California Wildfires - Thanks 2020

[Iron]

We slashed and burned our forests before we realised how important they were. The aim should be to learn from past mistakes, not make them again under the rationale it's okay because someone else screwed up earlier. For the same reason, we might implore many countries to skip things like coal-fired power stations and go straight to renewables, or at least if they absolutely most use a fossil fuel, natural gas.

And to be fair, lots of European countries are now replanting woods. The UK has twice as much long-term woodland as it did at its lowest point 100 years ago, hopefully projected to carry on increasing.



Not from Brazil.

According to BBC and the like, you're still complicit even if you don't eat beef from Brazil.

UK fast food ‘linked to Brazilian forest fires’

Greenpeace asks fast-food chains to stop selling meat from animals fed on soya from Brazil.

www.bbc.com

The BBC reveals a shocking fact about the UK's complicity in Brazilian forest fires

One of the worst offenders in the EU

www.thecanary.co

Here are some very cool stats on forests

Forests and Deforestation

How are forests distributed across the world? How much do we lose to deforestation every year?

ourworldindata.org

example of reforestation

Ethiopia plants more than 350 million trees in 12 hours | CNN

Ethiopia planted more than 353 million trees in 12 hours on Monday, which officials believe is a world record.

edition.cnn.com

Cool image of Europe in 900 and 1900.

You can implore, sure. You wouldn't cover the costs, though. Wood is a building material and used for heating. It's a cheap alternative for places that are poor. Haiti for example cut down all of its forests for those two reasons because it was under an international blockade and as a result, very poor. I don't see Europeans coming to Haiti and planting trees there. I see them pledging money to Haiti, and then not delivering on it. I see Europeans planting trees in Europe, where they don't require it as building material and heating anymore.
Even regarding agriculture, Europe wouldn't take grazing land and plant trees all over it. Yes you can learn from your mistakes, or more specifically the mistakes of your ancestors, but you shouldn't gloat at others that are poorer than you. Their ancestors could also learn from their mistakes unless you help Brazil, instead of, um, laughing at it because people told you their president is a very bad man. Then again this was all a ploy by France.

Amazon fires: Brazil threatened over EU trade deal

Mr Macron says Brazil's leader lied to him as UK and German leaders voice concerns over the fires.

www.bbc.com

Because a free-trade agreement with MERCOSUR would demolish french agriculture.

This is a colonialist view of the world. You impose your values on others, and offer nothing of real value in return, except for empty words and snide remarks.

 

[Buyetyen]

Doesn't this happen every year? Hey, remember Amazon rainforest fires? Anyone? This will pass as well. It's terrible people died though, I think around 20.

You're a real sensitive soul, aren't you?

What is up with this forum and sarcastic wit, it's grating.

Welcome to the internet. You must be new here.

Europe slashed and burned its forests a long time ago, I don't understand why outsiders ought to attack Brazilians for doing the same. I wouldn't even mind it if people were consistent and those complaining about it weren't eating meat themselves. Do you eat beef?

"Europe did a lot of stupid, destructive bullshit in the past, so we have to let everybody else do the same."

According to BBC and the like, you're still complicit even if you don't eat beef from Brazil.

There is no ethical consumption under capitalism. Most of us figured this out years ago.

 

[Iron]

You're a real sensitive soul, aren't you?



Welcome to the internet. You must be new here.



"Europe did a lot of stupid, destructive bullshit in the past, so we have to let everybody else do the same."



There is no ethical consumption under capitalism. Most of us figured this out years ago.

I hate your passive-aggressiveness. It's a woman's weapon, like poison, to attack the mind. The atmosphere here isn't about discourse, it's about screaming into the void.
It took you 4 minutes to read all of my post and the sources I added. You're not here for a discussion, you're here to try to prove me wrong. I pass.

 

[Buyetyen]

I hate your passive-aggressiveness. It's a woman's weapon, like poison, to attack the mind. The atmosphere here isn't about discourse, it's about screaming into the void.
It took you 4 minutes to read all of my post and the sources I added. You're not here for a discussion, you're here to try to prove me wrong. I pass.

Say something that isn't foolish and naive and you'll get different responses. Sorry dude, you ain't special.

EDIT: Aside, I'm don't know if you know how jokes work but they're supposed to have a punchline at the end. What you offered was a non sequitur

 

[Iron]

Say something that isn't foolish and naive and you'll get different responses. Sorry dude, you ain't special.

EDIT: Aside, I'm don't know if you know how jokes work but they're supposed to have a punchline at the end. What you offered was a non sequitur

What joke?

I didn't say something foolish. You're refusing to listen and call me foolish because of it.

 

[Buyetyen]

What joke?

You're right, wrong thread. Point stands.

I didn't say something foolish. You're refusing to listen and call me foolish because of it.

Your words:

Doesn't this happen every year? Hey, remember Amazon rainforest fires? Anyone? This will pass as well.

Europe slashed and burned its forests a long time ago, I don't understand why outsiders ought to attack Brazilians for doing the same.

If you didn't want any pushback on them, you're in the wrong place.

 

[Iron]

You're right, wrong thread. Point stands.



Your words:




If you didn't want any pushback on them, you're in the wrong place.

Correct me if I misunderstand, I will try to reiterate what you said in the post.

I said in my first post "this will pass as well", meaning it doesn't matter, and in the next post I decided to remind the other person of the slash-and-burn tactics used in the past in Europe. If you thought so, this isn't the case. The first post was mostly a shrug. This happens every year, it's terrible people die from it, but there's really nothing substantial you can do to stop it. It's not like this isn't important - people DIED from this - but there isn't much you can do to end it. It's like the changing of the seasons. Also, it comes with the changing of the seasons.

 

[Buyetyen]

Correct me if I misunderstand, I will try to reiterate what you said in the post.

I said in my first post "this will pass as well", meaning it doesn't matter, and in the next post I decided to remind the other person of the slash-and-burn tactics used in the past in Europe. If you thought so, this isn't the case. The first post was mostly a shrug. This happens every year, it's terrible people die from it, but there's really nothing substantial you can do to stop it. It's not like this isn't important - people DIED from this - but there isn't much you can do to end it. It's like the changing of the seasons. Also, it comes with the changing of the seasons.

Shrugging at natural disasters and mentioning the body count as a perfunctory afterthought wins you no points, nor does saying the misdeeds of our ancestors prevent us from criticizing those same misdeeds in others in the present. You're just making an argument for complacency.

 

[Iron]

Shrugging at natural disasters and mentioning the body count as a perfunctory afterthought wins you no points, nor does saying the misdeeds of our ancestors prevent us from criticizing those same misdeeds in others in the present. You're just making an argument for complacency.

Points, is this a game? What do you even want from this I wouldn't begin to understand. It's only ever criticism I hear from colonialists, and that is my critique. Nothing productive, only words, without real value.

Anyway this is idiotic of me to continue this conversation with you so I'll quit here.

 

[Buyetyen]

Nothing productive, only words, without real value.

Funny enough, that's my assessment of you.

 

[Iron]

Funny enough, that's my assessment of you.

 

[Buyetyen]

Telling someone that you're going to leave the conversation only works if you actually do.

And telling people that there's nothing to be done about wildfires and the deaths are just a thing we have to deal with is really fucking easy when you're not the one in the path of the fires.

 

[crimson5pheonix]

Anyway, back on topic, kinda

'What Stage of Capitalism Is This?' Hedge Fund $3 Billion Richer Thanks to Wager on Wildfire Insurance Claims

With over 100,000 people displaced by wildfires raging across California, Baupost Group collected more than $3 billion in July after betting on insurance claims against embattled utility company PG&E.

www.commondreams.org

Hedge fund groups bet on insurance claims from wildfires and win big.

 

[Iron]

Anyway, back on topic, kinda

'What Stage of Capitalism Is This?' Hedge Fund $3 Billion Richer Thanks to Wager on Wildfire Insurance Claims

With over 100,000 people displaced by wildfires raging across California, Baupost Group collected more than $3 billion in July after betting on insurance claims against embattled utility company PG&E.

www.commondreams.org

Hedge fund groups bet on insurance claims from wildfires and win big.

Peak America

 

[Agema]

According to BBC and the like, you're still complicit even if you don't eat beef from Brazil.

Complicity assumes active, voluntary involvement in a immoral or illegal act. I feel remarkably little guilt about things that occur that I do not approve of and do not have power over, and I think such accusations of complicity are often very weak.

You can implore, sure. You wouldn't cover the costs, though.

It's their forest.

This is a colonialist view of the world. You impose your values on others, and offer nothing of real value in return, except for empty words and snide remarks.

No, actually, I'm being as uncolonialist as possible, which is by asking them to safeguard their own forests. If we start paying them to obey us or threatening them with sanctions to make them obey us, it could hardly get more colonialist.

Of course, what's really going on is that certain (often politically powerful) parts of the country are making money, whilst other people get nothing or lose out. One might note for instance that the rainforest is inhabited by lots of native Americans. Bolsonaro essentially announced they should be dragged out and forcibly "civilised", although I'm sure a lot of his interest is ensuring they're no longer around to resist farmers who want to turn their land into cattle farms. If you want to throw around accusations of colonialism, I'd suggest that should be your first concern.

I hate your passive-aggressiveness. It's a woman's weapon, like poison, to attack the mind.

That comment is dripping with misogyny.

 

[Iron]

Complicity assumes active, voluntary involvement in a immoral or illegal act. I feel remarkably little guilt about things that occur that I do not approve of and do not have power over, and I think such accusations of complicity are often very weak.



It's their forest.



No, actually, I'm being as uncolonialist as possible, which is by asking them to safeguard their own forests. If we start paying them to obey us or threatening them with sanctions to make them obey us, it could hardly get more colonialist.

Of course, what's really going on is that certain (often politically powerful) parts of the country are making money, whilst other people get nothing or lose out. One might note for instance that the rainforest is inhabited by lots of native Americans. Bolsonaro essentially announced they should be dragged out and forcibly "civilised", although I'm sure a lot of his interest is ensuring they're no longer around to resist farmers who want to turn their land into cattle farms. If you want to throw around accusations of colonialism, I'd suggest that should be your first concern.



That comment is dripping with misogyny.

What's REALLY going on.
Did you just pull an Uno Card "No U" at me, and accuse me of, *LE GASP*, misogyny? For fuck's sakes at least TRY to have a conversation with me instead of trying to disprove my stuff (which you didn't, you ass-pulled some semantics and did nice mental gymnastic tricks. Are you in the UK olympic team?), and attack my character.

 

[Agema]

Did you just pull an Uno Card "No U" at me, and accuse me of, *LE GASP*, misogyny? For fuck's sakes at least TRY to have a conversation with me...

If you want to talk about "having a conversation" then the first thing you need to address is your own content and attitude. You are by far the most hostile and abusive person in these threads. In this one, you instantly started carping on about people's tone, and then effectively just accused your opponents of being "colonialists" on the back of very little. No-one made an attack on you, you just started flinging shit for no particular reason.

All these users are quite capable of arguing with each other without it regularly descending into an ill-tempered shitstorm. If all the threads you start posting in rapidly turn to rancour and recrimination, the common and consistent factor is you.

 

[Iron]

If you want to talk about "having a conversation" then the first thing you need to address is your own content and attitude. You are by far the most hostile and abusive person in these threads. In this one, you instantly started carping on about people's tone, and then effectively just accused your opponents of being "colonialists" on the back of very little. No-one made an attack on you, you just started flinging shit for no particular reason.

All these users are quite capable of arguing with each other without it regularly descending into an ill-tempered shitstorm. If all the threads you start posting in rapidly turn to rancour and recrimination, the common and consistent factor is you.

The consistent factor is opposing views which you don't like. It's a colonialist view, to impose your values onto others and offer nothing but words in return. "They should save their forests like us, and we ought to shame them for what they're doing" etc. instead of, you know, giving solutions to the problem, just demanding they stay poor and subservient.
*I didn't attack you, I attacked your words. You take it personally, and attack people personally. Grow a thicker skin.

 

[Agema]

The consistent factor is opposing views which you don't like.

It's always about how people with different opinions choose to talk about it, not that their opinion differs.

It's a colonialist view, to impose your values onto others and offer nothing but words in return.

If anyone proposed invading or putting trade sanctions on Brazil, you might have a point.

"They should save their forests like us, and we ought to shame them for what they're doing" etc. instead of, you know, giving solutions to the problem, just demanding they stay poor and subservient.

Chopping down rainforest isn't going to make Brazil and its people rich: agriculture is only about 5-6% of Brazil's GDP. It's a middle income country that will achieve wealth through reduced corruption, and modernisation of what are already by far its largest industrial sectors (manufacturing, raw materials extraction, and services). Chopping down rainforest in huge quantities is about a small number of wealthy landowners making money for themselves, with virtually nothing for the wider population - but if the environment goes seriously wrong, I guarantee you it will be the poor people who take the brunt. It always is.

 

[Iron]

It's always about how people with different opinions choose to talk about it, not that their opinion differs.



If anyone proposed invading or putting trade sanctions on Brazil, you might have a point.



Chopping down rainforest isn't going to make Brazil and its people rich: agriculture is only about 5-6% of Brazil's GDP. It's a middle income country that will achieve wealth through reduced corruption, and modernisation of what are already by far its largest industrial sectors (manufacturing, raw materials extraction, and services). Chopping down rainforest in huge quantities is about a small number of wealthy landowners making money for themselves, with virtually nothing for the wider population - but if the environment goes seriously wrong, I guarantee you it will be the poor people who take the brunt. It always is.

_putting trade sanctions_ Yo if you read my post you'd have seen this actually happened. France pushing to wreck trade negotiations between EU and Mercosur, using the rainforest fires as an excuse. The whole drumming up of this was essencially a combined effort by France and green NGOs, which were all driven by money.
Nice absolute numbers. You're reading it wrong. Nearly all the countries in the world don't depend on a large agricultural sector, mostly because they have gone past subsistence-level agriculture and into commercial crops.

Countries by GDP Sector Composition 2023 - StatisticsTimes.com

Countries by GDP Sector Composition by World Bank. Data tables, charts and maps.

statisticstimes.com

Most are services, because that's a post-industrial economy for you.
And 5% is a lot regarding commercial agriculture, especially considering Brazil's GDP.

GDP share of agriculture by country, around the world | TheGlobalEconomy.com

The average for 2023 based on 166 countries was 9.91 percent. The highest value was in Niger: 47.81 percent and the lowest value was in Singapore: 0.03 percent. The indicator is available from 1960 to 2023. Below is a chart for all countries where data are available.

www.theglobaleconomy.com

The share of GDP is high, albeit less than China, Argentina and Uruguay. Argentina and Uruguay are famous for its agricultural produce, and they have a crapton of grazing land. China... has to feed itself.
Cash crops is where the money is at. I think Turkey has a higher dependence on agriculture than Brazil, and it produces like three quarters of the world's hazelnuts.
Brazil's biggest exports were Iron Sugar and Soy, making more Soy was a net profit for the country's trade, pulling in more money from Europe.