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

Re: Brazilian Amazon lost 18 trees per second in 2021

#101

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

cassianoleal wrote: post #98

ratww wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Yep. But one way of distributing this across the population is by favouring other sectors rather than strangling them to favour the primary.

The number of people working in the agricultural sector has only shrunk and will keep shrinking due to mechanisation/automation. The general population won't see the benefits of the primary sector growing, unless we have a Soviet-style wealth redistribution.

Re: Brazilian Amazon lost 18 trees per second in 2021

#102

Post by theropost » Tue, Jul 19, 2022, 2:38 PM UTC

So, lets fund the planting of 20+ trees per second to help counter-balance it. Someone can plant around 200 trees per day with basic tools (lower end - some can do upward of 1000) but lets go with the lower number.

24 hours per day X 60 minutes X 60 seconds X 20 trees per second = 1,728,000 trees per day = 8640 people required

This certainly seems feasible - we just need the economics to justify it.

Re: Brazilian Amazon lost 18 trees per second in 2021

#103

Post by Sporktacular » Tue, Jul 19, 2022, 2:39 PM UTC

cute_boi wrote: post #24

Well, western countries also have some role in such destruction if we look deeply. Brazil cut amazon for animal farming and wealthy people & countries are the ones who import beef. Countries like China, the US, and the EU are major importers of Beef. Maybe these news articles also blame them? Brazil isn't a developed country and many people live under the belt of poverty. So, what are they supposed to do? In addition…

This is economy vs. environment dichotomy is just lazy. "So, what are they supposed to do?" Not destroy a forest which belongs to every Brazilian to further enrich elite ranchers, agribusinesses and mining firms. This is the corruption you are talking about.

It's not a hard problem - we know good governance is the solution, as it has been in the past. The incompetence and corruption of the current government are costing Brazil far more than the opportunity cost of not exploiting the forest. Doing so is such an inefficient solution, providing temporary gains for a few while leading to enormous hidden costs for literally everyone in the future.

So sure, there should be import tariffs or bans on Brazilian beef, even sanctions on loggers, miners and ranchers etc. but the next significant step is to get this government out.

Re: Brazilian Amazon lost 18 trees per second in 2021

#104

Post by boeingUH60 » Tue, Jul 19, 2022, 2:39 PM UTC

collegeburner wrote: post #39

mschuster91 wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

"regime change is bad except when it's for a reason i like"

Quite scary to see Americans still thinking like this. Surely this explains the country's many fuckups in this century, e.g., Afghanistan and Iraq.

Re: Brazilian Amazon lost 18 trees per second in 2021

#105

Post by rodolphoarruda » Tue, Jul 19, 2022, 2:40 PM UTC

Wood extraction in the Amazon is a crime. It's aggravated crime if done in indigenous lands. It's aggravated even more if done for illegal mining activities. The state police (civil and military) from the various Brazilian states that compose the Amazon forest has the legal obligation to investigate and arrest criminals within the region. The problem is the region is just too big. But let's assume that somehow all those criminals lose their ability to profit on the product of their crimes altogether, within a 5 to 10 years time span, all the vegetation would be naturally restored. The Amazon forest is unstoppable.

I live in the state of São Paulo, far from the Amazon forest, and the vegetation here requires a lot of work to be tamed. If you leave an empty allotment 2 or 3 months without any care, you will get knee height grass and all sorts of "exotic" plants coming out of the ground. The Amazon is orders of magnitude more aggressive than this one.

So once you stop the illegal activity, the forest will come back. The problem is not the forest, but the people -- indigenous or not -- affected by the illegal activities. Recently we saw headlines about the murder of two people in the region, an activist and a journalist. So many others have died when they crossed paths with criminals. This is a humanitarian problem before an ecological problem.

Re: Brazilian Amazon lost 18 trees per second in 2021

#106

Post by frozencell » Tue, Jul 19, 2022, 2:40 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…

Optimizing profit since 1800. Didn't Napoleon sold Louisiana because of the consequences of Anglo-German bankers speculation on European economy?

Re: Brazilian Amazon lost 18 trees per second in 2021

#107

Post by rglullis » Tue, Jul 19, 2022, 2:41 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.

The alternative to "not enrich the country" will be "make it even poorer and unequal than it already is".

Re: Brazilian Amazon lost 18 trees per second in 2021

#108

Post by Sporktacular » Tue, Jul 19, 2022, 2:42 PM UTC

specialp wrote: post #64

mistrial9 wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 someo…

Timber and beef are not the significant chunks of the world's economy that they once were. There are alternatives now for consumers and for economic planners.

Alternatives that don't lead to future death of entire ecosystems and the impoverishment of large sections of the world's population.

Re: Brazilian Amazon lost 18 trees per second in 2021

#109

Post by coryrc » Tue, Jul 19, 2022, 2:44 PM UTC

melling wrote: post #85

dataflow wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The majority of deforestation took place prior to 1910, says Wikipedia. We didn't know nearly as much back then about the problems it would cause. So I'm not sure it's hard to criticize this when seeing it in 2022.

So, now that we know should we replace some portion of the trees?

We are, up 2.6% from 1990 to 2010: https://rainforests.mongabay.com/deforestation/2000/United_S...

Re: Brazilian Amazon lost 18 trees per second in 2021

#110

Post by ratww » Tue, Jul 19, 2022, 2:45 PM UTC

lvass wrote: post #99

ratww wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 demonstrat…

Oh nice, more condescension. I'll let it pass. Here's a real reply:

This might work in aggregate, but doesn't really help the average Brazilian, nor makes the country become developed. If the economic measures are only favouring the primary sector, the "vast majority of goods made in [my] country" is only making money for an extremely small part of the population. Plus, these measures are causing shrinkage of other sectors that actually would help the population richness grow.

What is happening only favours people in the primary sector (which isn't really employing that much people despite continuous growth) and richer countries buying cheaply for us.

Hypocrites who want Brazil to keep being a giant farm/ranch of the world selling cheap stuff are a problem as big as the country's government. Go away with your colonialism.