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Tom Goldtooth: Carbon Trading Is “Fraudulent” Scheme to Privatize Air and Forests and Permit Pollution

The pipeline carries a highly polluting form of oil called “diluted bitumen.”

In South Dakota, the energy company TransCanada says it shut down part of its pipeline Thursday after a rupture spilled 210,000 gallons of oil in a field near Amherst. The pipeline carries a highly polluting form of oil called “diluted bitumen.” This comes amid a new report titled “Carbon Pricing: A Critical Perspective for Community Resistance,” which exposes the dangers of carbon trading, a scheme in which major companies purchase carbon credits from countries who agree to plant trees or protect existing forests. We speak with one of the report’s co-authors, Tom Goldtooth, executive director of the Indigenous Environmental Network, and Isabella Zizi from Richmond, California, home to a massive Chevron oil refinery. Chevron has said it will purchase carbon credits to offset increased pollution from a recent expansion of the Richmond refinery.

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