Leaked documents show Brazil’s Bolsonaro has grave plans for Amazon rainforest | Hacker News Reader

Leaked documents show Brazil’s Bolsonaro has grave plans for Amazon rainforest

opendemocracy.net

116 pointsiron001354 comments

Excerpt:

"Leaked documents show that Jair Bolsonaro's government intends to use the Brazilian president's hate speech to isolate minorities living in the Amazon region. The PowerPoint slides, which democraciaAbierta has seen, also reveal plans to implement predatory projects that could have a devastating environmental impact."

My question is why would the government even put slides like this together. Who writes things like "We will use hate speech to implement predatory projects to devastate the environment".

Normally govts focus on things like we want to develop X area and give two shxxts about the environment. But they don't go out of there way to come up with evil powerpoints.

Bolsonaro's government is run by military people, and this is the language that they commonly use. This is not the first time that we see Bolsonaro framing certain groups in Brazil as "threats" that need to be "contained" or "destroyed".

Bolsonaro comes from a time when the country was run by a military dictatorship, and he was part of the military that terrorized the people. He has said openly of a woman who was tortured that “they didn’t go far enough”. He’s truly an evil person and he doesn’t hide it.

Yeah, that part seems fishy to me. Like, I guess I've seen weirder things in the real world, but that just seems way too cartoonishly evil to be real.

Yeah, what's next? A Bond villain running Russia? A racist blow-hard capitalist running America? Please...

Alright, fair point.

Makes me wonder if the world really did end in 2012 and we're living in a very-poorly-written video game attempting to preserve it.

Or something equivalent of Game of thrones 8th season

They probably wrote something like "We must actively denounce the primitivist Luddite elements in Amazon villages, to disintegrate the opposition to economic development of those areas."

Regardless of whether this particular article is fake news or not Western countries should join together and pay Brazil not to burn down the rainforest. Models show that reductions to the Amazon would lower rainfall in the western United states, a place with a growing population and already bad water usage problems nationalgeographic.com/environment/2018/11/how-cutting-the-amazon-forest-could-affect-weather

Projects in this regard already exist, some of them were set up by ex-president Lula da Silva and European countries. In response, Bolsonaro has recently verbally attacked Germany and Norway, saying that Brazil doesn't need money from foreign countries to control the Amazon.

>Western countries should join together and pay Brazil not to burn down the rainforest

I'm sorry, but, WHAT?! I agree we should preserve the rainforest but why should the West pay? That's like asking my neighbors to pay me to not burn down my flat.

Up to you. Well, more like I own a park next door to your home and you don't want me to turn it into an office block. Well, if you want it to stay a park, you're going to have to pay.

To make it better, the destruction of America's old growth redwoods means you already built an apartment building on the park you owned and now you don't want me to do that with my park. Well, you're going to have to pay me for that.

We should ensure both positive and negative externalities are captured in the market.

You may be right, but being European, I fail to see how this responsibility falls on the shoulders of countries here from Ireland to the Ukraine. I mean, wages have stagnated here for the lower-mid class, basically we've never left the recession, what you're saying is a tough sell here.

Not saying we don't care, I'm saying we can't afford to care.

I mean, the West has been giving taxpayer money and aid to Africa for decades, to compensate for colonialism and it has mostly ended up in the hands of corrupt despots and warlords, ironically making life worse for some people there.

So giving more taxpayer money to other corrupt regimes is not something we should quickly jump to.

You chopped your forests down to industrialize. Now, the planet's coming to collect on its debt and your names are on the lien. Now's not a convincing time to tell someone else not to take on a loan of their own. Now's not a convincing time to tell someone else to pay down your debt.

Sure, but most gains from industrialization were sucked up by big corp shareholders and are stashed away in tax havens. How about we collect from there instead of average Joe working 2 jobs to make ends meet.

The MO of industrialization has always been corporate profits on environmental destruction while having taxpayers pay for the aftermath. Privatize the winnings, socialize the losses.

It's time to have corporations responsible for fixing the aftermath of their quarterly targets.

When did anyone suggest that to not be how governments might go about fundraising their payments to preserve the Amazon?

Our countries have a lot of forest. This eternal apologizing of the greatest culprits of ecological catastrophe (i.e. mostly non-Western countries), is the actual problem.

People following your ideology don't care about global warming, they care about blaming the West (the ones making an effort to clean things up) at every turn while giving a pass to the countries actually polluting the planet (just as long as they aren't westerners).

Are you kidding me? The US contributes as much carbon to the atmosphere as China while sustaining a third as much people. Making an effort to clean up, my ass.

Your facts are completely wrong.

China now produces more CO2 that all other 1st world countries together [1], while having increased their emissions by 300% in the last 30 years and are set to increase them a further 30% during the next 10. [2]

USA maintained their emissions during the past 30 years and are set to slightly reduce them in the next 10. [3]

EU reduced their emissions by 25% during the last 30 years, and are set to reduce them a further 20% during the next 10. [4]

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_carbon_di...

[2] https://climateactiontracker.org/countries/china/

[3] https://climateactiontracker.org/countries/usa/

[4] https://climateactiontracker.org/countries/eu/

Whoops, out of date data for me. Yup, China is awful: 2x the emissions with 3x the people but each individual American is significantly worse. Individual Americans don’t get to blame Chinese people when all they’re doing is trying to catch up to American standards of living.

The best part is how easy it is to be carbon negative. I am, and lots of the people pointing fingers at China aren’t. So, take the beam out of your eye.

And this is not counting that what’s important is the area under the curve, not the present value.

Many countries in Europe, for example, have already destroyed majority of their forests. Not saying that destroying forests is good, quite the opposite, but unfortunately that's how it seems to go if you can't monetize the forests in some way and that's where western (and other) money could help.

>Many countries in Europe, for example, have already destroyed majority of their forests.

You have a source for that? Last I recall, countries like Finland have more trees now than ever before.

They replaced forest that were destroyed. Planting new forest is great,but not as great if we had the old forest were still there. Once you lose biodiversity, it is gone forever.

Around where I live, a good part of the village names refer to setting trees on fire.

This is a rain forest, Western countries don't have those, that's why it's special.

EU, USA, Canada, etc. have a lot of forest per country area, we actually took care of it or at least replanted what was destroyed centuries ago.

Canada has (temperate) rain forest on Vancouver Island. It is also under more or less constant threat of being cut down, some of it already has but a lot of it still standing. If you happen to be in the area it is more than worth taking a hike through Carmanah [1] for a real life Lothlorien/Middle Earth experience.

[1] http://www.env.gov.bc.ca/bcparks/explore/parkpgs/carmanah/

Not really, because your flat is on their property, they own that flat, you live there for free and they tell you in advance that it is going to happen in about 10 years so you have plenty of time to move your stuff.

If the Amazon is the earth's lung then that is a service Brazil provides which keeps it from monetizing it in other ways like hacking it to pieces and use it for whatever.

Welcome to the perverse logic of capitalism. And in that axiom space it is logical to pay them. I doubt, though, it would actually work because another part of that world is Gordon Gekkos like Bolsonaro will fuck you over with the rest of humanity the moment you turn your back to them.

I'm not saying I support the idea necessarily, but

> why should the West pay?

Because: 1. It needs the rainforests to exist and 2. It's very rich.

> asking my neighbors to pay me to not burn down my flat.

Which would also might make sense if: 1. You are deranged. 2. You tend to burn stuff. 3. My flat is next door to your flat. 4. I'm rich. 5. I can't reason with you about not burning your flat.

How about if Western countries simply stop doing business with you instead? Better yet, how about if Western countries take hold of that territory from you in order to properly manage it?

Why do you have this notion that Western Countries must be perpetually paying up to clean the mess non Western countries do?

Because the west are the people that are asking Brazil not to take advantage of one of its natural resources. Everyone else has had the luxury of exploiting their land and we'll suffer as a result if Brazil does as well.

So, you are saying that non-Western countries just don't care about destroying the ecology of our planet?

P.S. My country has been planting vast areas of forest since the 13th century for economic purposes. Not sure what you mean by "Everyone else has had the luxury of exploiting their land", since here (and in most of the EU) we have vast areas of forest and actually took care of them.

I never said non western countries don't care about the planet. My point is this: Brazil has a natural resource in the form of the Amazon. They can exploit this resource in 2 ways: either burn it down and use that land for agriculture/mining/whatever or ,because so many other countries are asking Brazil not to burn it down, ask others to pay for them to preserve it since the amazon affects so many people behind their borders. I prefer the second option

Sure, why doesn't your second option call for all countries to pay Brazil then? Instead of just western countries.

I can even accept that richer countries could pay somewhat more. But, still, there are a lot of non-western countries that are quite rich. So, why only western countries should pay?

You're right, using the term "western" was perhaps misguided, though countries closer to Brazil will almost certainly be more effected. Ideally everyone would help to conserve the rainforest, it's just that some countries have more to lose than others. I'd love to see china/Japan/Korea/etc to help pay for Brazil to conserve the amazon.

This long form article goes into way more detail than anyone not related to Brazil might care.

It's gaslighting as a political strategy:

https://piaui.folha.uol.com.br/materia/the-environment-as-an...

I don't particularly trust Bolsonaro, his constant twisting of the truth and his ignorance should put us all on alert.

But seriously, this is an article about an agency that is openly anti-bolsonaro and pro PT [1] (his opposing party) claming to have seen a supposed PowerPoint with incriminating evidence (with no source to the PowerPoint and much less any proof of its origin). We can't allow ourselves to drop to this level, it is no better than a witch-hunt this way.

[1] https://nocaute.blog.br/2018/10/15/democracia-abierta-adere-...

EDIT: It's really interesting to see I am being downvoted for stating an inconvenient truth. Got to love ideological blindness.

Do you know what is worse? It's counter propaganda, in fact it's an elephant in the room.

Suddenly, people around the world will notice that things are not as bad as initially reported. Thus, Brazilian government will be "allowed" to exploit a larger area without any pressure.

I thought the fire was the elephant in the room.

That is something that unfortunately happens almost every year: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/437017.stm

That doesn't make it any less of an elephant in the room.

If anything, it makes it more of a herd of elephants in the room.

> I don't particularly trust Bolsonaro, his constant twisting of the truth and his ignorance should put us all on alert.

The same can certainly be said about the United States.

This article is about Brazil.

Are you not conflating being anti Bolsonaro with being pro PT? Because that's what your link says.

where is the "PowerPoint" though?

While it's good to question things, everything alleged in there squares with Bonsonaro's public statements and actions since taking office.

Bonsonaro is Brazil's Trump, the worst thing that could possibly happen to that country.

As a disclaimer, I don't speak Portuguese, like at all, so my half-assed attempt at translating these is based on my limited understanding of Spanish and the cognates between Portuguese and Spanish+English.

----

First, the slide:

> 3. Context

> Globalist campaign: relative to [something] of the Amazon Basin

> Strategy: PsyOps (external and internal) + International Pressure

> Arms [?]: ambientalist[?] / indigenist NGOs, media, diplomatic and economic pressures; (something) of indigenous minorities and quilombolas; and [something] of public institutions

> Result: restriction of the government's freedom to act

This looks like one of the slides mentioned in the article (paragraph right above the document), but not the one about the Brazilian government using "hate speech" as a strategy.

----

Next, the document:

> CONFIDENTIAL

> Strategic Agenda

> (Presidential Directive)

> For prioritized consideration for government strategies.

> 1. Aerospace Technology - Revitalization of VLS [Space Launch Vehicle?] project, [something] of national satellite and vehicular property [?], [something about Bolsonaro]

> 2. Nuclear Technology

> a. Industrialization of a uranium enrichment process [something something] to make Brazil self-sufficient and a potential enriched uranium exporter

> b. [something about politics and nuclear power; I suppose I could Google Translate "fusão" to see if it means "fusion" (my guess) or "fission", but I'm too lazy]

> 3. Integration [?] [something] Amazon River [?] into the rest of national territory, [something] international pressure around implementation [?] of project called Triple A. For this, hydroelectric construction project on the Trombetas River [something something] Amazon River, with implementation of road BR 163 to the Suriname border

> 4. Cyberdefense - Implementation of National Cyber Defense Plan, integrated with existing security plans [?]

> 5. Biotech - Establishment of a program to eradicate the primary diseases in Brazil's rain forests (malaria, [some other diseases])

> 6. Mining - Execution of the National Mining Plan, obtaining [?] minerals critical for the nuclear [something] and the aerospace industry

> 7. Science and Technology - Implementation of the national technology [something] plan

All seems relatively mundane, though (as a side note) it's interesting that Brazil's actively pursuing nuclear and aerospace projects. Brazil's vast expanses of equatorial territory could make it a major player in space travel should it manage to capitalize on that real estate. I'm guessing that might be what that "VLS" project is. If those points are ordered by priority, that'd imply that aerospace projects are Brazil's #1 priority, which is pretty exciting for the future of space travel.

----

I'm assuming there are other slides not shown in the article, but if the article's gonna claim that said slides document the Brazilian government's strategic use of hate speech, it'd be really helpful if it, you know, actually included that slide. Maybe that's part of entry #3 in that Strategic Agenda; there's a lot in there and I understood relatively little of it, but that also seemed to be the article's focus.

Wow! How did this absurdly fake news make the HN front page?

How do you know it is fake news?

It might not be fake but it seems absurdly biased. The article says the PowerPoint claims the government plans to use the president's hate speech to isolate minorities in the amazon.

Is that really how the PowerPoint presented the information? Who knows I guess.

Did you read the article? Tell me where is the leaked document.

https://cdn-prod.opendemocracy.net/media/images/b2d7aa17-e06...

Do you understand Portuguese? That slide is nothing about what this article is reporting.

For anyone that doesn't understand Portuguese, this slide is about how the government feels threatened by what they see as (even agreeing that would be paranoid) a disinformation campaign orchestrated by NGOs, media, and other actors.

Also, besides this slide having nothing to do with the article being discussed here, it also begs the question on why we should trust an agency that was openly anti Bolsonaro and pro PT (the opposing party) in the elections without any substantial proof but showing a photo of a slide.

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