Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Amazon fires: Record number burning in Brazil rainforest

bbc.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

61–70 of 137 posts

Re: Amazon fires: Record number burning in Brazil rainforest

#61

Post by gtirloni »

jeanlucas wrote: post #54

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…

That's the problem right now in Brazil. Any criticism to the current administration is because "ideology", like that's a valid argument to invalidate anything that's said. The current president thinks there are communists in every corner.

The fires are happening, any satellite can confirm that. Easily. The the head of the public institution doing very scientific work to track that got fired because he wasn't a true "Brazilian" since he was obviously trying to hurt his country by reporting the truth.

It seems we have imported the dualism in politics from the US/Argentina and everything now now is "us" vs "them". It's impossible to have a reasonable discussion about public policies without people resorting to hidden motives and conspiracy theories.

I've followed the international news about the Amazon fires and there's very little wrong facts in them. But unfortunately they don't help our current extreme right administration so.

I hope reasonable minds prevail in the next election and we're able to elect an administration that is rational. Unfortunately, due to the increasing duopoly in politics, we'll probably have a extreme left president. It's all very sad.

Re: Amazon fires: Record number burning in Brazil rainforest

#62

Post by icebraining »

dna_polymerase wrote: post #37
vfc1 wrote: 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…

Would be all for the sanctions, but the EU just signed a free trade agreement with Brazil (Mercosur). That agreement put Brazil's farmers at an advantage, they can now sell to the EU, and produce cheaper than European farmers. If anything that accelerated the trend we see now in the Amazon. Also, Trump's trade war with China led China to heavily invest in Brazil's soy. Another accelerator of Amazon burning. So, after…

What part of the EU-Mercosur agreement do you see impacting this? Soya was already imported without tariffs, and the low-tariff beef quota is just 100k tonnes, divided over the four Mercosur countries, whereas Brazil alone already produces 11 million tonnes of beef.

Re: Amazon fires: Record number burning in Brazil rainforest

#63

Post by jeanlucas »

hjrnunes wrote: post #42

If environmental disasters are enough pretext for questioning sovereignty, shall we compile a list, together with the territory to be subtracted? I suggest with start with North America. I'll go first: - Deepwater Horizon platform; Gulf of Mexico, 2010.

This is downvoted, but it is a fair point, that is being used as politics weapon. The Amazon forest was savaged before, but the previous administration was seen as "good".

And more than that, those supposed good funds from Germany and Norway that were basically a form of bribe for the previous administration look to the other side on the mining atrocities these countries did in the forest.

Re: Amazon fires: Record number burning in Brazil rainforest

#64

Post by Hitton »

vfc1 wrote: 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…

I consider such approach rather oppressive and reeking of colonialism attitudes. It sounds like: "Fuck Brasil, let's ban them from using their natural resources, while we happily keep using ours". There is literally no reason why other countries countries couldn't plant more forests to enhance their carbon depositions, now Brasil thanks to their rainforests does more of biosequestration than any other country on Earth and don't they dare doing less and not pick other nations' slack...

Also 12 years is just another arbitrary alarmist number, similarly to recently heard 18 months [1]. But in reality there is no upcoming end of the world [2].

[1]: https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-48964736

[2]: https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/observations/no-climate...

Re: Amazon fires: Record number burning in Brazil rainforest

#65

Post by sprafa »

vfc1 wrote: 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…

So the "developed" world sets course for anihilating itself and Brasil gets the blame? How very American of you.

Re: Amazon fires: Record number burning in Brazil rainforest

#66

Post by sarcasmOrTears »

vfc1 wrote: 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…

[flagged]

Re: Amazon fires: Record number burning in Brazil rainforest

#67

Post by sprafa »

Hitton wrote: post #64
vfc1 wrote: 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…

I consider such approach rather oppressive and reeking of colonialism attitudes. It sounds like: "Fuck Brasil, let's ban them from using their natural resources, while we happily keep using ours". There is literally no reason why other countries countries couldn't plant more forests to enhance their carbon depositions, now Brasil thanks to their rainforests does more of biosequestration than any other country on Eart…

IT is colonialist, patronizing, and evil. The US and the "developed" world have set course for self annihilation and the US in particular has done nothing to solve its own path by leaving the Paris Agreement. But hey let's blame Brasil, easier than solving our own problems.

Re: Amazon fires: Record number burning in Brazil rainforest

#68

Post by antocv »

fredley wrote: post #43
antocv wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are a victim of learned helplessness. Throughout history men have taken up guns to do what they think is right. There is nothing stopping you and friends to begin a war against environmental destruction. They will call you eco-terrorists, like they called french revolutionaries murderers, like they called G Washington and his friends, gang rebels and bandits. To get political is not enough, armed uprising war is…

There have been highly effective, totally peaceful revolutions too.[0] Violence does not have to be the answer. 0: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nonviolent_revolution

Violence does not have to be the answer, but in case of environmental destruction, I believe it is.

The amount of global environmental destruction a single person or a single corporate entity (see BP oil spill) can do is too much to allow it to happen while hoping they wont. The most effective means is violence, and lots of it.

Re: Amazon fires: Record number burning in Brazil rainforest

#69

Post by gtirloni »

enibundo wrote: post #23
lucasfcosta wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is not how it works. This situation is entirely different. You are missing a lot of the nuance here. Brazil is a huge country which supplies many countries with countless commodities and other products. External military intervention would only make the situation worse. This is not how international politics work. I'm definitely not in favour of what has happened in Iraq, but brute-forcing every problem with ext…

I think your logics is flawed here : > external intervention We are all internal to the same world/nature.

Ignoring the very concept of countries and sovereignty will not help fix the current situation.

I understand people are disillusioned with politicians everywhere in the world but we should not abandon politics because of that.

Re: Amazon fires: Record number burning in Brazil rainforest

#70

Post by jeanlucas »

gtirloni wrote: post #61
jeanlucas wrote: post #54

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…

That's the problem right now in Brazil. Any criticism to the current administration is because "ideology", like that's a valid argument to invalidate anything that's said. The current president thinks there are communists in every corner. The fires are happening, any satellite can confirm that. Easily. The the head of the public institution doing very scientific work to track that got fired because he wasn't a true "…

gtirloni, I agree that tying to administration is ridiculous and avoid real criticism. This just bugs me because the rate of deforestation was going up really high in the previous one (that was impeached, but not because of that).

The fires are happening, I agree, but I really disagree that there are little wrong facts, mostly people hide important stuff, like the Norway mining I rig, and I really bet you didn't know about that one, it barely made the news. Only the convenient news come up.

It's impossible to say about only reasonable minds when the arguments are so skewed towards politics and extreme actions.

Post reply on HN