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Brazil's President Blames NGOs for Amazon Fires

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Re: Brazil's President Blames NGOs for Amazon Fires

#21

Post by darpa_escapee »

xwdv wrote: post #15

I see this meme pop up on social media all the time now about how the Amazon rainforest is burning and to spread the “awareness”. But really, what are you supposed to do? Merely being aware of some tragedy occurring far away doesn’t do anything. The people who perpetuated it don’t give a damn. Are we supposed to go put out the fires? Are we supposed to go kill the people who did this? If there’s nothing I can do, the…

> Merely being aware of some tragedy occurring far away doesn’t do anything.

The first step on the long road of change is acknowledging that a problem exists.

Just because you can't imagine how you can effect change, doesn't mean it isn't possible. Problems of this scale require a sufficiently scaled solution. Economic sanctions and treaties would provide incentives for change. Hit Brazil's government and business leaders where it hurts: their wallets and their power on the world stage.

Re: Brazil's President Blames NGOs for Amazon Fires

#22

Post by xwdv »

darpa_escapee wrote: post #21
xwdv wrote: post #15

I see this meme pop up on social media all the time now about how the Amazon rainforest is burning and to spread the “awareness”. But really, what are you supposed to do? Merely being aware of some tragedy occurring far away doesn’t do anything. The people who perpetuated it don’t give a damn. Are we supposed to go put out the fires? Are we supposed to go kill the people who did this? If there’s nothing I can do, the…

> Merely being aware of some tragedy occurring far away doesn’t do anything. The first step on the long road of change is acknowledging that a problem exists. Just because you can't imagine how you can effect change, doesn't mean it isn't possible. Problems of this scale require a sufficiently scaled solution. Economic sanctions and treaties would provide incentives for change. Hit Brazil's government and business le…

Just because change is possible, doesn’t mean my awareness has any part to play in it.

Re: Brazil's President Blames NGOs for Amazon Fires

#24

Post by darpa_escapee »

xwdv wrote: post #22
darpa_escapee wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Merely being aware of some tragedy occurring far away doesn’t do anything. The first step on the long road of change is acknowledging that a problem exists. Just because you can't imagine how you can effect change, doesn't mean it isn't possible. Problems of this scale require a sufficiently scaled solution. Economic sanctions and treaties would provide incentives for change. Hit Brazil's government and business le…

Just because change is possible, doesn’t mean my awareness has any part to play in it.

Very few problems are solved by simply ignoring them.

General awareness of a problem is needed to mobilize political action. If the solution to the problem is political, awareness of the issue might inspire direct action, or at least voting for policy that effects change.

Re: Brazil's President Blames NGOs for Amazon Fires

#27

Post by throwaway5752 »

coliveira wrote: post #11

Bolsonaro's government is a criminal regime. One of his first goals was to destroy the agencies that regulate the environment and disable the reporting mechanisms (which were "fake news" according to him). He personally fired the president of INPE, a state research agency, for publicizing a report about Amazon deforestation.

It is the crisis of our time. Bolsonaro is shameless, grossly lying. People are too afraid to say otherwise, and there is a critical mass of people who are willing to be party to the lying that creates social pressure against speaking to truth. Obviously not just limited to Brazil.

Re: Brazil's President Blames NGOs for Amazon Fires

#28

Post by xwdv »

darpa_escapee wrote: post #24
xwdv wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just because change is possible, doesn’t mean my awareness has any part to play in it.

Very few problems are solved by simply ignoring them. General awareness of a problem is needed to mobilize political action. If the solution to the problem is political, awareness of the issue might inspire direct action, or at least voting for policy that effects change.

That might be a good statement for a motivational book but it isn’t true. A massive amount of problems have been solved throughout my life without me even being aware of them. The key is that the people aware of those problems were exactly in the right position to do something effective about them.

Re: Brazil's President Blames NGOs for Amazon Fires

#29

Post by throwaway5752 »

aglavine wrote: post #25

It is sad how Propaganda (repeated here in multiples comments) blames Bolsonaro, instead of finding out how the fires started and spread.

Well, could do your part by sourcing your allegation, instead of spreading FUD.

It seems like believing it requires that groups dedicated to preserving the Amazon's rain forests are burning it, and ignores Bolsonaro's long and well-documented track record on the issue https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jair_Bolsonaro#Environmental_p...

Re: Brazil's President Blames NGOs for Amazon Fires

#30

Post by neuronexmachina »

emersonrsantos wrote: post #14

According to this NASA report, this is a natural occurrence on this time of the year: > As of August 16, 2019, an analysis of NASA satellite data indicated that total fire activity across the Amazon basin this year has been close to the average in comparison to the past 15 years. Source: https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/images/145464/fires-in-bra...

Interestingly, the URL used to have a different caption: https://web.archive.org/web/20190822024248/http://www.nasa.g...

> Although it is not unusual to see fires in Brazil at this time of year due to high temperatures and low humidity it seems this year the number of fires may be record setting. According to Brazil’s space research center INPE almost 73,000 fires have been recorded so far this year. INPE is seeing an 83% increase over the same period in 2018.

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