Americans’ Appetite for Leather in Luxury SUVs Worsens Amazon Deforestation | Hacker News Reader

Americans’ Appetite for Leather in Luxury SUVs Worsens Amazon Deforestation

nytimes.com

33 pointsishikawa12 comments

A very similar problem as in the organic fraud article last week. A network of organizations trying to do the right thing but stymied by the fact that product entry into the system can and is gamed, with little they can do about it.

However, leather use in cars will likely diminish. It's already starting at the high end.

Tesla quietly went leather free some years ago.

I didn't see why they are focusing on leather rather than beef in this article.

"Raoni Rajão, who studies Amazon supply chains at the Federal University of Minas Gerais, said that because the leather industry makes ranching more profitable, it shares responsibility for any deforestation. “Leather can have high added value,” he said."

Did you see where the quantitative information is?

this is always what I think too. There is a large meat industry and the leather can't simply be trashed.

We did a data analytics project for a upper class furniture manufacturer and I was really surprised to hear that they typically cannot afford buying A grade leather because the car industry actually stocks everything. Due to their processing requirements car manufacturers can hardly work around natural defects. The absurdity they said is that the leather in cars is coated below so many layers of plastic coating that it hardly had any properties of real leather anymore. Large hides of high quality leather seem to be actually a serious business rather than a waste product from what I heard.

TLDR: Irresponsible criminals in a forgein country are committing crimes to produce a marketable item. Irresponsible law enforcement in this country chooses not to punish or prevent these crimes.

New York Times conclusion:

* The criminals are not to blame.

* The country not enforcing it's laws is not to blame.

* The rest of the world is not to blame.

* Only Americans' and their gluttony is to blame.

My conclusion:

* Fuck you, NYTimes

You seem really angry at The NYTimes. I don’t think car buyers would otherwise know that their leather car seats are linked to deforestation of the rain forest. Isn’t that important journalism, so people can make informed choices?

Perhaps GP supports informative journalism, just not one with an “Americans are bad and should be ashamed for being richer than other countries” narrative?

Not ashamed for being richer—ashamed for mindlessly buying products that directly destroy the rainforest. Most wealthy people don’t want their leather from the rain forest, they’d rather get it from Italy. I found it super informative because I had no idea.

It's the manipulative, click-bait title that I have issue with.

NYT chose to misrepresent the purpetrators in it's article. That's not journalism.

NYT's conclusion of who is to blame could have gone either way:

1) be manipulative by support americans and their interests regardless of the truth 2) be objective, report the facts, identify contributing factors without overtly blaming 3) be manipulative by damning americans, encouraging americans to hate each other and their country, feed into everybody's victim mentality

I much, much would 2. But if I can't have 2, I'd prefer 1 over 3. My kids futures will be better off if they are encouraged to appreciate what's good in their country rather than always looking for reasons to hate it

Wow, I feel like we read different articles. Maybe this triggers you for some reason?

I literally never thought about the origin of my leather seats. Now I feel like I need to. I don’t hate my country??

I understand and agree with your explaination.

I agree that article addresses a real problem that should be exposed and dealt with.

However, the NYT does not appear to.

The title of article is "Americans’ Appetite for Leather in Luxury SUVs Worsens Amazon Deforestation"

It implies the problem isn't that you're ignorant of where the leather comes from. Rather, it's your appitite that's the problem. You hunger for the leather and you don't care about the consequences of harvesting it.

What's more, it's not just the glutonous consumers of Luxury SUVs in general. It's specifically Americans. Americans are the problem.

NYT decided to up it's viewership by using a clickbate title that panders to an audience that likes reading about how gready, irresponsible and contemptable Americans are.

I think the NYT editors are a hateful bunch. They profit by instulting on the very country and infrastructure that supports it.

How about the NYT publishes this article:

"The New York Times' Misleading Titles and Appetite for Viewers Unfairly Worsens America's Worldwide Image"

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