15 ms·

Brazilian Amazon lost 18 trees per second in 2021

243 points by carride 4y ago

hu3 4y ago
If we really care about what happens in Brazil we should offer economically viable solutions rather than pointing fingers and accusing them of doing something that we did in the past for a long time.
- amelius 4y ago
  Politicians don't care about long-term problems. This is what we should fix.
- goatcode 4y ago
  This of course applies to all environmental issues, both foreign and domestic. There would be a lot more partnership and a lot less animosity if we universally adhered to your notion. We might actually get something done!
  - panick21_ 4y ago
    There is a good talk by an economist who basically said he was all exited to learn about optimal solution to those problems and then he went to a meeting where farmer were basically fighting people who wanted to reintroduce wolf. And he realized nobody cared how the optimal solution. Since then he works on trying to come up with solution that doesn't lead to the two groups trying to lynch each other.
    - cute_boi 4y ago
      Well, this is a common problem. Most of us don't care about each other if there are costs. We mostly care about self interest due to inner greed.
      - goatcode 4y ago
        Very true -- even among those who put on a facade of altruism. Those who are extreme about it have often had other motivations, and it ultimately boiled down to selfishness (either for material resource or personal safety, or for social rewards for appearing a certain way). It truly is sad!
- 2OEH8eoCRo0 4y ago
  Agree. Imagine outsiders telling you that half your country is untouchable. I wonder if some future carbon credit system could pay them for the carbon sequestration that the Brazilian Amazon provides.
  - Ekaros 4y ago
    And those countries really aren't making their own cities much much much denser and replanting trees in freed up space...
  - ratww 4y ago
    > Imagine outsiders telling you that half your country is untouchable As a Brazilian, I would be completely ok with that. We can handle people telling us those things.
    - boeingUH60 4y ago
      >As a Brazilian, I would be completely ok with that. Well, that's your view, and you have the right to have it. But, it's likely that the majority doesn't agree. Besides, if you ask me, outsiders that tell a country to not cut down their forests for economic/monetary purposes should pay for that privilege. That's not to talk of the arrogance of outsiders telling someone what to do.
      - ratww 4y ago
        Brazil is a "grown up" country. We can handle criticism. We don't need people being condescending to us about what others can or can't say to us. Let us brazilians defend ourselves, please? Another reason I'm fine with criticism is because the people saying "let Brazil deforest, we also did it" are the ones being favoured by Brazil fucking up the country. Europeans/Americans/Chinese are enjoying cheap Brazilian primary sector imports to the detriment of the rest of the Brazilian population. I also completely disagree that in 2022 Brazil will turn into a developed country by being a colony.
    - Aerroon 4y ago
      >As a Brazilian, I would be completely ok with that. We can handle people telling us those things. Would you? Because this would absolutely escalate from words to actions. I could foresee this leading to quotas that if they're not met carry economic sanctions with them. That doesn't improve Brazil, does it? Sovereignty means that nobody outside of Brazil gets a say without offering something major in return.
- mschuster91 4y ago
  There are only four economically viable solutions: 1) Boycott or put drastic tariffs on Brazilian meat and soy, aka the products that are made out of the areas which were former rainforest. The problem: China won't give a fuck about Western sanction and Bolsonaro and his goons will happily sell to them (aided by the fact that China still has issues with pig fever in their domestic meat production). 2) Pay off Bolsonaro and his goons. That stops the destruction, but provides a fascist dictatorship with even more money. 3) Hope for Lula to win in the elections in October. The problem: Bolsonaro may manipulate the election to stay in power, either in front (by having Lula arrested or preventing him from campaigning, public debates etc.) or afterwards (outright vote manipulation). Or he might legitimately win despite his current lag in the polls, which makes the situation even worse than it already is. 4) Have the CIA do what they have a lot of experience in: get rid of Bolsonaro and his goons, either by abducting him and hold him to trial in the US similar to drug barons or by permanently eliminating him. That would be the cleanest way and send a signal to other criminal destroyers of nature, but without a whole lot of effort the resulting power vacuum may destabilize the region even more than it already is.
  - collegeburner 4y ago
    "regime change is bad except when it's for a reason i like"
    - deleted 4y ago
      [deleted]
    - boeingUH60 4y ago
      Quite scary to see Americans still thinking like this. Surely this explains the country's many fuckups in this century, e.g., Afghanistan and Iraq.
      - mschuster91 4y ago
        I'm not even American, I'm german, for what it's worth. My point is, sometimes intervention is needed to stop massacres. Certainly worked for my country back in the days.
- ratww 4y ago
  As someone born in Brazil, I'm tired of this condescending bullshit. There are several economically viable solutions, but Brazilian government should be interested in pursuing them, rather than only pursuing things that only benefits the current friends of the government (such as deforestation). US/EU/etc forcing Brazil to get its shit together would be BETTER for the population. We don't need the deforestation to progress. Quite the opposite. If Brazil were to wage a war on another country, would it be fine just because Europe/US also did it in the past?
  - roflc0ptic 4y ago
    This is also "sins of the father" style reasoning. The fact that other people did a thing in the past doesn't mean I agree or support it. I have ancestors who fought with the confederacy; does this mean I shouldn't be opposed to human trafficking in 2022? I think that would be an unreasonable jump to make.
    - ratww 4y ago
      Exactly. This is a very weak argument for something that is so damaging as letting the forest be destroyed for what is virtually zero economical gain to the population.
  - hu3 4y ago
    > There are several economically viable solutions... Such as? The sheer scale of what Brazil feeds to the rest of the world would hardly accommodate for "several economically viable solutions". 2020 paper about the issue: https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2003270117 https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2003270117 You can't simply tell a third-world country to halt a major part of their economy.
    - ratww 4y ago
      I answered somewhere else. Brazil being a major exporter of only primary sector goods isn't doing the population of the country any favours. > If people from other countries really want Brazilian economy to get off the ground, they should want Brazil to export processed and manufactured goods, or other sectors. > Treating Brazil like a big farm is doing neither Brazil nor the environment any favours. > The "We should't criticise Brazil" is not only hypocritical, it's also counter-intuitive. It's not about halting a major part of its economy. It's about not fucking up the rest of the economy only to accommodate a sector that isn't doing that much good for the greater part of the population. China/EU/US actually love the cheap meat. The "let's not criticise" is as self-serving as it gets.
- Sporktacular 4y ago
  Why should we also not point fingers? Deforestation fell dramatically under Lula while inequality fell and the economy grew quickly. What "we" did in the past means environmental protection should be subsidised by the west, but our history doesn't let Brazil's government off the hook.
  - orbital223 4y ago
    Both deforestation and inequality fall when the economy does better and rise in times of economic crisis. The economic improvement "under" Lula was mostly due to international factors (the boon in the price of commodities) which is why it collapsed under Dilma (Lula's protegé). Instead of using the economic surplus that fell into his lap to invest in infrastructure and industrialization, Lula used it to fund the largest corruption scheme in our history.
    - cauefcr 4y ago
      Well, just you wait for the 100 year Bolsonaro bullshit censoring of his government corruption https://brasil.elpais.com/brasil/2021-08-08/cem-anos-de-protecao-a-bolsonaro.html https://brasil.elpais.com/brasil/2021-08-08/cem-anos-de-prot... to be lifted, and such number is likely to be updated, and also, Lula did not get convicted. Edit: trickle down economics has no basis in reality either.
    - Sporktacular 4y ago
      Lula's personal culpability has never been established to the degree you suggest. Just compare him to Temer, Bolsonaro and the entire Bolsonaro clan, which bought off Moro, is weakening protections for the rainforest (benefiting his associates), and is systematically dismantling anti-corruption institutions. https://g1.globo.com/politica/noticia/2020/10/13/transparencia-internacional-aponta-em-relatorios-retrocessos-no-combate-a-corrupcao-no-brasil.ghtml https://g1.globo.com/politica/noticia/2020/10/13/transparenc... Just because the investigations haven't begun doesn't mean they're not coming. It's a weak argument given the responsible alternatives to explore that benefit more people. The government deserves criticism.
    - 4y ago
- andrekandre 4y ago
  > we should offer economically viable solutions rather than pointing fingers while i agree with you, i cant think of anything off the top of my head...any ideas?
  - ratww 4y ago
    The current government is heavily favouring the export of primary and finite resources. If people from other countries really want Brazilian economy to get off the ground, they should want Brazil to export processed and manufactured goods, or other sectors. Treating Brazil like a big farm is doing neither Brazil nor the environment any favours. The "We should't criticise Brazil, let them do what we also did before" is not only hypocritical, it's also counter-intuitive and very self-serving!
    - mbg721 4y ago
      If Brazil is a big farm, is Argentina a big ranch? Or is there less of a difference than I'm perceiving?
      - ratww 4y ago
        I can't speak for Argentina, but Brazil is a farm/ranch mix, I guess. We do both.
- softcactus 4y ago
  Economically we should think of it like this: Our early industrialization contributed massively to global warming. It allowed us to become extremely wealthy, but also we incurred a "carbon debt" to the rest of the planet, since our atmosphere is a shared resource. Now that others are trying to industrialize, we should repay that "carbon debt" to offset the cost of allowing them to industrialize cleanly, since we had the benefit early on of not having to worry about our impact on the environment. The gains that we made early on were at everyone's expense.
  - Sporktacular 4y ago
    There is definitely a debt, but primary industries aren't what they were when Europe and North America were deforesting. To use that an a justification now is a weak argument when there are alternatives that would add more value to the economy.
- ErikVandeWater 4y ago
  They have economically viable solutions. They're just not politically viable because the current system is designed for the profit of wealthy cartels.
rswskg 4y ago
- 2OEH8eoCRo0 4y ago
  - leoff 4y ago
    losing all the trees would improve the climate? We have to pump these numbers up!
- rozularen 4y ago
  How can I report this comment? I find it offensive.
  - superchroma 4y ago
  - judge2020 4y ago
    > How do I flag a comment? > Click on its timestamp to go to its page, then click the 'flag' link at the top. There's a small karma threshold before flag links appear. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html The threshold is supposedly 31 karma[0] so you should already be allowed to do it. 0: https://github.com/minimaxir/hacker-news-undocumented#flaggingvouching https://github.com/minimaxir/hacker-news-undocumented#flaggi...
  - rswskg 4y ago
    You think what has happened to amazon rain forest isn't offensive?
- Bayart 4y ago
  Brazil not existing doesn't imply the land wouldn't be used. And to settled populations such as we are, striping forest to plant crops comes as natural as breathing. The Amazon forest would be stripped as long as it's economically viable to do so, regardless of who governs it.
m_a_g 4y ago
- lvass 4y ago
  Tell me how well preserved your forests are.
  - 2OEH8eoCRo0 4y ago
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_national_forests_of_the_United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_national_forests_of_th...
- sremani 4y ago
  my main man, Brazil feeds a lot of people outside its borders. I am not fan of Brazilian agriculture and its intense practices. If you live in USA, Brazil is a competitor albeit a dinged one, but if you go on sanctioning countries that provide food and fertilizer around the world, people are going to die and nations are going to collapse in matter of months not years. Be careful what you wish for, it can come true.
contrapetista 4y ago
[flagged]
29athrowaway 4y ago
The documentary "Surviving Progress" has a part that covers the situation in the Amazon. This is an extract of it. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2jeA7u5paQQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2jeA7u5paQQ
niahmiah 4y ago
Unless you live there, there is nothing you can do about it. Nothing to hack, no news.
- thatguy0900 4y ago
  Even if you live there, there is probably not that much to do about it. Too much money involved
- spillguard 4y ago
  I'm not sure I agree with this point. What if this news article is the spark that inspires someone to hack together a solution for awareness of the issue? Or maybe create an alternative for some of the imports that the Amazon is being cut down to create? This issue may be happening in Brazil, but it affects everyone (as the forest is a major carbon sink) and can definitely be affected by others, given time.
zerop 4y ago
As consumers of Wooden furniture and so much new housing construction happening around the work, we all are to be blamed too. We need to invent alternate to wooden furniture.
- smileysteve 4y ago
  Bamboo, Hemp, and post consumer paper /plastic/fiberglass composite.
- mschuster91 4y ago
  The majority of the Brazilian rainforest isn't even being razed for furniture wood. It's simply burned down to provide for one season of feeding cows for meat or to plant soy to feed the cows. Then it's gone. Forever.
  - lvass 4y ago
    >Forever No. In fact, evidence suggests most of the rainforest was in fact laid by humans. It's artificially mostly made of trees with edible produce like açaí and brazil nut.
    - Sporktacular 4y ago
      Yes, forever. And no it wasn't. The rainforest has existed for tens of millions of years (and has species much) older than humans have inhabited South America. And while they shaped it, there is NO way suggests we could just regrow it, even if we could organise the manpower and political will. When the forest loses the capacity to create clouds, it is game over. It will never be the same again, and that's just one of many of non-linear effects at work.
- makerofspoons 4y ago
  Logging is actually only a tiny fraction of why the Amazon is being cleared: https://www.internetgeography.net/what-are-the-causes-of-deforestation-in-the-amazon/ https://www.internetgeography.net/what-are-the-causes-of-def... It's mostly being used for agriculture.
cute_boi 4y ago
Well, western countries also have some role in such destruction if we look deeply. Brazil cut amazon for animal farming and wealthy people & countries are the ones who import beef. Countries like China, the US, and the EU are major importers of Beef. Maybe these news articles also blame them? Brazil isn't a developed country and many people live under the belt of poverty. So, what are they supposed to do? In addition, corruption has made their life miserable. This is such a hard problem to solve. [1] https://www.statista.com/statistics/617492/beef-and-veal-export-value-brazil-by-country-of-destination/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/617492/beef-and-veal-exp...
- Sporktacular 4y ago
  This is economy vs. environment dichotomy is just lazy. "So, what are they supposed to do?" Not destroy a forest which belongs to every Brazilian to further enrich elite ranchers, agribusinesses and mining firms. This is the corruption you are talking about. It's not a hard problem - we know good governance is the solution, as it has been in the past. The incompetence and corruption of the current government are costing Brazil far more than the opportunity cost of not exploiting the forest. Doing so is such an inefficient solution, providing temporary gains for a few while leading to enormous hidden costs for literally everyone in the future. So sure, there should be import tariffs or bans on Brazilian beef, even sanctions on loggers, miners and ranchers etc. but the next significant step is to get this government out.
fdsafdsfdsa 4y ago
What is morally and ethically worse - eating an animal fed and raised domestically, or eating soy-laiden "plant-based" foods that were grown on recently-raized rainforest several thousand miles away? It's our demand for goods that is causing this.
- kzrdude 4y ago
  Many of the domestically raised animals still eat imported soybeans.
  - fdsafdsfdsa 4y ago
    How many of the animals that are >"Domestically FED and raised" ??
- cute_boi 4y ago
  Most soybeans are used as animal fed. Also, the feeding animal 10KG to get 1KG looks rather wasteful? Lastly, you missed the methane pollution, water usage, ethics etc.. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feed_conversion_ratio https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feed_conversion_ratio
  - fdsafdsfdsa 4y ago
    I'm fully aware of that, which is why I said "domestically FED and raised". >Also, the feeding animal 10KG to get 1KG looks rather wasteful? Depends heavily on what animal product you are producing. Obviously we won't be eating beef all the time. It also depends on what kind of farmland you have available, and what uses those crops have. Where I am (Wales, UK), the combination of the farmer' lobby and the "Welsh culture and heritage" lobby has meant that largely unprofitable sheep farming has been subsidised, and what should be productive wooded hillside makes lamb that no-one wants. I'm not saying that raising animals is always the best use of land.
    - cute_boi 4y ago
      Domestically fed and raised doesn't work in real world. There are so many people to feed.
tambourine_man 4y ago
Its president is committed in destroying it. This meeting between Bolsonaro and Al Gore seems like a comedy sketch: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=CPpH7FRFcY0&t=65 https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=CPpH7FRFcY0&t=65
specialp 4y ago
The United States once had one of the largest forests on Earth. The Eastern Forest covered almost everywhere east of the Mississippi. 2,560,000 km2 of forest. Now it is largely gone. Replaced with farmland and sprawl. So it is hard to criticize. Even areas that are now heavily forested like Vermont were clear cut almost entirely by the turn of the century. The Amazon should be preserved, but to do that the world is going to have to pay. You can't tell a country you can't progress like the USA it is hypocritical.
- ratww 4y ago
  > So it is hard to criticize. Even areas that are now heavily forested like Vermont were clear cut almost entirely by the turn of the century. As someone born in Brazil, I don't see why it's hard. Please criticise away. My country should be learning from the mistakes of others, not repeating them in order to favour some higher political caste. To quote flaviojuvenal below, "Brazil had no trouble to grow in 90s and 2000s while reducing Amazon deforestation.". https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32152630 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32152630
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
  - lvass 4y ago
    >mistakes Yeah, that's a very hard sell, when your country is in such a shameful state, your economy is hanging by a thread that's agriculture, and without it your currency would be so messed up you'd be unlikely to be able to pay for the device you're typing that on. When you pledge for your own country that's suffering from hunger to reduce agriculture, you're part of the problem.
    - ratww 4y ago
      What does it have to do with anything? Import oriented agriculture/livestock is not really serving the local economy or making the country grow. Like other poster said, "Brazil had no trouble to grow in 90s and 2000s while reducing Amazon deforestation". People used to eat meat in Brazil every day, now even some middle class people had to reduce due to prices. The same goes for gas. That's because the economy changed heavily to favour primary sector exports at the detriment of every other activity. Agriculture and Livestock were benefited at the detriment of every other sector. EDIT: I wouldn't be able to even dream about buying the device I'm currently using if I were still working as a software engineer in Brazil, dude! I had to immigrate, as have about >60% of the co-workers I had in the last 10-ish years. The economical bullshit you're currently defending was shit even for people in well paying positions. However I was lucky, as my parents were immigrants themselves and I have foreign citizenship due to that. Some people weren't as lucky!
01acheru 4y ago
If those living in high income countries don't support poorer countries to keep their forests healthy complaining about them being chopped is hypocritical. I live in Italy, the Po Valley I live in was a marshland with lots of centenarian trees. Since Roman times marshes have been drought and most of the forests were chopped to make room for agriculture (and to build Venice, which sits on millions and millions of trees). I recently went to Portugal, where most forests have been chopped and substituted with huge eucalyptus or cork oak monocultures. The same goes for France, Germany, etc. We destroyed our environment so we could have progress. Now we understand that the environment is precious and must be taken care of, so it's up to us to pay other countries to preserve their environment. This money will eventually be used to buy "progress" and end on our pockets once again so it's not even a bad deal economically speaking, it just takes the will (which is lacking almost anywhere).
- emadabdulrahim 4y ago
  I'm from one of the so called poor countries and let me tell you, we aren't that poor. We just have much much higher levels of corruption and static generational wealth. Add to that extremely selfish and poor planning from politicians at the top.
  - 01acheru 4y ago
    Static generational wealth, corruption, selfishness and poor planning are incredibly common in high income countries too. My father is Brazilian and I lived there for almost ten years, from mid 90s to mid 00s, and indeed Brazil as a country is not that poor: if you could split the GDP equally amongst the population. Since this is not the case in reality there are millions and millions well below the poverty line and this is what makes a country a poor country, a country where a lot of people are poor. When you have a lot of poor people many things go out of control, and also taking advantage of poor people is a piece of cake for those at the top of the money pyramid. Deforestation in Brazil will not stop unless farmers and locals that live around the Amazon (or other green areas such as the Pantanal or the now almost destroyed Mata Atlântica) get paid to not touch it, help it regrow and pursue different agricultural styles or different crops. The Brazilian government doesn't have the money to do that even if corruption went to zero and private entities will not act since in most cases they are the ones fomenting deforestation. The only hope for South American forests to thrive is foreign intervention: local governments won't act, local corporations won't act and most of the local population is simply too poor to care.
linuxftw 4y ago
They're just doing what other continents did hundreds or thousands of years ago. If you want to save the forests, make them economically more valuable than converting them into other uses. If there's 100M iphones in the world that retail for around $1000 each, that's $100B dollars. We could have invested that money into building some kind of park that welcomes visitors. No, instead we chose as a society to take pretty photos for instagram for fake internet points.
- Sporktacular 4y ago
  They have a value that greater than just their economic value! The environment created us, we created economics. It's an artificial concept that will never capture the true value of nature.
  - linuxftw 4y ago
    > They have a value that greater than just their economic value! Then investing at the economic value would be profitable, and people should clearly do this.
    - Sporktacular 4y ago
      Perhaps you misunderstood. They have non-economic value, that is more valuable than their economic value alone. Economic investment may not yield an economic return. Not everything reduces to a price tag.
Ekaros 4y ago
Maybe countries criticising Brazil should raise down their suburbs and plants even more trees there.
- Sporktacular 4y ago
  The 500 IQ comment in its full glory.
  - Gravyness 4y ago
    Is the person you commented ugly too, or do you have an argument better than calling someone an imbecile?
    - Sporktacular 4y ago
      Yes, I do. I just prefer ridicule in this case. And I have no idea about their attractiveness, nor why my having a better argument would be dichotomous to their unattractiveness.
hestefisk 4y ago
First step is to get rid of their climate change-denying madman President.
- Aerroon 4y ago
  What are you suggesting here? That western countries should assassinate an elected world leader? Or that western countries should influence the next democratic elections? If you don't see an issue here, then imagine if you were talking about the USA. Should other countries "get rid of" the US president if they don't like his policies?
  - hestefisk 4y ago
    Of course it shouldn’t be an assassination :) it should be via democratic means similar to Trump in 2020…
slowhand09 4y ago
Interesting comments below. Just some food for thought. Fertilized, less land is required to grow equivalent quantities of crops. Petroleum products, especially natural gas is a raw material as well as fuel for nitrogen fertilizer production. Higher petroleum prices mean higher fertilizer prices. Higher fertilizer prices mean higher food prices. Scarcity increases prices. Worldwide food production is down for many reasons: weather, war, disease, lack of workers, inflation, and cost to fertilize. Expect prices to rise, significantly more than they have.
- pfdietz 4y ago
  Or, PV will continue to crash in price, electrolytic hydrogen will get cheaper than SMR hydrogen, and fertilizer will remain cheap. The big concern with fertilizer is not so much energy use, btw, it's N2O emission.
hsavit1 4y ago
If humanity cares about its existence in the long term then we simply cannot clear cut the amazon.
- Ekaros 4y ago
  If we really cared about climate we would ban everything wasteful. Like useless internet services and companies. Do we need social media or media in general to survive?
stonepresto 4y ago
There seem to be two lines of thinking: 1. Who are we (US, Canada, China - heavily developed nations) to criticize? 2. Bolsonaro is bad mkay I think the root of the problem in both situations is people in power both in the government and out of it who do not seek sustainability and often are susceptible to corruption or influence. In both situations, the profits did not go to your average human.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
daniel-cussen 4y ago
People blame Brazil but I've met people outside Brazil who are like "Oh! Bonds!" "What kinds of bonds?" "High returns!" "Can't be government bonds then. Company bonds?" "Milk companies in Brazil!" Oh, cutting down the Amazon. Two parents I knew, this was like 18 years ago. It's been an emergency since the 1980's, a continual emergency. It's still an emergency. And I think they got fucked anyway, both of them. They thought it was a good investment because it was such a shitty thing to do to something so beautiful, thought the secret to luxury was cowardice (and it is), but guess what the promise of shitty person heaven where all the shitty people are so shitty to everything except you because you're so special so much in common with them, say the same things, have the same ideas, know the same people, have the same passwords what a coincidence, bump into each other in the strangest places, twins, so that means...uh...nah you know what, it's a better lesson learned the hard way. Getting fucked is critical to learning how not to get fucked. Walkthroughs are uh...well police departments have websites, there's books on the subject. And you can't con an honest John. Well there's a limit to that, you also have to be informed, you need both. And entertain moral dilemmas, moral experiments, or like play-act with friends, that will help out a lot. And good alternatives. Course the hard part is finding an alternative to that if you are conned. One way is to choose your second best choice. Not your first choice. Second choice. So then if the second choice starts getting shitty, stops whispering when you come around the bend, hey oh shit, guess the second choice school, say we're talking about Harvard 1 Yale 2, so Yale, really was second rank! I thought the 2 meant it was just as good, just another numeral from 1 to 10, like different days of the month! Wow, shit, wouldn't want to have to transfer to Harvard, that would suck, that was my first choice! Say I couldn't make it at Yale, damn!
- daniel-cussen 4y ago
  I can barely follow this myself. Gotta shorten down those long sentences. It comes from Spanish, I also speak perfect Spanish, there the sentences are much longer and have different "ondulaciones de frase".
nonrandomstring 4y ago
Those saying this is an "unavoidable" catastrophe and inevitable consequence of economics are being selective about history. We've taken strong conservation and violent prevention measures before against ecological practices of sovereign nation states that are detrimental to our lives. Perhaps the only 'successful' part of the US "war on drugs" was coca eradication [1], including the use of biological warfare (pests), herbicides and crop burning. We probably would have napalmed the Afghan poppy fields, but in the end the Taliban did it for us. The ivory trade is almost extinguished, let's be honest, not because we stemmed demand but because we were prepared to shoot the poachers. It's no secret the SAS operated "free-fire" in those parts of Africa, also training locals on "man hunting". [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coca_eradication https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coca_eradication
skilled 4y ago
It's not unheard of that in Africa many groups/tribes form together to fight back against poachers. Is there anything like this happening in the Amazon rainforest? And if no, then why not? Do people think a politician with his fancy suit is going to step his foot into the swamp to try and meet halfway? These assholes are literally destroying the world and the human race is none the wiser.... I sometimes wonder what would happen if rather than trying to evolve on a technological level, humanity evolved to protect and harmonize this world. Holy shit it's not even funny the level of ignorance that permeates topics of destroying the Earth.
- zach_garwood 4y ago
  There have been fights between Amazonian tribes and landowners. The tribes are relocated (or killed).
- dormento 4y ago
  We had deaths reported just this week, by Sonia Guajajara who represents one of the most prominent indigenous people's association and is running in the next elections. The thing is, in the end, its often poacher/miners shooting at unarmed people, often in the middle of the jungle, far away from the effective jurisdiction of whoever else would care. And the very insitutions that could oversee and act to prevent violence have been sistematically dismantled by the current fascist-in-chief, either by removing key people or by being financially strangled. But hey, at least now you won't lose your license for speeding and buying ammo is easier than ever.
- vitorbaptistaa 4y ago
  Of course. The local tribes are fighting the invaders since 1500.
- guilherme-puida 4y ago
  > It's not unheard of that in Africa many groups/tribes form together to fight back against poachers. Is there anything like this happening in the Amazon rainforest? There is. People just get killed and everything is swept under the rug.
harnomik 4y ago
That's 18 a second too much..
theropost 4y ago
So, lets fund the planting of 20+ trees per second to help counter-balance it. Someone can plant around 200 trees per day with basic tools (lower end - some can do upward of 1000) but lets go with the lower number. 24 hours per day X 60 minutes X 60 seconds X 20 trees per second = 1,728,000 trees per day = 8640 people required This certainly seems feasible - we just need the economics to justify it.
rodolphoarruda 4y ago
Wood extraction in the Amazon is a crime. It's aggravated crime if done in indigenous lands. It's aggravated even more if done for illegal mining activities. The state police (civil and military) from the various Brazilian states that compose the Amazon forest has the legal obligation to investigate and arrest criminals within the region. The problem is the region is just too big. But let's assume that somehow all those criminals lose their ability to profit on the product of their crimes altogether, within a 5 to 10 years time span, all the vegetation would be naturally restored. The Amazon forest is unstoppable. I live in the state of São Paulo, far from the Amazon forest, and the vegetation here requires a lot of work to be tamed. If you leave an empty allotment 2 or 3 months without any care, you will get knee height grass and all sorts of "exotic" plants coming out of the ground. The Amazon is orders of magnitude more aggressive than this one. So once you stop the illegal activity, the forest will come back. The problem is not the forest, but the people -- indigenous or not -- affected by the illegal activities. Recently we saw headlines about the murder of two people in the region, an activist and a journalist. So many others have died when they crossed paths with criminals. This is a humanitarian problem before an ecological problem.
- Sporktacular 4y ago
  The problem is that the current government doesn't WANT to investigate and arrest criminals. They cut funding, merged environmental protection and indigenous affairs into the agricultural ministry. This is well documented. The forest is on the edge of becoming a net carbon producer for the first time. This doesn't simply reverse when it regrows from some saplings. Its capacity to create clouds to replenish water is already heavily compromised. When that stops this simply doesn't reverse. When you burn sections without first clearing it of its animal populations they perish, destroying the ecosystems that often needs animals to help germinate new trees. The mercury used for illegal gold mining doesn't just go out of the river and back into the bottle. Billions of animals die from these actions and the results will be irreversible. To call the Amazon unstoppable, to say that the humans that are dying is the real problem, smacks of the ignorance that has led us to this point.
  - ElectricalUnion 4y ago
slothtrop 4y ago
China is not going to curb its demand for Brazilian products on this basis. The EU hypothetically could, but try to sell price increases to the public.
m1117 4y ago
It's about the same rate w/ how many americans die from firearms
acraabrazil 4y ago
In the Amazon Region of Brazil - We integrate advanced agroforestry restoration systems - Provide people living here with greater self-sufficiency and economic prosperity https://acraabrazil.org/about https://acraabrazil.org/about
9dev 4y ago
Maybe, and this is a big maybe, we should think about whether some countries have a disproportionately large access to, or responsibility for, resources relevant to all of humanity. Specifically, I would like to question if Brazil can or even should be trusted to handle the Amazon forest in a responsible manner. Over the past decades, objectively, it has shown that the country, or maybe primarily its government, doesn't: The forest is continuously decimated, ever faster, with full and open support by the government itself. Considering that the Amazon is of broader concern than just Brazil's jurisdiction alone, would it -- and I'd include other, similar areas around the globe here too -- make sense to move administration to a more responsible body, the UN for example (not specifically the UN, but you get the idea)? This may sound offensive to you for all kinds of reasons, especially if you're Brazilian, and I sincerely apologise for that. But please consider that maybe the challenges ahead of humanity as a whole require new solutions, new ways to think about who "owns" land?
- krainboltgreene 4y ago
  Ah, the imperialist approach.
  - 9dev 4y ago
    No, it's different. I'm not suggesting "the west" taking control of the Amazon, but humanity as a whole. The other option is hoping for the best or trusting a corrupt government to do the right thing for the rest of the globe. It hasn't worked well yet.
    - kennywinker 4y ago
      What incorruptible body could take control of the amazon on behalf of humanity? How would we chose its leaders? Who decides what is protected and what isn’t?
      - 9dev 4y ago
        No body is incorruptible. But less corrupt would certainly be a step forward, no? I would suggest something like a global conservation fund responsible for guarding critical "infrastructure" of our planet. At some point, we will need to take action to prevent earth from becoming inhospitable, and this requires steering. Merely admitting defeat to greedy human nature doesn't seem to lead anywhere.
Pmop 4y ago
I live close and know people who livelihoods depends on that forest. Believe it or not, it's not the farmers or loggers fault. Their livelihoods depends on that forest. Farmers depend on the rain cycle. Loggers depend on the forest staying healthy, so new trees grow so they can keep their business going. Illegal logging does happen but it isn't their fault exclusively either. The root cause is illegal occupation and settlement of land. People invade other people's land, often federal land, they cut down all of the trees, they burn it down, so they can clear it to set up makeshift camps. They then split and sell the land. Once there are people living on it, it's pretty much a lost cause due to how loosely enforced private ownership of land is, specially federal land. Also, it's a lucrative business, and involves corruption in all levels. People affected by it, like loggers who lose their property and livelihoods can hardly do anything, since the invaders will often get violent and the State wont do anything.
- anigbrowl 4y ago
  that seems like a situation where one should fight fire with fire.
  - spywaregorilla 4y ago
    Just to be clear, you're advocating for setting fire to people's homes?
    - anigbrowl 4y ago
      No, I'm advocating maintaining tactical parity. 'fight fire with a fire' is a fairly common metaphor for reciprocal action.
      - spywaregorilla 4y ago
        But the initial action was literally fire
        anigbrowl 4y ago
renewiltord 4y ago
Europe is still deforesting. Uplift all Brazilians till they have the same standard of living or sit it out.
agumonkey 4y ago
on the other hand there's a video of a guy planting one tree per minute here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AbA-hoIuHM4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AbA-hoIuHM4
gonational 4y ago
In the 2.7 million square miles of rain forest, 114 miles[1] were lost. That's 0.004% - huge. 1. Assuming 1 tree per 100 square feet.
Gravyness 4y ago
What about 2020, and 2019? I'm more interested in the trend than in the absolute number.
impeplague 4y ago
Recent US elections made the people almost freak out because of the suspected Russia influence. In every developing country, not only Brazil, this is the norm and not the exception. Bolsonaro's election received heavy support from the international (and national) finance sector. They projected a higher gain under his government. And most of these people are from developed countries. People from rich country may not be really aware that the commodities come from somwere. The recent Russian war sure made this more clear. Developing countries are locked in that role. If a country like Brazil, Russia or China reduces significantly its exports, everyone living costs rise. This is obviously true for high technology goods, but while you can survive with no smartphone, you can't with no food and energy. I'm talking about this most obvious stuff to make this point: rich countries exports their poverty. USA still has a firm hand on the entire continent, and will not let it go, Brazil included. As someone from Brazil, I really hope BRICS+ continues to grow. While the G7 can easily suffocate small dissidents, a entire block can not be. Sanctions against Russia stared to make European governments fall, what happens if you sanction half the world population? I'm reserving judgment in the Russia's war in this post, becase most of these implications don't depends on who is right.

243 points by carride 4y ago

hu3 4y ago

If we really care about what happens in Brazil we should offer economically viable solutions rather than pointing fingers and accusing them of doing something that we did in the past for a long time.

amelius 4y ago
Politicians don't care about long-term problems. This is what we should fix.
goatcode 4y ago
This of course applies to all environmental issues, both foreign and domestic. There would be a lot more partnership and a lot less animosity if we universally adhered to your notion. We might actually get something done!
- panick21_ 4y ago
  There is a good talk by an economist who basically said he was all exited to learn about optimal solution to those problems and then he went to a meeting where farmer were basically fighting people who wanted to reintroduce wolf. And he realized nobody cared how the optimal solution. Since then he works on trying to come up with solution that doesn't lead to the two groups trying to lynch each other.
  - cute_boi 4y ago
    Well, this is a common problem. Most of us don't care about each other if there are costs. We mostly care about self interest due to inner greed.
    - goatcode 4y ago
      Very true -- even among those who put on a facade of altruism. Those who are extreme about it have often had other motivations, and it ultimately boiled down to selfishness (either for material resource or personal safety, or for social rewards for appearing a certain way). It truly is sad!
2OEH8eoCRo0 4y ago
Agree. Imagine outsiders telling you that half your country is untouchable. I wonder if some future carbon credit system could pay them for the carbon sequestration that the Brazilian Amazon provides.
- Ekaros 4y ago
  And those countries really aren't making their own cities much much much denser and replanting trees in freed up space...
- ratww 4y ago
  > Imagine outsiders telling you that half your country is untouchable As a Brazilian, I would be completely ok with that. We can handle people telling us those things.
  - boeingUH60 4y ago
    >As a Brazilian, I would be completely ok with that. Well, that's your view, and you have the right to have it. But, it's likely that the majority doesn't agree. Besides, if you ask me, outsiders that tell a country to not cut down their forests for economic/monetary purposes should pay for that privilege. That's not to talk of the arrogance of outsiders telling someone what to do.
    - ratww 4y ago
      Brazil is a "grown up" country. We can handle criticism. We don't need people being condescending to us about what others can or can't say to us. Let us brazilians defend ourselves, please? Another reason I'm fine with criticism is because the people saying "let Brazil deforest, we also did it" are the ones being favoured by Brazil fucking up the country. Europeans/Americans/Chinese are enjoying cheap Brazilian primary sector imports to the detriment of the rest of the Brazilian population. I also completely disagree that in 2022 Brazil will turn into a developed country by being a colony.
  - Aerroon 4y ago
    >As a Brazilian, I would be completely ok with that. We can handle people telling us those things. Would you? Because this would absolutely escalate from words to actions. I could foresee this leading to quotas that if they're not met carry economic sanctions with them. That doesn't improve Brazil, does it? Sovereignty means that nobody outside of Brazil gets a say without offering something major in return.
mschuster91 4y ago
There are only four economically viable solutions: 1) Boycott or put drastic tariffs on Brazilian meat and soy, aka the products that are made out of the areas which were former rainforest. The problem: China won't give a fuck about Western sanction and Bolsonaro and his goons will happily sell to them (aided by the fact that China still has issues with pig fever in their domestic meat production). 2) Pay off Bolsonaro and his goons. That stops the destruction, but provides a fascist dictatorship with even more money. 3) Hope for Lula to win in the elections in October. The problem: Bolsonaro may manipulate the election to stay in power, either in front (by having Lula arrested or preventing him from campaigning, public debates etc.) or afterwards (outright vote manipulation). Or he might legitimately win despite his current lag in the polls, which makes the situation even worse than it already is. 4) Have the CIA do what they have a lot of experience in: get rid of Bolsonaro and his goons, either by abducting him and hold him to trial in the US similar to drug barons or by permanently eliminating him. That would be the cleanest way and send a signal to other criminal destroyers of nature, but without a whole lot of effort the resulting power vacuum may destabilize the region even more than it already is.
- collegeburner 4y ago
  "regime change is bad except when it's for a reason i like"
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
  - boeingUH60 4y ago
    Quite scary to see Americans still thinking like this. Surely this explains the country's many fuckups in this century, e.g., Afghanistan and Iraq.
    - mschuster91 4y ago
      I'm not even American, I'm german, for what it's worth. My point is, sometimes intervention is needed to stop massacres. Certainly worked for my country back in the days.
ratww 4y ago
As someone born in Brazil, I'm tired of this condescending bullshit. There are several economically viable solutions, but Brazilian government should be interested in pursuing them, rather than only pursuing things that only benefits the current friends of the government (such as deforestation). US/EU/etc forcing Brazil to get its shit together would be BETTER for the population. We don't need the deforestation to progress. Quite the opposite. If Brazil were to wage a war on another country, would it be fine just because Europe/US also did it in the past?
- roflc0ptic 4y ago
  This is also "sins of the father" style reasoning. The fact that other people did a thing in the past doesn't mean I agree or support it. I have ancestors who fought with the confederacy; does this mean I shouldn't be opposed to human trafficking in 2022? I think that would be an unreasonable jump to make.
  - ratww 4y ago
    Exactly. This is a very weak argument for something that is so damaging as letting the forest be destroyed for what is virtually zero economical gain to the population.
- hu3 4y ago
  > There are several economically viable solutions... Such as? The sheer scale of what Brazil feeds to the rest of the world would hardly accommodate for "several economically viable solutions". 2020 paper about the issue: https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2003270117 https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2003270117 You can't simply tell a third-world country to halt a major part of their economy.
  - ratww 4y ago
    I answered somewhere else. Brazil being a major exporter of only primary sector goods isn't doing the population of the country any favours. > If people from other countries really want Brazilian economy to get off the ground, they should want Brazil to export processed and manufactured goods, or other sectors. > Treating Brazil like a big farm is doing neither Brazil nor the environment any favours. > The "We should't criticise Brazil" is not only hypocritical, it's also counter-intuitive. It's not about halting a major part of its economy. It's about not fucking up the rest of the economy only to accommodate a sector that isn't doing that much good for the greater part of the population. China/EU/US actually love the cheap meat. The "let's not criticise" is as self-serving as it gets.
Sporktacular 4y ago
Why should we also not point fingers? Deforestation fell dramatically under Lula while inequality fell and the economy grew quickly. What "we" did in the past means environmental protection should be subsidised by the west, but our history doesn't let Brazil's government off the hook.
- orbital223 4y ago
  Both deforestation and inequality fall when the economy does better and rise in times of economic crisis. The economic improvement "under" Lula was mostly due to international factors (the boon in the price of commodities) which is why it collapsed under Dilma (Lula's protegé). Instead of using the economic surplus that fell into his lap to invest in infrastructure and industrialization, Lula used it to fund the largest corruption scheme in our history.
  - cauefcr 4y ago
    Well, just you wait for the 100 year Bolsonaro bullshit censoring of his government corruption https://brasil.elpais.com/brasil/2021-08-08/cem-anos-de-protecao-a-bolsonaro.html https://brasil.elpais.com/brasil/2021-08-08/cem-anos-de-prot... to be lifted, and such number is likely to be updated, and also, Lula did not get convicted. Edit: trickle down economics has no basis in reality either.
  - Sporktacular 4y ago
    Lula's personal culpability has never been established to the degree you suggest. Just compare him to Temer, Bolsonaro and the entire Bolsonaro clan, which bought off Moro, is weakening protections for the rainforest (benefiting his associates), and is systematically dismantling anti-corruption institutions. https://g1.globo.com/politica/noticia/2020/10/13/transparencia-internacional-aponta-em-relatorios-retrocessos-no-combate-a-corrupcao-no-brasil.ghtml https://g1.globo.com/politica/noticia/2020/10/13/transparenc... Just because the investigations haven't begun doesn't mean they're not coming. It's a weak argument given the responsible alternatives to explore that benefit more people. The government deserves criticism.
  - 4y ago
andrekandre 4y ago
> we should offer economically viable solutions rather than pointing fingers while i agree with you, i cant think of anything off the top of my head...any ideas?
- ratww 4y ago
  The current government is heavily favouring the export of primary and finite resources. If people from other countries really want Brazilian economy to get off the ground, they should want Brazil to export processed and manufactured goods, or other sectors. Treating Brazil like a big farm is doing neither Brazil nor the environment any favours. The "We should't criticise Brazil, let them do what we also did before" is not only hypocritical, it's also counter-intuitive and very self-serving!
  - mbg721 4y ago
    If Brazil is a big farm, is Argentina a big ranch? Or is there less of a difference than I'm perceiving?
    - ratww 4y ago
      I can't speak for Argentina, but Brazil is a farm/ranch mix, I guess. We do both.
softcactus 4y ago
Economically we should think of it like this: Our early industrialization contributed massively to global warming. It allowed us to become extremely wealthy, but also we incurred a "carbon debt" to the rest of the planet, since our atmosphere is a shared resource. Now that others are trying to industrialize, we should repay that "carbon debt" to offset the cost of allowing them to industrialize cleanly, since we had the benefit early on of not having to worry about our impact on the environment. The gains that we made early on were at everyone's expense.
- Sporktacular 4y ago
  There is definitely a debt, but primary industries aren't what they were when Europe and North America were deforesting. To use that an a justification now is a weak argument when there are alternatives that would add more value to the economy.
ErikVandeWater 4y ago
They have economically viable solutions. They're just not politically viable because the current system is designed for the profit of wealthy cartels.

rswskg 4y ago

2OEH8eoCRo0 4y ago
- leoff 4y ago
  losing all the trees would improve the climate? We have to pump these numbers up!
rozularen 4y ago
How can I report this comment? I find it offensive.
- superchroma 4y ago
- judge2020 4y ago
  > How do I flag a comment? > Click on its timestamp to go to its page, then click the 'flag' link at the top. There's a small karma threshold before flag links appear. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html The threshold is supposedly 31 karma[0] so you should already be allowed to do it. 0: https://github.com/minimaxir/hacker-news-undocumented#flaggingvouching https://github.com/minimaxir/hacker-news-undocumented#flaggi...
- rswskg 4y ago
  You think what has happened to amazon rain forest isn't offensive?
Bayart 4y ago
Brazil not existing doesn't imply the land wouldn't be used. And to settled populations such as we are, striping forest to plant crops comes as natural as breathing. The Amazon forest would be stripped as long as it's economically viable to do so, regardless of who governs it.

m_a_g 4y ago

lvass 4y ago
Tell me how well preserved your forests are.
- 2OEH8eoCRo0 4y ago
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_national_forests_of_the_United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_national_forests_of_th...
sremani 4y ago
my main man, Brazil feeds a lot of people outside its borders. I am not fan of Brazilian agriculture and its intense practices. If you live in USA, Brazil is a competitor albeit a dinged one, but if you go on sanctioning countries that provide food and fertilizer around the world, people are going to die and nations are going to collapse in matter of months not years. Be careful what you wish for, it can come true.

contrapetista 4y ago

[flagged]

29athrowaway 4y ago

The documentary "Surviving Progress" has a part that covers the situation in the Amazon. This is an extract of it. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2jeA7u5paQQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2jeA7u5paQQ

niahmiah 4y ago

Unless you live there, there is nothing you can do about it. Nothing to hack, no news.

thatguy0900 4y ago
Even if you live there, there is probably not that much to do about it. Too much money involved
spillguard 4y ago
I'm not sure I agree with this point. What if this news article is the spark that inspires someone to hack together a solution for awareness of the issue? Or maybe create an alternative for some of the imports that the Amazon is being cut down to create? This issue may be happening in Brazil, but it affects everyone (as the forest is a major carbon sink) and can definitely be affected by others, given time.

zerop 4y ago

As consumers of Wooden furniture and so much new housing construction happening around the work, we all are to be blamed too. We need to invent alternate to wooden furniture.

smileysteve 4y ago
Bamboo, Hemp, and post consumer paper /plastic/fiberglass composite.
mschuster91 4y ago
The majority of the Brazilian rainforest isn't even being razed for furniture wood. It's simply burned down to provide for one season of feeding cows for meat or to plant soy to feed the cows. Then it's gone. Forever.
- lvass 4y ago
  >Forever No. In fact, evidence suggests most of the rainforest was in fact laid by humans. It's artificially mostly made of trees with edible produce like açaí and brazil nut.
  - Sporktacular 4y ago
    Yes, forever. And no it wasn't. The rainforest has existed for tens of millions of years (and has species much) older than humans have inhabited South America. And while they shaped it, there is NO way suggests we could just regrow it, even if we could organise the manpower and political will. When the forest loses the capacity to create clouds, it is game over. It will never be the same again, and that's just one of many of non-linear effects at work.
makerofspoons 4y ago
Logging is actually only a tiny fraction of why the Amazon is being cleared: https://www.internetgeography.net/what-are-the-causes-of-deforestation-in-the-amazon/ https://www.internetgeography.net/what-are-the-causes-of-def... It's mostly being used for agriculture.

cute_boi 4y ago

Well, western countries also have some role in such destruction if we look deeply. Brazil cut amazon for animal farming and wealthy people & countries are the ones who import beef. Countries like China, the US, and the EU are major importers of Beef. Maybe these news articles also blame them? Brazil isn't a developed country and many people live under the belt of poverty. So, what are they supposed to do? In addition, corruption has made their life miserable. This is such a hard problem to solve. [1] https://www.statista.com/statistics/617492/beef-and-veal-export-value-brazil-by-country-of-destination/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/617492/beef-and-veal-exp...

Sporktacular 4y ago
This is economy vs. environment dichotomy is just lazy. "So, what are they supposed to do?" Not destroy a forest which belongs to every Brazilian to further enrich elite ranchers, agribusinesses and mining firms. This is the corruption you are talking about. It's not a hard problem - we know good governance is the solution, as it has been in the past. The incompetence and corruption of the current government are costing Brazil far more than the opportunity cost of not exploiting the forest. Doing so is such an inefficient solution, providing temporary gains for a few while leading to enormous hidden costs for literally everyone in the future. So sure, there should be import tariffs or bans on Brazilian beef, even sanctions on loggers, miners and ranchers etc. but the next significant step is to get this government out.

fdsafdsfdsa 4y ago

What is morally and ethically worse - eating an animal fed and raised domestically, or eating soy-laiden "plant-based" foods that were grown on recently-raized rainforest several thousand miles away? It's our demand for goods that is causing this.

kzrdude 4y ago
Many of the domestically raised animals still eat imported soybeans.
- fdsafdsfdsa 4y ago
  How many of the animals that are >"Domestically FED and raised" ??
cute_boi 4y ago
Most soybeans are used as animal fed. Also, the feeding animal 10KG to get 1KG looks rather wasteful? Lastly, you missed the methane pollution, water usage, ethics etc.. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feed_conversion_ratio https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feed_conversion_ratio
- fdsafdsfdsa 4y ago
  I'm fully aware of that, which is why I said "domestically FED and raised". >Also, the feeding animal 10KG to get 1KG looks rather wasteful? Depends heavily on what animal product you are producing. Obviously we won't be eating beef all the time. It also depends on what kind of farmland you have available, and what uses those crops have. Where I am (Wales, UK), the combination of the farmer' lobby and the "Welsh culture and heritage" lobby has meant that largely unprofitable sheep farming has been subsidised, and what should be productive wooded hillside makes lamb that no-one wants. I'm not saying that raising animals is always the best use of land.
  - cute_boi 4y ago
    Domestically fed and raised doesn't work in real world. There are so many people to feed.

tambourine_man 4y ago

Its president is committed in destroying it. This meeting between Bolsonaro and Al Gore seems like a comedy sketch: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=CPpH7FRFcY0&t=65 https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=CPpH7FRFcY0&t=65

specialp 4y ago

The United States once had one of the largest forests on Earth. The Eastern Forest covered almost everywhere east of the Mississippi. 2,560,000 km2 of forest. Now it is largely gone. Replaced with farmland and sprawl. So it is hard to criticize. Even areas that are now heavily forested like Vermont were clear cut almost entirely by the turn of the century. The Amazon should be preserved, but to do that the world is going to have to pay. You can't tell a country you can't progress like the USA it is hypocritical.

ratww 4y ago
> So it is hard to criticize. Even areas that are now heavily forested like Vermont were clear cut almost entirely by the turn of the century. As someone born in Brazil, I don't see why it's hard. Please criticise away. My country should be learning from the mistakes of others, not repeating them in order to favour some higher political caste. To quote flaviojuvenal below, "Brazil had no trouble to grow in 90s and 2000s while reducing Amazon deforestation.". https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32152630 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32152630
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- lvass 4y ago
  >mistakes Yeah, that's a very hard sell, when your country is in such a shameful state, your economy is hanging by a thread that's agriculture, and without it your currency would be so messed up you'd be unlikely to be able to pay for the device you're typing that on. When you pledge for your own country that's suffering from hunger to reduce agriculture, you're part of the problem.
  - ratww 4y ago
    What does it have to do with anything? Import oriented agriculture/livestock is not really serving the local economy or making the country grow. Like other poster said, "Brazil had no trouble to grow in 90s and 2000s while reducing Amazon deforestation". People used to eat meat in Brazil every day, now even some middle class people had to reduce due to prices. The same goes for gas. That's because the economy changed heavily to favour primary sector exports at the detriment of every other activity. Agriculture and Livestock were benefited at the detriment of every other sector. EDIT: I wouldn't be able to even dream about buying the device I'm currently using if I were still working as a software engineer in Brazil, dude! I had to immigrate, as have about >60% of the co-workers I had in the last 10-ish years. The economical bullshit you're currently defending was shit even for people in well paying positions. However I was lucky, as my parents were immigrants themselves and I have foreign citizenship due to that. Some people weren't as lucky!

01acheru 4y ago

If those living in high income countries don't support poorer countries to keep their forests healthy complaining about them being chopped is hypocritical. I live in Italy, the Po Valley I live in was a marshland with lots of centenarian trees. Since Roman times marshes have been drought and most of the forests were chopped to make room for agriculture (and to build Venice, which sits on millions and millions of trees). I recently went to Portugal, where most forests have been chopped and substituted with huge eucalyptus or cork oak monocultures. The same goes for France, Germany, etc. We destroyed our environment so we could have progress. Now we understand that the environment is precious and must be taken care of, so it's up to us to pay other countries to preserve their environment. This money will eventually be used to buy "progress" and end on our pockets once again so it's not even a bad deal economically speaking, it just takes the will (which is lacking almost anywhere).

emadabdulrahim 4y ago
I'm from one of the so called poor countries and let me tell you, we aren't that poor. We just have much much higher levels of corruption and static generational wealth. Add to that extremely selfish and poor planning from politicians at the top.
- 01acheru 4y ago
  Static generational wealth, corruption, selfishness and poor planning are incredibly common in high income countries too. My father is Brazilian and I lived there for almost ten years, from mid 90s to mid 00s, and indeed Brazil as a country is not that poor: if you could split the GDP equally amongst the population. Since this is not the case in reality there are millions and millions well below the poverty line and this is what makes a country a poor country, a country where a lot of people are poor. When you have a lot of poor people many things go out of control, and also taking advantage of poor people is a piece of cake for those at the top of the money pyramid. Deforestation in Brazil will not stop unless farmers and locals that live around the Amazon (or other green areas such as the Pantanal or the now almost destroyed Mata Atlântica) get paid to not touch it, help it regrow and pursue different agricultural styles or different crops. The Brazilian government doesn't have the money to do that even if corruption went to zero and private entities will not act since in most cases they are the ones fomenting deforestation. The only hope for South American forests to thrive is foreign intervention: local governments won't act, local corporations won't act and most of the local population is simply too poor to care.

linuxftw 4y ago

They're just doing what other continents did hundreds or thousands of years ago. If you want to save the forests, make them economically more valuable than converting them into other uses. If there's 100M iphones in the world that retail for around $1000 each, that's $100B dollars. We could have invested that money into building some kind of park that welcomes visitors. No, instead we chose as a society to take pretty photos for instagram for fake internet points.

Sporktacular 4y ago
They have a value that greater than just their economic value! The environment created us, we created economics. It's an artificial concept that will never capture the true value of nature.
- linuxftw 4y ago
  > They have a value that greater than just their economic value! Then investing at the economic value would be profitable, and people should clearly do this.
  - Sporktacular 4y ago
    Perhaps you misunderstood. They have non-economic value, that is more valuable than their economic value alone. Economic investment may not yield an economic return. Not everything reduces to a price tag.

Ekaros 4y ago

Maybe countries criticising Brazil should raise down their suburbs and plants even more trees there.

Sporktacular 4y ago
The 500 IQ comment in its full glory.
- Gravyness 4y ago
  Is the person you commented ugly too, or do you have an argument better than calling someone an imbecile?
  - Sporktacular 4y ago
    Yes, I do. I just prefer ridicule in this case. And I have no idea about their attractiveness, nor why my having a better argument would be dichotomous to their unattractiveness.

hestefisk 4y ago

First step is to get rid of their climate change-denying madman President.

Aerroon 4y ago
What are you suggesting here? That western countries should assassinate an elected world leader? Or that western countries should influence the next democratic elections? If you don't see an issue here, then imagine if you were talking about the USA. Should other countries "get rid of" the US president if they don't like his policies?
- hestefisk 4y ago
  Of course it shouldn’t be an assassination :) it should be via democratic means similar to Trump in 2020…

slowhand09 4y ago

Interesting comments below. Just some food for thought. Fertilized, less land is required to grow equivalent quantities of crops. Petroleum products, especially natural gas is a raw material as well as fuel for nitrogen fertilizer production. Higher petroleum prices mean higher fertilizer prices. Higher fertilizer prices mean higher food prices. Scarcity increases prices. Worldwide food production is down for many reasons: weather, war, disease, lack of workers, inflation, and cost to fertilize. Expect prices to rise, significantly more than they have.

pfdietz 4y ago
Or, PV will continue to crash in price, electrolytic hydrogen will get cheaper than SMR hydrogen, and fertilizer will remain cheap. The big concern with fertilizer is not so much energy use, btw, it's N2O emission.

hsavit1 4y ago

If humanity cares about its existence in the long term then we simply cannot clear cut the amazon.

Ekaros 4y ago
If we really cared about climate we would ban everything wasteful. Like useless internet services and companies. Do we need social media or media in general to survive?

stonepresto 4y ago

There seem to be two lines of thinking: 1. Who are we (US, Canada, China - heavily developed nations) to criticize? 2. Bolsonaro is bad mkay I think the root of the problem in both situations is people in power both in the government and out of it who do not seek sustainability and often are susceptible to corruption or influence. In both situations, the profits did not go to your average human.

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]

daniel-cussen 4y ago

People blame Brazil but I've met people outside Brazil who are like "Oh! Bonds!" "What kinds of bonds?" "High returns!" "Can't be government bonds then. Company bonds?" "Milk companies in Brazil!" Oh, cutting down the Amazon. Two parents I knew, this was like 18 years ago. It's been an emergency since the 1980's, a continual emergency. It's still an emergency. And I think they got fucked anyway, both of them. They thought it was a good investment because it was such a shitty thing to do to something so beautiful, thought the secret to luxury was cowardice (and it is), but guess what the promise of shitty person heaven where all the shitty people are so shitty to everything except you because you're so special so much in common with them, say the same things, have the same ideas, know the same people, have the same passwords what a coincidence, bump into each other in the strangest places, twins, so that means...uh...nah you know what, it's a better lesson learned the hard way. Getting fucked is critical to learning how not to get fucked. Walkthroughs are uh...well police departments have websites, there's books on the subject. And you can't con an honest John. Well there's a limit to that, you also have to be informed, you need both. And entertain moral dilemmas, moral experiments, or like play-act with friends, that will help out a lot. And good alternatives. Course the hard part is finding an alternative to that if you are conned. One way is to choose your second best choice. Not your first choice. Second choice. So then if the second choice starts getting shitty, stops whispering when you come around the bend, hey oh shit, guess the second choice school, say we're talking about Harvard 1 Yale 2, so Yale, really was second rank! I thought the 2 meant it was just as good, just another numeral from 1 to 10, like different days of the month! Wow, shit, wouldn't want to have to transfer to Harvard, that would suck, that was my first choice! Say I couldn't make it at Yale, damn!

daniel-cussen 4y ago
I can barely follow this myself. Gotta shorten down those long sentences. It comes from Spanish, I also speak perfect Spanish, there the sentences are much longer and have different "ondulaciones de frase".

nonrandomstring 4y ago

Those saying this is an "unavoidable" catastrophe and inevitable consequence of economics are being selective about history. We've taken strong conservation and violent prevention measures before against ecological practices of sovereign nation states that are detrimental to our lives. Perhaps the only 'successful' part of the US "war on drugs" was coca eradication [1], including the use of biological warfare (pests), herbicides and crop burning. We probably would have napalmed the Afghan poppy fields, but in the end the Taliban did it for us. The ivory trade is almost extinguished, let's be honest, not because we stemmed demand but because we were prepared to shoot the poachers. It's no secret the SAS operated "free-fire" in those parts of Africa, also training locals on "man hunting". [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coca_eradication https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coca_eradication

skilled 4y ago

It's not unheard of that in Africa many groups/tribes form together to fight back against poachers. Is there anything like this happening in the Amazon rainforest? And if no, then why not? Do people think a politician with his fancy suit is going to step his foot into the swamp to try and meet halfway? These assholes are literally destroying the world and the human race is none the wiser.... I sometimes wonder what would happen if rather than trying to evolve on a technological level, humanity evolved to protect and harmonize this world. Holy shit it's not even funny the level of ignorance that permeates topics of destroying the Earth.

zach_garwood 4y ago
There have been fights between Amazonian tribes and landowners. The tribes are relocated (or killed).
dormento 4y ago
We had deaths reported just this week, by Sonia Guajajara who represents one of the most prominent indigenous people's association and is running in the next elections. The thing is, in the end, its often poacher/miners shooting at unarmed people, often in the middle of the jungle, far away from the effective jurisdiction of whoever else would care. And the very insitutions that could oversee and act to prevent violence have been sistematically dismantled by the current fascist-in-chief, either by removing key people or by being financially strangled. But hey, at least now you won't lose your license for speeding and buying ammo is easier than ever.
vitorbaptistaa 4y ago
Of course. The local tribes are fighting the invaders since 1500.
guilherme-puida 4y ago
> It's not unheard of that in Africa many groups/tribes form together to fight back against poachers. Is there anything like this happening in the Amazon rainforest? There is. People just get killed and everything is swept under the rug.

harnomik 4y ago

That's 18 a second too much..

theropost 4y ago

So, lets fund the planting of 20+ trees per second to help counter-balance it. Someone can plant around 200 trees per day with basic tools (lower end - some can do upward of 1000) but lets go with the lower number. 24 hours per day X 60 minutes X 60 seconds X 20 trees per second = 1,728,000 trees per day = 8640 people required This certainly seems feasible - we just need the economics to justify it.

rodolphoarruda 4y ago

Wood extraction in the Amazon is a crime. It's aggravated crime if done in indigenous lands. It's aggravated even more if done for illegal mining activities. The state police (civil and military) from the various Brazilian states that compose the Amazon forest has the legal obligation to investigate and arrest criminals within the region. The problem is the region is just too big. But let's assume that somehow all those criminals lose their ability to profit on the product of their crimes altogether, within a 5 to 10 years time span, all the vegetation would be naturally restored. The Amazon forest is unstoppable. I live in the state of São Paulo, far from the Amazon forest, and the vegetation here requires a lot of work to be tamed. If you leave an empty allotment 2 or 3 months without any care, you will get knee height grass and all sorts of "exotic" plants coming out of the ground. The Amazon is orders of magnitude more aggressive than this one. So once you stop the illegal activity, the forest will come back. The problem is not the forest, but the people -- indigenous or not -- affected by the illegal activities. Recently we saw headlines about the murder of two people in the region, an activist and a journalist. So many others have died when they crossed paths with criminals. This is a humanitarian problem before an ecological problem.

Sporktacular 4y ago
The problem is that the current government doesn't WANT to investigate and arrest criminals. They cut funding, merged environmental protection and indigenous affairs into the agricultural ministry. This is well documented. The forest is on the edge of becoming a net carbon producer for the first time. This doesn't simply reverse when it regrows from some saplings. Its capacity to create clouds to replenish water is already heavily compromised. When that stops this simply doesn't reverse. When you burn sections without first clearing it of its animal populations they perish, destroying the ecosystems that often needs animals to help germinate new trees. The mercury used for illegal gold mining doesn't just go out of the river and back into the bottle. Billions of animals die from these actions and the results will be irreversible. To call the Amazon unstoppable, to say that the humans that are dying is the real problem, smacks of the ignorance that has led us to this point.
- ElectricalUnion 4y ago

slothtrop 4y ago

China is not going to curb its demand for Brazilian products on this basis. The EU hypothetically could, but try to sell price increases to the public.

m1117 4y ago

It's about the same rate w/ how many americans die from firearms

acraabrazil 4y ago

In the Amazon Region of Brazil - We integrate advanced agroforestry restoration systems - Provide people living here with greater self-sufficiency and economic prosperity https://acraabrazil.org/about https://acraabrazil.org/about

9dev 4y ago

Maybe, and this is a big maybe, we should think about whether some countries have a disproportionately large access to, or responsibility for, resources relevant to all of humanity. Specifically, I would like to question if Brazil can or even should be trusted to handle the Amazon forest in a responsible manner. Over the past decades, objectively, it has shown that the country, or maybe primarily its government, doesn't: The forest is continuously decimated, ever faster, with full and open support by the government itself. Considering that the Amazon is of broader concern than just Brazil's jurisdiction alone, would it -- and I'd include other, similar areas around the globe here too -- make sense to move administration to a more responsible body, the UN for example (not specifically the UN, but you get the idea)? This may sound offensive to you for all kinds of reasons, especially if you're Brazilian, and I sincerely apologise for that. But please consider that maybe the challenges ahead of humanity as a whole require new solutions, new ways to think about who "owns" land?

krainboltgreene 4y ago
Ah, the imperialist approach.
- 9dev 4y ago
  No, it's different. I'm not suggesting "the west" taking control of the Amazon, but humanity as a whole. The other option is hoping for the best or trusting a corrupt government to do the right thing for the rest of the globe. It hasn't worked well yet.
  - kennywinker 4y ago
    What incorruptible body could take control of the amazon on behalf of humanity? How would we chose its leaders? Who decides what is protected and what isn’t?
    - 9dev 4y ago
      No body is incorruptible. But less corrupt would certainly be a step forward, no? I would suggest something like a global conservation fund responsible for guarding critical "infrastructure" of our planet. At some point, we will need to take action to prevent earth from becoming inhospitable, and this requires steering. Merely admitting defeat to greedy human nature doesn't seem to lead anywhere.

Pmop 4y ago

I live close and know people who livelihoods depends on that forest. Believe it or not, it's not the farmers or loggers fault. Their livelihoods depends on that forest. Farmers depend on the rain cycle. Loggers depend on the forest staying healthy, so new trees grow so they can keep their business going. Illegal logging does happen but it isn't their fault exclusively either. The root cause is illegal occupation and settlement of land. People invade other people's land, often federal land, they cut down all of the trees, they burn it down, so they can clear it to set up makeshift camps. They then split and sell the land. Once there are people living on it, it's pretty much a lost cause due to how loosely enforced private ownership of land is, specially federal land. Also, it's a lucrative business, and involves corruption in all levels. People affected by it, like loggers who lose their property and livelihoods can hardly do anything, since the invaders will often get violent and the State wont do anything.

anigbrowl 4y ago
that seems like a situation where one should fight fire with fire.
- spywaregorilla 4y ago
  Just to be clear, you're advocating for setting fire to people's homes?
  - anigbrowl 4y ago
    No, I'm advocating maintaining tactical parity. 'fight fire with a fire' is a fairly common metaphor for reciprocal action.
    - spywaregorilla 4y ago
      But the initial action was literally fire
      - anigbrowl 4y ago

renewiltord 4y ago

Europe is still deforesting. Uplift all Brazilians till they have the same standard of living or sit it out.

agumonkey 4y ago

on the other hand there's a video of a guy planting one tree per minute here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AbA-hoIuHM4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AbA-hoIuHM4

gonational 4y ago

In the 2.7 million square miles of rain forest, 114 miles[1] were lost. That's 0.004% - huge. 1. Assuming 1 tree per 100 square feet.

Gravyness 4y ago

What about 2020, and 2019? I'm more interested in the trend than in the absolute number.

impeplague 4y ago

Recent US elections made the people almost freak out because of the suspected Russia influence. In every developing country, not only Brazil, this is the norm and not the exception. Bolsonaro's election received heavy support from the international (and national) finance sector. They projected a higher gain under his government. And most of these people are from developed countries. People from rich country may not be really aware that the commodities come from somwere. The recent Russian war sure made this more clear. Developing countries are locked in that role. If a country like Brazil, Russia or China reduces significantly its exports, everyone living costs rise. This is obviously true for high technology goods, but while you can survive with no smartphone, you can't with no food and energy. I'm talking about this most obvious stuff to make this point: rich countries exports their poverty. USA still has a firm hand on the entire continent, and will not let it go, Brazil included. As someone from Brazil, I really hope BRICS+ continues to grow. While the G7 can easily suffocate small dissidents, a entire block can not be. Sanctions against Russia stared to make European governments fall, what happens if you sanction half the world population? I'm reserving judgment in the Russia's war in this post, becase most of these implications don't depends on who is right.