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JONATHAN TURLEY

Res ipsa loquitur ("The thing itself speaks")

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Ecuador To Sell China More Than Three Million Hectares Of Pristine Amazonian Rainforest For Oil Development

1, March 28, 2013 by jonathanturley

220px-Daintree_Rainforest220px-Lacanja_burnWe have long followed the horrific record of China on the environment. The Chinese regime has continued to push for high production rates as the number of “cancer villages” and lethal pollution rises across the country. This record has made China the worse environmental violator in the world. Now, greed has combined with power to make for what could be one of the greatest single environmental losses with China expanding its destructive record to Latin America. Ecuador has announced a plan to auction off more than three million hectares of pristine Amazonian rainforest to Chinese oil companies. The loss of such pristine areas (and unique species within it) will cause incalculable damage to feed China’s insatiable demand for energy.


Indigenous groups and environmentalists have protested the deal with China Petrochemical and China National Offshore Oil. The seven indigenous groups who inhabit the land have objected that they have not consented to the sale. However, Ecuador’s secretary of hydrocarbons, Andrés Donoso Fabara, has attacked the tribes in opposing his surrender of large amounts of his nation to a foreign government with the worst environmental record in the world. I suppose that can be expected from someone called the “Secretary of Hydrocarbons.” Fabara insisted “These guys with a political agenda, they are not thinking about development or about fighting against poverty.” He reminded everyone that “We are entitled by law, if we wanted, to go in by force and do some activities even if they are against them.” In other words, the Chinese will have their way with Ecuador.

The disgraceful sale also reflected how China has used debt to pressure countries, including the United States. Ecuador owes China more than £4.6bn ($7bn) — more than a tenth of its GDP. China has loaned the country billions of dollars in exchange for oil shipments.

The cost will not just be felt by these tribes. The destruction of these rainforests will contribute to global warming and accelerate the loss of species. Those species will not only reduce diversity in this world but many likely hold medical and scientific breakthroughs. We have found key treatments for diseases and illnesses in such rare species. In other words, we are slitting our own throats in the loss of these areas. China’s aggressive effort to secure these areas reaffirms its opposition to basic environmental protections and its intent to expand its environmental damage around the world.

Source: Guardian

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Posted in Environment, International, Science, Society | 30 Comments

30 Responses

  1. on 1, March 28, 2013 at 1:28 am #Ecuador To Sell #China More Than Three Million Hextarces Of Pristine Amazonian Rainforest For #Oil | The Firewall

    […] http://jonathanturley.org/2013/03/28/ecuador-to-sell-china-more-than-three-million-hextarces-of-pris… […]


  2. on 1, March 28, 2013 at 1:33 am Ecuador To Sell China More Than Three Million Hextarces Of Pristine Amazonian Rainforest For Oil Development

    […] to Remove Advertisements http://jonathanturley.org/2013/03/28…nt/#more-62260 Ecuador To Sell China More Than Three Million Hextarces Of Pristine Amazonian Rainforest For Oil […]


  3. on 1, March 28, 2013 at 2:47 am adhinoegroho

    Reblogged this on Adhipapers.


  4. on 1, March 28, 2013 at 6:09 am Max-1

    EPA finds 55 percent of rivers and streams in US in poor condition; situation worse in East

    More than half of the country’s rivers and streams are in poor biological health, unable to support healthy populations of aquatic insects and other creatures, according to a new nationwide survey released Tuesday.

    The Environmental Protection Agency sampled nearly 2,000 locations in 2008 and 2009 — from rivers as large as the Mississippi River to streams small enough for wading. The study found more than 55 percent of them in poor condition, 23 percent in fair shape, and 21 percent in good biological health.


  5. on 1, March 28, 2013 at 7:31 am BarkinDog

    From the China side we have the government or large government connected entities who buy huge portions of land, oil, products. From the United States side we have huge private consortiums competing against each other sort of who have large government support to buy huge portions of land, oil products. China has billionaire so called communists and the United States has billionaire so called capitalists. Always the Twain shall meet in their methods and never in their description of self. The rest of us are self deluded.

    One example. In the United States the nation owns outright millions of acres of land and millions of acres of surface covered by water, underwhich there is oil, gas and coal. The Untied States “leases” the surface rights to corporations and the corporations thus control the supply of such resources legally owned by the public. The corporations sit on the oil and gas and maniupulate the prices at the gas pump up the street from your house or the stove outlet in your kitchen. Underlying this big fraud on the public, by the public government political bosses, is the big fat lie that we are free enterprise. Underlying this big fat lie is the notion that only the big corporations are skilled enough to drill for the oil and gas and thence transport it to the gas station pump up the street from your house and to the stove outlet in your kitchen. The government itself, without astronauts or rockets from Boeing, put a man on the moon in 1969. I think the government of the United States could drill for some oil and gas on our public property and control prices or share in price manipulation.

    Before we, the Exceptional Country, go off on the Chinese for buying swaths of mineral rights lands or access to rights in other countries, let us consider our own Koch Brother Ways.


  6. on 1, March 28, 2013 at 7:33 am Robin D'Andrea

    Good morning America! This is your wake up call!


  7. on 1, March 28, 2013 at 7:34 am itchinBayDog

    In the third sentence of the article you want China to be the worst not the “worse” offender. If the Chinese are going to Ecuador then we want to know that they are the worst of the lot. Worse than the United States.


  8. on 1, March 28, 2013 at 7:51 am Dave

    Isaac Asimov gave a rather timeless speech in 1989:

    At 3:22, he mentions Brazil and its share of rainforest. The same could be said of Ecuador, of course, as it relates to this article.


  9. on 1, March 28, 2013 at 8:02 am Frankly

    does not matter. we have brought the world to the edge of a mass extinction event and nothing short of a super-historic, multinatinonal superhuman program will bring it back – and that is not going to happen. Because of its size the earth has done a good job of protecting us from our own stupidity but the down side is that we have been allowed to ignore that stupidity for long enough that the affects are not going to be reversible within the time we have left. Chances are a few humans will make it through the extinction event. They won’t be the ones living in industrialized nations though as we are too far removed from survival living.

    Burn down the forests, belch more smoke & CO2, pop out another billion people, dump the waste wherever its all good.


  10. on 1, March 28, 2013 at 8:04 am HumpinDog

    What is the unit called and spelled: Hectacre, hexarces, hectare?
    Google says “hectare” even if you Google-In “hectacre”. It is ten acres?
    Is “hex” the same as “hec”? Is an acre the same as an “are” or “tare”?
    Inquiring dogs want to know.


  11. on 1, March 28, 2013 at 8:05 am BarkinDog

    Is “hextarces” correct in any language and what does it mean precisely.


  12. on 1, March 28, 2013 at 8:07 am PreacherDog

    It reads something closer to an arse than an acre. But since they are drilling the reference to a hole might be in the arces part but the hex could be ten. Five will get ya ten on this one.


  13. on 1, March 28, 2013 at 8:10 am BarkinDog

    The way I interpret the word “hexarces” is ten arses only it is in Latin. Since they are in Latin America, where they speak Spanish or Portugal talk, and not Latin, one wonders.


  14. on 1, March 28, 2013 at 8:11 am ItchinBayDog

    We are talking millions of these units of land or swamp so what difference does it make if it is ten acres, ten arses or ten acrinams?


  15. on 1, March 28, 2013 at 8:16 am LazyDog

    If it is in “pristine” Amazon rain forest then it is not swamp. But you wonder why here in America we give Chavez in Venezuela all the hell about being a socialist when over there in Ecuador, next door, the people are getting sold out to Chinese capitalists. The tenor of the article seems to intimate jealousy because the lend lease is not made by Exxon which is on its face some American company. Seems to me that the hextarces ought to be developed by Ecuadorians for Ecuador and generate gas and oil for Ecuador. Just as it should be with public lands in the United States. Only here we have the Koch Brothers and Venezuela had Chavez.


  16. on 1, March 28, 2013 at 8:53 am Onlooker from Troy

    “We are entitled by law, if we wanted, to go in by force and do some activities even if they are against them.”

    Yes, by law. By an unjust and corrupt law. But not by any kind of true standard of liberty and fundamental human rights. We have that here, ensconced in our constitution; though it’s hanging by a fraying thread.

    “The disgraceful sale also reflected how China has used debt to pressure countries,…”

    The bible has a lot of flaws, and I’m atheist, but it sure has some good nuggets of wisdom. Such as, “the borrower is slave to the lender.” So true, as so many in our world today are learning; the hard way.


  17. on 1, March 28, 2013 at 8:54 am Anonymously Yours

    Oh good…. Now we can defoliate the ecosystem…. I wonder what te drug companies have to say bout that….


  18. on 1, March 28, 2013 at 10:28 am For reference

    This is an area roughly 1.5 times the size of New Jersey.


  19. on 1, March 28, 2013 at 10:43 am Gene H.

    Laissez-faire economics anyone?


  20. on 1, March 28, 2013 at 12:18 pm Bron

    yes, too bad we dont have it. we could be selling china the oil with a lot less environmental destruction.

    John D. saved the whales with laissez faire [well almost laissez faire].

    people acknowledge natural systems act in harmony but they refuse to accept that man can act in harmony as well. And so they hide behind benevolence to control man at every level in every undertaking.

    China is not a free country and does not respect individual rights, seems to me they could use a hefty dose of laissez faire instead of the state run chimera they now have. China’s economy is run by a party elite for the benefit of the state and a few individuals. Hmm, that sounds hauntingly similar to the US.


  21. on 1, March 28, 2013 at 2:19 pm Dredd

    Can a civilization commit suicide?


  22. on 1, March 28, 2013 at 9:46 pm pete9999

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monroe_Doctrine


  23. on 1, March 29, 2013 at 11:30 am Bruce

    Now you know why they bought the Panama canal. you climate changers better get down there asap


  24. on 1, March 30, 2013 at 10:38 am Bron

    Over at Principia Scientific International (PSI) greenhouse gas effect (GHE) critic, Alan Siddons is hailing the findings. Siddons and his colleagues have been winning support from hundreds of independent scientists for their GHE studies carried out over the last seven years. PSI has proved that the numbers fed into computer models by Hansen and others were based on a faulty interpretation of the laws of thermodynamics. PSI also recently uncovered long overlooked evidence from the American Meteorological Society (AMS) that shows it was widely known the GHE was discredited prior to 1951. [2]

    http://principia-scientific.org/supportnews/latest-news/163-new-discovery-nasa-study-proves-carbon-dioxide-cools-atmosphere.html#.UVYwRz4bXF4.facebook


  25. on 1, March 30, 2013 at 10:49 am Gene H.

    Yeah, because left up to their own devices, industry has never raped the environment. Say like destroying whole habitats by strip mining because it’s cheaper than conventional mining practices or dumping thousands of dead pigs into a river used as a water supply or burying toxic waste and selling the land to unsuspecting developers who consequently pass the toxic properties on to home owners who subsequently get sick and die along with their children and pets.

    Capitalism rewards psychopathic behavior.

    That is why it must be restrained.


  26. on 1, March 30, 2013 at 11:43 am Bron

    Yes, of course the upper atmosphere is going to deflect and re-radiate the energy of solar storms, that’s why we don’t burn to a cinder when they happen. There’s nothing new here, this is what the upper atmosphere (thermosphere) does. CO2 (and other greenhouse gases – GHG’s) in the lower atmosphere also re-radiates long wave infra red energy (LWIR) as backradiation coming up from the surface of the Earth as it dumps the shortwave solar energy absorbed returns as LWIR (heat) and makes its way to the top of the atmosphere.

    http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/03/28/a-misinterpreted-claim-about-a-nasa-press-release-co2-solar-flares-and-the-thermosphere-is-making-the-rounds/


  27. on 1, March 30, 2013 at 12:14 pm Bron

    I would imagine that doesnt happen much in the US today. Banks require environmental studies on properties to make sure they arent getting a pig in a poke.

    And that is how it should work, opposing forces. Developer vs. banker. I will say you are right, that only a psychopath would sell polluted land to homeowners because a psychopath is disconnected from reality. The reality is that he could do that for one, maybe 2 developments but that would be it, word would get out and he would be out of business and subject to civil if not criminal charges for fraud.

    A real capitalist thinks long term and looks out for his interests. Those interests are tied to the satisfaction of his customers who will then give referals and grow his business.

    Will there be people who take advantage of other people, certainly and they are sociopaths but the crook is always on the run and can never settle down and is always looking over his shoulder. Bernie Madoff is a good case in point.

    Why would a child selling lemonade use salt instead of sugar?


  28. on 1, May 15, 2013 at 8:31 am Heartbreaking rainforest news from Ecuador | The Rainforests

    […] Ecuador To Sell China More Than Three Million Hextarces Of Pristine Amazonian Rainforest For Oil Dev… […]


  29. on 1, June 22, 2013 at 8:55 am http://www.losangelesweddingphotographers.org

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  30. on 1, September 27, 2013 at 1:33 am acl2014

    I am also opposed to drilling in the Amazon. However, a 10% debt to GDP ratio is not generally considered significant. I believe this ratio can get up to 60% before any economists raise an eyebrow. If this is the case, then we can conclude that China is not pressuring Ecuador via debt obligations, as you suggest, but rather the responsibility is all Ecuador’s — that is, unless we implicate all industrial nations, including the U.S. and China, for their incredibly irresponsible consumption of oil.



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