5 ms·

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 t

by 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.

by 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.