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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

#121
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…

There is definitely a debt, but primary industries aren't what they were when Europe and North America were deforesting. To use that an a justification now is a weak argument when there are alternatives that would add more value to the economy.

Re: Brazilian Amazon lost 18 trees per second in 2021

#122
post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is precisely because so many people working in the service sector that the country does not get rich. Doesn't build any wealth, doesn't get to export anything. And also, it is not the amount of people working that determines how to enrich the country. It is the overall output. Brazil has nothing but the agro sector at the moment. To build a stronger industry, they need to come up with the resources from somewhere.…

Yes, and? My point is precisely that those people aren't going to start working in agriculture. The number of people working in agriculture is only shrinking, and there's several labour problems with agricultural work in Brazil that won't cause farm/livestock workers to see the money. I'm not suggesting people move to the services sector.

> The number of people working in agriculture is only shrinking

The number of people working doesn't matter. What matters is that the country gets through agriculture the resources needed to invest in the other sectors.

Re: Brazilian Amazon lost 18 trees per second in 2021

#123
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…

We had deaths reported just this week, by Sonia Guajajara who represents one of the most prominent indigenous people's association and is running in the next elections.

The thing is, in the end, its often poacher/miners shooting at unarmed people, often in the middle of the jungle, far away from the effective jurisdiction of whoever else would care. And the very insitutions that could oversee and act to prevent violence have been sistematically dismantled by the current fascist-in-chief, either by removing key people or by being financially strangled.

But hey, at least now you won't lose your license for speeding and buying ammo is easier than ever.

Re: Brazilian Amazon lost 18 trees per second in 2021

#124
post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

We can agree on that.

My point was not that the current model is a good one, but rather that its problem is not one of generating wealth but rather one of distributing it, which you just demonstrated as well.

I guarantee you, I was not defending the current focus on developing /latifúndios/ at the expense of everything else.

Re: Brazilian Amazon lost 18 trees per second in 2021

#125
post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, and? My point is precisely that those people aren't going to start working in agriculture. The number of people working in agriculture is only shrinking, and there's several labour problems with agricultural work in Brazil that won't cause farm/livestock workers to see the money. I'm not suggesting people move to the services sector.

> The number of people working in agriculture is only shrinking The number of people working doesn't matter. What matters is that the country gets through agriculture the resources needed to invest in the other sectors.

In theory that makes a lot of sense. Truly. In reality, believing that and going froward with this plan was an immense setback to the country and the population.

Europe/US/etc letting Brazil keep doing what it's doing is mostly helping Europe/US/etc at the expense of Brazilians and the environment.

Re: Brazilian Amazon lost 18 trees per second in 2021

#126

If those living in high income countries don't support poorer countries to keep their forests healthy complaining about them being chopped is hypocritical. I live in Italy, the Po Valley I live in was a marshland with lots of centenarian trees. Since Roman times marshes have been drought and most of the forests were chopped to make room for agriculture (and to build Venice, which sits on millions and millions of tree…

I'm from one of the so called poor countries and let me tell you, we aren't that poor. We just have much much higher levels of corruption and static generational wealth. Add to that extremely selfish and poor planning from politicians at the top.

Re: Brazilian Amazon lost 18 trees per second in 2021

#127
post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

We can agree on that. My point was not that the current model is a good one, but rather that its problem is not one of generating wealth but rather one of distributing it, which you just demonstrated as well. I guarantee you, I was not defending the current focus on developing /latifúndios/ at the expense of everything else.

Ah perfect, then we're in agreement.

A lot of people assume I'm being a radical and saying Brazil should stop exporting meat/soy/etc. I'm not.

What I'm saying is that Brazil needs is a plan that's not simply "keep fucking the country even though it's not really working".

I'm not a fan of people from richer countries saying "Brazil should keep doing what it seems to want to do", because this is also way too favourable to them.

Re: Brazilian Amazon lost 18 trees per second in 2021

#128
post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Yes, forever. And no it wasn't. The rainforest has existed for tens of millions of years (and has species much) older than humans have inhabited South America. And while they shaped it, there is NO way suggests we could just regrow it, even if we could organise the manpower and political will.

When the forest loses the capacity to create clouds, it is game over. It will never be the same again, and that's just one of many of non-linear effects at work.

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