFK in the White House; it wants Sarah Palin.

Masdar City: Revisted

In May 2009, I blogged about Abu Dhabi's planned Masdar City. It is claimed to be the world's first city powered solely by renewable energy.

The video above is informative and highly promising. However, be critical of the city's viability. On an unrelated note, water consumption per capita will be significantly less than a conventional city. Of course it will be less, they have less water than the average city!

There is no mention of the residents who will be living there. We know that the Masdar Institute of Science and Technology will provide residence space for its students. This is important but they must provide residence space for its students because they do research on the renewable technology. This planned city will cost $22 billion dollars. I am really curious to know what kind of residents it attracts. I suspect wealthier residents who will have the amenities and advanced renewable technologies associated with the city, and continue to live a profligate lifestyle through heavy air conditioning use and frequent visits to places like Dubai.

I don't mean to be too critical, but a city that strives to be sustainable must ensure that it has a diverse population base composed of poor and rich alike. Everyone should be able to benefit from the green technology, sustainable transit options and low-carbon lifestyle. With all of the capital that has been invested into this planned city, I hope that citizens of the country will recognize the merits of a greener lifestyle and adopt more sustainable and green-minded habits.

Richard Branson on climate change

World renowned entrepreneur, Richard Branson speaks with The Economist about some of his thoughts on climate change. He talks briefly about the carbon war room which is an entrepreneurial run initiative that helps industries find market-driven solutions to climate change.

He thinks the best time for large corporations to invest in clean energy is now. He says that the clean energy revolution is in its infancy and can become as big as the internet and mobile phone industries in time.

Streetcars coming back to Vancouver?

Photo Credit: Rail forth valley

This past Wednesday I attended a symposium titled “Streetcars: The Missing Link?” It was a symposium put together by UBC’s School of Environmental Health and the UBC School of Community and Regional Planning. I attended it with a number of my classmates.

The purpose of the symposium was to explore the historical role of streetcars in Vancouver, how much it would cost to bring them back to the city, streetcar impacts on urban form and mobility, urban design and how the streetcar can complement others forms of transit such as buses or Vancouver's Skytrain system.

As a part of the 2010 Vancouver Olympics, a demonstration section of the Downtown Streetcar was available for public use. The Downtown Streetcar was a 60-day demonstration period (January 21 to March 21, 2010) and ran between Granville Island and the new Canada Line Olympic Village Station on 1.8 km of newly constructed dedicated track. This demonstration project was successful; it provided reliable transportation for athletes, visitors and residents as often as every seven minutes and decreased the number of private vehicles, motor coaches and transit diesel buses to and from Granville Island.

Bombardier built the streetcar (as seen in the image) and would provide a fleet of them if Vancouver decided to go that route. I learned that Toronto is going to upgrade its streetcar system with a new fleet from Bombardier. There will be 200 new streetcars in Toronto between 2012 and 2018. This decision has also tempted Vancouver to bring streetcars back. The biggest issue is money. Research has shown that streetcars can help promote neighbourhood development and street life. They can help provide an urban identity too.

According to a speaker at the symposium, Vancouver was one of the first places on the planet to really embrace streetcars, in the year 1890. For almost 70 years, Vancouver had an extensive streetcar network. Don’t think of streetcars as a substitute to city buses, but instead as complementary form of transit that can help create higher density and move people easily within the downtown. Transit demand has increased 30% in Vancouver. This reason alone justifies some sort of public transit expansion.

By taking city buses a couple of times a week, it has become quite evident that buses are running at capacity. Streetcars have a longer life span and lowering operating costs than buses. They run on electricity and not fuel which is more environmentally-friendly. Again, they are not meant to replace but complement them.

While some Torontonians might think streetcars are a terrible form of public transit, they are beginning to take off all over the U.S. (especially in Portland) with 45 systems planned. A major impetus for bringing them back is that they can fulfill the transit hierarchy. By helping complete the transit hierarchy, Vancouverites would have every reason not to use their car.

In Vancouver, the streetcar would be connected to the Canada line, Skytrain and trolley buses and could take Vancouverites to work, errands etc. It would also connect tourists to Vancouver’s top attractions i.e. Stanley Park and Granville Island.

A former graduate student in my program conducted his thesis research on the Olympic streetcar. The results were overwhelmingly positive and the city is now looking at finance options.

Oh, one more thing. Many people I have talked to have negative attitudes toward streetcars, especially Torontonians. Let me tell you though, new streetcars would be grade separated meaning that the rail lines are elevated on a platform from the street so cars cannot drive in front of them. They would have right of way and allow for much smoother traffic flow.

More to come on streetcars and Vancouver’s impending decision on whether to re-implement them.