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

Re: Brazilian Amazon lost 18 trees per second in 2021

#181

Post by rglullis » Tue, Jul 19, 2022, 5:43 PM UTC

gassiss wrote: post #178

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)…

Brazil is a rich country though. It's considered 2nd world due to violence, income/wealth inequality and sanitation problems, which are mainly political and not due to lack of money

Brazil is a top 10 economy only because of its population size. Per capita, it sits smack in the middle of the table and is behind "poor" countries from Eastern Europe and the Caribean.

Due to its inequality, I'd venture that a chart compared median income levels would put us below most African countries. Brazil can be an amazing place to live if you are already wealthy (and if you are willing to live surrounded by private security and completely removed from the reality of the population at large), but no one in their right mind would risk trading their lives with that of the median Brazilian.

Re: Brazilian Amazon lost 18 trees per second in 2021

#182

Post by Aerroon » Tue, Jul 19, 2022, 5:50 PM UTC

9dev wrote: post #159

Maybe, and this is a big maybe, we should think about whether some countries have a disproportionately large access to, or responsibility for, resources relevant to all of humanity. Specifically, I would like to question if Brazil can or even should be trusted to handle the Amazon forest in a responsible manner. Over the past decades, objectively, it has shown that the country, or maybe primarily its government, does…

And how many millions of people are you willing to kill for this? Because you're essentially suggesting that the rest of the world should invade and occupy the sovereign territory of a nation with 200 million people.

There is a snowball's chance in hell that anybody would willingly agree to this. Any kind of scheme you can come up with is guaranteed to cause more issues that will harm Brazilians.

Other people telling you how to live your life is a recipe for disaster. One that we've seen over and over again.

Re: Brazilian Amazon lost 18 trees per second in 2021

#183

Post by Aerroon » Tue, Jul 19, 2022, 5:57 PM UTC

hestefisk wrote: post #51

First step is to get rid of their climate change-denying madman President.

What are you suggesting here? That western countries should assassinate an elected world leader? Or that western countries should influence the next democratic elections?

If you don't see an issue here, then imagine if you were talking about the USA. Should other countries "get rid of" the US president if they don't like his policies?

Re: Brazilian Amazon lost 18 trees per second in 2021

#184

Post by is_true » Tue, Jul 19, 2022, 6:11 PM UTC

ratww wrote: post #147

is_true wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's a lot of people working in that automation. That earn much more and make the country more efficient, more production means more jobs down the road. Also, countries like brasil don't export commodities just because they want, there 's a web of tariff to keep producing countries from industrializing those products.

> There's a lot of people working in that automation. Sorry for the pun, but Brazil isn't really reaping the benefits of agricultural automation to compensate for the issues being an exclusively primary-sector exporter causes. Automation scales very well. Also notice that I'm not saying Brazil shouldn't keep doing what it is doing, I'm saying that other more developed-country-ish sectors should be expanded too. > Als…

They don't want more developed countries. Period.

Also, I don't know where you are from, but brazil has a healthy agritech industry selling know-how and technology to other countries.

Re: Brazilian Amazon lost 18 trees per second in 2021

#185

Post by is_true » Tue, Jul 19, 2022, 6:20 PM UTC

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.

Actually wooden furniture is a great way to sequester carbon

Re: Brazilian Amazon lost 18 trees per second in 2021

#186

Post by 01acheru » Tue, Jul 19, 2022, 6:22 PM UTC

emadabdulrahim wrote: post #126

01acheru wrote: post #35

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.

Static generational wealth, corruption, selfishness and poor planning are incredibly common in high income countries too.

My father is Brazilian and I lived there for almost ten years, from mid 90s to mid 00s, and indeed Brazil as a country is not that poor: if you could split the GDP equally amongst the population. Since this is not the case in reality there are millions and millions well below the poverty line and this is what makes a country a poor country, a country where a lot of people are poor.

When you have a lot of poor people many things go out of control, and also taking advantage of poor people is a piece of cake for those at the top of the money pyramid.

Deforestation in Brazil will not stop unless farmers and locals that live around the Amazon (or other green areas such as the Pantanal or the now almost destroyed Mata Atlântica) get paid to not touch it, help it regrow and pursue different agricultural styles or different crops. The Brazilian government doesn't have the money to do that even if corruption went to zero and private entities will not act since in most cases they are the ones fomenting deforestation.

The only hope for South American forests to thrive is foreign intervention: local governments won't act, local corporations won't act and most of the local population is simply too poor to care.

Re: Brazilian Amazon lost 18 trees per second in 2021

#187

Post by ElectricalUnion » Tue, Jul 19, 2022, 6:23 PM UTC

coffeeblack wrote: post #73

Ekaros wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Could you explain why you want to grow trees on the 1% of land that has housing on it, instead of on the 99% of land that hasn’t?

Because grass, one of the the world's most well tended and sprawling crops, doesn't help feeding people near as much compared to the other 99% of the land that isn't "housing".

Re: Brazilian Amazon lost 18 trees per second in 2021

#188

Post by ElectricalUnion » Tue, Jul 19, 2022, 6:36 PM UTC

rodolphoarruda wrote: post #105

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 th…

> 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.

Recent research points out that the Amazon (and in fact most Earth's supposedly wild) rainforest is a elaborate example of centuries of forest bio-engineering, and it doesn't simply recover if abandoned; decaying into desert instead. Further bio-engineering would be required to repair it to it's "original" state.

Re: Brazilian Amazon lost 18 trees per second in 2021

#189

Post by ElectricalUnion » Tue, Jul 19, 2022, 6:42 PM UTC

Sporktacular wrote: post #118

rodolphoarruda wrote: post #105

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 th…

The problem is that the current government doesn't WANT to investigate and arrest criminals. They cut funding, merged environmental protection and indigenous affairs into the agricultural ministry. This is well documented. The forest is on the edge of becoming a net carbon producer for the first time. This doesn't simply reverse when it regrows from some saplings. Its capacity to create clouds to replenish water is a…

> The forest is on the edge of becoming a net carbon producer for the first time.

Forests in general are stable - _carbon neutral_, unless disturbed. Oceans are where most of the Earth oxygen is converted from CO₂.

The real reason why Brazil needs to save the Amazon, for South America, is water supply - rain forest induced water evaporation is main source of water for the Río de la Plata basin - where several of the biggest and developed cities in the South America are.

Re: Brazilian Amazon lost 18 trees per second in 2021

#190

Post by ElectricalUnion » Tue, Jul 19, 2022, 7:02 PM UTC

9dev wrote: post #159

Maybe, and this is a big maybe, we should think about whether some countries have a disproportionately large access to, or responsibility for, resources relevant to all of humanity. Specifically, I would like to question if Brazil can or even should be trusted to handle the Amazon forest in a responsible manner. Over the past decades, objectively, it has shown that the country, or maybe primarily its government, does…

> Maybe, and this is a big maybe, we should think about whether some countries have a disproportionately large access to, or responsibility for, resources relevant to all of humanity.

The problem is that this logic extends to most very large countries in the world.

Are you gonna also appropriate Russia, Canada, China and United States of America land? Who is gonna police all of that? Does the rest of humanity have the collective firepower to stop, say, "just China" and "just the United States of America" from ruining the environment? I don't think this is feasible.