Live data from Hacker News

Amazon fires: Record number burning in Brazil rainforest

bbc.com

121–130 of 137 posts

Re: Amazon fires: Record number burning in Brazil rainforest

#121

Gonna give my 2 cents, bear in mind I'm in Brazil and am involved in projects related to the Amazon forest. My problem with all this are some things: * One problem I have is that during the last years Amazon savagery was going uncontrollable, no one cared, especially BBC, now that a president was elected that is not aligned with their point of view was elected, this became a front news issue. * Assuming this is all t…

> now that a president was elected that is not aligned with their point of view was elected, this became a front news issue.

Or maybe they are just push articles their audience want to read. There is def more env awareness now than before for whatever reason.

Re: Amazon fires: Record number burning in Brazil rainforest

#122
post #120
post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why are you so defensive about all of this?

So defensive? It’s the second time news like this have shown up and it’s the second time people have suggested sanctions. Usually Americans living under a regime that is one of the few countries to pull out of the Paris Agreement. You don’t see a problem with that? Why is Brasil having to shoulder the blame for CO2 mostly produced elsewhere? There’s a lot that can be done but really it’s the usual thing for me - if y…

If you asked, most people who are arguing for sanctions on Brasil would also support sanctions on America for pulling out of the Paris Agreement.

>if you’re going to criticise someone clean up your own house first.

Is a terrible attitude to have and will never lead to any solutions.

Re: Amazon fires: Record number burning in Brazil rainforest

#123
post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why are you so defensive about all of this?

How is this not obvious? Industrialization is a rapid road to prosperity. The West industrialized and is prosperous, and now requires the other countries not take the path they took? It’s never going to happen. You can’t dump 7 times as much carbon as a Brazilian into the atmosphere and then ask them to cut emissions. Especially when you have the money and resources to be carbon negative and choose not to.

So the answer is to throw our hands in the air and give up because our ancestors did something we now to be extremely harmful so we have to let everyone else do it too?

Re: Amazon fires: Record number burning in Brazil rainforest

#124
post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why are you so defensive about all of this?

How is this not obvious? Industrialization is a rapid road to prosperity. The West industrialized and is prosperous, and now requires the other countries not take the path they took? It’s never going to happen. You can’t dump 7 times as much carbon as a Brazilian into the atmosphere and then ask them to cut emissions. Especially when you have the money and resources to be carbon negative and choose not to.

The economy at those times was VERY different, there weren't alternatives that are getting cheaper than oil nowadays for energy, the future is in green energy, pushing this agenda of "we need to develop the same way as the current developed nations have done is the only way" is stupid and myopic.

If Brazil was interested in developing itself (and I know firsthand how that place works, fucks sake, I lived my first 27 years of life there) it'd be pushing its development through research on this new green field (pun intended) that is still immature and open for the newcomers to be bold and create the industry the world will rely on. It's a prime place to research and develop renewable technology with abundant hydro and solar energy, with vast swaths of land covered by the most diverse bioma on Earth. Brazil could be doing novel technologies to sell the future world on this, instead it's pushed down by exporting mostly iron ore, soybeans and beef, it's stuck in the past and society is kept uneducated and living on primary commodities exports. Hell, even with a lot of oil Brazil has no technology to refine and produce its own fuel, it sells the oil out just to buy it back in the form of refined oil products.

Brazil doesn't have any internal incentive, politically, to become better, technologically, educationally or culturally, it's a place stuck in time, nothing works, no infrastructure is properly developed. I know that, I haven't visited it for 3 years after moving to Sweden and going back to visit friends and family just made me see how... Nothing really ever changes, projects are always late, bogged down by corruption and bureaucracy, overspending and ultimately most of them are never finished. Lack of reliable and proper transportation in major cities keep poor people poor, being stuck in a bus 4 hours of your day to earn R$ 1.500,00 per month doesn't leave you much time and energy to be able to study, that money barely cover your basic expenses, it's horrible.

So instead of complaining that other countries want it to do better do some thinking and see that it's because there are many other ways to be better, there is no need to follow the missteps of other countries, pave a fucking new way instead of always looking up to what others have done and mimic it. It's the country of poor imitation, the only benefit is that we are inventive and given constraints our people are really creative.

Brazil, as we say, will always be the country of the future. The problem is that the future never arrives to become the present over there.

Re: Amazon fires: Record number burning in Brazil rainforest

#125
post #120
post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why are you so defensive about all of this?

So defensive? It’s the second time news like this have shown up and it’s the second time people have suggested sanctions. Usually Americans living under a regime that is one of the few countries to pull out of the Paris Agreement. You don’t see a problem with that? Why is Brasil having to shoulder the blame for CO2 mostly produced elsewhere? There’s a lot that can be done but really it’s the usual thing for me - if y…

I'm a Brazilian, living in Sweden and I'm going to push and get in touch with people I know who have connections or work at Riksdagen (the Swedish parliament) to start any kind of discussion on sanctioning the beef and mining industry in Brazil.

It's possible to criticise something even if you live in a glasshouse, even more when what's being done down there is senseless for the future of the whole country, like I mentioned on another comment: this is utterly myopic and stupid, extract and destroy now to have something for 5 years or do the proper thing and invest in educating society taking 1-2 generations (so about 20-30 years) and reap the benefits for the next centuries.

Re: Amazon fires: Record number burning in Brazil rainforest

#126
This hits at one ideological conundrum that I have been grappling with for a while.

All major developed nations did so on the back of dirty energy, exploiting resources and with huge climate change implications.

Now that the smaller developing nations are finally capable of doing so themselves, they are being discouraged by the same developed powers. The developed powers did the same, but got away with it because there was no oversight. I don't see why these underdeveloped nations are now being expected to take the moral high ground.

We wouldn't need the Amazon as much, if we weren't pumping as many pollutants into our air and water supplies.

Plenty of species went extinct when the now developed powers expanded with reckless abandon. Now that Brazil is doing the same, the outrage seems hypocritical.

Some may say that the Amazon is special and not a resource that Brazil can singularly exploit, when it has global implications. But, the same has been true of fossil rich nations that have pumped cheap gas into the market indiscriminately, while they all individually became billionaires.

This whole argument extended to new developing economies like India and Central Africa at large.

Just to be clear I am not advocating for the deforestation of the Amazon. It can be seen as a right wing talking point, but I myself am completely at my wits end and do not have a retort to the argument.

Re: Amazon fires: Record number burning in Brazil rainforest

#127
post #20

Brasil needs to be heavily sanctioned by the international community, I'm talking Cuba-level stuff if we want to even have a chance at stopping the rise above 2 degrees, we only have 12 years which means that it's already probably too late. More worrying is the rise of populism in the world supported by fake news, ignorance and social media that led to this. How did someone as ignorant as Bolsonaro ever managed to ge…

> How did someone as ignorant as Bolsonaro ever managed to get elected as president of a democratic country, and get away with some of the things he says?

This has to be sarcasm right ?

You ask that question when Duterte, Erdogan, Trump, Brexit, LePen and the like have occurred in the last 5 years preceding him.

Bolsonaro was democratically elected. We may not like it (I absolutely despise him), but that is the will of the people. Naive, easily misled and disheartened people. But, democrated elected nevertheless.

Re: Amazon fires: Record number burning in Brazil rainforest

#128
post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No other country can plant a rainforest the size of Amazonia, come on that does not make sense. The Amazonia rainforest is unique and cannot be replaced, I don't get how the rate that it's getting tore down to plant soy crops for cattle feed to allow for the production of cheap meat is not alarming to anyone.

If you want the rainforest to remain, then pay for it to remain. Otherwise, let those who own the rainforest use the rainforest.

You may have been downvoted, but the the developed world has yet to provide a good retort to your point.

Such a question is answered by blatant hypocrisy every time.

Re: Amazon fires: Record number burning in Brazil rainforest

#129
post #39
post #5

The sad part of reading news like this is the feeling of paralysis and helplessness of watching it all unfold. There are no actionable calls to action or advice laid out in articles like these. Awareness is good though. Perhaps it inspires people to work directly on solving nature's greatest problems. A friend of mine made a GitHub curated list about tech companies working in this space. https://github.com/nglgzz/awe…

Individual action is very limited. Collective action is the only way forwards, which means you're going to have to get political, and convince other people that it's real, important, and deserving of action.

Money talks, if companies can make billions of dollars from individual $10-20 subscriptions, I don't see why we can't do it for climate change/deforestation!

I personally use Project Wren (https://projectwren.com/) to offset my own footprint and a bit more!

Re: Amazon fires: Record number burning in Brazil rainforest

#130

Gonna give my 2 cents, bear in mind I'm in Brazil and am involved in projects related to the Amazon forest. My problem with all this are some things: * One problem I have is that during the last years Amazon savagery was going uncontrollable, no one cared, especially BBC, now that a president was elected that is not aligned with their point of view was elected, this became a front news issue. * Assuming this is all t…

Interesting, because according to Norsk Hydro and various Brazilian authorities there never were overflows or leaks. [0]

"Around the time of the floods, there were local reports that the floods had affected the residue deposits and rumors circulated that they had overflowed into the surrounding area and contaminated local communities. The Brazilian authorities were likewise concerned and initiated multiple inspections of Alunorte."

[0] - https://www.hydro.com/en-US/media/on-the-agenda/the-alunorte...

Post reply on HN