What do Bolivia's President Evo Morales and United States President Barack 'Killer' Obama have in common? Very little you reply because Evo Morales enjoys a global reputation as a defender of "Pachamama", or Earth, and is an unabashed socialist leader of a developing nation. While Obama is a corporate collaborator willing to sacrifice the environment for the gain of his politcal sponsors and only gives lip service to progressive policies while pursuing imperial ones. But take a closer look. Both political leaders face a momentous decision in the area of environmental protection. In the new age of planetary warming, each decision will have immense impact.
Despite his green image, Morales wants to build a road through a national park and indigenous reserve in the headwaters of the Amazon. Know by its Spanish acronym "Tipnis", it is a wilderness of unmatched biological diversity and home to 64 native communities. Natives living there are marching up to the capital La Paz, a trek of 400 miles, to tell El Presidente not to build the road. Morales says the road will be built "no matter what" to integrate remote communities into Bolivia's economic future. His categorical position comes from a leader who directed Bolivia's representatives to take a lone hard line stance at the Cancun climate conference
{"Cancun"} against what he called "ecocide and genocide". Local people have boycotted the consultation process because they believe that no amount of consulting them will stop the road from destroying their forest. The road they say will open the way for loggers, land-squatters, poachers, oil companies and other nefarious exploiters. Bolivian conservationists have called Morales' environmental policy inconsistent. Despite writing the right of nature into the country's constitution
{"Pachamama"}Bolivia is till heavily dependent on extractive industries. Crude, natural gas and tin and zinc ore are the countries main exports. President Morales was once an illiterate indigenous coca farmer and has been elected by huge majorities of poor voters.
In America the decision facing the White House's current occupant parallels the Bolivian dispute. The Keystone XL pipeline is awaiting approval, but there is a groundswell of objections from people living in the path of the pipeline that is supposed to carry America's next greatest source of oil from Alberta's tar sands--the third largest oil field in the world--south for refining on the Gulf of Mexico. Farmers, environmentalists and just 'plain folks' are very concerned about the extreme damage a ruptured pipeline transporting highly toxic, hot bitumen slurry could do to their land and water, as well as
the impact of more fossil fuel burning on the climate. Burning tar sands oil will increase America's greenhouse emissions by 38 million tons of carbon dioxide per year, equivalent to the annual emissions of 6 million cars. The pipe will cross six states, major rivers, and the Ogallala Aquifer, source of drinking water for 2 million Americans. Refining the gunk into burnable fuel will result in higher emissions of mercury, sulfur dioxide and nitrous oxide. Secretary of State Hilary Clinton has already indicated she would approve the pipeline, but the final decision is the President's. He was once a community organizer, who's job it was to listen to neighborhood people and translate their desires into political action. How soon they forget.
