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The Amazon Rainforest Is Fast Approaching a Point of No Return in Brazil

bloomberg.com

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Re: The Amazon Rainforest Is Fast Approaching a Point of No Return in Brazil

#11

Post by fogihujy »

Dumblydorr wrote: post #2

This is so short-sighted and ignorant, it's hard to even read about. Brazilians should cherish their rainforest, legacy of millions of years of evolution, with wondrous biodiversity and an amazing carbon sink the planet desperately needs. Instead, they're chopping and burning this vital carbon store to make room for beef production. This is so short sighted it's painful. We know beef has to be massively ramped down,…

The counter is right there in the article:

> Global markets don’t buy enough sustainably produced foods such as Brazil nuts or acai to keep people afloat, whereas the appetite for beef, grains, and timber seems bottomless. (In 2020, Brazil exported $35.2 billion of soybeans, soybean meal, and soybean oil, and only $128.3 million of nuts.)

When you're down at the bottom, living under a tarp, and barely making enough money to support yourself and your family, then you're going to chose the money.

Re: The Amazon Rainforest Is Fast Approaching a Point of No Return in Brazil

#12

Post by fogihujy »

EvRev wrote: post #5
renarl wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If it’s so important for the whole planet, why is no one paying Brazilians to keep the rainforests intact?

Why is Amazon, the one Jeff Bezos owns, not cementing its legacy here on Earth by paying to keep the Amazon intact? Seems like really bad marketing on some interdimensional cable commercials.

Buying land would be fairly trivial. Feeding the people that would otherwise raze it for money to buy food and housing? Much more expensive.

Re: The Amazon Rainforest Is Fast Approaching a Point of No Return in Brazil

#13

Post by stanmancan »

Dumblydorr wrote: post #2

This is so short-sighted and ignorant, it's hard to even read about. Brazilians should cherish their rainforest, legacy of millions of years of evolution, with wondrous biodiversity and an amazing carbon sink the planet desperately needs. Instead, they're chopping and burning this vital carbon store to make room for beef production. This is so short sighted it's painful. We know beef has to be massively ramped down,…

The hard problem here is that you’re right; but who are we to tell them they can’t do the same things that North America and Europe did to survive and prosper? We have released ungodly amounts of green house gasses and clear cut millions and millions of acres to build our cities and factories. Who are we to finger point any day “yeah we did it and life is great but you can’t because we beat you to the punch and did it first and now the worlds fucked.”

Instead we have to have better solutions at hand to offer them that make more economical sense than clear cutting the rainforests.

Re: The Amazon Rainforest Is Fast Approaching a Point of No Return in Brazil

#14

Post by gdubs »

Dumblydorr wrote: post #2

This is so short-sighted and ignorant, it's hard to even read about. Brazilians should cherish their rainforest, legacy of millions of years of evolution, with wondrous biodiversity and an amazing carbon sink the planet desperately needs. Instead, they're chopping and burning this vital carbon store to make room for beef production. This is so short sighted it's painful. We know beef has to be massively ramped down,…

The methane aspect of cattle production sticks in people's minds, but you’ve highlighted the actual problem with it that doesn’t get covered much: land use change.

And it’s not just the grazing cattle, it’s the mind-boggling number of acres cleared and filled for monoculture animal feed production.

Not only does cattle production contribute directly to greenhouse gases through tilling and methane, it contributed indirectly by moving land out of forest — which sequesters carbon — and into pastures. Regenerative farming practices are many times better than conventional fields — but even that pales in comparison to natural forests. Baring a magical carbon capture device, we need to move a ton of land back into natural forests. That’s because the extreme weather we’re starting to see doesn’t even factor in all of our emissions over the past decade or longer - they lag. We need to sequester and the only practical means we have currently is through plants and trees.

Instead, we’re continuing to emit, and we’re continuing to deforest.

Re: The Amazon Rainforest Is Fast Approaching a Point of No Return in Brazil

#15

Post by bamboozled »

stanmancan wrote: post #13
Dumblydorr wrote: post #2

This is so short-sighted and ignorant, it's hard to even read about. Brazilians should cherish their rainforest, legacy of millions of years of evolution, with wondrous biodiversity and an amazing carbon sink the planet desperately needs. Instead, they're chopping and burning this vital carbon store to make room for beef production. This is so short sighted it's painful. We know beef has to be massively ramped down,…

The hard problem here is that you’re right; but who are we to tell them they can’t do the same things that North America and Europe did to survive and prosper? We have released ungodly amounts of green house gasses and clear cut millions and millions of acres to build our cities and factories. Who are we to finger point any day “yeah we did it and life is great but you can’t because we beat you to the punch and did i…

I guess we know more about ecology and climate change in 2021 than in the 1600s? That's why.

Re: The Amazon Rainforest Is Fast Approaching a Point of No Return in Brazil

#16

Post by pvaldes »

renarl wrote: post #3
Dumblydorr wrote: post #2

This is so short-sighted and ignorant, it's hard to even read about. Brazilians should cherish their rainforest, legacy of millions of years of evolution, with wondrous biodiversity and an amazing carbon sink the planet desperately needs. Instead, they're chopping and burning this vital carbon store to make room for beef production. This is so short sighted it's painful. We know beef has to be massively ramped down,…

If it’s so important for the whole planet, why is no one paying Brazilians to keep the rainforests intact?

Because the current government would use that money to accelerate the destruction instead. Bolsonaro and future are incompatible terms.

Brazilians received lots of money since 80's at least to help them to conserve the rainforests. It has not worked.

Maybe is time to start using the money in environmental projects in Europe or US instead. A couple of new national parks maybe?. Those would increase greatly the chance of success.

Re: The Amazon Rainforest Is Fast Approaching a Point of No Return in Brazil

#17

Post by datavirtue »

If you ever get outside you will find that trees not only clean the air but they cool the earth tremendously. On a 90°F (and humid as hell) day here in Ohio I can literally ride my bike through a continuous tunnel of trees that block the sun light from our extensive trail here in Cincinnati. Without those trees the trail would be unusable. This is not hyperbole.

Earth getting hot? Plant trees.

Re: The Amazon Rainforest Is Fast Approaching a Point of No Return in Brazil

#18

Post by solarengineer »

blastonico wrote: post #7
Dumblydorr wrote: post #2

This is so short-sighted and ignorant, it's hard to even read about. Brazilians should cherish their rainforest, legacy of millions of years of evolution, with wondrous biodiversity and an amazing carbon sink the planet desperately needs. Instead, they're chopping and burning this vital carbon store to make room for beef production. This is so short sighted it's painful. We know beef has to be massively ramped down,…

Assuming you're not a short-sighted person, how would a poor country like Brazil protect, without make any money out of it, an area bigger than Europe? It's interesting how rich countries made their money by exploiting our (and other poor countries) natural resources, but now they realized it's bad. The solutions proposed by Macron and Biden is ridiculous, outrageous. But it's not surprising, considering Europe/US in…

"Assuming you're not a short-sighted person, how would a poor country like Brazil protect, without make any money out of it, an area bigger than Europe?"

Leaving it alone - like has been done for centuries - might be one way to protect it. We have also read in the media about Bolsonaro encouraging people to burn down the forests as a right, of shooting down the indigenous forest dwellers, and other such horrific things.

Yes, the rich have become rich by removing their own forests, looting their own citizens, and committing genocide-level destruction and looting of other countries and kingdoms. What's "interesting" about them realising this?

What about the rest of us who already know that looting nature is bad? What about the natives (not just the indigenous) who know (or should know) that it's bad? Why should we carry on the practice of looting nature _just_ _because_ the unapologetic rich nations have realised it's bad?

Re: The Amazon Rainforest Is Fast Approaching a Point of No Return in Brazil

#19

Post by tambourine_man »

Dumblydorr wrote: post #2

This is so short-sighted and ignorant, it's hard to even read about. Brazilians should cherish their rainforest, legacy of millions of years of evolution, with wondrous biodiversity and an amazing carbon sink the planet desperately needs. Instead, they're chopping and burning this vital carbon store to make room for beef production. This is so short sighted it's painful. We know beef has to be massively ramped down,…

>Brazilians should cherish their rainforest

Most do. But one of the worst human beings ever to walk this earth managed to get elected president.

Let's hope the people, the forest and country's young democracy survive him. Avoiding his reelection, or better, impeaching him is an existential issue. And that's not a hyperbole.

Re: The Amazon Rainforest Is Fast Approaching a Point of No Return in Brazil

#20

Post by throwaway0a5e »

Dumblydorr wrote: post #2

This is so short-sighted and ignorant, it's hard to even read about. Brazilians should cherish their rainforest, legacy of millions of years of evolution, with wondrous biodiversity and an amazing carbon sink the planet desperately needs. Instead, they're chopping and burning this vital carbon store to make room for beef production. This is so short sighted it's painful. We know beef has to be massively ramped down,…

If middle ages Brazilians knew how the Europeans were deforesting Europe they'd have probably said the same thing.
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