EarthBlips - Latest Brazil News Articles

James Boyce: What's Up With The Rainforest: Sting Urges Brazil To Listen To Tribal Dam Fears

Tue, 1 Dec 2009 19:18:21 +0000

In only a few days the world will be focusing its attention on the world's leaders as they meet in Copenhagen. As the news cycle shifts to the climate change conversation, I thought we would get a head start and check in to see what's up with The Rainforest NewsLadder. Working with the Rainforest Alliance we helped create The Rainforest NewsLadder as a way to list the most important conversations happening regarding protecting the rainforests. And as we head into Copenhagen a few interesting trends are starting to develop. First, the big names are coming out to throw their weight around. For Sting, it means getting his weight around a group that is struggling to have a voice . The Brazilian government is planning to move forward on building a damn in the Amazon that has the potential to become an ecological and social catastrophe. The proposed hyrdo-electric damn would be the third biggest in the world - surely a positive for clean energy advocates. But at what cost? The plan would call for ...

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Destination of the week: Sao Paulo

Tue, 1 Dec 2009 19:12:59 +0000

Despite being Brazil’s largest city (and the third most populous city on earth), Sao Paulo is often over-looked as a tourist destination. The beaches and party-hard reputation of Rio de Janeiro capture the imaginations of travelers more than the sprawling urban landscapes and cosmopolitan atmosphere of Sao Paulo. In recent years, Brazil has become the unofficial leader of the developing world. This is usually a reference to economics and trade, but the nation has also played a role when it comes to environmental issues.

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Colbert Talks Copenhagen And ClimateGate: Something Is Melting In Denmark (VIDEO)

Tue, 1 Dec 2009 17:46:32 +0000

On Monday night Stephen Colbert went Klimate Krazy, talking about what the upcoming Copenhagen climate talks mean and discussing the "ClimateGate" emails, a series of hacked emails that climate skeptics claiming prove that global warming is a hoax. (Newsflash: it's not a hoax. Here at HuffPost Green we like to call the incident "SwiftHack.") Colbert wonders if Obama's trip to Copenhagen going to prove him to be a fascist AND a failure, and an "Adolph Carter!" He then chatted with professor Dan Esty, and pondered deep questions such as, "last time Obama went to Copenhagen it was to try get the Olympics. He lost them. Is there any change we are going to lose the environment to Brazil?" WATCH: The Colbert Report Mon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c Something Is Melting in Denmark - Dan Esty www.colbertnation.com Colbert Report Full Episodes Political Humor U.S. Speedskating Get HuffPost Green On Facebook and Twitter!

Find more top green news, videos, and blogs on EarthBlips: Green Living, Denmark, Barack Obama, Colbert Report, Stephen Colbert, Brazil

Brazil: 'Gringos' Must Pay To Stop Amazon Razing

Fri, 27 Nov 2009 13:48:40 +0000

MANAUS, Brazil — Brazil's president said that "gringos" should pay Amazon nations to prevent deforestation, insisting rich Western nations have caused much more past environmental destruction than the loggers and farmers who cut and burn trees in the world's largest tropical rain forest. President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva made the comments Thursday just before an Amazon summit in which delegates signed a declaration calling for financial help from the industrial world to halt the deforestation that causes global warming. "I don't want any gringo asking us to let an Amazon resident die of hunger under a tree," Silva said. "We want to preserve, but they will have to pay the price for this preservation because we never destroyed our forest like they mowed theirs down a century ago." In Brazil, the word "gringo" does not only mean American, but generally refers to anyone from the northern hemisphere. Silva convened the meeting to form a unified position on deforestation and ...

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Daily Briefing: Tues.

Tue, 24 Nov 2009 15:22:29 +0000

SETTING LIMITS: The United States will give the world what it wants — a specific, short-term target for reducing its greenhouse gas emissions in time for next month's U.N. climate summit in Copenhagen — a senior White House official announced Monday. Global leaders have been pushing their American counterparts to set a number, following the lead of nations ranging from Brazil to Russia, even though fellow super-emitter China is refusing to set an emissions target of its own.

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Nikolas Kozloff: Blackout in Brazil: Hydropower and Our Climate Conundrum

Mon, 23 Nov 2009 04:25:13 +0000

It's everyone's worst nightmare: being caught in an underground subway in the midst of a power outage. Yet, that is exactly what happened recently when Brazilian commuters in the city of Sao Paulo were trapped inside trains and literally had to be pulled out of subway cars. In addition to sparking problems in public transport, the blackout or apago led to hospital emergencies and the shutting down of several airports. In all the power outage darkened approximately half of the South American nation, affecting sixty million people. In recent years Brazil has become an economic powerhouse yet the blackout exposed vulnerabilities in the country's infrastructure. In the wake of the power outage, government officials intent on sustaining high economic growth have tried to figure out what might have gone wrong with the country's electrical grid. Initial reports blamed the power outage on the massive Itaipu hydroelectric dam though a spokesperson for the facility said there had been no problem at ...

Find more top green news, videos, and blogs on EarthBlips: Green Living, Brazil, Climate Change