Giving Peace a Chance vs. Saving the Planet

1967 poster

An iconic poster from the days of Woodstock, flowers, and the Summer of Love reads:

War is not healthy for children and other living things.

The danger of full-scale war has receded, but another fear has arisen, that of anthropogenic global warming.

Like the 1960's the goal of the revolution is simply stated. Back then it was to stop war. Today it is to lower the carbon content of the atmosphere.

It is with some bemusement, then, that we are discovering that the past and present revolutions are in conflict. Peace destroys the rainforest. [bold added]

(Image from uww.edu)

The return of normalcy [in Columbia] led to a spike in rainforest-clearing, as landowners mowed down former guerrilla hide-outs to establish cattle ranches and plantations. Colombian researchers say that much of the country’s portion of the Amazon jungle is now in danger.

...When conflicts end, developers rush in to take advantage, and rates of deforestation accelerate. Governments tend to be unprepared to enforce preservation of the sensitive, newly accessible territory...

In a paper published last month in the journal Land Use Policy, researchers at the University of Vermont and the University of Waterloo showed how dramatically rainforest destruction sped up after peace arrived in Peru, Sri Lanka, Ivory Coast and Nepal in the past dozen years. In those four case studies, the average annual forest loss was 68% greater in the five years after conflicts ended than in the five years before. Forest loss also has increased globally but more slowly, at an average annual rise of 7% since 2001.

Peru and Ivory Coast suffered the biggest absolute rainforest losses. Peru lost almost 840 square miles annually—an area roughly the size of Jacksonville, Fla.—in the five years after the Shining Path rebel group effectively acknowledged defeat in 2011. That was 58% more than the average during the prior five years.

Whether it's by clearing trees or crossing borders, people will do whatever it takes to improve their lives and could not care less about First-World values and laws.