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In Brazil, Amazon Protections Are Slashed and Forests Fall

nytimes.com

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Re: In Brazil, Amazon Protections Are Slashed and Forests Fall

#51

Post by figomore »

zaro wrote: post #25

It's a pity things are going in that direction. But i don't think we are in position to judge the Brazilians over this. I watched a short documentary about this issue recently on Youtube, and the journalists went to some really remote area and spoke with the mayor of town there. The guy was big supporter of Bolsonaro and he said something that is actually very true. He said US and Europe have no right to tell Brazil…

Just a thing, we Brazilians see ourselves as westerns. Amazonia Soil is only rich at the surface, and it remains rich because of its fauna and flora. Because of that, the deforestation is very warming, it’s difficult to recover it.

Re: In Brazil, Amazon Protections Are Slashed and Forests Fall

#52

Post by zaro »

vasco wrote: post #28
zaro wrote: post #25

It's a pity things are going in that direction. But i don't think we are in position to judge the Brazilians over this. I watched a short documentary about this issue recently on Youtube, and the journalists went to some really remote area and spoke with the mayor of town there. The guy was big supporter of Bolsonaro and he said something that is actually very true. He said US and Europe have no right to tell Brazil…

That is the same argument Poland throws at Germany to justify the huge amounts of coal it uses and has little plans to reduce. At some point one has to ask at what cost the growth is justifiable and if dumping the same efforts into renewable technology isn't going to pay more dividends in the future when the world has moved on

Definitelely! There is no need for growth anymore, there is need for quality and sustainability. But the dominant financial and economics systems we have cam work only with growth. Sowe have to keep growing all the time so that the finance industry can keep increasing numbers on paper.

Re: In Brazil, Amazon Protections Are Slashed and Forests Fall

#53

Post by Tade0 »

vasco wrote: post #28
zaro wrote: post #25

It's a pity things are going in that direction. But i don't think we are in position to judge the Brazilians over this. I watched a short documentary about this issue recently on Youtube, and the journalists went to some really remote area and spoke with the mayor of town there. The guy was big supporter of Bolsonaro and he said something that is actually very true. He said US and Europe have no right to tell Brazil…

That is the same argument Poland throws at Germany to justify the huge amounts of coal it uses and has little plans to reduce. At some point one has to ask at what cost the growth is justifiable and if dumping the same efforts into renewable technology isn't going to pay more dividends in the future when the world has moved on

Polish person here.

Actually that argument was only ever used to make the miners - a very powerful group in Poland - vote for whichever political party was in charge at the moment.

The coal industry overall is not a source of growth, but a liability, costing the taxpayers around €2bln annually.

A looming energy crisis and increasing costs of emissions, finally made the current government give in, put their cronies where they wanted them and approve a lot of new offshore wind investments + create a subsidy program for solar power to the tune of €230mln.

I talked with some people from Silesia and even the miners see the writing on the wall - currently 20% of the coal used in Poland is imported, so miners as a group don't have as much leverage as they used to.

Re: In Brazil, Amazon Protections Are Slashed and Forests Fall

#54

Post by zaro »

eeeeeeeeeeeee wrote: post #29
zaro wrote: post #25

It's a pity things are going in that direction. But i don't think we are in position to judge the Brazilians over this. I watched a short documentary about this issue recently on Youtube, and the journalists went to some really remote area and spoke with the mayor of town there. The guy was big supporter of Bolsonaro and he said something that is actually very true. He said US and Europe have no right to tell Brazil…

I definitely understand that viewpoint (China and other Asian countries say similar things). And specifically for Asia, much of that pollution is technically originating in the west, we’ve just outsourced a lot of our pollution to Asian countries. The environmental impact of industrialization needs to be built into the cost of goods. Capitalism can solve many of these problems, but right now pollution practically has…

> Capitalism can solve many of these problems Do you really think so? I would say that capitalism and the economic models that support it are one of the main factors we are in this situation.

Re: In Brazil, Amazon Protections Are Slashed and Forests Fall

#55

Post by jimmaswell »

vasco wrote: post #28
zaro wrote: post #25

It's a pity things are going in that direction. But i don't think we are in position to judge the Brazilians over this. I watched a short documentary about this issue recently on Youtube, and the journalists went to some really remote area and spoke with the mayor of town there. The guy was big supporter of Bolsonaro and he said something that is actually very true. He said US and Europe have no right to tell Brazil…

That is the same argument Poland throws at Germany to justify the huge amounts of coal it uses and has little plans to reduce. At some point one has to ask at what cost the growth is justifiable and if dumping the same efforts into renewable technology isn't going to pay more dividends in the future when the world has moved on

It's an absurd argument. You don't need to emulate the industrial age western countries went through to develop a country now that we have better ways to do it. It's no excuse for unsustainable logging and pollution.

Re: In Brazil, Amazon Protections Are Slashed and Forests Fall

#56

Post by pjc50 »

Keyframe wrote: post #4

“The Amazon is ours, not yours,” he told a European journalist. I wonder if there's a scenario somewhere, already worked out, where this is not true anymore. A military takeover of the amazon basin.

Even Brazil can't achieve a military occupation of the rainforest. It's enourmous, and by definition trackless jungle. Not to mention how ludicrous the idea of armed international environmentalism is. What would most likely happen is its destruction, Vietnam-style. The defenders would burn it in their retreat like Napoleon's defeat at Moscow.

Re: In Brazil, Amazon Protections Are Slashed and Forests Fall

#57

Post by bogwog »

ulisesrmzroche wrote: post #42
throwawayr1188 wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The world needs less "well meaning" interventionists like you.

Does it? Why? :crickets:

Imagine that same exact mindset from the point of view of Bolsonaro and his supporters.

That land is ours! If we burn it all down, there won't be anything left for them to "protect", and we'll be able to build whatever we want on it

Re: In Brazil, Amazon Protections Are Slashed and Forests Fall

#58

Post by xvilka »

nfrbc wrote: post #21
Keyframe wrote: post #4

“The Amazon is ours, not yours,” he told a European journalist. I wonder if there's a scenario somewhere, already worked out, where this is not true anymore. A military takeover of the amazon basin.

It won't happen because Bolsonaro is too cozy with the US government, both have the same anti-leftist "own them libs" political leaning. Who's going to do it? Europe? Asia?

Well, surely there should be smart people on this planet. Amazon is a lot more important for the planet and humanity than the country it resides in.

Re: In Brazil, Amazon Protections Are Slashed and Forests Fall

#59

Post by the8472 »

andrenth wrote: post #5

The other day there was a thread on HN where most people agreed that Amazon should pay France more taxes because even though it’s an internet business, it benefits from things done by the French government. Maybe developed countries should start paying a tax to Brazil and other Amazon forest countries so that they can preserve it. After all, most didn’t do a good job preserving their own forests, so demanding underde…

Such a tax seems game-theoretically unsound.

Instead western countries should ban imports of food products that are produced in unsustainable ways. It would apply to everyone equally and remove one of the main economic drivers behind deforestation

Re: In Brazil, Amazon Protections Are Slashed and Forests Fall

#60

Post by pjc50 »

zaro wrote: post #54
eeeeeeeeeeeee wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I definitely understand that viewpoint (China and other Asian countries say similar things). And specifically for Asia, much of that pollution is technically originating in the west, we’ve just outsourced a lot of our pollution to Asian countries. The environmental impact of industrialization needs to be built into the cost of goods. Capitalism can solve many of these problems, but right now pollution practically has…

> Capitalism can solve many of these problems Do you really think so? I would say that capitalism and the economic models that support it are one of the main factors we are in this situation.

The non-capitalist systems didn't fare much better. The Soviet Union was largely responsible for exterminating whales, without even getting much use from them: https://psmag.com/social-justice/the-senseless-environment-c...
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