5 ms·

> The rest of the world hasn’t even figured out how to force themselves to save their own equivalents, with few exceptions. It may be politically easier to im

by taejo 7y ago

> The rest of the world hasn’t even figured out how to force themselves to save their own equivalents, with few exceptions. It may be politically easier to impose sanctions or tariffs on foreign countries than to ban or tax their own electorate. I'm in favour of forcing other countries to clean up especially if those countries in turn force my country to do the same.

Mirioron 7y ago
What's more likely to happen is trade wars and maybe even real wars, because you're essentially wishing for destabilization of countries.
- emn13 7y ago
  Some trade sanctions are a far cry from destabilization; and even destabilization need not lead to war. And while I think it's an unnecessary trade-off to make, I would further question your implicit assumption that any war is by definition worse than loss of the amazon rainforest. Look, if you reason like that you essentially say that you can never apply any pressure on others, because pressure might turn out to be too much, and might then lead to destabilization, and might then lead to conflict, which might grow into a horrible large-scale war. But that's putting yourself in a very weak position. Others may well take advantage, and you may end up in an even worse situation - on average. All that doomsday thinking about pressure is probably usually being to pessimistic. And even if things go badly, they shouldn't do so overnight; it's quite unlikely another nation wouldn't have the opportunity to reduce pressure before push comes to the rhetorical shoving.
  - Mirioron 7y ago
    >Look, if you reason like that you essentially say that you can never apply any pressure on others, because pressure might turn out to be too much, and might then lead to destabilization The whole point to fight against climate change is to save future lives, but if this comes at a huge cost of present lives, then that outweighs the potential future problems. If you put pressure on a country economically, especially one that's poor then you're creating enemies for yourself for generations. It destroys goodwill and cooperation. Look at Russia right now. They're clearly moving towards isolating themselves from the global economy, even though they brought this on themselves with hostile actions. Now imagine what would happen when other countries band together against a poor country to do the same.
    - emn13 7y ago
      I don't believe it would come at a huge cost to current lives now; I don't think it would cost any lives now. I think the ill-will is probably worth it, especially if it turns out to work and future Brazilians agree that it worked. And how pressure (I didn't say sanctions, a previous poster did!) is applies matters, obviously the aim should be to both minimize the pain to normal Brazilians, and to make it as clear as possible why the sanctions (if they're part of that pressure packages) apply, and to do so so forcefully that change is inevitable. I don't actually think Russia is a good example here at all; because the sanctions imposed on Russia are due to state belligerence - it's not easy to target those sanctions, and the Russian state has ways to subvert whatever targetting does exist. That's quite different in Brazil's case. The Brazilian state may not longer be enforcing the rules against deforestation, but it's still at least officially the policy, and I kind of doubt most Brazilians actively want the rainforest to disappear. Instead, the problem is economic incentives; and those can be more targetted externally, for instance by targetting industries that primarily cause the destruction; e.g. a ban on beef and milk products from countries in which deforestation for cattle ranching occurs, etc. If you want to retain the appearance of neutrality and don't mind spending a bit of money, you could even offset that by reductions in tariffs elsewhere, or even by subsidizing some other thing Brazilians care about or whatever. Regardless, that's only ever going to work if Brazil eventually sees the light and agrees that saving the rainforest is worthwhile, so whatever penalties are part of the pressure package must never be enough to simultaneously piss off enough Brazilians to matter while being small enough that they stay in force for long enough to cause bad blood. If that's not doable, better to look for other pressure points; there's nothing to be won by pissing people off, harming yourself (sanctions aren't free) and Brazil, and then not having anything to show for it.
- taejo 7y ago
  You argue in bad faith because you pretend that "wishing" is not a subjective phenomenon. If you wish for ice cream, and your friend has a car accident on the way to the ice cream shop and kills someone, did you wish to kill someone?
ardani 7y ago
You can build a trading platform which adds its own tariffs.

by taejo 7y ago

Mirioron 7y ago

What's more likely to happen is trade wars and maybe even real wars, because you're essentially wishing for destabilization of countries.

emn13 7y ago
Some trade sanctions are a far cry from destabilization; and even destabilization need not lead to war. And while I think it's an unnecessary trade-off to make, I would further question your implicit assumption that any war is by definition worse than loss of the amazon rainforest. Look, if you reason like that you essentially say that you can never apply any pressure on others, because pressure might turn out to be too much, and might then lead to destabilization, and might then lead to conflict, which might grow into a horrible large-scale war. But that's putting yourself in a very weak position. Others may well take advantage, and you may end up in an even worse situation - on average. All that doomsday thinking about pressure is probably usually being to pessimistic. And even if things go badly, they shouldn't do so overnight; it's quite unlikely another nation wouldn't have the opportunity to reduce pressure before push comes to the rhetorical shoving.
- Mirioron 7y ago
  >Look, if you reason like that you essentially say that you can never apply any pressure on others, because pressure might turn out to be too much, and might then lead to destabilization The whole point to fight against climate change is to save future lives, but if this comes at a huge cost of present lives, then that outweighs the potential future problems. If you put pressure on a country economically, especially one that's poor then you're creating enemies for yourself for generations. It destroys goodwill and cooperation. Look at Russia right now. They're clearly moving towards isolating themselves from the global economy, even though they brought this on themselves with hostile actions. Now imagine what would happen when other countries band together against a poor country to do the same.
  - emn13 7y ago
    I don't believe it would come at a huge cost to current lives now; I don't think it would cost any lives now. I think the ill-will is probably worth it, especially if it turns out to work and future Brazilians agree that it worked. And how pressure (I didn't say sanctions, a previous poster did!) is applies matters, obviously the aim should be to both minimize the pain to normal Brazilians, and to make it as clear as possible why the sanctions (if they're part of that pressure packages) apply, and to do so so forcefully that change is inevitable. I don't actually think Russia is a good example here at all; because the sanctions imposed on Russia are due to state belligerence - it's not easy to target those sanctions, and the Russian state has ways to subvert whatever targetting does exist. That's quite different in Brazil's case. The Brazilian state may not longer be enforcing the rules against deforestation, but it's still at least officially the policy, and I kind of doubt most Brazilians actively want the rainforest to disappear. Instead, the problem is economic incentives; and those can be more targetted externally, for instance by targetting industries that primarily cause the destruction; e.g. a ban on beef and milk products from countries in which deforestation for cattle ranching occurs, etc. If you want to retain the appearance of neutrality and don't mind spending a bit of money, you could even offset that by reductions in tariffs elsewhere, or even by subsidizing some other thing Brazilians care about or whatever. Regardless, that's only ever going to work if Brazil eventually sees the light and agrees that saving the rainforest is worthwhile, so whatever penalties are part of the pressure package must never be enough to simultaneously piss off enough Brazilians to matter while being small enough that they stay in force for long enough to cause bad blood. If that's not doable, better to look for other pressure points; there's nothing to be won by pissing people off, harming yourself (sanctions aren't free) and Brazil, and then not having anything to show for it.
taejo 7y ago
You argue in bad faith because you pretend that "wishing" is not a subjective phenomenon. If you wish for ice cream, and your friend has a car accident on the way to the ice cream shop and kills someone, did you wish to kill someone?

ardani 7y ago

You can build a trading platform which adds its own tariffs.