Hi, I'm Ralph Levinson, Health Sciences
Professor Emeritus at UCLA. And I'm Luc
Lewitanski, a French journalist covering
technology, politics, and power. Welcome
to Your Planet, Your Health, where we share
stories about the environment without
falling prey to despair. In these
conversations, we explore the knowledge
and tools we can use to be good earthlings. So
Luc, let's talk about some good news. At
least let's start by talking. Ooh, I like
good news. I got some good news for you. On
August 8th, 2023, the Brazilian government
announced that in July, they cleared 60%
less rainforest than the previous July. So
the numbers for deforestation fell
massively between 2022 and 2023 in the
Amazon rainforest, a large part of which is
in Brazil. That's right. 60% of the
rainforest is in Brazil. There's a
smattering in some other countries,
particularly Ecuador, Colombia, Peru, but
also Guiana and Suriname. Bolivia,
Venezuela. Yes. So this was really good
news. Let's talk a moment about rainforest.
Yeah. Why is this important? Why do we care
about the rainforest? I mean, like, it's
nice, it's beautiful, it's got lots of
animals and trees. But why is it important
from a climate lens? Well, animals and trees
are important in their own right. Of course.
And they really do supply a local ecology
that's vibrant and that we can appreciate.
But let's look through a climate lens. You
know, people talk about planting trees
because trees suck in CO2, carbon dioxide, a
long-lived greenhouse gas, as we all know.
And they store it. They store it as tree. I'm
sorry. I don't understand what you said.
They store it as tree? Yeah. Yeah.
Basically, you turn that carbon dioxide
into tree. What happens in photosynthesis
is you take carbon dioxide and water and you
mix them together and you end up with
carbohydrates that can then be made into
proteins and other chemicals and build a
tree. So the CO2, there's more that goes into
a tree than the CO2, but part of a good deal of
the carbon in a tree is sucked out of the air.
So much like how when we breathe, we inhale
oxygen and exhale CO2, trees. Well they kind
of do the reverse. Photosynthesis is such a
beautifully balanced, complex system. The
trees and us evolve together and we are
basically relying on each other to create
this atmosphere and to use it to live. It is a
kind of breathing. It's a kind of taking in
and putting back out. And it happens to be
very advantageous for us because it's
taking in CO2 and as a result, there's more
oxygen out there. So it's sort of doubly
beneficial. It's a win-win. Absolutely.
Absolutely. And more than that, it's also
very important in the water cycle because
they transpire water. And you might say,
well, that's getting rid of water. Except
when you have the kind of concentrations
that you have in a rainforest, 80% of the
water that these trees put out end up coming
back to the rainforest as rain. They create
their own rain. That's why it's got that
name. Well that's part of it. Part of it, at
least the rain. That's part of it. I mean,
there's a lot of rain anyway in those areas
for various reasons. But they do create
their own rain. They're incredibly
important for the water cycle, they being
the trees, the rainforest, because the
roots hold in water and they in effect filter
and cleanse the water. So it's just an
incredible system that benefits not only
the ecology, but also the human ecology and
economy. The idea that it's not so bad to just
chop down a tree, you could just plant
another one. Well, it's good to replant
another one, but it's secondary. You don't
have a whole ecology. When you take down a
tree and make a field and you then plow in
soybeans, when you plow that ground, it
releases water. It just dries out. Also it
absorbs heat better. The ground does when it
doesn't have the cover of the forest canopy.
So they've done experiments, they've
actually measured it. When you have a field,
the air, the field is drier and hotter. The
air, the atmosphere is warmer by the field.
And this is a propensity for droughts and
fires. And so locally, obviously, this
causes massive devastation for the local
biodiversity, which impacts food sources
for people who live in the area. But again,
thinking from our sort of planetary lens,
this also, I mean, people think about the
rainforest as being very impactful for the
atmosphere of the earth as a whole. Right?
Oh, yeah, without question. I mean, this CO2
is coming from somewhere. You know, it's
coming from the atmosphere and this
atmosphere is very well mixed. You know,
it's not a question that, you know, it just
affects the local CO2, but nowhere else.
Well, CO2 is a planetary system. Exactly.
There's no such thing as only affecting the
CO2 in the rainforest. The CO2 in the planet
is a system and any CO2 that gets sucked in, as
you say, it's produced somewhere, it was
actually produced in the north and it gets
sucked in. No, that's absolute. And a matter
of fact, in Brazil, they say this
deforestation is about half of their
greenhouse gas production because not only
did the deforestation itself, which often
means burning the forest, which of course
releases CO2, all that CO2. I was talking
about that stored in the tree. You burn a
tree, it's back up in the atmosphere.
Actually, this relationship was described
by the climate scientist, Steven
Schneider. He was a researcher at the US
National Center for Atmospheric Research
and in 1981, he was interviewed as part of a
television program, a documentary looking
at the risks of climate change and he
outlined this relationship in a manner
quite similar to the way you just did. And so I
led this into Steven Schneider. Remember
that coal and oil and gas is dead and
compressed plant matter from hundreds of
years ago. Well, a tree trunk is compressed
carbon dioxide, if you will. It just hasn't
been squeezed yet into fossil fuel form. So
if you go into a forest, which took 50 or 100
years to build and you chop it down and you
burn all the wood now, you're getting back in
a matter of hours, a CO2 that took many
decades to turn into the hydrocarbons of
that wood. And so here we just had Steven
Schneider in 1981 talking about
deforestation's devastating impacts and
obviously sometimes lightning strikes or
sometimes there are brush fires. These are
sometimes natural occurrences, but these
fires in Brazil, in the rainforest, they
aren't accidents, are they? And so they're
doing it on purpose. We know there's been a
lot of that not on purpose, but this is when
they're doing it on purpose. They're doing
it on purpose because they want to make the
land exploitable. Exactly. It's hard to
drill for oil when there are so many trees and
plants and vegetation. Oh, it would be so
much easier if you just burn the whole thing
down and then drill baby drill. And it's good
money to plant soybeans that will feed cows.
And soybeans aren't a bad crop. I have
nothing against soybeans. But the fact is,
when you turn a rainforest into a field of
soybeans, you're sucking down a lot less
CO2. You're drying out the land. You are
using gasoline or diesel in your machines
that are going to harvest the soybeans. So it
produces a lot of greenhouse gases. And
you're also cutting out part of, I mean, this
is why people are worried about destroying
the rainforest. Like ultimately that
soybean crop is not absorbing CO2 and
releasing oxygen. Well, a little bit
because it does do photosynthesis. It does
it, but it's just at a much lower level. Yeah,
I believe it's about 50 times less effective
at sucking up carbon, right? That sort of
scale. It's a huge difference. Think of a
few, you know, a thin layer of soybeans
versus a canopy of luscious foliage. So it's
a big deal that they're making progress. And
part of the way they've made progress is the
people of Brazil had an election back last
November 2022. They got rid of a guy,
Bolsonaro, who they voted him out and they
voted in Lula da Silva. Lula da Silva, who
made a pledge. I mean, he started with a bang.
The first things he did when he took office
was make a big splash of announcements about
the Amazon rainforest. He had campaigned
partially on undoing the damage of his
predecessor. Absolutely. But of course, it
takes a while for the changes to be seen if
you're looking at the actual number of trees
that were cut. And so obviously there still
was some deforestation done in early 2023.
In July 2022, we're talking about 1500
square kilometers lost of the rainforest.
That's about 600 square miles versus in July
2023 was only 500. So about a third 200 square
miles lost. I say only. I mean, that's still
not ideal. It's still not ideal. But if you
look at the last three months, it's a steady
downward trend from May through July.
Whereas the previous year, it was a steady
upward trend. So we this is just
unequivocal. Lula was helped a lot by
European Union rules. If the bad guys can't
sell their ill begotten products illegally
obtained by illegal deforestation, you
know, whether it's lumber or whether it's
soybeans, then a lot of the profit motive
goes away. And the European rules were
apparently helpful in that way. What's
really important is a lot of this stuff is
illegal. So you have to have the will to
enforce the laws and you have to know they're
being broken. And one of the great tools that
has come out is satellite imaging. You could
tell when a part of the rainforest, even a
fairly relatively small area, is being
burned down. But I think we have to single out
how uniquely invested in deforestation
Bolsonaro was. It's part of a reason why this
reversal of this trend is so encouraging
because in the previous year, he had
increased deforestation by 150 percent.
Overall, he increased it by about 75
percent. He was definitely on an upward
trend and he made, I'm sure, a lot of people
very wealthy and really hurt a lot of the
local indigenous peoples and other people
who live in the Amazon and rely on the
resources there. So under Bolsonaro, the
winners were big industry and organized
crime. So this is all good news. And part of
the reason this is so good is because people
are really worried about tipping points.
There's going to be some point where the
rainforest can't be brought back. And of
course, it's not just Brazil and other
countries have been active as well. But
Brazil having the most rainforest. And as
you pointed out, Lula, he put himself on the
line. He said, look, I'm going to do this and
he has been doing it. And I think we really
have to be grateful. He used his political
capital at the start of his new term in
January 2023 to make a bunch of big
announcements about safeguarding the
rainforest, trying to honor his campaign
promise and undo the damage of his
predecessor. And one of the main ways in
which this took shape is that he wanted to
organize a conference of the rainforest
countries, which is something that has
happened before, but not exactly been a
common occurrence. I think you told me
you've seen the last one was 14 years ago.
Yes, I think that's what I read. The last one
of this particular organization was 14
years ago. And this conference of
rainforest countries, they had a summit
when this announcement was made. It was on
August 8th and 9th. And they came together to
talk about these issues. So Lula convened a
bunch of countries who contain portions of
the rainforest. Obviously 60 percent of the
rainforest is in Brazil. So most of it is
there, but other countries have some claim
to it. And basically Lula is using his
political capital and thinking like, we
have something to offer to the world here. So
he wanted to resurrect this conference,
which has happened three or four times. It's
not exactly been a regular occurrence,
right? But the conference is called the
Amazon Cooperation Treaty Organization,
Acto for short. And they discuss what sort of
political power can they yield as a unit,
because they all have parts of this great
resource for humanity, which is the Amazon
rainforest. And so as you point out, the
latest meeting after 14 years of laying
fallow just was convened by Lula in Belam in
August 8th, 2023. And this is the occasion at
which we got this great figure, this big
splashy media PR person, like, look how
great we're doing. We're much better than
the previous. We're destroying the
rainforest, much less. Like, great. And so
as part of the speeches during this Belam
conference of Amazon rainforest
countries, Lula, who was at Honcho putting
this together, the Brazilian president
we've been talking about, he had some
beautiful quotes talking about how to look
at the Amazon. And he said, That's very
poetic. I mean, that's delightful. And he
was thinking actually, thinking about the
weight of the Amazon in diplomatic
relations for these countries, sort of
thinking on a foreign policy stage. And so
Lula said that the Amazon will become a
passport for South American countries to
establish a new way of interacting with the
world. So he's really thinking, here is a
tool that we can use. And yet some of his
critics accuse him, perhaps of having this
very flowery language, these beautiful
metaphors, but perhaps that his policies
don't necessarily live up to the statement
of good intentions that was released at the
conference. There are legitimate
criticisms, and it's not only from other
politicians, which we'll get into, but
there's also was an article in Nature, the
very prestigious scientific journal, that
highlighted some criticisms of Lula's
environmental progress on August 10th. So
at the end of this meeting, Nature, the very
prestigious science journal, published an
article, How is Brazil's president Lula
doing on climate? Experts rate his
performance. And their subheading is
deforestation is dropped, but researchers
who spoke to Nature say he needs to take a
stronger stance on fossil fuels. For
example, Luiz Marquez, a historian at the
National Center for Research on Energy and
Materials in Brazil, said that he thought
Lula's administration lacked a clarity on
energy policies, particularly when they
are aligned with environmental
protection. So he thought he was talking
very specifically here about exploratory
oil wells near the mouth of the Amazon River.
That is concerned because there's a nearby
reef system, and that could be impacted. So
Luiz Marquez criticized the Lula
administration on their energy policies,
specifically drawing attention to the
state-owned energy firm Petrobras, right,
which has proposed drilling exploratory
oil wells near the mouth of the Amazon River.
So like this could threaten the ecosystem,
right? We know what happens with drilling.
As they put it when they discussed his
comments, they wondered why Lula would even
entertain tapping into new fossil fuel
reserves, especially in such a risky area,
if he cares so much about this Amazon system.
And the irony is that it's not like his hands
are tied in this instance, because the oil
company proposing these drillings in the
mouth of the Amazon is owned by the state. So
he has power over it. He could definitely
tell them to curtail this. This is where I
think some other well-leaders saw an
incongruity, perhaps some level of
hypocrisy, or at least saying that of course
Lula's goals are laudable, and it's great to
get everyone on the same page, although
there were no hard commitments in the Bellum
Declaration in the end of the day. So that's
also part of the idea that, well, it's a
statement of good intentions, and it's
great to get everybody on the same page and
talk about these good feelings, but it's
hard to imagine that it can be a stepping
stone to more concrete action unless
they're more organized. And this was
precisely the reason that Gustavo Petro
dodged the photo op at the end of the
conference. He decided he doesn't want to be
a part of this. And so even on the diplomacy
standpoint, part of the reason that you have
these conferences is you want to get a big
photo opportunity at the end with all the
well leaders smiling together and sort of
all demonstrating unity on this action. And
I mean, it wasn't a complete win, even on the
diplomatic front for Lula. I mean,
Venezuela didn't show up. That's one thing.
And ironically, a month before Lula was
elected, Colombia was holding elections
and they elected someone who could arguably
be described as being even to the left of Lula
de Silva. So this guy, Gustavo Petro,
recently elected in August 2022, president
of Colombia. He didn't show up for the photo.
He decided like, no, I don't want to be a part
of this. Like, you guys aren't really
putting your money where your mouth is. And
if we're meeting here, I would like this to be
more substantive. So instead of just kind of
like trying to rephrase his claims, let's
kind of introduce you a little bit to this
man, Gustavo Petro. Gustavo Petro's
election in August 2022 was a turning point.
I mean, this was a very interesting
opportunity. We discovered that he used his
political capital at this venue to speak
some truth to power and highlight some
uncomfortable truths. And so let's let's
delve in. I picked a couple of quotes from
actually his introduction on the world
stage was that, as is the case with many world
leaders, at the UN General Assembly, he did a
big speech. And actually, he substantially
spoke about the Amazon rainforest in his
introduction on the world stage. So here are
a couple of other things he said. He spoke
about the jungle that tries to save us, us
being humanity, is being destroyed. And
he's addressing fellow world leaders.
Imagine, you know, you've got got all the big
guns there later in front of you. And he's
infecting. He's saying, you are only
interested in my country to spray poison on
our jungles. You take our men to jail and you
put our women in exclusion. You are not
interested in educating children, but in
killing the jungle and extracting coal and
oil from its entrails. The sponge that
absorbs the poison is useless. They prefer
to throw more poison into the atmosphere. So
we spoke about this metaphor, thinking
about the Amazon rainforest as the earth's
lung, because it takes in CO2 and brings out
oxygen for us. But here you can see, yeah,
he's talking about it as a sponge, but it's
the same kind of thing. It's the same kind of
analogy. It's the same sort of idea. It's a
carbon sponge that speaks the language
difference of transiting it in literal
terms. But I think that's interesting. And
so he speaks about how governments, the
government said he's speaking to, turn
their backs to the evidence that he says,
science set the alarm bells ringing and we
stopped listening to it. And I mean, I think
there's a lot there. I think he's really
talking about how there's a failure of
humanity in the Amazon rainforest. It's an
enormous deadly machinery that can
extinguish humanity. And so he was really
putting the question of the Amazon
rainforest and safeguarding it as an
existential question for our species. And
so this is obviously why he emphasized this
so much in his first speech at the UN. But now
that he's being invited at the conference of
Amazon rainforest countries, you know, in
Belem, this was his opportunity to really
sort of lay out his philosophy for these
ideas. And so here are a few quotes from his
speeches at the Belem conference that might
shine light onto why he wasn't interested in
signing the declaration or lending his
legitimacy to this process. So let's talk
about what his objections were. He says,
politics is imprisoned by the economic
interests that derive from fossil capital,
which is why science despairs. Going back to
this idea of politics in opposition to
science and the idea that we stop listening
to the evidence. Now we described him as
being to the left of Lula. So he's obviously
saying like, I would expect, you know, he's
disappointed in the left. He's saying, I
expect this from the right wingers, you
know, around the world, they've, they, they
don't care about science. They fascism is
actively been a process of trying to deny
science. This is, this is coherent. He says
this works. But he really says he's
disappointed that leftists or people who
are left of center like Lula aren't being
more forceful on this issue of the climate.
He says basically that there's another kind
of denialism on the left. He talks about a
denialism that allows us to postpone
decisions. And so his example is actually
exactly referring to what critics of Lula
have talked about. He says, and I quote,
letting the jungle be exploited for
hydrocarbons might not be a total
contradiction, but apparently we're not
even going to mention it in the declaration.
If the jungle produces oil, then you are
killing humanity in a double effect because
the rainforest can no longer operate as a
sponge. There you have that metaphor again.
Now absolutely. And these are excellent
criticisms. There was a lot of good that came
out of the declaration at the end of this
meeting. It speaks a lot about taking care of
indigenous people. It talks about one
health, which is much like planetary
health, how we have to take care of not only
the environment, but the people. But, but
they didn't come up with hard targets for
deforestation. That's a big deal. You
can't, you know, enforce rules without
parameters. Exactly. Right. You can't, you
know, you can't just say, hey, I have a
feeling that that's enough or too much or too
little. You have to have at least minimal
targets and they couldn't come to that. Now,
there was a certain amount of finger
pointing going on, but it's a big gap. It's a
big loss not to have those. Yeah. Even
compared to Lula's aims. But here we see that
the critique from the Colombian president
Gustavo Petro is going further than that.
He's saying, even if we take your nice
intentions and your nice sentiments, you
know, he says, I'm not sure that they're
going to happen. But even if you did this,
like, if you're still going to be drilling
oil next to it, you're not actually doing the
climate positive thing that you are
claiming to do. And therefore you cannot
have diplomatic leverage as a result of this
because you're just being as much of a
polluter as anyone else. And then he even
takes issue with the premise of saying that,
like, somehow deforestation would be
enough. I think we can agree with that. You
know, he says that science tells us that even
if we arborized everywhere, that is to say,
we planted trees over the entire surface of
the earth, it would not be successful to
absorb the annual CO2 emissions. I think
this is on our website. It is on our website.
These great statistics showing how much
land you would have to use. And the point is
that, well, there's a lot of land we could
use, but there's a lot of land when we use that
land, you know, there's opportunities
missed to say, grow food. And it's also maybe
in areas that don't support trees. A lot of
tree planting efforts don't even make it.
But even if we took every possible acre, we
still would barely, you know, make more than
a slight change. And it takes energy to plant
trees. This is why I said before that it's
better not to cut a forest down than it is to
plant trees. But still, he's right. That, I
remember hearing years ago, some people
just kind of starry eyed, you know, people,
oh, all we have to do, trees will save us.
Well, they're great. Plant trees, it's
great, it's great. But be careful and don't
expect it to solve your problems. Exactly.
It's not a beel and all solution. Even the
most maximalist interpretation of
planting trees that we could think of. As you
said, they would make a dent. And it's not to
say that we shouldn't do this. Obviously,
we've just explained the great positive
effects of photosynthesis and how having
trees in our immediate environment makes it
nicer to breathe. And for the entire
atmosphere sets off some of the impacts of
climate catastrophe. But here we see
Gustavo Petro saying like, it's not
sufficient to absorb the massive amounts of
CO2 that we're putting out there. He's
absolutely right. So then the question
follows. He says, the reason why we're
putting out so much CO2 as a species is not
evenly distributed. He says, the richer you
are, the more you pollute. And so following
this logic, quoting him, he says, it is the
North's responsibility to leave fossil
capital behind. And it is our
responsibility, speaking as the South, the
rainforest countries, it is our
responsibility to protect the sponge. So he
says, everyone has their role to do, you
know, because it's not saying you do either
or you have to both try to put out more oxygen
out there. And you have to limit the amount of
CO2 to the atmosphere. You want to suck up
some CO2 with the trees. But if you don't put
out so much CO2 in the first place, for
instance, by not drilling into the Amazon
River, that probably would limit the amount
of CO2 in the atmosphere in the first place. I
mean, it wouldn't probably, it would
undoubtedly lead to less pollution, less
CO2 in the atmosphere. So if your goal is to
have the Amazon suck up CO2, well, maybe if
you weren't putting out so much CO2 in the
first place, you would be even more
effective with dealing with the CO2 that's
here. You know, these things work in
conjunction is just to say, we cannot just do
deforestation. That's his critique of this
conference. He's saying, if you're going to
be talking about climate impacts in the
Amazon, well, let's make sure that the net
balance of what's happening here is
actually helping the climate. Otherwise,
we're just as hypocritical as those
right-wingers who don't care about science
as he talks about. And I think that last part
is the most important. So he made really good
points. It's easy for people who don't want
to think too hard to just sort of say, no, this
is just a guy going off. He, it was very
thoughtful. And he's just right. He came at
this very, I think I showed you the speech and
one of your first takeaways was how calm he
is. He's very collected. This is not, you
know, I said it's an invective because he
does take the world leaders that he's
speaking to to toss because he thinks
there's a moral opportunity. No, if you
watch the speech, he's just sitting there
talking like, guys, this is how it is. And
he's right. You know, there's, there's,
this brings up, of course, a lot of issues.
One of the things Lula asked for was more
money from the North. And there's a huge
responsibility that the North has. There's
a large justice issue here. I mean, the
industrial revolution was massively
disproportionately done by people in the
North. This is back to the framing of the
North and South and that the countries in the
right around the rainforest are simply
responsible for having put out a lot less CO2
than us in the North. That's, that's an
undeniable fact. Even goes back, you know,
Lula, we can say, yes, his, his declaration
was perhaps not everything that he wished
for. And certainly not everything that
Gustavo Petro, the Colombian president
wanted. But Lula even said, as part of his big
speech to close off the conference, he
talked about how for two centuries
industrialized nations filled the world's
atmosphere with pollution. And now they
need to pay their bit to restore part of that,
which was wrecked by their pollution. You
know, there's some logic here about
thinking about, you know, the North is
responsible for this. It's totally logic
and it's totally fair. It's, it's
absolutely. But I think this goes back to the
critique of the Colombian president
because he's saying, okay, these are nice
statements. But how do you actually get to
create that political will? How can you be
taken seriously by countries in the world if
you're just coming out here and making
statements? So he's very clearly saying
like, he has concrete proposals. He's
saying like, we've launched a proposal
that's part of the declaration. He's
saying, you know, what you're doing Lula,
it's fine. Like it's, it's not a bad thing.
But Gustavo Petro says, and I'm quoting, we
cannot take this on either with the gifts of
the North, nor with our own economic
capacities. So he's saying that, you know,
it's all fine. Well, you can beg as much as you
want to, but you're not going to get to the
amount of money that you need for it to not be
more attractive for these countries to
destroy the rainforest. And so as you said,
there's one level on the regulatory side
where you can say, well, make it very, you
know, sanctions, make it punitive to buy
lumber from the rainforest. But
ultimately, these things can sort of be
scattered and it's possible to find a buyer
somewhere, usually. Or at least it's going
to be very difficult to enforce that level of
global cooperation. But it's certainly a
solution. And another solution would be to
ease up the financial burden on South
American countries. If you think about the
massive amount of debt that these
countries, which is part of the reason that
they are forced to such desperate economic
measures. So this is, this is where Pedro's
thinking is, it's got a very sort of
interesting turn. He says, what if we ask the
Western countries to forgive our debts in
exchange for protecting the rainforest,
for taking this climate action? And he says,
you can't do that unilaterally. You can't do
it country by country because then the
risk-creating agencies will always say,
oh, this country is defaulting on their
debt. They're not paying debt. Oh, we can't
do that. So this is why he says, this is why
we're all here together. This is what we
could be doing. And he calls for a new
worldwide Marshall plan. He says this debt
forgiveness is essentially a gift that
could be given to ease up the financial
burden on the South American rainforest
countries. I think you make a good point.
Business as usual is not working. And so this
is why he says, like, you're not going to get
this done with another declaration, with a
conference. Even though it's good that this
conference is happening and it hasn't
happened in so long, like he couches all
that. But he says, we need to actually build
some institutions here. You know, look at,
look at what happened, you know, the EU,
they're able to put a bunch of national
countries to. I mean, it hasn't been easy and
it has had fits and starts. But ultimately
they did like build up the negotiating power
as an economic block by aligning together.
He's saying we need to do that and we have our
leverage. Our leverage is the sponge, you
know, the Amazon. And so he's saying we need
an environmental justice court. And he took
inspiration from Rafael Correa in Ecuador
before him, who was also quite radical and
thinking about climate justice early on.
And so basically he's saying we should also
create a rainforest NATO. So a military
alliance as well. He wants to have a military
to protect the rainforest and protect these
countries who are taking risks by
protecting the rainforest in that way. But
he's saying this, this should be part of a
mutually beneficial relationship. And
obviously he says they should also fund and
we like this because obviously he's, he's
appealing to listening to the experts. So
he's saying we need to build a scientific
research center specifically dedicated to
researching the Amazon. And so I think these
are very concrete measures that Gustavo
Pedro offered to try to come up with a new form
of Amazonian sovereignty. You know,
obviously he says like it would respect each
country's system, but there could be some
coordination fighting together. And this
could be how they'd be able to make their
demand to trade debt for climate action.
Now, I agree. It's a lot to take in, but he
makes a lot of really strong points. The
Colombian president was trying to make an
appeal to the other countries saying like,
it will only work if we all do this together.
Let's all stop drilling. Right now,
obviously Lula is getting some pressure.
He's coming on like he's the environmental
leader. If he wants to be a global
environmental leader, he's going to have to
step up his game. Environmentalists are
noticing that he's ignoring certain
ecosystems because they're not as sexy or
the European Union hasn't taken, you know,
the time to make the regulations. He's also
doing the oil drilling. He's going to have to
decide at some point if he can't push himself
and his country to do more. I want to
congratulate him for what he's done. This
does not take anything away from what he's
doing. But yes, he could step up to the plate a
little and do more. Of course. And that's
what Petro is pushing him on. So just to leave
us with some words on this, you know, we're
thinking like Lula ultimately, according
to Gustavo Petzl, the Colombian president,
he has also fallen prey to this capitalist
system of greed, really. Pedro tells us life
on the planet is telling us we must
completely rethink the economic system.
And so he calls for another measure of
wealth. He says another measure of wealth we
should consider, unlike the one that
skyrocketed during the 20th century, would
be something we could call a decarbonized
prosperity. So this is akin sort of to the
degrowth movement. He's saying we should
think about a way of looking at a country's
success that has to do with its economic
solvency, has to do with how well the
country's doing financially, but should
also weigh in as part of this measure of the
country's success. Should also consider
whether or not the gains are coming from
carbon. Because ultimately, if an economy
is producing a lot and producing a lot of
carbon, then it is not a beneficial economy
if you really think about it. And so I'm with
him. I mean, these are big ideas that who
knows what can happen with them. But we need
big ideas. We need to at least be discussing
them honestly and not fearfully. We can't
just say, oh no, that's just
anti-capitalist. No, we have to stop and
think, what are we really trying to get out of
life? What are we really trying to get out of
an economy? And a GDP is just a very limited
measure, a gross domestic product. You
know, in other words, the goods and
services. Because the greatest good is not
just what happens to be the greatest good of
people who can afford it. No, if anything,
the richer people are, the more they
pollute. I mean, you could argue there's a
direct correlation. The more responsible
they are, and ethically, they've got to
think more about it. And I hope that our
listeners will and vote for the right people
who will at least start trying to solve
problems and not create new problems. Yeah,
and voting is good. Actually, it just so
happens there was recently a vote in Ecuador
that plays into this dynamic. We saw the
Colombian president Gustavo Petro. He
said, guys, we need to stop drilling. We
can't be coherent in terms of climate action
if we're drilling oil. And so Ecuador just
had a vote on August 20th. And the results
were directly in line with this demand. The
people spoke up. There was a few things at
stake in this election. There was the
presidential election had its first round.
And it so happens, an ally of Rafael Corera,
the guy who was an inspiration to our
Colombian friend Gustavo Petro in their
proposal for building up a military
alliance to protect the Amazon and to make
this demand for debt justice. So this guy was
very influential in speaking these ideas
early on for his presidency in Ecuador
between 2007 and 2017. And so basically we
have here in Colombia, Gustavo Petro
picking up the torch from the Ecuadorian
president. And now it just seems like
Ecuador is about to pick up the track again.
They're saying, yes, let's take action.
Let's stop drilling oil. The other good
piece of news was they on the first round of
this presidential election, Luisa
Gonzalez, who's a close ally of Raul Corera,
was in the prime position to win. So it seems
as though in October we'll have another
sympathetic government in the rainforest
area to stop drilling oil following this
momentum. And it's fantastic that people
have spoken. This is exactly what we were
talking about in terms of getting people
involved. And so I think perhaps you can put
some more details on this momentous
electoral result. 59% of Ecuadorian people
who turned up to vote on August 20th, 2023,
voted for protecting this Yosunni reserve
and banning the practice of oil drilling.
This is just amazing, Luc. I'm just over the
moon about this. This reserve, this Yosunni
region, is thought to be one of the most
biologically diverse regions in the entire
world. It has just vast amounts of different
species. It's luxuriant. It's an area where
there are two tribal groups that choose not
to be engaged. There are other indigenous
and other peoples who also rely on this
environment. This is just a big win for not
drilling in the Amazon. And hopefully this
is something that Lula and the others will
hear. And it's very much in line with what
Columbia is saying. You can't just isolate
one activity and say one and done. Yeah, and
that's the power of this multilateral
systems thinking. That's the only way in
which you can really think about climate
issues. That's why we keep bringing this
language of the species. Because it's not
about these sort of national parochial
identities or questions of sovereignty.
It's about thinking about collective
action issues. And I think on that issue,
it's very interesting to see how we have this
through line from, you know, the Coreira
Presidency of 2007 to 2017 in Ecuador. It's
very interesting to see how we have this
through line from, you know, the Coreira
Presidency of 2007 to 2017 in Ecuador to the
Colombian President. Because the proposal
that the Colombian President just made is
very similar to the thing that Ecuador did
when he first got into office. In 2007, when
he was newly elected, he offered the world to
keep 850 million barrels of oil in the
ground. And he said, in exchange for this,
what if we created a fund for half of the value
of that oil? So he said, what if the countries
of the world give Ecuador $3.6 billion in
exchange for not touching the oil reserves?
And obviously this bid failed. But here we
see these things don't just die on the vine.
These things have clearly been part of a long
history of ideas and they fail until they
don't, you know. And you can have the history
of any major social change as being it failed
many times until it didn't. You know, that's
the only way in which people make a
difference, you know. We don't memorialize
the gazillion times in which the problem
failed. But that is part, every brick is part
of that edifice to think of it in more
scientific terms that might speak to you.
It's that classic Newton quote, right? No
one does it alone. You're standing on the
shoulders of giants. You're building on the
work that's been done before you. And so here
we have the Colombian President Gustavo
Petro building on this sort of, again, what
might seem like quite a wild proposal from
the Ecuadorian President Rafael Correa in
2007 to say like, hey guys, you know, I've got
all this oil and it can either stay in the
ground or I'm going to drill it. If I drill it,
it'll make us a lot of money, but it'll be bad
for like the larger collective us, like
humanity. And so why didn't we do something?
And obviously that didn't work then. But the
idea of there being some economic incentive
for countries to do this is not a new idea.
This is not some radical idea that's holding
the wealthy country's hostage. It's in all
our interests. This idea of sharing the
economic burden is not some pie in the sky,
unprecedented idea. Debt relief has, as
Petro has suggested, is not some fantasy. We
have been doing that since for the last 30
years. The United States has given almost $2
billion in debt for nature swaps involving
21 low and middle income countries. And
other high income countries have kicked in
another billion dollars for these kinds of
efforts. And there's evidence it works. So
again, almost $3 billion of debt, again, a
big weight sucking up the gains of the South
American economies, being lifted away in
order to protect nature. These are the kind
of geopolitical decisions that the
Ecuadorian President and the Colombian
President, and even in some ways Lula, have
been calling for. You have to think about
cooperation and ways in which the countries
who have these environmental things that we
all want to safeguard can be part of a system.
So this is not something that hasn't been
done. Maybe it's something we just have to
consider doing on a much larger scale.
Especially when a nation like this, they
didn't hold us hostage. They didn't say,
give me money or we won't do it. They just
said, we are not going to destroy nature. So I
applaud Ecuador. And I think we have to
consider that such debt relief or other
kinds of financial relief certainly has not
been off the table and should not be off the
table. When you said it's not a hostage
situation, the power dynamic is completely
inverted. Yes, the countries in the global
south have oil, which is a resource that if it
stays in the ground could benefit us oil. You
just had a Brooklyn accent. That's all.
Anyway, go ahead. Sorry. So yeah, they have
this, but it's not like the leverage is being
exerted by the countries in the global
south. They're not asking for money, by the
way. Even back in 2007, the Ecuadorian
President was asking for debt relief. He's
asking for forgiving debts. And that's the
through line throughout this. This sounds
like some great sort of, oh my God, massive
sums of money are required. But actually,
the reasons countries in the rainforest
region, the Amazon rainforest, South
American countries, these countries, the
reason why the US is in a position to forgive
so much debt to them is because the US has put
those countries in those situations in a lot
of the time. You have to sort of think back to
the power dynamic here, isn't that the
southern countries are sort of holding
hostage their resources? They're saying,
guys, can you take the boot off us a little bit
so we can breathe and not just give all our
money back to you guys? In exchange for that,
we will not go for the thing that would make us
the most money, but destroy the planet. Like
it's a trade off. They're saying, can you
take your boot off us a little bit by
forgiving debt? Well, it's not even just so
that we don't have to spend the money or need
the money. We want to protect our lands.
We're doing something that you should be
very interested in, protecting the
rainforest. And it's a win-win, it really
is. I think that we need to have the courage
and wisdom and we have before, again, it's
not unprecedented to make these kinds of
things happen and to really be grateful to
the people of Ecuador for looking out for our
all universal heritage. Right. I mean, the
specifics of the region in which they voted
to ban oil drilling are quite interesting.
You mentioned they have a unique
biodiversity. This park is, as I said, one of
the most biologically diverse on earth and
this goes for all sorts of living things,
amphibians, birds, mammals, plants. And I
think it's interesting also to consider
within the Yasuni region. This is a place
because of its rich biodiversity, it had
been protected. Oil companies only started
drilling in the Yasuni region in 2016. And it
just so happens that two thirds of that oil
was going to the United States. Right. So
this is all part of an interconnected
system. The Yasuni region was being
pillaged and it was pillaged for half a
decade. And thankfully the great people of
Ecuador put a stop to it by getting out there
and casting their votes. And that is
sometimes all that you can do. And voting is
good, but as we've seen, you cannot tackle
these issues of international cooperation
on a purely local basis. You have to have some
coordination, which is exactly what the
Colombian president was hoping that this
conference, the ACTO conference in Belom in
August 2023 could have become. Even though
you can't tackle it totally on a local basis,
think globally, act locally. We as
individuals have to act within the
frameworks we have. And I think we have to
entertain big answers for big questions,
big responses to big problems. And what
shape that's going to take is going to be
something that we're going to have to hammer
out. We have to celebrate the progress that
we are making. There has been progress on
climate on various levels. We have new
industries and specifically in the
rainforest. This is a real thing. I mean,
we're all in it together, but some of us are
suffering a lot more than others. Some of us
have climate bunkers. And those who are
suffering more than others aren't
necessarily the ones who are polluting the
most. As a matter of fact, they as a rule are
not the ones who are polluting the most. So
next time on Your Planet, Your Health, on
that lovely note of thinking about these big
thorny problems and the problems of
collective action, I mean, these are all
nice philosophical notes to think about.
And ultimately, I hope that, you know, if you
happen to be a South American leader,
perhaps you can see it in your heart to act and
unite with the rainforest countries.
Obviously, you know, I'm just saying, like,
it's interesting to think about the only way
to tackle this is by working with many
different leaders. And the fact that there
is such consensus on the base, like, people
see the effects of climate change right now.
I mean, there has been a lot of efforts to try
and obfuscate the science, which we'll be
talking about a lot more next time. But this
is still, ultimately, it's been an uphill
battle. But people get it. People see the
impacts of the climate. And ultimately, now
it's a question of, like, getting the
politicians to organize. And the only way
you can do that is by having pressure from
below. So perhaps if you're not a South
American leader, you do not have a part of the
rainforest in your country, you can still be
part of that base putting pressure, you
know, and, well, that's still something.
It's something. And as you said, there is a
very good question as to why we're not
further along on all this. And that answer is
the oil companies. So we're going to talk
about that next. Stay planet, stay healthy.
Let's stay planet, stay healthy, and we'll
talk soon.