[HN Gopher] As Amazon deforestation hits 12 year high, France re...
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As Amazon deforestation hits 12 year high, France rejects Brazilian
soy
Author : aracena
Score : 81 points
Date : 2021-05-05 21:24 UTC (1 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (news.mongabay.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (news.mongabay.com)
| wombatmobile wrote:
| 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.
| the_french wrote:
| 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.
| notafraudster wrote:
| 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.
| rbtprograms wrote:
| 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.
| lokar wrote:
| 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.
| browningstreet wrote:
| Damnit, Bezos!
| zelphirkalt wrote:
| Sometimes I am positively surprised by some policies in France.
| They are further than many other nations in some areas. They have
| laws against wasting food in the supply chain of grocery store
| chains as well, afaik. Maybe these are only small steps and they
| need to think even bigger, but at least there are small steps.
| Cannot say that I know of my own country implementing these
| steps. Here such things take ages and is met with heavy
| resistance from lobbying big corporations. Surely they have them
| too, but at least sometimes the results let France look more
| progressive.
| yhoneycomb wrote:
| Maybe they could take a REAL stand and pull out their parasitic
| trade agreements with all the African countries that are still de
| facto colonized by them.
| jbverschoor wrote:
| Ahold Delhaize (de appie) is threatening to cease activities with
| their supermarkets in Brazil.
| hu3 wrote:
| Doesn't matter. China buys a magnitude more than France and is
| expected to increase the demand even more.
|
| https://www.world-grain.com/articles/14738-china-sees-record...
| Ericson2314 wrote:
| The French move is not sufficient, but that doesn't mean it's
| not necessary.
|
| We will never solve our environment issues until we get over
| the fear of taking steps first.
| jtsiskin wrote:
| Yeah, I don't understand why small positive changes always
| are met with "doesn't matter". It doesn't matter in the same
| way that not littering, turning off the lights, reducing
| consumption and waste, donating to charity, or voting
| "doesn't matter". Let's not promote this faulty way of
| thinking
| Ericson2314 wrote:
| In fairness, individual action that isn't collective
| doesn't scale from one person to 8 billion. But there are a
| lot fewer countries than people, and something like this is
| designed to put pressure on other countries as much as it
| is to make a dent on its own---it's supposed to spur
| collective action not be an isolated individual example.
| narrator wrote:
| Let's extend the headline to "As Amazon deforestation hits 12
| year high, France rejects Brazilian soy in consideration of
| climate change."
|
| 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...
| edhelas wrote:
| Knowing that Europe is also starting to stop some economical
| deals
| https://www.lemonde.fr/international/article/2021/05/05/l-un...
|
| 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 ;)
| burlesona wrote:
| As I understand it, Brazil has recently asked the wealthy nations
| of the world to each pay $1 Billion USD to preserve chunks of the
| Amazon. Given the wealthy world is asking a much poorer country
| not to fully exploit its natural resources for the sake of the
| world, I think they have a fair point. If we want them to protect
| the Amazon, the rest of the world should help pay for it.
|
| 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?
| lokar wrote:
| Given the eagerness with which current Brazilian leadership and
| industry ignores local laws and land rights, I'd say buying any
| forrest to preserve it is a bad deal.
| burlesona wrote:
| I've never really thought about this before so maybe it's
| totally infeasible, but implicit in this idea is that if the
| UN or US or... anyone, were to purchase the Amazon, they
| would then become responsible for enforcing its protection
| (as opposed to Brazil).
|
| 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.
| lokar wrote:
| No nation state is likely to give up or sell territory. You
| see very small cases where two countries that share a
| border swap a bit of (uninhabited) land to "clean up" the
| border, that's about it.
| loopz wrote:
| Money can't fix our problems, never could.
| cocoggu wrote:
| If France wants to make this meaningful, it also has to stop
| importing Brazilian beef. Soy is mainly used to feed cattle, so
| just banning soy imports sounds like a political move without
| real will to me.
| greatpatton wrote:
| France is already not importing Brazilian beef:
| http://www.journees3r.fr/IMG/pdf/Texte_1_Economie_V-Chatelli...
| yhoneycomb wrote:
| If they wanted to make it meaningful they would pull out of
| their parasitic trade agreements with all the African countries
| that are still de facto colonized by them.
| MayeulC wrote:
| Reduce your meat intake. It's bad all around, except maybe for
| taste (but you lose on variety).
|
| These soybeans are probably used to feed cattle.
| adflux wrote:
| >It's bad all around Even experts don't have a consensus on
| this... If your source is the game changers documentary on
| Netflix, it may seem like this.
| throwaway888abc wrote:
| Vote with your wallet
| amelius wrote:
| Yeah, but is it fair?
|
| Instead of _not_ buying from them, how about _paying_ them for
| protecting the forest? That sounds more reasonable to me.
| gremlinsinc wrote:
| I think boycotts are fair, and protests, and labor strikes.
| These are the only thing that have ever moved companies to
| change their behavior.
|
| 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).
| freeone3000 wrote:
| How much do you pay someone to not do something? How many
| people get to pay? This doesn't work!
| amelius wrote:
| You set up an accounting framework just like carbon tax.
| UncleOxidant wrote:
| Are there products from the amazonian rainforest that could
| be harvested in a sustainable way? We could buy those. I've
| seen some kind of "jungle peanut" for sale that purportedly
| only grows in dense forest - perhaps there are more items
| like this?
| teekert wrote:
| It also doesn't work if some countries can capitalize on
| their natural resources, and others can't. We also have
| something to gain from rainforest protection.
| Guest42 wrote:
| Would renting/purchasing the land itself be a possible
| approach? (perhaps a collateral held by a 3rd party could
| be involved?)
| bourgwaletariat wrote:
| It does work. Besides, you don't need to pay people not to
| do things. Just punish them if they do. If I were to cut
| down my trees, I'd have to pay fines. If it weren't easier
| to slash and burn, they'd find ways to grow profitable
| crops in, or otherwise utilize, the existing forest.
|
| 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.
| UncleOxidant wrote:
| Why not about both?
| _Microft wrote:
| I'd be all for it if this actually worked. I'm just not
| convinced that their government would be willing to cooperate
| (and able) to enfore such the rules against farmers trying to
| clear the woodland.
| gregschlom wrote:
| Very relevant and entertaining article from Matt Levine:
| https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2021-04-21/you-
| ca...
| petronio wrote:
| If a business behaves in a way you don't agree with it's
| perfectly reasonable to cease purchasing from them. Of course
| this move punishes soy growers who aren't responsible and
| turns them into collateral damage, but a move like this isn't
| meant to punish the soy growers as much as it is the
| Brazilian government (who are much better able to control the
| situation than a foreign power) for allowing the behavior to
| continue.
| SatvikBeri wrote:
| My impression is that the current administration in Brazil
| really does not care at all about deforestation, and hasn't
| been the best at respecting contracts, so refusing to buy is
| more likely to work.
| bhupy wrote:
| My understanding is that it's the current administration
| that's the one demanding payment from the world in return
| for forgoing the economic growth that might be realized by
| deforestation.
|
| Considering that the Amazon is pretty essential for the
| global environment, this strikes me as an aggressively
| reasonable approach.
| rlili wrote:
| My understanding is that deforestation cannot be
| justified by potential economic growth.
| bhupy wrote:
| And my understanding is that the entire world would be a
| better place if we could all hold hands and sing kumbaya.
|
| 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.
| mijamo wrote:
| Will you also pay Russia and Canada in proportion to the
| forest that they are not cutting? Because if you start paying
| for every tree not cut you will get bankrupt very soon and
| suddenly you will see a lot of tree that could have been cut
| everywhere.
| giantg2 wrote:
| That might feel good, but I doubt it will work. China would be
| happy to buy up the soy.
| yhoneycomb wrote:
| Because China plays by the rules, unlike France which bullies
| its African de facto colonies into propping up leaders who
| are favorable to the shitty, one-sided trade "agreements"
| that France proposes.
| Ekaros wrote:
| I do that. I buy the cheapest.
| oogetyboogety wrote:
| Had to re read the title, thought this was about all those
| environmental impact commercials they keep running at first
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