Brazilian Amazon lost 18 trees per second in 2021 • Hacker News Board

Re: Brazilian Amazon lost 18 trees per second in 2021

#91

Post by lvass » Tue, Jul 19, 2022, 2:32 PM UTC

mschuster91 wrote: post #32

zerop wrote: post #22

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.

The majority of the Brazilian rainforest isn't even being razed for furniture wood. It's simply burned down to provide for one season of feeding cows for meat or to plant soy to feed the cows. Then it's gone. Forever.

>Forever

No. In fact, evidence suggests most of the rainforest was in fact laid by humans. It's artificially mostly made of trees with edible produce like açaí and brazil nut.

Re: Brazilian Amazon lost 18 trees per second in 2021

#92

Post by alimbada » Tue, Jul 19, 2022, 2:32 PM UTC

specialp wrote: post #31

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…

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.

Re: Brazilian Amazon lost 18 trees per second in 2021

#93

Post by ratww » Tue, Jul 19, 2022, 2:32 PM UTC

rglullis wrote: post #83

ratww wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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. To quote flaviojuvenal below, "Brazil had no trouble to grow in 90s and 20…

The point is that every rich country first became rich, then started worrying about the environment. It is hypocritical from rich countries to ask Brazil to stop deforestation if that means halting its economic development. If the rich countries really believe that preserving the environment is more important than the economy, then they need to either (a) pay underdeveloped countries to preserve their forests or (b)…

And my point is that Brazil won't get rich by doing what it is currently doing. The primary sector won't enrich the general population or make the country more developed. Only some people favoured by the current government. That's what's currently happening, not some cuckoo theory.

Re: Brazilian Amazon lost 18 trees per second in 2021

#94

Post by Ekaros » Tue, Jul 19, 2022, 2:32 PM UTC

hsavit1 wrote: post #57

If humanity cares about its existence in the long term then we simply cannot clear cut the amazon.

If we really cared about climate we would ban everything wasteful. Like useless internet services and companies. Do we need social media or media in general to survive?

Re: Brazilian Amazon lost 18 trees per second in 2021

#95

Post by softcactus » Tue, Jul 19, 2022, 2:33 PM UTC

hu3 wrote: 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.

Economically we should think of it like this:

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.

Re: Brazilian Amazon lost 18 trees per second in 2021

#96

Post by zach_garwood » Tue, Jul 19, 2022, 2:33 PM UTC

skilled wrote: post #76

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 w…

There have been fights between Amazonian tribes and landowners. The tribes are relocated (or killed).

Re: Brazilian Amazon lost 18 trees per second in 2021

#97

Post by ratww » Tue, Jul 19, 2022, 2:34 PM UTC

mbg721 wrote: post #71

ratww wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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" i…

If Brazil is a big farm, is Argentina a big ranch? Or is there less of a difference than I'm perceiving?

I can't speak for Argentina, but Brazil is a farm/ranch mix, I guess. We do both.

Re: Brazilian Amazon lost 18 trees per second in 2021

#98

Post by cassianoleal » Tue, Jul 19, 2022, 2:35 PM UTC

ratww wrote: post #93

rglullis wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The point is that every rich country first became rich, then started worrying about the environment. It is hypocritical from rich countries to ask Brazil to stop deforestation if that means halting its economic development. If the rich countries really believe that preserving the environment is more important than the economy, then they need to either (a) pay underdeveloped countries to preserve their forests or (b)…

And my point is that Brazil won't get rich by doing what it is currently doing. The primary sector won't enrich the general population or make the country more developed. Only some people favoured by the current government. That's what's currently happening, not some cuckoo theory.

Brazil is rich though, and largely because of those things. The fact that such richness is so unjustly distributed across the population is an orthogonal problem.

Re: Brazilian Amazon lost 18 trees per second in 2021

#99

Post by lvass » Tue, Jul 19, 2022, 2:37 PM UTC

ratww wrote: post #90

lvass wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>mistakes Yeah, that's a very hard sell, when your country is in such a shameful state, your economy is hanging by a thread that's agriculture, and without it your currency would be so messed up you'd be unlikely to be able to pay for the device you're typing that on. When you pledge for your own country that's suffering from hunger to reduce agriculture, you're part of the problem.

What does it have to do with anything? Import oriented agriculture/livestock is not really serving the local economy or making the country grow. Like other poster said, "Brazil had no trouble to grow in 90s and 2000s while reducing Amazon deforestation" . People used to eat meat in Brazil every day, now even some middle class people had to reduce due to prices. The same goes for gas. That's because the economy change…

If you don't understand how the vast majority of goods made in your country helps your economy, you terribly need to read some economic theory. I suggest Adam Smith's The Wealth of Nations. Brazil didn't suddenly deinvest other sectors out of a whim, they became less relevant thanks to economic pressure. To assume otherwise is accusing the entire country of incredible stupidity, which is laughable when you demonstrate so much lack of knowledge.

Re: Brazilian Amazon lost 18 trees per second in 2021

#100

Post by boeingUH60 » Tue, Jul 19, 2022, 2:37 PM UTC

ratww wrote: post #52

2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> Imagine outsiders telling you that half your country is untouchable As a Brazilian, I would be completely ok with that. We can handle people telling us those things.

>As a Brazilian, I would be completely ok with that.

Well, that's your view, and you have the right to have it. But, it's likely that the majority doesn't agree.

Besides, if you ask me, outsiders that tell a country to not cut down their forests for economic/monetary purposes should pay for that privilege. That's not to talk of the arrogance of outsiders telling someone what to do.