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You seem to have missed the important part of my comment. If you tell an Iowa corn farmer than he can't grow corn anymore, he doesn't just give up and let his
by mike_d 6y ago
You seem to have missed the important part of my comment.
If you tell an Iowa corn farmer than he can't grow corn anymore, he doesn't just give up and let his land turn in to prairie. He will grow soy, or raise pigs, or whatever else monetizes the land.
Brazilians will keep cutting down forests because they depend on the land for income. They ultimately don't care what the deforestation is for, only that it feeds their family.
- lentil_soup 6y agoWhy would Brazilians cut down more forest if the demand for crops goes down (since a lot of the crops are currently fed to livestock)? I don't know what they'll do with the areas already cleared but there wouldn't be an economic incentive to cut down more forest. This study about soy in the US and Brazil that was posted a few weeks ago is quite interesting about the link between deforestation, soy and livestock (https://ourworldindata.org/soy https://ourworldindata.org/soy)
- lenkite 6y agoCorn is an excellent carbon sink btw.