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I think that gets into a messy area though - why should poorer countries have to limit the exploitation of their natural resources, often their only practical p

I think that gets into a messy area though - why should poorer countries have to limit the exploitation of their natural resources, often their only practical path towards wealth - to suit the activist needs of wealthier populations in developed countries that have service based economies? I would actually say that we need to subsidize those countries, essentially paying them to retain biomass that absorbs carbon. Is it any different from paying for carbon sequestration?

Laremere 6y ago
100%. North America had massive land clearance happen with European settlers (and some before then), and Europe itself has had land converted to farmland for even longer. To me, 2 things are clear: 1. It's in individual's self interest to extract the maximum economic value from the land that they control, which usually means drastically changing it from the natural state. 2. It's in everyone's best interest that we preserve a large fraction of each biome to prevent partial or total collapse of the earth's ecosystems. How this is best fixed depends on how you think government and society should solve problems, but simply approaching it from "here's the problem, what does the end goal look like" point of view shows that something radical needs to be done. And yes, I would include turning large amounts of farmland, even high yielding farmland, back into natural habitat.
- photojosh 6y ago
  It's of relevance only in that it shows how quickly forestation can affect climate, but North America had massive _reforestation_ in the late 1500s right before the land clearance by European settlers. https://phys.org/news/2011-10-team-european-ice-age-due.html https://phys.org/news/2011-10-team-european-ice-age-due.html
ArkanExplorer 6y ago
This is not a one-way sacrifice from poorer countries. Richer, importing countries like the EU, East Asia, North America will pay more for agricultural products if bans like this are imposed. We need market mechanisms that encourage countries to respect global commons (ie. the capacity of the Earth to absorb our CO2 output). Countries that do not respect that should be removed from global markets. We cannot rely on individual retailers, importers, or customers, because they will just orient towards the lowest price, without consideration of environmental impacts. It is clearly a responsibility of Governments to act.

Laremere 6y ago

100%. North America had massive land clearance happen with European settlers (and some before then), and Europe itself has had land converted to farmland for even longer. To me, 2 things are clear: 1. It's in individual's self interest to extract the maximum economic value from the land that they control, which usually means drastically changing it from the natural state. 2. It's in everyone's best interest that we preserve a large fraction of each biome to prevent partial or total collapse of the earth's ecosystems. How this is best fixed depends on how you think government and society should solve problems, but simply approaching it from "here's the problem, what does the end goal look like" point of view shows that something radical needs to be done. And yes, I would include turning large amounts of farmland, even high yielding farmland, back into natural habitat.

photojosh 6y ago
It's of relevance only in that it shows how quickly forestation can affect climate, but North America had massive _reforestation_ in the late 1500s right before the land clearance by European settlers. https://phys.org/news/2011-10-team-european-ice-age-due.html https://phys.org/news/2011-10-team-european-ice-age-due.html

ArkanExplorer 6y ago

This is not a one-way sacrifice from poorer countries. Richer, importing countries like the EU, East Asia, North America will pay more for agricultural products if bans like this are imposed. We need market mechanisms that encourage countries to respect global commons (ie. the capacity of the Earth to absorb our CO2 output). Countries that do not respect that should be removed from global markets. We cannot rely on individual retailers, importers, or customers, because they will just orient towards the lowest price, without consideration of environmental impacts. It is clearly a responsibility of Governments to act.