5 ms·

I could be wrong, but I belief that the issue is bigger than that. If you live in the US and drive a car or eat meat, you are likely to be co-responsible. Soy

by ArnoVW 5y ago

I could be wrong, but I belief that the issue is bigger than that. If you live in the US and drive a car or eat meat, you are likely to be co-responsible. Soy culture is used to create a cheap protein feedstock for the meat industry. Modern car fuel contains ethanol (10% in the EU). The ethanol is produced by having micro organisms convert biomass. The idea being that you use the short carbon cycle (already in the eco system) instead of the long carbon cycle (stuff that has been in the earth for 200My) thus effectively reducing carbon emissions. Both of these are produced in Brasil, both have a footprint much larger than the gold or exotic wood markets (which are tiny, compared with meat and car fuel)

nine_k 5y ago
If you live in the U.S. and drive a car and eat meat, you are very unlikely eating illegally-raised Brazilian beef, or consuming illegally-mined Brazilian gold. Most likely, you eat U.S.-raised beef and burn gasoline from oil that comes from the U.S. or Middle East. Surely you are adding to the global warming, but it has nothing to do with Amazonian forest being illegally cut. In Brazil, most if not all cars run on ethanol [1]. The U.S. produce massive amounts of ethanol domestically [2] so, most likely, whatever gasoline you might be buying in the US, it's not using Brazilian ethanol, even though the U.S. does import some Brazilian ethanol [4], it's dwarfed by the domestic production [2]. U.S. beef is raised so efficiently that farmers manage to export it to Mexico an China, among other places [3], while receiving virtually no subsidies. You likely need to specifically look for gourmet Brazilian beef if you want to have a chance to taste a cow illegally raised on a pasture which used to be Amazonian forest. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethanol_fuel_in_Brazil https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethanol_fuel_in_Brazil [2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethanol_fuel_in_the_United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethanol_fuel_in_the_United_Sta... [3]: https://www.fas.usda.gov/beef-2020-export-highlights https://www.fas.usda.gov/beef-2020-export-highlights [4]: https://www.eia.gov/dnav/pet/pet_move_impcus_a2_nus_epooxe_im0_mbbl_m.htm https://www.eia.gov/dnav/pet/pet_move_impcus_a2_nus_epooxe_i...
- DennisP 5y ago
  You make it sound like Brazilian beef is some little boutique thing. We don't eat much of it in the US because we are a giant beef producer ourselves, but Brazil is the world's largest beef exporter, by a significant margin. https://www.statista.com/chart/19122/biggest-exporters-of-beef/ https://www.statista.com/chart/19122/biggest-exporters-of-be...
  - throwaway894345 5y ago
    The parent seemed to be pretty clearly focusing on the US. I don’t think the idea was that the US experience extrapolates to allot most countries.
  - bamboozled 5y ago
    He’s just saying that if you’re an American, you probably don’t have much hand in the destruction of the rain forrest via consumption.
    - DennisP 5y ago
      I'm not convinced even that's true. We eat a lot of beef. If we didn't, our beef producers would export a lot more, and there'd be less global demand for beef from Brazil. The only way that's not true is if Brazilian exports are significantly cheaper than American, but as the above poster mentioned, American beef producers are pretty efficient.
- creamynebula 5y ago
  Pretty much all cars here run on gasoline.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
  - ArnoVW 5y ago
    Yes, but it is in fact a mixture of gasoline and ethanol. To quote the Wikipedia article: Blends of E10 or less are used in more than 20 countries around the world, led by the United States, where ethanol represented 10% of the U.S. gasoline fuel supply in 2011.[1] Blends from E20 to E25 have been used in Brazil since the late 1970s. E85 is commonly used in the U.S. and Europe for flexible-fuel vehicles. Hydrous ethanol or E100 is used in Brazilian neat ethanol vehicles and flex-fuel light vehicles and hydrous E15 called hE15 for modern petrol cars in the Netherlands.[2] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_ethanol_fuel_mixtures https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_ethanol_fuel_mixtures
- zorked 5y ago
  These are all commodities, the fact that you are being served by the closest producer does not mean that you are not generating demand that has to be compensated by someone else increasing their production. The world is connected together. Also US-raised beef also occupies the area of destroyed forests. American beef didn't destroy the Amazon but it destroyed the environment anyway and is every bit as guilty of producing global warming.
- tarsinge 5y ago
  The issue is not exported beef, it's exported soy to feed the beef in the US and in Europe.
  - throwaway894345 5y ago
    The US also produces a huge amount of soy and corn. Do we really import that much Brazilian soy?
- selimthegrim 5y ago
  You can find cheap canned Brazilian corned beef at Walmart or pretty much any US dollar store.
  - throwaway894345 5y ago
    That doesn’t seem to refute the idea that American consumption of Brazilian beef is trivial/niche. What share of Brazilian beef supply ends up on Wal-Mart shelves as corned beef?
thotypous 5y ago
> Modern car fuel contains ethanol (10% in the EU). Here at Brazil, ethanol is produced from sugarcane. And sugarcane farming is actually illegal in the Amazon. The President tried to make it legal, but fortunately his decree was suspended by the Judiciary [1]. I don't doubt there may exist a few illegal sugarcane farms in the Amazon, but given how huge sugarcane farming is in southeastern Brazil, I don't think any Amazon sugarcane would significantly contribute to Brazilian ethanol production. > Soy culture is used to create a cheap protein feedstock for the meat industry. Soy is more of an issue for Amazon than sugarcane. But, just as you said, it is used to feed cattle, and the main issue resides in the cattle. Cattleman in Amazon usually adopt the extensive breeding system, so lots of area are required to breed cattle. [1] https://www.conjur.com.br/2020-abr-21/juiza-suspende-decreto-permitia-plantio-decana-amazonia https://www.conjur.com.br/2020-abr-21/juiza-suspende-decreto...
Hendrikto 5y ago
> Modern car fuel contains ethanol (10% in the EU) It‘s a maximum of 10%, but you almost never actually get that much. E5 fuel contains 0-5% ethanol, E10 contains 5-10%.

by ArnoVW 5y ago

nine_k 5y ago

If you live in the U.S. and drive a car and eat meat, you are very unlikely eating illegally-raised Brazilian beef, or consuming illegally-mined Brazilian gold. Most likely, you eat U.S.-raised beef and burn gasoline from oil that comes from the U.S. or Middle East. Surely you are adding to the global warming, but it has nothing to do with Amazonian forest being illegally cut. In Brazil, most if not all cars run on ethanol [1]. The U.S. produce massive amounts of ethanol domestically [2] so, most likely, whatever gasoline you might be buying in the US, it's not using Brazilian ethanol, even though the U.S. does import some Brazilian ethanol [4], it's dwarfed by the domestic production [2]. U.S. beef is raised so efficiently that farmers manage to export it to Mexico an China, among other places [3], while receiving virtually no subsidies. You likely need to specifically look for gourmet Brazilian beef if you want to have a chance to taste a cow illegally raised on a pasture which used to be Amazonian forest. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethanol_fuel_in_Brazil https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethanol_fuel_in_Brazil [2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethanol_fuel_in_the_United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethanol_fuel_in_the_United_Sta... [3]: https://www.fas.usda.gov/beef-2020-export-highlights https://www.fas.usda.gov/beef-2020-export-highlights [4]: https://www.eia.gov/dnav/pet/pet_move_impcus_a2_nus_epooxe_im0_mbbl_m.htm https://www.eia.gov/dnav/pet/pet_move_impcus_a2_nus_epooxe_i...

DennisP 5y ago
You make it sound like Brazilian beef is some little boutique thing. We don't eat much of it in the US because we are a giant beef producer ourselves, but Brazil is the world's largest beef exporter, by a significant margin. https://www.statista.com/chart/19122/biggest-exporters-of-beef/ https://www.statista.com/chart/19122/biggest-exporters-of-be...
- throwaway894345 5y ago
  The parent seemed to be pretty clearly focusing on the US. I don’t think the idea was that the US experience extrapolates to allot most countries.
- bamboozled 5y ago
  He’s just saying that if you’re an American, you probably don’t have much hand in the destruction of the rain forrest via consumption.
  - DennisP 5y ago
    I'm not convinced even that's true. We eat a lot of beef. If we didn't, our beef producers would export a lot more, and there'd be less global demand for beef from Brazil. The only way that's not true is if Brazilian exports are significantly cheaper than American, but as the above poster mentioned, American beef producers are pretty efficient.
creamynebula 5y ago
Pretty much all cars here run on gasoline.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- ArnoVW 5y ago
  Yes, but it is in fact a mixture of gasoline and ethanol. To quote the Wikipedia article: Blends of E10 or less are used in more than 20 countries around the world, led by the United States, where ethanol represented 10% of the U.S. gasoline fuel supply in 2011.[1] Blends from E20 to E25 have been used in Brazil since the late 1970s. E85 is commonly used in the U.S. and Europe for flexible-fuel vehicles. Hydrous ethanol or E100 is used in Brazilian neat ethanol vehicles and flex-fuel light vehicles and hydrous E15 called hE15 for modern petrol cars in the Netherlands.[2] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_ethanol_fuel_mixtures https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_ethanol_fuel_mixtures
zorked 5y ago
These are all commodities, the fact that you are being served by the closest producer does not mean that you are not generating demand that has to be compensated by someone else increasing their production. The world is connected together. Also US-raised beef also occupies the area of destroyed forests. American beef didn't destroy the Amazon but it destroyed the environment anyway and is every bit as guilty of producing global warming.
tarsinge 5y ago
The issue is not exported beef, it's exported soy to feed the beef in the US and in Europe.
- throwaway894345 5y ago
  The US also produces a huge amount of soy and corn. Do we really import that much Brazilian soy?
selimthegrim 5y ago
You can find cheap canned Brazilian corned beef at Walmart or pretty much any US dollar store.
- throwaway894345 5y ago
  That doesn’t seem to refute the idea that American consumption of Brazilian beef is trivial/niche. What share of Brazilian beef supply ends up on Wal-Mart shelves as corned beef?

thotypous 5y ago

> Modern car fuel contains ethanol (10% in the EU). Here at Brazil, ethanol is produced from sugarcane. And sugarcane farming is actually illegal in the Amazon. The President tried to make it legal, but fortunately his decree was suspended by the Judiciary [1]. I don't doubt there may exist a few illegal sugarcane farms in the Amazon, but given how huge sugarcane farming is in southeastern Brazil, I don't think any Amazon sugarcane would significantly contribute to Brazilian ethanol production. > Soy culture is used to create a cheap protein feedstock for the meat industry. Soy is more of an issue for Amazon than sugarcane. But, just as you said, it is used to feed cattle, and the main issue resides in the cattle. Cattleman in Amazon usually adopt the extensive breeding system, so lots of area are required to breed cattle. [1] https://www.conjur.com.br/2020-abr-21/juiza-suspende-decreto-permitia-plantio-decana-amazonia https://www.conjur.com.br/2020-abr-21/juiza-suspende-decreto...

Hendrikto 5y ago

> Modern car fuel contains ethanol (10% in the EU) It‘s a maximum of 10%, but you almost never actually get that much. E5 fuel contains 0-5% ethanol, E10 contains 5-10%.