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Comment by wombatmobile | Hacker News Reader

What percentage of its old growth forests does France retain?

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.

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Your framing:

- 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.

Both of these are your framing, notafraudster.

I think it's generally easy to point the finger at others while ignoring our own short comings. I feel the same way about the USA pointing the finger at other countries human rights violations while simultaneously struggling to come to terms with our own treatment of minorities and indigenous people in the past.

Maybe it's a mix of hypocrisy and political gain. I just hope there comes a time where we can all do better.

The french government has actively promoted the growth of forests / their management for over a century. Today, there are more acres of forests than at the turn of the twentieth century for example.

Actually, forests in France have doubled since 1850 and cover today 31% of the total France superficy. It is now about the same size as it was at the end of the Middle-Ages. The peak of forest superficy was around the Xth century, mostly because after the fall of the roman empire, a lot of lands were just left out to themselves, because deforestation was quite active before that, with the gauls and the romans cutting forests for agriculture. Sweden is the european country with the biggest forest area compared to its size, but they are mostly coniferous trees, whereas in France they are mostly leafy trees. So, to answer the parent comment about regenerating wild forests and the percentage of forests France has: France is not in a bad league at all, far from it.

It's easier to care about things when you got rich by exploiting the exactly same thing. And also by exploiting things from 'colonies' - aka stealing.

If Brazil followed the French model, and deforested for 500 years, then reforested to 31% over 150 years, would you say Brazil is not in a bad league at all, far from it?

That might be a rational argument (or the start of one), but it's certainly not what Bolsonaro has been saying.

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.

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