As Amazon deforestation hits 12 year high, France rejects Brazilian soy
news.mongabay.com
news.mongabay.com
Perhaps there’s a way for the UN to purchase the Amazon as a global protected natural preserve? What other areas would be good targets?
This seems to me the kind of thing that the UN could realistically enforce if “global parks” became part of its mandate. The big sticking point is who pays for it.
And how much would be the offer anyway?
Just the internal GDP of the North region is circa 100 billion USD with tremendous potential to grow ( ecotourism, gold and diamond mining, high value exports like tonka beans, plus hydropower) , so anything less than 1 trillion USD wouldn't even be a good start.
The brazilian economy doesn't lack capital, it lacks proper institutional levers, which in the long term screw up even petrodollar volumes of investment.
And good luck holding it in place WITHOUT further deforestation .. Since it's a hotpot of illegal activity such as drug trafficking , mining, etc...
If the answer is a very small number, doesn't that make historical France guilty of what these measures seek to prevent happening in Brazil?
To the extent this is a moral argument, shouldn't France atone for its misdeeds by regenerating wild forests, to be left unmolested in perpetuity?
If nobody is advocating any such thing, perhaps this isn't a moral argument, or even an environmental argument. Perhaps it's an economic initiative from the people who stand to gain from the French production of soy beans.
- France cuts its own forests down, lectures other people about cutting their forests down, what hypocrites.
Result of taking framing to conclusion:
- Everyone should be able to cut their forests down with impunity, then when we have no forests, we should try to figure out a solution now that we're no longer hypocrites.
My framing:
- France, having (as most of Europe did) extensively deforested for ship timber hundreds of years ago, witnesses the devastating effects of deforestation locally, and tries to mitigate future deforestation. They try to recover local forests, though they will never recover to levels from, say, 1200AD. Although the cat is out of the bag in many places, we now understand this to be a global problem, which should be solved globally
Result of taking framing to its logical conclusion:
- No one should engage in aggressive deforestation, and we should look at mechanisms of economic compensation to help countries whose growth is limited because of this from countries who benefited from it before we understood it to be wrong. OECD countries should aggressively support and fund reforestation of the Rainforest and African Green Belt.
I dunno what to say, man.
Maybe it's a mix of hypocrisy and political gain. I just hope there comes a time where we can all do better.
He and his appointees have repeatedly denied climate change, even calling it a "marxist plot". He openly flouts and refuses to enforce the laws of Brazil, and illegally confiscates land (through violence) from native people.
Hardly a credible partner.
https://www.world-grain.com/articles/14738-china-sees-record...
China is the biggest importer of agricultural things. They can't produce locally all the food they eat. And Europe is exporting a lot of wheat and other corns to China.
Maybe we can start to put some pressure on them finally ;)
China still has a lot of different levers in case they lack food. Remember that the US deal actually forced them to buy american agricultural products.
They also banned most of Australia food imports since they asked for an international investigation on SARS-CoV-2 origins. They could just lift this ban and Australian politics and farmers would jump on the occasion.
There are so many countries who are willing to sell no matter what and no matter who as long as the price is good, and China has a lot of money.
We will never solve our environment issues until we get over the fear of taking steps first.
Now, let's take the headline and put it into a magical machine that turn what the idealistic well-meaning activists and politicians wanted to happen to the immediate practical outcome of the action.
The magical machine that replaces the intention with the practical outcome of the action is simply replacing "climate change" with "the western nations must consume less because China needs cheap commodities and needs to have a competitive advantage over the west to become the dominant global power". Climate change activism in its practical aspect seems to be a never-ending "prisoners dilemma" where the west always cooperates and China always defects.
Let's try some more common headlines:
"Western nations must reduce their gasoline consumption because of climate change"
"We should stop having children because of climate change"
"We should stop eating meat because of climate change"
Meanwhile China built 3x more coal plants last year than the rest of the world combined.
https://www.breitbart.com/national-security/2021/02/03/china...
Instead of not buying from them, how about paying them for protecting the forest? That sounds more reasonable to me.
Costa Rica changed its economy from fishing to tourism fairly effectively. Just have a conversation with a fisherman turned whale boat operator for some good lessons on that next time you're down there.
Pay no attention to the vast palm tree plantations that decimated the natural forest though. That's a side point.
Considering that the Amazon is pretty essential for the global environment, this strikes me as an aggressively reasonable approach.
These are fanciful ideals, but where the rubber meets the road, there are real tradeoffs with real consequences. The best we can do is make sure that we apply incentives to ensure that people do the "right" thing.
Even tax hikes and stricter regulations they seem to skirt.
There's some who'd say boycotts are bad, stop cancel culture...except when THEY are doing the canceling. Look at the political right in America... STOP CANCEL CULTURE...but you can cancel Liz Cheney and Mitt Romney, we don't want them anymore...
I mean elections are all about "Cancel Culture" your vote can change who's elected canceling the person who was there before.
If you think Walmart is evil and Target is less evil you can vote with your dollars and only shop at Costco which is less evil than both of those... or a worker co-op like Winco (my favorite, but closest one is 4 hours away).
These soybeans are probably used to feed cattle.
For one, it's pretty bad for the environment. I hope you can agree with me that there is a consensus on this. From land use to transportation, to every other part of the supply chain (antibiotics, methane emissions, manure). Downsizing the meat industry would do quite a bit for the environment.
Secondly, meat is more expensive than plant-based products, generally.
It also spoils faster, and I wouldn't eat spoiled meat, as opposed to spoiled vegetables. Quality control is way more important as to avoid parasites, prions, etc.
Let's skip animal suffering.
I suppose you are getting to the last point, health benefits? I have little data on this myself, and health comes from such a maze of interactions that I don't find it surprising experts disagree, especially if you throw in various lobbies. Moreover, the answer likely depends on a person's ethnicity. However, there seems to be plenty of evidence that (a) excessive meat (or rich foods) intake is bad for your health, (b) eating a variety of products is better, (c) eating some meat, or substitutes, is required for a healthy diet.
The uncertainty seems to be on what exactly constitutes "too much" meat.
I don't think "all around" was meant to encompass anything else; are you thinking of something else specifically?