If we really care about what happens in Brazil we should offer economically viable solutions rather than pointing fingers and accusing them of doing something that we did in the past for a long time.
There are several economically viable solutions, but Brazilian government should be interested in pursuing them, rather than only pursuing things that only benefits the current friends of the government (such as deforestation).
US/EU/etc forcing Brazil to get its shit together would be BETTER for the population. We don't need the deforestation to progress. Quite the opposite.
If Brazil were to wage a war on another country, would it be fine just because Europe/US also did it in the past?
This is a very weak argument for something that is so damaging as letting the forest be destroyed for what is virtually zero economical gain to the population.
Such as? The sheer scale of what Brazil feeds to the rest of the world would hardly accommodate for "several economically viable solutions".
2020 paper about the issue: https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2003270117
You can't simply tell a third-world country to halt a major part of their economy.
Brazil being a major exporter of only primary sector goods isn't doing the population of the country any favours.
> If people from other countries really want Brazilian economy to get off the ground, they should want Brazil to export processed and manufactured goods, or other sectors.
> Treating Brazil like a big farm is doing neither Brazil nor the environment any favours.
> The "We should't criticise Brazil" is not only hypocritical, it's also counter-intuitive.
It's not about halting a major part of its economy. It's about not fucking up the rest of the economy only to accommodate a sector that isn't doing that much good for the greater part of the population.
China/EU/US actually love the cheap meat. The "let's not criticise" is as self-serving as it gets.
There is no moral reason not to intercede here, if suitable compensation and incentives are provided.
What "we" did in the past means environmental protection should be subsidised by the west, but our history doesn't let Brazil's government off the hook.
The economic improvement "under" Lula was mostly due to international factors (the boon in the price of commodities) which is why it collapsed under Dilma (Lula's protegé).
Instead of using the economic surplus that fell into his lap to invest in infrastructure and industrialization, Lula used it to fund the largest corruption scheme in our history.
Edit: trickle down economics has no basis in reality either.
Just compare him to Temer, Bolsonaro and the entire Bolsonaro clan, which bought off Moro, is weakening protections for the rainforest (benefiting his associates), and is systematically dismantling anti-corruption institutions.
https://g1.globo.com/politica/noticia/2020/10/13/transparenc...
Just because the investigations haven't begun doesn't mean they're not coming.
It's a weak argument given the responsible alternatives to explore that benefit more people. The government deserves criticism.
Lula and Dilma spearheaded the biggest infrastructure investment in Brazilian history, both in absolute and relative terms. There was corruption, but the claim that it was the largest corruption scheme is laughable, a talking point of dumbass bolsonaristas.
Since then he works on trying to come up with solution that doesn't lead to the two groups trying to lynch each other.
As a Brazilian, I would be completely ok with that. We can handle people telling us those things.
Well, that's your view, and you have the right to have it. But, it's likely that the majority doesn't agree.
Besides, if you ask me, outsiders that tell a country to not cut down their forests for economic/monetary purposes should pay for that privilege. That's not to talk of the arrogance of outsiders telling someone what to do.
Another reason I'm fine with criticism is because the people saying "let Brazil deforest, we also did it" are the ones being favoured by Brazil fucking up the country. Europeans/Americans/Chinese are enjoying cheap Brazilian primary sector imports to the detriment of the rest of the Brazilian population.
I also completely disagree that in 2022 Brazil will turn into a developed country by being a colony.
Would you? Because this would absolutely escalate from words to actions. I could foresee this leading to quotas that if they're not met carry economic sanctions with them. That doesn't improve Brazil, does it?
Sovereignty means that nobody outside of Brazil gets a say without offering something major in return.
I happen to believe that it does.
In the worst case, we get to keep the forest.
> Sovereignty means that nobody outside of Brazil gets a say without offering something major in return.
First world countries used to give us money for keeping the forest but the current government (prior to 2019, "the annual donations to the Amazon Fund have amounted to nearly $1.3 billion" [1]). We could get back to that.
However I also happen to believe that, at best, the deforestation part is not important for Brazil's economy at all.
Several others have mentioned [2][3] (and I agree with them) that the deforestation part is actually damaging to the economy and to the livelihood of law-following Brazilians, and is borne out of illegal activity.
The current government could just start following the (Brazilian) law and the issue would disappear. Ah, but police is expensive, you say. Well, they could have used the 1.3 billion from EU/US. Maybe a new government will be able to get that back, one can only hope.
[1] https://gizmodo.com/big-donors-are-pulling-out-of-brazils-am...
> we should offer economically viable solutions rather than pointing fingers
If people from other countries really want Brazilian economy to get off the ground, they should want Brazil to export processed and manufactured goods, or other sectors.
Treating Brazil like a big farm is doing neither Brazil nor the environment any favours.
The "We should't criticise Brazil, let them do what we also did before" is not only hypocritical, it's also counter-intuitive and very self-serving!
Our early industrialization contributed massively to global warming. It allowed us to become extremely wealthy, but also we incurred a "carbon debt" to the rest of the planet, since our atmosphere is a shared resource.
Now that others are trying to industrialize, we should repay that "carbon debt" to offset the cost of allowing them to industrialize cleanly, since we had the benefit early on of not having to worry about our impact on the environment. The gains that we made early on were at everyone's expense.
1) Boycott or put drastic tariffs on Brazilian meat and soy, aka the products that are made out of the areas which were former rainforest. The problem: China won't give a fuck about Western sanction and Bolsonaro and his goons will happily sell to them (aided by the fact that China still has issues with pig fever in their domestic meat production).
2) Pay off Bolsonaro and his goons. That stops the destruction, but provides a fascist dictatorship with even more money.
3) Hope for Lula to win in the elections in October. The problem: Bolsonaro may manipulate the election to stay in power, either in front (by having Lula arrested or preventing him from campaigning, public debates etc.) or afterwards (outright vote manipulation). Or he might legitimately win despite his current lag in the polls, which makes the situation even worse than it already is.
4) Have the CIA do what they have a lot of experience in: get rid of Bolsonaro and his goons, either by abducting him and hold him to trial in the US similar to drug barons or by permanently eliminating him. That would be the cleanest way and send a signal to other criminal destroyers of nature, but without a whole lot of effort the resulting power vacuum may destabilize the region even more than it already is.
My point is, sometimes intervention is needed to stop massacres. Certainly worked for my country back in the days.
(And after yesterdays shameful meeting with the embassies, I only say this half-joking...)
I don't like the idea either, but given the corruption and deadlock of the UN, I prefer the role being taken up by the US instead of Russia or China.