The aging mayor of this crammed jungle city in the heart of the Amazon once handed out chainsaws to cut down the rainforest.

Now he throws around slogans to save it.

That legendary shift is part of a new attitude that's driving a wave of innovation by Brazilian business and government. [...]

President Luíz Inácio Lula da Silva, who is expected to join the conference next week, has cast himself as a mediator.

To bridge the emissions gap between rich and poor nations, he is pushing emerging countries to limit pollution, while insisting that developed nations help pay the bill. [...]

Since 2003, Brazil has pushed to slow the destruction, creating 250,000 square miles of new protected forest, arresting hundreds of illegal loggers and granting farm loans on the condition that they follow environmental compliance. The country has added faster satellite surveillance, designed a $1 billion ``Amazon Fund'' to finance conservation and vowed to cut emissions by at least 36 percent from what's expected for 2020.

Because it's easier to fight deforestation than fossil-fuel use, experts say Amazon conservation could slow global emissions while buying time for the world to develop clean energy technology. It also could help the world's trees clean the air by absorbing more carbon dioxide: The Amazon now stores at least 80 billion tons of carbon, 50 times annual U.S. emissions, according to Greenpeace.

Makes sense to me. Using governments to provide solutions to a global problem and backing ot up with actions, not merely words. As the rest of the Miami Herald article explains, Brazil has pledged to cut emissions by 36% and has created a $1 Billion Dollar conservation fund.

Sao Paolo has a "sustainabilty" index to encourage investment in environmentally friendly businesses, and the 22 largest Brazilian companies have pledged to cut emissions also to attract customers. On the local level, the state government of Amazonas is subsidizing sustainable development of rain forest products such as rubber, nuts and oils, as well as paying monthly stipends to poor Brazilians who live and work in the rain forest from an endowment created in partnership with Coca-Cola.

Now if a "developing" country like Brazil can do all that (and more -- read the whole story as they say) why can't the United States, with its vastly larger resources develop industries and build better, more energy efficient infrastructure, from improving the waste in our electrical grid, to subsidizing alternative energy to more efficient, less green house gas emitting means of public and private transportation.

Oh wait.

I forgot we're the land of Sarah Palin knows best, and what she knows is that man made climate change doesn't exist. And even if it does exist, the invisible hand of the market will solve all our climate change problems all by its lonesome.

Nevermind. Just let Brazil (and the rest of the known universe) worry about it, right?