Comment by jeanlucas | Hacker News Reader

Comment by jeanlucas | Hacker News Reader

Gonna give my 2 cents, bear in mind I'm in Brazil and am involved in projects related to the Amazon forest.

My problem with all this are some things:

* One problem I have is that during the last years Amazon savagery was going uncontrollable, no one cared, especially BBC, now that a president was elected that is not aligned with their point of view was elected, this became a front news issue.

* Assuming this is all true (and bear in mind, it isn't always) that fire was in Brazil's frontier, not just Brazil, the article forgot that part.

* One more point is: the supposed German and Norway money to "help maintain the forest", if you need to learn anything from investigative journalism, is to follow the money. Norway had a mining operation in the middle of Amazon[0] - the thing they are supposed to prevent! Funny enough, that mining rig polluted all the area [1] and they settled down not paying the locals, that are still protesting. I really wonder if that Amazon fund was really to support and protect our forest or to pay off NGOs to ignore what they were doing over there. Bonus: this all happened in the previous "good" government administration.

I really worry about the forest and was in Sao Paulo when that happened two days ago, but I really suspect the politics around it.

[0] - http://theconversation.com/the-world-protests-as-amazon-fore...

[1] - https://www.tnp.no/norway/panorama/toxic-waste-from-norwegia...

One interesting point is made by Slavoj Zizek on our society[0] about the "good" billionaires that give with one hand what they destroyed with the other. This what it feels like about all of what is happening over there, 1st world countries give "aid" to cover the problem themselves did over there.

[0]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hpAMbpQ8J7g

Also, bear in mind the Brazilian Amazon territory borders British, French and Dutch interests in Guyana, French Guyana and Suriname respectively.

I can't speak for all nations, but certainly here in northern Europe, NGOs and others have worked for decades on preservation efforts, in concert with local organizations. Deforestation (especially the Amazon rainforest) has been a high priority for conservation and environmental efforts for decades.

So please don't think that we only started caring about Amazonia because a person with disagreeable politics was elected recently. Deforestation affects everyone, it's a global issue.

However, said person has made a number of statements that are directly threatening towards the future preservation of South American rainforests, and thus the awareness and conservation efforts have increased their visibility, in order to counteract the damage your governments politics will do to the rainforest.

>So please don't think that we only started caring about Amazonia because a person with disagreeable politics was elected recently. Deforestation affects everyone, it's a global issue.

That is not my point, let me go further, some mining companies from those countries used this political position to lobby themselves and continue to operate in the forest, and they are "untouchable" despite polluting the area (check my sources in the beginning of the thread.

Said that, I think the current president is an idiot for saying lots of those things too. One thing does not justify the other.

I am in no way defending the corporations who are exploiting Amazonia and have been doing it for years. This exploitation has increased massively during the current presidency.

Environmental orgs and groups have been working against these companies for decades, no matter which government has been in power. It goes beyond partisan politics, we consider it a global issue way beyond petty political squabbles.

That's the problem right now in Brazil. Any criticism to the current administration is because "ideology", like that's a valid argument to invalidate anything that's said. The current president thinks there are communists in every corner.

The fires are happening, any satellite can confirm that. Easily. The the head of the public institution doing very scientific work to track that got fired because he wasn't a true "Brazilian" since he was obviously trying to hurt his country by reporting the truth.

It seems we have imported the dualism in politics from the US/Argentina and everything now now is "us" vs "them". It's impossible to have a reasonable discussion about public policies without people resorting to hidden motives and conspiracy theories.

I've followed the international news about the Amazon fires and there's very little wrong facts in them. But unfortunately they don't help our current extreme right administration so.

I hope reasonable minds prevail in the next election and we're able to elect an administration that is rational. Unfortunately, due to the increasing duopoly in politics, we'll probably have a extreme left president. It's all very sad.

gtirloni, I agree that tying to administration is ridiculous and avoid real criticism. This just bugs me because the rate of deforestation was going up really high in the previous one (that was impeached, but not because of that).

The fires are happening, I agree, but I really disagree that there are little wrong facts, mostly people hide important stuff, like the Norway mining I rig, and I really bet you didn't know about that one, it barely made the news. Only the convenient news come up.

It's impossible to say about only reasonable minds when the arguments are so skewed towards politics and extreme actions.

That's because the Norway mining thing is totally irrelevant to the big picture?

What people forget is that even if Americans may be divided, they're not sacrificing any of their territorial sovereignty to other countries.

Anyone seriously suggesting anything like this be done to America would be met with total annihilation "warnings" from any administration.

I wouldn't be so sure about that...

Interesting, because according to Norsk Hydro and various Brazilian authorities there never were overflows or leaks. [0]

"Around the time of the floods, there were local reports that the floods had affected the residue deposits and rumors circulated that they had overflowed into the surrounding area and contaminated local communities. The Brazilian authorities were likewise concerned and initiated multiple inspections of Alunorte."

[0] - https://www.hydro.com/en-US/media/on-the-agenda/the-alunorte...

> now that a president was elected that is not aligned with their point of view was elected, this became a front news issue.

Or maybe they are just push articles their audience want to read. There is def more env awareness now than before for whatever reason.

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