The United States once had one of the largest forests on Earth. The Eastern Forest covered almost everywhere east of the Mississippi. 2,560,000 km2 of forest. Now it is largely gone. Replaced with farmland and sprawl. So it is hard to criticize. Even areas that are now heavily forested like Vermont were clear cut almost entirely by the turn of the century.
The Amazon should be preserved, but to do that the world is going to have to pay. You can't tell a country you can't progress like the USA it is hypocritical.
> So it is hard to criticize. Even areas that are now heavily forested like Vermont were clear cut almost entirely by the turn of the century.
As someone born in Brazil, I don't see why it's hard. Please criticise away. My country should be learning from the mistakes of others, not repeating them in order to favour some higher political caste.
Note this is probably a false dilemma. According to Brazilian federal police, the recent deforestation surge is caused by illegal logging, not agriculture or cattle raising. Source in Portuguese: https://www.cnnbrasil.com.br/nacional/pf-grilagem-e-madeira-...
Brazil had no trouble to grow in 90s and 2000s while reducing Amazon deforestation.
The majority of deforestation took place prior to 1910, says Wikipedia. We didn't know nearly as much back then about the problems it would cause. So I'm not sure it's hard to criticize this when seeing it in 2022.
Killing the Amazon is a crime. Nothing done in the US or anywhere else changes that, regardless of whether that was a crime, too.
It is also not hypocritical unless you personally cut down a tree, or unless you believe in the collective responsibility of nations. I don't think 'the Brazialians' are responsible for killing the Amazon -- it's probably a minority of people and we shouldn't care which nation they belong too. This is a serious global problem, and it accidentally happens in some country. Neither collective blame nor collective shame will help. This problem must be criticised.
It all depends on when it happened. We evolved as a species and what was perceived as normal way less than 100 years ago would be considered outrageous by today's standards. As an example, if you take 10 highly successful Hollywood movies from the 1950s, chances are that in 7 of them a woman is forced into kissing the male lead; do it today and your career is over. And we're talking about people, not trees.
Back then we didn't know what damage we were bringing to the environment, now we do, so I think it's perfectly logical to call Bolsonaro a corrupt criminal while closing an eye on similar events from over a century ago.
Why do governments not start an international reforestation / ecological fund and pay some of their GDP into it so that it would make economic sense for Brazil, Australia and others to preserve their forests, kelp, reefs etc. These carbon credit half measures are pitiful.
Western governments pay part of their GDP for NATO, but defending against ecological collapse might be higher priority.
Governments tax citizens by force all the time. If it’s going to be used for anything, it should FIRST AND FOREMOST be used to coordinate large scale activity to mitigate negative externalities. And there’s no bigger one than the ecosystem collapse we are starting to see around us.
(Printing more money btw will only accerate consumption. There is very little thought to sustainability in most human economic systems.)
The eastern US forests cover 1.55 million km^2. So, no, it is not "largely gone". Granted, a considerable fraction of this is regenerated after being clear cut.
The Eastern Forest has fragmented a lot since it first started being settled, but don't exaggerate for dramatic effect. Vast tracts of it remain or have regrown and many of the eastern US states are thickly, heavily forested in ways that would make, say for example a European gaze in wonder at actually seeing them. Even many urban Americans simply have no idea just how many and huge the remaining or regrown eastern forest sections of the U.S are. They don't see them and their limited sight of woodland largely consists of scattered fragments around their cities, where obviously, the least forest would be visible. Also worth noting, they continue to grow back each year. You can largely thank industrialized, centralizad agriculture and urbanization for that.
You absolutely can and we have been doing so since, probably the 1970s. I think this hypocriticalness should continue. The world is FULL of hypocrtical shit and it doesn't stop of from trying to do what is right.
You are looking at this issue one-dimensionally. It is very easy to criticise given that we now know what the impacts of deforestation are a lot better than we did a century or three ago.
I live close and know people who livelihoods depends on that forest. Believe it or not, it's not the farmers or loggers fault. Their livelihoods depends on that forest. Farmers depend on the rain cycle. Loggers depend on the forest staying healthy, so new trees grow so they can keep their business going. Illegal logging does happen but it isn't their fault exclusively either.
The root cause is illegal occupation and settlement of land. People invade other people's land, often federal land, they cut down all of the trees, they burn it down, so they can clear it to set up makeshift camps. They then split and sell the land. Once there are people living on it, it's pretty much a lost cause due to how loosely enforced private ownership of land is, specially federal land. Also, it's a lucrative business, and involves corruption in all levels. People affected by it, like loggers who lose their property and livelihoods can hardly do anything, since the invaders will often get violent and the State wont do anything.
I really want to see some sources to those claims.
Illegal farmers and loggers have no interest in preserving the forest. They can just completely destroy some area, then move around to another one and start it all over again. Even farmers don't want to spend too much time in the same place if they can help it, the soil in the Amazon isn't that good for farming after a few harvests.
Wood extraction in the Amazon is a crime. It's aggravated crime if done in indigenous lands. It's aggravated even more if done for illegal mining activities. The state police (civil and military) from the various Brazilian states that compose the Amazon forest has the legal obligation to investigate and arrest criminals within the region. The problem is the region is just too big. But let's assume that somehow all those criminals lose their ability to profit on the product of their crimes altogether, within a 5 to 10 years time span, all the vegetation would be naturally restored. The Amazon forest is unstoppable.
I live in the state of São Paulo, far from the Amazon forest, and the vegetation here requires a lot of work to be tamed. If you leave an empty allotment 2 or 3 months without any care, you will get knee height grass and all sorts of "exotic" plants coming out of the ground. The Amazon is orders of magnitude more aggressive than this one.
So once you stop the illegal activity, the forest will come back. The problem is not the forest, but the people -- indigenous or not -- affected by the illegal activities. Recently we saw headlines about the murder of two people in the region, an activist and a journalist. So many others have died when they crossed paths with criminals. This is a humanitarian problem before an ecological problem.
The problem is that the current government doesn't WANT to investigate and arrest criminals. They cut funding, merged environmental protection and indigenous affairs into the agricultural ministry. This is well documented.
The forest is on the edge of becoming a net carbon producer for the first time. This doesn't simply reverse when it regrows from some saplings. Its capacity to create clouds to replenish water is already heavily compromised. When that stops this simply doesn't reverse. When you burn sections without first clearing it of its animal populations they perish, destroying the ecosystems that often needs animals to help germinate new trees. The mercury used for illegal gold mining doesn't just go out of the river and back into the bottle. Billions of animals die from these actions and the results will be irreversible.
To call the Amazon unstoppable, to say that the humans that are dying is the real problem, smacks of the ignorance that has led us to this point.
> But let's assume that somehow all those criminals lose their ability to profit on the product of their crimes altogether, within a 5 to 10 years time span, all the vegetation would be naturally restored. The Amazon forest is unstoppable.
Recent research points out that the Amazon (and in fact most Earth's supposedly wild) rainforest is a elaborate example of centuries of forest bio-engineering, and it doesn't simply recover if abandoned; decaying into desert instead. Further bio-engineering would be required to repair it to it's "original" state.
If we really care about what happens in Brazil we should offer economically viable solutions rather than pointing fingers and accusing them of doing something that we did in the past for a long time.
As someone born in Brazil, I'm tired of this condescending bullshit.
There are several economically viable solutions, but Brazilian government should be interested in pursuing them, rather than only pursuing things that only benefits the current friends of the government (such as deforestation).
US/EU/etc forcing Brazil to get its shit together would be BETTER for the population. We don't need the deforestation to progress. Quite the opposite.
If Brazil were to wage a war on another country, would it be fine just because Europe/US also did it in the past?
Why should we also not point fingers? Deforestation fell dramatically under Lula while inequality fell and the economy grew quickly.
What "we" did in the past means environmental protection should be subsidised by the west, but our history doesn't let Brazil's government off the hook.
This of course applies to all environmental issues, both foreign and domestic. There would be a lot more partnership and a lot less animosity if we universally adhered to your notion. We might actually get something done!
Agree. Imagine outsiders telling you that half your country is untouchable. I wonder if some future carbon credit system could pay them for the carbon sequestration that the Brazilian Amazon provides.
Our early industrialization contributed massively to global warming. It allowed us to become extremely wealthy, but also we incurred a "carbon debt" to the rest of the planet, since our atmosphere is a shared resource.
Now that others are trying to industrialize, we should repay that "carbon debt" to offset the cost of allowing them to industrialize cleanly, since we had the benefit early on of not having to worry about our impact on the environment. The gains that we made early on were at everyone's expense.
There are only four economically viable solutions:
1) Boycott or put drastic tariffs on Brazilian meat and soy, aka the products that are made out of the areas which were former rainforest. The problem: China won't give a fuck about Western sanction and Bolsonaro and his goons will happily sell to them (aided by the fact that China still has issues with pig fever in their domestic meat production).
2) Pay off Bolsonaro and his goons. That stops the destruction, but provides a fascist dictatorship with even more money.
3) Hope for Lula to win in the elections in October. The problem: Bolsonaro may manipulate the election to stay in power, either in front (by having Lula arrested or preventing him from campaigning, public debates etc.) or afterwards (outright vote manipulation). Or he might legitimately win despite his current lag in the polls, which makes the situation even worse than it already is.
4) Have the CIA do what they have a lot of experience in: get rid of Bolsonaro and his goons, either by abducting him and hold him to trial in the US similar to drug barons or by permanently eliminating him. That would be the cleanest way and send a signal to other criminal destroyers of nature, but without a whole lot of effort the resulting power vacuum may destabilize the region even more than it already is.
Well, western countries also have some role in such destruction if we look deeply. Brazil cut amazon for animal farming and wealthy people & countries are the ones who import beef. Countries like China, the US, and the EU are major importers of Beef. Maybe these news articles also blame them?
Brazil isn't a developed country and many people live under the belt of poverty. So, what are they supposed to do? In addition, corruption has made their life miserable. This is such a hard problem to solve.
This is economy vs. environment dichotomy is just lazy. "So, what are they supposed to do?" Not destroy a forest which belongs to every Brazilian to further enrich elite ranchers, agribusinesses and mining firms. This is the corruption you are talking about.
It's not a hard problem - we know good governance is the solution, as it has been in the past. The incompetence and corruption of the current government are costing Brazil far more than the opportunity cost of not exploiting the forest. Doing so is such an inefficient solution, providing temporary gains for a few while leading to enormous hidden costs for literally everyone in the future.
So sure, there should be import tariffs or bans on Brazilian beef, even sanctions on loggers, miners and ranchers etc. but the next significant step is to get this government out.
1. Who are we (US, Canada, China - heavily developed nations) to criticize?
2. Bolsonaro is bad mkay
I think the root of the problem in both situations is people in power both in the government and out of it who do not seek sustainability and often are susceptible to corruption or influence. In both situations, the profits did not go to your average human.
It's not unheard of that in Africa many groups/tribes form together to fight back against poachers. Is there anything like this happening in the Amazon rainforest?
And if no, then why not? Do people think a politician with his fancy suit is going to step his foot into the swamp to try and meet halfway?
These assholes are literally destroying the world and the human race is none the wiser....
I sometimes wonder what would happen if rather than trying to evolve on a technological level, humanity evolved to protect and harmonize this world.
Holy shit it's not even funny the level of ignorance that permeates topics of destroying the Earth.
Maybe, and this is a big maybe, we should think about whether some countries have a disproportionately large access to, or responsibility for, resources relevant to all of humanity.
Specifically, I would like to question if Brazil can or even should be trusted to handle the Amazon forest in a responsible manner. Over the past decades, objectively, it has shown that the country, or maybe primarily its government, doesn't: The forest is continuously decimated, ever faster, with full and open support by the government itself.
Considering that the Amazon is of broader concern than just Brazil's jurisdiction alone, would it -- and I'd include other, similar areas around the globe here too -- make sense to move administration to a more responsible body, the UN for example (not specifically the UN, but you get the idea)?
This may sound offensive to you for all kinds of reasons, especially if you're Brazilian, and I sincerely apologise for that. But please consider that maybe the challenges ahead of humanity as a whole require new solutions, new ways to think about who "owns" land?
Recent US elections made the people almost freak out because of the suspected Russia influence. In every developing country, not only Brazil, this is the norm and not the exception.
Bolsonaro's election received heavy support from the international (and national) finance sector. They projected a higher gain under his government. And most of these people are from developed countries.
People from rich country may not be really aware that the commodities come from somwere. The recent Russian war sure made this more clear. Developing countries are locked in that role.
If a country like Brazil, Russia or China reduces significantly its exports, everyone living costs rise. This is obviously true for high technology goods, but while you can survive with no smartphone, you can't with no food and energy.
I'm talking about this most obvious stuff to make this point: rich countries exports their poverty. USA still has a firm hand on the entire continent, and will not let it go, Brazil included.
As someone from Brazil, I really hope BRICS+ continues to grow. While the G7 can easily suffocate small dissidents, a entire block can not be. Sanctions against Russia stared to make European governments fall, what happens if you sanction half the world population?
I'm reserving judgment in the Russia's war in this post, becase most of these implications don't depends on who is right.
As consumers of Wooden furniture and so much new housing construction happening around the work, we all are to be blamed too. We need to invent alternate to wooden furniture.
Those saying this is an "unavoidable" catastrophe and inevitable
consequence of economics are being selective about history.
We've taken strong conservation and violent prevention measures before
against ecological practices of sovereign nation states that are
detrimental to our lives.
Perhaps the only 'successful' part of the US "war on drugs" was coca
eradication [1], including the use of biological warfare (pests),
herbicides and crop burning. We probably would have napalmed the
Afghan poppy fields, but in the end the Taliban did it for us.
The ivory trade is almost extinguished, let's be honest, not because
we stemmed demand but because we were prepared to shoot the poachers.
It's no secret the SAS operated "free-fire" in those parts of Africa,
also training locals on "man hunting".
People blame Brazil but I've met people outside Brazil who are like "Oh! Bonds!" "What kinds of bonds?" "High returns!" "Can't be government bonds then. Company bonds?" "Milk companies in Brazil!" Oh, cutting down the Amazon. Two parents I knew, this was like 18 years ago. It's been an emergency since the 1980's, a continual emergency. It's still an emergency.
And I think they got fucked anyway, both of them. They thought it was a good investment because it was such a shitty thing to do to something so beautiful, thought the secret to luxury was cowardice (and it is), but guess what the promise of shitty person heaven where all the shitty people are so shitty to everything except you because you're so special so much in common with them, say the same things, have the same ideas, know the same people, have the same passwords what a coincidence, bump into each other in the strangest places, twins, so that means...uh...nah you know what, it's a better lesson learned the hard way. Getting fucked is critical to learning how not to get fucked. Walkthroughs are uh...well police departments have websites, there's books on the subject. And you can't con an honest John. Well there's a limit to that, you also have to be informed, you need both. And entertain moral dilemmas, moral experiments, or like play-act with friends, that will help out a lot. And good alternatives.
Course the hard part is finding an alternative to that if you are conned. One way is to choose your second best choice. Not your first choice. Second choice. So then if the second choice starts getting shitty, stops whispering when you come around the bend, hey oh shit, guess the second choice school, say we're talking about Harvard 1 Yale 2, so Yale, really was second rank! I thought the 2 meant it was just as good, just another numeral from 1 to 10, like different days of the month! Wow, shit, wouldn't want to have to transfer to Harvard, that would suck, that was my first choice! Say I couldn't make it at Yale, damn!
Interesting comments below. Just some food for thought.
Fertilized, less land is required to grow equivalent quantities of crops.
Petroleum products, especially natural gas is a raw material as well as fuel for nitrogen fertilizer production.
Higher petroleum prices mean higher fertilizer prices. Higher fertilizer prices mean higher food prices.
Scarcity increases prices. Worldwide food production is down for many reasons: weather, war, disease, lack of workers, inflation, and cost to fertilize. Expect prices to rise, significantly more than they have.
So, lets fund the planting of 20+ trees per second to help counter-balance it.
Someone can plant around 200 trees per day with basic tools (lower end - some can do upward of 1000) but lets go with the lower number.
24 hours per day X 60 minutes X 60 seconds X 20 trees per second = 1,728,000 trees per day = 8640 people required
This certainly seems feasible - we just need the economics to justify it.
If those living in high income countries don't support poorer countries to keep their forests healthy complaining about them being chopped is hypocritical.
I live in Italy, the Po Valley I live in was a marshland with lots of centenarian trees. Since Roman times marshes have been drought and most of the forests were chopped to make room for agriculture (and to build Venice, which sits on millions and millions of trees).
I recently went to Portugal, where most forests have been chopped and substituted with huge eucalyptus or cork oak monocultures.
The same goes for France, Germany, etc.
We destroyed our environment so we could have progress. Now we understand that the environment is precious and must be taken care of, so it's up to us to pay other countries to preserve their environment. This money will eventually be used to buy "progress" and end on our pockets once again so it's not even a bad deal economically speaking, it just takes the will (which is lacking almost anywhere).
China is not going to curb its demand for Brazilian products on this basis. The EU hypothetically could, but try to sell price increases to the public.
[+] [-] specialp|3 years ago|reply
The Amazon should be preserved, but to do that the world is going to have to pay. You can't tell a country you can't progress like the USA it is hypocritical.
[+] [-] ratww|3 years ago|reply
As someone born in Brazil, I don't see why it's hard. Please criticise away. My country should be learning from the mistakes of others, not repeating them in order to favour some higher political caste.
To quote flaviojuvenal below, "Brazil had no trouble to grow in 90s and 2000s while reducing Amazon deforestation.". https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32152630
[+] [-] flaviojuvenal|3 years ago|reply
Brazil had no trouble to grow in 90s and 2000s while reducing Amazon deforestation.
[+] [-] dataflow|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] beeforpork|3 years ago|reply
It is also not hypocritical unless you personally cut down a tree, or unless you believe in the collective responsibility of nations. I don't think 'the Brazialians' are responsible for killing the Amazon -- it's probably a minority of people and we shouldn't care which nation they belong too. This is a serious global problem, and it accidentally happens in some country. Neither collective blame nor collective shame will help. This problem must be criticised.
[+] [-] squarefoot|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] coffeeblack|3 years ago|reply
We love to point the finger at Brazil and other developing countries, while profiting for centuries from deforestation of our own territory.
Maybe we should simply plant 18 new trees per second in the West?
[+] [-] hiidrew|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] EGreg|3 years ago|reply
Western governments pay part of their GDP for NATO, but defending against ecological collapse might be higher priority.
Governments tax citizens by force all the time. If it’s going to be used for anything, it should FIRST AND FOREMOST be used to coordinate large scale activity to mitigate negative externalities. And there’s no bigger one than the ecosystem collapse we are starting to see around us.
(Printing more money btw will only accerate consumption. There is very little thought to sustainability in most human economic systems.)
[+] [-] ErikVandeWater|3 years ago|reply
We certainly now know the impact of deforestation, and that it affects the entire planet.
[+] [-] pfdietz|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] helloworld11|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] coding123|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] alimbada|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] frozencell|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mistrial9|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Pmop|3 years ago|reply
The root cause is illegal occupation and settlement of land. People invade other people's land, often federal land, they cut down all of the trees, they burn it down, so they can clear it to set up makeshift camps. They then split and sell the land. Once there are people living on it, it's pretty much a lost cause due to how loosely enforced private ownership of land is, specially federal land. Also, it's a lucrative business, and involves corruption in all levels. People affected by it, like loggers who lose their property and livelihoods can hardly do anything, since the invaders will often get violent and the State wont do anything.
[+] [-] guilherme-puida|3 years ago|reply
Illegal farmers and loggers have no interest in preserving the forest. They can just completely destroy some area, then move around to another one and start it all over again. Even farmers don't want to spend too much time in the same place if they can help it, the soil in the Amazon isn't that good for farming after a few harvests.
[+] [-] Wertigoyr|3 years ago|reply
Any further sources?
[+] [-] rodolphoarruda|3 years ago|reply
I live in the state of São Paulo, far from the Amazon forest, and the vegetation here requires a lot of work to be tamed. If you leave an empty allotment 2 or 3 months without any care, you will get knee height grass and all sorts of "exotic" plants coming out of the ground. The Amazon is orders of magnitude more aggressive than this one.
So once you stop the illegal activity, the forest will come back. The problem is not the forest, but the people -- indigenous or not -- affected by the illegal activities. Recently we saw headlines about the murder of two people in the region, an activist and a journalist. So many others have died when they crossed paths with criminals. This is a humanitarian problem before an ecological problem.
[+] [-] Sporktacular|3 years ago|reply
The forest is on the edge of becoming a net carbon producer for the first time. This doesn't simply reverse when it regrows from some saplings. Its capacity to create clouds to replenish water is already heavily compromised. When that stops this simply doesn't reverse. When you burn sections without first clearing it of its animal populations they perish, destroying the ecosystems that often needs animals to help germinate new trees. The mercury used for illegal gold mining doesn't just go out of the river and back into the bottle. Billions of animals die from these actions and the results will be irreversible.
To call the Amazon unstoppable, to say that the humans that are dying is the real problem, smacks of the ignorance that has led us to this point.
[+] [-] ElectricalUnion|3 years ago|reply
Recent research points out that the Amazon (and in fact most Earth's supposedly wild) rainforest is a elaborate example of centuries of forest bio-engineering, and it doesn't simply recover if abandoned; decaying into desert instead. Further bio-engineering would be required to repair it to it's "original" state.
[+] [-] hu3|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ratww|3 years ago|reply
There are several economically viable solutions, but Brazilian government should be interested in pursuing them, rather than only pursuing things that only benefits the current friends of the government (such as deforestation).
US/EU/etc forcing Brazil to get its shit together would be BETTER for the population. We don't need the deforestation to progress. Quite the opposite.
If Brazil were to wage a war on another country, would it be fine just because Europe/US also did it in the past?
[+] [-] Sporktacular|3 years ago|reply
What "we" did in the past means environmental protection should be subsidised by the west, but our history doesn't let Brazil's government off the hook.
[+] [-] goatcode|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] amelius|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] 2OEH8eoCRo0|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ErikVandeWater|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] andrekandre|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] softcactus|3 years ago|reply
Our early industrialization contributed massively to global warming. It allowed us to become extremely wealthy, but also we incurred a "carbon debt" to the rest of the planet, since our atmosphere is a shared resource.
Now that others are trying to industrialize, we should repay that "carbon debt" to offset the cost of allowing them to industrialize cleanly, since we had the benefit early on of not having to worry about our impact on the environment. The gains that we made early on were at everyone's expense.
[+] [-] mschuster91|3 years ago|reply
1) Boycott or put drastic tariffs on Brazilian meat and soy, aka the products that are made out of the areas which were former rainforest. The problem: China won't give a fuck about Western sanction and Bolsonaro and his goons will happily sell to them (aided by the fact that China still has issues with pig fever in their domestic meat production).
2) Pay off Bolsonaro and his goons. That stops the destruction, but provides a fascist dictatorship with even more money.
3) Hope for Lula to win in the elections in October. The problem: Bolsonaro may manipulate the election to stay in power, either in front (by having Lula arrested or preventing him from campaigning, public debates etc.) or afterwards (outright vote manipulation). Or he might legitimately win despite his current lag in the polls, which makes the situation even worse than it already is.
4) Have the CIA do what they have a lot of experience in: get rid of Bolsonaro and his goons, either by abducting him and hold him to trial in the US similar to drug barons or by permanently eliminating him. That would be the cleanest way and send a signal to other criminal destroyers of nature, but without a whole lot of effort the resulting power vacuum may destabilize the region even more than it already is.
[+] [-] cute_boi|3 years ago|reply
Brazil isn't a developed country and many people live under the belt of poverty. So, what are they supposed to do? In addition, corruption has made their life miserable. This is such a hard problem to solve.
[1] https://www.statista.com/statistics/617492/beef-and-veal-exp...
[+] [-] Sporktacular|3 years ago|reply
It's not a hard problem - we know good governance is the solution, as it has been in the past. The incompetence and corruption of the current government are costing Brazil far more than the opportunity cost of not exploiting the forest. Doing so is such an inefficient solution, providing temporary gains for a few while leading to enormous hidden costs for literally everyone in the future.
So sure, there should be import tariffs or bans on Brazilian beef, even sanctions on loggers, miners and ranchers etc. but the next significant step is to get this government out.
[+] [-] stonepresto|3 years ago|reply
1. Who are we (US, Canada, China - heavily developed nations) to criticize?
2. Bolsonaro is bad mkay
I think the root of the problem in both situations is people in power both in the government and out of it who do not seek sustainability and often are susceptible to corruption or influence. In both situations, the profits did not go to your average human.
[+] [-] unknown|3 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] skilled|3 years ago|reply
And if no, then why not? Do people think a politician with his fancy suit is going to step his foot into the swamp to try and meet halfway?
These assholes are literally destroying the world and the human race is none the wiser....
I sometimes wonder what would happen if rather than trying to evolve on a technological level, humanity evolved to protect and harmonize this world.
Holy shit it's not even funny the level of ignorance that permeates topics of destroying the Earth.
[+] [-] 9dev|3 years ago|reply
Specifically, I would like to question if Brazil can or even should be trusted to handle the Amazon forest in a responsible manner. Over the past decades, objectively, it has shown that the country, or maybe primarily its government, doesn't: The forest is continuously decimated, ever faster, with full and open support by the government itself.
Considering that the Amazon is of broader concern than just Brazil's jurisdiction alone, would it -- and I'd include other, similar areas around the globe here too -- make sense to move administration to a more responsible body, the UN for example (not specifically the UN, but you get the idea)?
This may sound offensive to you for all kinds of reasons, especially if you're Brazilian, and I sincerely apologise for that. But please consider that maybe the challenges ahead of humanity as a whole require new solutions, new ways to think about who "owns" land?
[+] [-] impeplague|3 years ago|reply
Bolsonaro's election received heavy support from the international (and national) finance sector. They projected a higher gain under his government. And most of these people are from developed countries.
People from rich country may not be really aware that the commodities come from somwere. The recent Russian war sure made this more clear. Developing countries are locked in that role.
If a country like Brazil, Russia or China reduces significantly its exports, everyone living costs rise. This is obviously true for high technology goods, but while you can survive with no smartphone, you can't with no food and energy.
I'm talking about this most obvious stuff to make this point: rich countries exports their poverty. USA still has a firm hand on the entire continent, and will not let it go, Brazil included.
As someone from Brazil, I really hope BRICS+ continues to grow. While the G7 can easily suffocate small dissidents, a entire block can not be. Sanctions against Russia stared to make European governments fall, what happens if you sanction half the world population?
I'm reserving judgment in the Russia's war in this post, becase most of these implications don't depends on who is right.
[+] [-] zerop|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] nonrandomstring|3 years ago|reply
We've taken strong conservation and violent prevention measures before against ecological practices of sovereign nation states that are detrimental to our lives.
Perhaps the only 'successful' part of the US "war on drugs" was coca eradication [1], including the use of biological warfare (pests), herbicides and crop burning. We probably would have napalmed the Afghan poppy fields, but in the end the Taliban did it for us.
The ivory trade is almost extinguished, let's be honest, not because we stemmed demand but because we were prepared to shoot the poachers. It's no secret the SAS operated "free-fire" in those parts of Africa, also training locals on "man hunting".
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coca_eradication
[+] [-] daniel-cussen|3 years ago|reply
And I think they got fucked anyway, both of them. They thought it was a good investment because it was such a shitty thing to do to something so beautiful, thought the secret to luxury was cowardice (and it is), but guess what the promise of shitty person heaven where all the shitty people are so shitty to everything except you because you're so special so much in common with them, say the same things, have the same ideas, know the same people, have the same passwords what a coincidence, bump into each other in the strangest places, twins, so that means...uh...nah you know what, it's a better lesson learned the hard way. Getting fucked is critical to learning how not to get fucked. Walkthroughs are uh...well police departments have websites, there's books on the subject. And you can't con an honest John. Well there's a limit to that, you also have to be informed, you need both. And entertain moral dilemmas, moral experiments, or like play-act with friends, that will help out a lot. And good alternatives.
Course the hard part is finding an alternative to that if you are conned. One way is to choose your second best choice. Not your first choice. Second choice. So then if the second choice starts getting shitty, stops whispering when you come around the bend, hey oh shit, guess the second choice school, say we're talking about Harvard 1 Yale 2, so Yale, really was second rank! I thought the 2 meant it was just as good, just another numeral from 1 to 10, like different days of the month! Wow, shit, wouldn't want to have to transfer to Harvard, that would suck, that was my first choice! Say I couldn't make it at Yale, damn!
[+] [-] 29athrowaway|3 years ago|reply
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2jeA7u5paQQ
[+] [-] slowhand09|3 years ago|reply
Fertilized, less land is required to grow equivalent quantities of crops.
Petroleum products, especially natural gas is a raw material as well as fuel for nitrogen fertilizer production.
Higher petroleum prices mean higher fertilizer prices. Higher fertilizer prices mean higher food prices.
Scarcity increases prices. Worldwide food production is down for many reasons: weather, war, disease, lack of workers, inflation, and cost to fertilize. Expect prices to rise, significantly more than they have.
[+] [-] theropost|3 years ago|reply
24 hours per day X 60 minutes X 60 seconds X 20 trees per second = 1,728,000 trees per day = 8640 people required
This certainly seems feasible - we just need the economics to justify it.
[+] [-] 01acheru|3 years ago|reply
I live in Italy, the Po Valley I live in was a marshland with lots of centenarian trees. Since Roman times marshes have been drought and most of the forests were chopped to make room for agriculture (and to build Venice, which sits on millions and millions of trees).
I recently went to Portugal, where most forests have been chopped and substituted with huge eucalyptus or cork oak monocultures.
The same goes for France, Germany, etc.
We destroyed our environment so we could have progress. Now we understand that the environment is precious and must be taken care of, so it's up to us to pay other countries to preserve their environment. This money will eventually be used to buy "progress" and end on our pockets once again so it's not even a bad deal economically speaking, it just takes the will (which is lacking almost anywhere).
[+] [-] tambourine_man|3 years ago|reply
This meeting between Bolsonaro and Al Gore seems like a comedy sketch:
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=CPpH7FRFcY0&t=65
[+] [-] acraabrazil|3 years ago|reply
- We integrate advanced agroforestry restoration systems
- Provide people living here with greater self-sufficiency and economic prosperity
https://acraabrazil.org/about
[+] [-] hestefisk|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] slothtrop|3 years ago|reply