July 2006
Issue No. 391
Subscribe to NI

If you go down to the woods today...
The carbon offset industry can’t see the wood for the trees, argues Adam Ma’anit.

10 things you should know about tree 'offsets'
Forest and climate change campaigner Jutta Kill explains why planting trees is no substitute for reducing pollution.

Forest fever
It's 2010. Brazilian activists Marcelo Calazans and Renata Valentim imagine what the future might look like if the carbon market continues to grow.

Blinded by the light
Trusha Reddy discovers why a climate project in South Africa isn’t really switched on.

Carbon Offsets - The Facts

Uprooted
Restoring the rainforest or destroying people’s lives? Timothy Byakola and Chris Lang find organizations have much to answer for in Uganda.

Please do not sponsor this tree
Raised voices on climate change.

Action
Don't be ‘neutral’ on climate change, be positive!

News, views, and & voices

Join over 10,000 people just like you. Get e-mail updates about new content, issue alerts, contests, and more!

from
THIS MONTH'S EDITOR

I have to make a confession – I love spam. Not the infamous canned luncheon meat, but the stuff that clogs up the world’s email inboxes. It fascinates and horrifies me in equal measure. It evolves so rapidly that much of it manages to bypass even the most ruthless spam filters (even Darwin would be impressed). Sometimes it is so clever that I am fooled into opening a message that ends up being from one of those family members of former dictators wishing to park their millions in my bank account. As with email, other messaging has its spam. Much of it involves someone trying to sell you something – most often a product, sometimes a service; more insidiously, an idea. The public debate about climate change is constantly deluged with all these forms of spam. These are most often messages from the fossil-fuel industry trying to convince us that either there is no problem, or that the problem is well in hand. The carbon offset industry is a different category of spam – the kind that many of our filters don’t routinely catch. As a result, many of us are tricked into giving them our bank details so they can make a carbon deposit (by, say, promising to plant some trees) in our names.

But we’ve been had. Carbon offsets not only don’t solve climate change, they can even worsen it by delaying the inevitable need to end the fossil-fuel frenzy we’re all a part of. Harsh words? Maybe. But the reality of climate change will be even harsher if we don’t take real action now. Don’t be CO2nned by promises of being carbon ‘neutral’. It’s time to be positive. Take the first step by filtering out the climate spam.

Adam Ma'anit for the New Internationalist Co-operative adamm@newint.org

Poetry Slam in Zimbabwe

The House of Hunger poetry slam held in Zimbabwe in 2006, and organised by the Pamberi Trust, showcased young artists performing inspirational work on issues from corporate power to child soldiers. The video features four of the poets.
Published by Pambazuka News.

Raised Voices video:

Atossa Soltani from Brazil on the Climate Change

Desmond Desai from South Africa on Corporate Power

Iranian women speak out

3 March 2007, London. Women's rights activists marched through the English capital last week to celebrate International Women's Day with a protest against the misogyny of the Islamic regime in Iran and the threat of invasion by the US. Hear the voices of Iranian feminists Azar and Leila Parnian and the sounds of the demonstration as it passed through the heart of the city. Click here to learn more about the campaign.
Produced by Heidi Bachram.

Raised Voices audio:

Benny from West Papua on Corporate Power

Vinayan from India on agriculture