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Brazilian Amazon lost 18 trees per second in 2021

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Re: Brazilian Amazon lost 18 trees per second in 2021

#61
post #45

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 g…

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…

  > Why do governments not start an international reforestation / ecological fund and pay some of their GDP into it
they are busy pouring their gdp into competing with one another...unfortunately,our current economic system is based on endless growth and competition instead of equity and cooperation; i doubt anything will happen until its too late...

Re: Brazilian Amazon lost 18 trees per second in 2021

#62
post #13

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.

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 Bolsona…

Trying to effect a regime change of a G20 member nation with a population of over 200 million? Yeah, can’t see how that could backfire at all…

Re: Brazilian Amazon lost 18 trees per second in 2021

#63
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!

Re: Brazilian Amazon lost 18 trees per second in 2021

#64

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 g…

two wrongs do not make a "right"

It doesn't and I am not advocating cutting down all the forests. But it is very easy to have had already done it, reaped the benefits of being an agricultural/economic powerhouse and then tell a developing country that was not good. Is the USA now reversing that mistake by turning farmland and sprawling suburbs back to forest? No. It could be done. It is just that will cost something to do. It is easier to tell someone else to not cut down their forest. That does not cost anything.

Re: Brazilian Amazon lost 18 trees per second in 2021

#65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most soybeans are used as animal fed. Also, the feeding animal 10KG to get 1KG looks rather wasteful? Lastly, you missed the methane pollution, water usage, ethics etc.. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feed_conversion_ratio

I'm fully aware of that, which is why I said "domestically FED and raised". >Also, the feeding animal 10KG to get 1KG looks rather wasteful? Depends heavily on what animal product you are producing. Obviously we won't be eating beef all the time. It also depends on what kind of farmland you have available, and what uses those crops have. Where I am (Wales, UK), the combination of the farmer' lobby and the "Welsh cult…

Domestically fed and raised doesn't work in real world. There are so many people to feed.

Re: Brazilian Amazon lost 18 trees per second in 2021

#66

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 g…

Thanks for sharing, wasn't aware. The timelapse here is quite evident https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forests_of_the_United_States#D...

Re: Brazilian Amazon lost 18 trees per second in 2021

#67

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 g…

Same goes for Europe. 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?

Yes. Use eminent domain to crawl back the suburbia. Pay people what is the value of newly forested land. Then provide them some living place few square meters is proven to be enough by examples in East Asia.

Re: Brazilian Amazon lost 18 trees per second in 2021

#68
post #13

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.

> we should offer economically viable solutions rather than pointing fingers while i agree with you, i cant think of anything off the top of my head...any ideas?

The current government is heavily favouring the export of primary and finite resources.

If people from other countries really want Brazilian economy to get off the ground, they should want Brazil to export processed and manufactured goods, or other sectors.

Treating Brazil like a big farm is doing neither Brazil nor the environment any favours.

The "We should't criticise Brazil, let them do what we also did before" is not only hypocritical, it's also counter-intuitive and very self-serving!

Re: Brazilian Amazon lost 18 trees per second in 2021

#69
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".

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coca_eradication

Re: Brazilian Amazon lost 18 trees per second in 2021

#70
post #38
post #13

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 pr…

> There are several economically viable solutions...

Such as? The sheer scale of what Brazil feeds to the rest of the world would hardly accommodate for "several economically viable solutions".

2020 paper about the issue: https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2003270117

You can't simply tell a third-world country to halt a major part of their economy.

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