James Cameron has joined with aboriginal people in Brazil to fight the the Belo Monte dam, which would be one of the largest hydroelectric projects in the world.
Cameron wore war paint and carried a spear while meeting with leaders of 18 indigenous tribes last week to discuss their plans against what might become the world's third largest dam.
140 organizations and movements from Brazil and across the globe decried the decision-making process in granting the environmental license for the dams in a letter to Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva in 2010. The first Belo Monte dam proposal was shelved in the 1990s because of local, national, and international protest.
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Back to Cameron;
"I sat in what is essentially a war council circle with a number of these leaders and watched them declare to each other that they're going to fight to the last man, to the last drop of blood, and I think they mean it," Cameron told CNN. "I don't think they're just saying it."
"Avatar" was fictional, but Cameron said he based the ideas in the script on the Brazilian rain forest and the plight of its indigenous people. -CNN
In addition to assault on the indiginous people's way of life and habitat, The National Amazon Research Institute (INPA) calculated that during its first 10 years, the Belo Monte-Babaquara dam complex would emit 112 million metric tons of Carbon dioxide equivalent, and an additional 0.783 million metric tons of CO2 equivalent would be generated during construction and connection to the national energy grid.
Dams in Brazil emit high amounts of methane, due to the lush jungle covered by waters each year as the basin fills. Carbon is trapped by foliage, which then decays anaerobically with help from methanogens, converting the carbon to methane, a more potent greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide. As a result, carbon emissions are emitted from the dam each year it is in operation. A 1990 study of the Curuá-Una Dam, also in Brazil, have found that it pollutes 3.5 times more in carbon dioxide equivalent than an oil power plant would.[10]
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It will be interesting to see if Cameron will have an impact on this issue. "Avatar's" website is being updated to help educate movie fans about environmental issues, and the release of "Avatar" on Blu-Ray DVD was timed for Thursday, which is Earth Day.