Source: Savannah Morning News
Albert George never imagined he one day would long to be the Johnny Appleseed of the Amazon River Valley.Like so many of the Savannah native's passions, George's desire to reforest the Amazon jungle "one tree at a time" came unexpectedly in what he calls an "awakening moment."
George took a group of kids to the Amazon in 2007 as part of the Georgia Aquarium's youth education program. He was the aquarium's director of education and lived a week in the rainforest. Among the locals the group visited was Dr. Francisco Ritta Bernardino, a friend of the late Jacques Cousteau and noted environmentalist.
George and Bernardino made fast friends, and Amazon deforestation became a popular topic of conversation between them. Bernardino owns more than a million hectares - 2.4 million acres - in the valley, much of it touched by the rampant illegal logging of the past several decades.
"If you're religious, you'd call it a blessing; others would call it luck or serendipity," George said. "But for me to be in the Amazon and to meet one of that area's great conservationists at a time when the world is focused on the deforestation that's going on down there, I knew I was supposed to get involved."
George and Bernardino since have launched the Amazon Reforestation Project. The group's objective is to put the Amazon locals to work planting trees on Bernardino's land, thereby creating a physical model - economically as well as environmentally - for reforesting.
"What all the critics miss is that to the people that live there, illegal logging is how many survive economically," George said. "We're never going to halt the deforesting unless the people are given the opportunity to do something else. They are a very proud people. Give them options, and they'll take it."
Fighting deforestation
Putting Brazilians to work with a shovel instead of a chainsaw would address climate-change issues, too.
Every tree in "the world's lung" processes one metric ton of carbon dioxide and greenhouse gases from the atmosphere - the average human produces 0.6 tons of emissions a year. Current estimates peg the deforestation rate at 80,000 acres a day.
"We have to change the model of development," Brazil's environmental minister, Marina Silva, said prior to the Copenhagen climate change summit in December. "Fighting deforestation has to be an integrated effort by various government sectors, and at the same time, an economic activity that helps lives."
George estimates room for 250 million to 300 million new trees on Bernardino's land.
At an approximate cost of $10 per tree - the price includes labor, the saplings and GPS point location equipment - he has plenty of fundraising ahead of him.
"I'm just out to engage people at this point; to find people with a passion and give them an opportunity to make a difference," George said. "The whole carbon neutral movement is growing. We're taking the approach of one tree at a time, but there are businesses and corporations out there that might want to do 100 trees or 1,000 or 10,000."
Awakening to life
Selling trees in the world's largest rainforest sounds more challenging then peddling ice to Eskimos.
George seems engaging enough to do it, however. The 38-year-old's determination and intellect has taken him from Savannah's westside to the Ivy League to corporate boardrooms.
He points to a series of "awakening moments" that have shown him the way.
The first came tragically at age 9. His mother died unexpectedly, and his grandmother took him in. She demanded the best from her grandson and left an "indelible mark."
"Her ability to take me in at a traumatic phase of my life and keep me on a positive path changed the course of my life," he said.
George's grandmother often took an unorthodox approach. She would use news clippings to teach life lessons: George remembers reading a story she gave to him about a young politician from Arkansas who had risen from nothing to attend Oxford and Yale and become governor. Bill Clinton would later become president.
His grandmother was also quick with a clever saying.
"Dress your head, and you'll always be able to dress your feet," she would tell him.
George dressed his head well enough at Beach High School to earn an academic scholarship to Savannah State. His only intense interest going into college, however, was football. Beach won the region title his senior year, which remains among the most rewarding moments of his life.
But grandma wanted him to cultivate his mind and "not be a piece of meat," so he focused on class and passed on the pigskin.
Yet he didn't declare a major as a freshman and still wasn't sure on a career track halfway through his sophomore year. He did have an interest in science, however, and joined his marine biology class on a field trip to Florida during the spring of his sophomore year.
One of the labs the class visited was the Whitney Laboratory. A scientist there was studying squid toxin and how it affects the central nervous system. A short conversation resulted in another George "awakening moment" - he wanted to be a marine biologist.
Not-so-weird science
Unbeknownst to George, his biology professor had recommended him for a 13-week program at Yale in the summer between his sophomore and junior years.
He arrived at orientation feeling intimidated and terrified. But during orientation, one of the speakers was a shark researcher. George asked the professor about some of the topics that interested him during his Florida trip.
By the end of the 13-week program, that same professor invited George to return to New England the following summer to work on a project. George's work on that research program prompted that professor to encourage George to transfer to Yale to finish his education. He even arranged for a scholarship for George through one of the companies funding his shark research.
"A blessing, luck, serendipity - there it was again," George said.
George's two years at Yale convinced him to broaden his interest from science to how science can improve society. He regularly volunteered in the poverty-stricken areas near the Yale campus and saw how one man can make a difference.
So instead of studying science in graduate school, he attended Harvard's Kennedy School of Government. He earned his master's degree and went to work promoting how science and technology can impact society, first at Morehouse College, then for a Washington, D.C.,-based consulting firm.
While in D.C., he decided to pursue an MBA and applied to Georgia Tech. He got in, but upon arriving in Atlanta decided he still wanted to work. The Georgia Aquarium was nearing completion, and he approached the executive director about working in the facility's education department.
The executive director promptly hired George to head up the department - yet another awakening moment.
"I was charged with connecting the aquarium with the community," George said. "It was a life-changer."
The job eventually took him to the Amazon. He left the Georgia Aquarium in 2008 to open his own consulting firm and finish his MBA.
He got that degree in December and launched the Amazon Reforestation Project in January.
Now this modern-day Johnny Appleseed is ready to provide awakening moments for others.
Carbon neutrality
The climate change debate has led many individuals and businesses to strive to be "carbon neutral" by offsetting their own greenhouse gas emissions - from such sources as burning fossil fuels in automobiles and manufacturing processes - by utilizing renewable energy or by funding carbon projects, such as the Amazon Reforestation Project. One tree in the Amazon jungle can process one metric ton of greenhouse gases from the atmosphere (the average human produces 0.6 tons of greenhouse gases annually). The Amazon currently stores more than 80 billion tons of carbon, 50 times the annual U.S. emissions, according to the group Greenpeace.