The Brazilian constitution protects the rights of indigenous people to maintain their way of life. They're not forced to do this, this is their life. Forcing them out of it is actually bad, and ultimately is the sort of thing that can lead to genocide, as it did with the indigenous people during the colonization of the Americas. The US for example has a history of slaughtering the Native Americans, stealing their land, violating treaties with them, and forcing their children into schools where they intended to "kill the Indian, save the man." Oh, and of course this was used as inspiration for the implementation of the Holocaust in the far right state, Nazi Germany.
Oh yeah. Greenland. Population 56,000. It would be stupidly cheap in comparison to the yearly budget to offer each citizen of Greenland a million dollars in exchange for political union with the United States. Of course Trump won't do that, but man that would be wild and it's not even all that implausible to do.
The world won't end when we do, it'll continue until the Sun becomes hot enough to eliminate all surface life in 3.5 billion years. And beyond that another two billion years, the sun will collapse into a white dwarf and then expand into a red giant, consuming Mercury, Venus, and possibly Earth. At this point any life at all is unlikely survive.
Actually a more proper deadline is about 600 million years into the future, when the carbonate-silicate cycle breaks down and there's not enough carbon dioxide in the air for plants to photosynthesize. Which kills all but a few types of plants. The die-off would have rendered the earth almost uninhabitable.
A much more certain fate is about 1,000 million years, when increasing solar output will have raised the temperature so much that the oceans boil, ending plate tectonics and all but some bacteria. At that point we're basically Venus.
The stellar lifecycle goes main sequence->red giant->white dwarf.
Did you look at the link? This isn't like the arctic where you can bundle up in furs or death valley where you have to keep yourself hydrated and avoid heat stroke. No, this is a temperature and humidity combination that kills people because humans cannot in such an environment cool off at all. Their sweat won't evaporate.
For that matter, how do we expect plants (crops for food) to grow and how are we going to work to harvest them?
It is not just humans we have to look after. It's everything.
Hell, I've noticed that ants don't come out in the daytime anymore. ANTS!
You're never going to convince people to give up cheap energy for some disaster that may or may not happen 50 - 100 years from now (or longer). It's impossible. Look what happens when people realize it's 'we' that have to sacrifice and not 'them'. France found out how popular a carbon tax turned out to be. Germany is in the process of finding out too. The Western countries are democracies and we're going to get more and more Trump's if our government's keep shoving this down our throats. It's time to rethink the advertising campaign because guilt is not a great motivator. If it was we'd all be Evangelicals or Catholics, crime would be non-existent, nobody would ever say anything offensive and we'd all be singing Kum-ba-yah together around (LED) campfires while eating tofu and bean sprouts...
That cheap energy is GOING TO GO AWAY. Even discounting the fact that it physically goes away (although we can reproduce it at horrible expense), other energy sources ARE going to become cheaper in the long run. The future is fourth gen fission reactors and ever more efficient solar and wind, possibly fusion. At which time, it becomes the expensive energy, doesn't it?
Guilt is a Catholic thing (at least in theory). I know no of no concept of confession and contrition in Evangelical Christianity. It's why I can't take it seriously. At the very least the basic framework of Catholicism requires good works and working for forgiveness for salvation. The other seems like one big get out jail free card. Slept with a stripper when you were away from your wife on a business trip?? It's ok, you've accepted Jesus into your heart. All is well.
Trust me, Evangelicals are just as guilt-based. The only difference for a Catholic is your priest knows about it (if you bother telling him). Evangelicals are supposed to confess their sins too (and cry about it on TV).
Indeed as a (technical) Episcopalian, Confession is right there in the book of common prayer every Sunday. It's basically reduced to a rote speech, no work necessary.
I don't know, and really don't care about other even more talibangelical groups.
Look what happens when people realize it's 'we' that have to sacrifice and not 'them'.
Like I said, it's class warfare, and despite my distaste for that term, there's no other way to describe it. Rich folk and woke celebrities keep their jets and their golf courses and all the rest while trying to convince the poors to eat maggots and walk miles to work, while every facet of their life is actively made worse by these people.
The solutions to these international problems always seem to fall on the backs of ordinary people and not on the most powerful and influential, or even the people who bear the most responsibility.
So yes, it's perfectly valid to ask why it is *you* that has to sacrifice, and nobody else.
The wealth of the owners of the fossil fuel companies far outstrips any celebrities you're referring to. As well their influence on policy, especially in the USA. If you want to start talking in a Marxist fashion, on this issue, that's great. But I think what you're exhibiting here is a false consciousness.
I don't understand anyone who is upset at the kinds of celebrities you seem to be referring to here, but not upset at the actual magnates of extraction industries, who very much do have politicians under their thumb, who literally have paid for misinformation in the media about this issue, and who literally hide their wealth abroad from taxation.
If you're going to get upset about private jets, golf courses, and lavish lives, well, your ire should be pointed at the heads of Exxon, Shell, BP, the Koch brothers, long before you should start talking about some Hollywood celebrity with a conscience. And if you're worried about wealthy people bending the system to their advantage "while every facet is made worse" for the rest of us, you might wanna take a closer look at who funds the Republican party.
I believe corporate execs fall into the "rich folk" category I was talking about. And of course you are right that Exxon, BP, the Republicans, etc. are all also complicit. All of these things can be true at once. Republicans are members of the social elite just like the Democrats. By no means am I blind to this.
The key difference, that you're not addressing, imo, is that fossil fuel companies are pushing for a status quo on the issue that will hurt "regular people" far more than any sacrifices hypocritical celebrities might be calling for. As well, fossil fuel executives have funded decades of misinformation on the issue.
Climate change is barely discussed in the media AT ALL, and never has been. The idea that the biggest problem here is that Leonardo DiCaprio might bring it up on occasion while also still flying in planes is not seeing the forest for the trees. Somewhere in our political timeline, someone giving a 60 second speech at the Oscars became the equivalent of actual policy makers and lobbyists. Christ, I remember when I was a kid we had a whole feature-length cartoon about this problem, and then James Cameron basically cribbed it wholesale to make Avatar. To say nothing of 3 seasons of Captain Planet. If anything, Hollywood has become LESS heavy-handed on the topic, not more. I remember when Earth Day was a big deal. Can anyone even accurately quote what MONTH it's in without looking it up in 2019?? I sure as hell can't.
There is a reason we've heard for decades about how important the rain forest is. The answer?? It's science. It's about absorbing carbon dioxide. We all learned this in middle-school. Bolsanaro is selling it to the highest bidder. It's a global danger. 500 million bees have died in Brazil in the last 3 months. News flash folks, we can't sustain our food sources without pollination.
Yeah, it's always weirdly striking to me when people complain about "wealthy elites" but are only talking about the most visible among that set. Hollywood actors don't even have all that much influence on policy in Washington -- that's why they're always out there making speeches!
CO2 emissions have basically been flat since 1990, in per capita terms they've dropped slightly because they haven't kept up with population growth. But they still far exceed what a bunch of other wealthy countries such as Western Europe. I'm sorry, but that's indicative of a continuing policy victory for a certain wealth elite -- not the ones based in Los Angeles.
And I'm always going to find myself being a tad skeptical when folks say they also oppose those elites. If you don't call them out without first being prompted. If you repeat fossil fuel industry misinformation about climate change? Can you really say you're opposing the ruling elite?
Yeah, it's always weirdly striking to me when people complain about "wealthy elites" but are only talking about the most visible among that set. Hollywood actors don't even have all that much influence on policy in Washington -- that's why they're always out there making speeches!
CO2 emissions have basically been flat since 1990, in per capita terms they've dropped slightly because they haven't kept up with population growth. But they still far exceed what a bunch of other wealthy countries such as Western Europe. I'm sorry, but that's indicative of a continuing policy victory for a certain wealth elite -- not the ones based in Los Angeles.
And I'm always going to find myself being a tad skeptical when folks say they also oppose those elites. If you don't call them out without first being prompted. If you repeat fossil fuel industry misinformation about climate change? Can you really say you're opposing the ruling elite?
Call them out how? What the Hell are we supposed to do? Shame them? Unless we all grab the pitchforks and the military stays out of it, there's zilch any of us here can do about the 'rich elite'. Unless they fuck up and prey on underaged girls...
Oh yeah. Greenland. Population 56,000. It would be stupidly cheap in comparison to the yearly budget to offer each citizen of Greenland a million dollars in exchange for political union with the United States. Of course Trump won't do that, but man that would be wild and it's not even all that implausible to do.
And they would be stupid to accept that million dollars. They would lose universal healthcare, free college, workers rights, have to much worse education system, lose guaranteed paid family leave, and they'd have their minimum wage cut in half (~$16.34 to $7.25). Not to mention they would have a much smaller voice in representation and probably be treated about as badly as Trump (and others to be fair) has treated Puerto Rico.
These effects would hurt them and future generations of Greenlanders. They would be stupid to accept this offer. And this is probably why the PM of Denmark laughed at the ridiculous suggestion Trump had of buying Greenland.
Now that I think about it, the decade of the '90s was INFINITELY more conscious of environmental issues than we are now. Recycling was cool, you planted trees in elementary school strictly BECAUSE of the reason I mentioned above about the rain forest. So what happened?? The only answer to that question is a 25-year corporate/right-wing propaganda campaign to turn scientists and environmentalists into something akin to the Manson Family.
Yeah, it's always weirdly striking to me when people complain about "wealthy elites" but are only talking about the most visible among that set. Hollywood actors don't even have all that much influence on policy in Washington -- that's why they're always out there making speeches!
CO2 emissions have basically been flat since 1990, in per capita terms they've dropped slightly because they haven't kept up with population growth. But they still far exceed what a bunch of other wealthy countries such as Western Europe. I'm sorry, but that's indicative of a continuing policy victory for a certain wealth elite -- not the ones based in Los Angeles.
And I'm always going to find myself being a tad skeptical when folks say they also oppose those elites. If you don't call them out without first being prompted. If you repeat fossil fuel industry misinformation about climate change? Can you really say you're opposing the ruling elite?
Call them out how? What the Hell are we supposed to do? Shame them? Unless we all grab the pitchforks and the military stays out of it, there's zilch any of us here can do about the 'rich elite'. Unless they fuck up and prey on underaged girls...
Disagree. There's plenty we can do. We can for one, stop repeating fossil fuel industry misinformation about climate change. We can stop reading partisan news outlets that back those lies. And we can stop voting into office politicians that repeat those lies. We can create legislatures that aren't stocked halfway with people who refuse to accept the science. Other democracies are not as much in thrall to these industries as the USA, there's plenty of ground to be won by the general public here.
Oh yeah. Greenland. Population 56,000. It would be stupidly cheap in comparison to the yearly budget to offer each citizen of Greenland a million dollars in exchange for political union with the United States. Of course Trump won't do that, but man that would be wild and it's not even all that implausible to do.
And they would be stupid to accept that million dollars. They would lose universal healthcare, free college, workers rights, have to much worse education system, lose guaranteed paid family leave, and they'd have their minimum wage cut in half (~$16.34 to $7.25). Not to mention they would have a much smaller voice in representation and probably be treated about as badly as Trump (and others to be fair) has treated Puerto Rico.
These effects would hurt them and future generations of Greenlanders. They would be stupid to accept this offer. And this is probably why the PM of Denmark laughed at the ridiculous suggestion Trump had of buying Greenland.
I think she felt the idea that Denmark could sell Greenland ridiculous, as it ignores the principle of self-determination agreed after WW2. If Trump had said he would like to discuss, with Greenland, whether they would be interested in joining the US she wouldn't have found the idea so ridiculous - though I imagine she would still have hated it.
What Trump could have done of course, if he were not such a terrible negotiator, would be to invite Greenland to discuss concerns of common interest. There are plenty of those, e.g. strategic worries about Russia and the need to update the existing defense agreement, resource exploitation in the Arctic, cleaning up waste dumps left by the US from the Cold War (and of course climate change). It would have been simple to establish both a continuing mechanism for dialogue and a means for the US to pump funding into Greenland (in principle that might well be welcomed by Denmark given they currently provide 2/3 of the budget for Greenland). A few years of doing that, without any talk of 'buying' the country, and the idea of Greenland petitioning the US to join would not seem so outlandish.
Bolsonaro's reaction is that the concern is the result of a "misplaced colonial mindset" - ignoring that what is done in one country has real effects on others. Instead of considering how to tackle an escalating problem (which he's responsible for), he's using standard tactics of misinformation and shifting blame - with NGOs as "the biggest suspects".
So there's a study that indicates long-term exposure to radiation levels found on Mars can cause some severe neurological issues that manifest similarly to PTSD.
The Brazilian constitution protects the rights of indigenous people to maintain their way of life. They're not forced to do this, this is their life. Forcing them out of it is actually bad, and ultimately is the sort of thing that can lead to genocide, as it did with the indigenous people during the colonization of the Americas.
Brazil had many constitutions, the actual is big and contradictory. The unique solution to this country is or an return to monarchy or Balkanization And the """evil powerpoint leaked plans""" that din't got translated that you posted only was talking about investments in technology to make easier to detect fire and modernization on the regulatory system.
Look, i saw with my own eyes how the midia distorts what he says. For eg, an congresswoman accused/insulted him of being an rapist and he that he will never do that and said that she doesn't deserve, some media puts it out of contest and ignore that the discussion is mainly because he was in favor of lowering the penal age...
Bolsonaro's reaction is that the concern is the result of a "misplaced colonial mindset" - ignoring that what is done in one country has real effects on others. Instead of considering how to tackle an escalating problem (which he's responsible for), he's using standard tactics of misinformation and shifting blame - with NGOs as "the biggest suspects".
Fake news. He was not against France discuss it with other countries. He was saying about G7 discussing it and IGNORING the countries who have the Amazonas. Lets suppose that France has an advanced IA who can predict detect forest fire, would not be interesting to discuss how to use this technology with Bolsonaro?
Seriously. Imagine i was only American countries discussing Chernobyl without even listening to an single Russian or Ukrainian?
ps : The use of false flag operations to justify military interventions are not very common??
Bolsonaro's reaction is that the concern is the result of a "misplaced colonial mindset" - ignoring that what is done in one country has real effects on others. Instead of considering how to tackle an escalating problem (which he's responsible for), he's using standard tactics of misinformation and shifting blame - with NGOs as "the biggest suspects".
In a way it's a play right out of Chavez/Maduro's book. Blame international NGO's and accuse the international community of some kind of neo-colonialism.
You're never going to convince people to give up cheap energy for some disaster that may or may not happen 50 - 100 years from now (or longer).
I quite agree - so remind me again why anyone would want to promote coal as a source of fuel . Just operating a coal-fuelled electricity generation plant is more expensive today than the lifetime cost of building and decommissioning wind energy. Throw in the very considerable costs of building and decommissioning the coal plant and the direct economic comparison is so unfavorable that it beggars belief anyone would suggest it (admittedly that ignores the benefits of baseload capacity, though the US has about 90% of its electricity currently as baseload - which is far more than is economically efficient). More relevantly the comparison also ignores who is making what political contributions ...
The economic comparison also ignores the costs of pollution - which are very considerable. I've mentioned before I think the BBC radio program "More or Less" which looks at the real world impacts of statistics. They did a recent program looking at the deaths that had resulted from Chernobyl. The direct numbers there were 31, but the estimated indirect effect (mainly through increased chance of cancers) was 15,000 up to 2065. That may seem a lot, but to put that in context they also provided some information on the indirect deaths associated with fossil fuels using the same sort of methodology to account for the effects of pollution. Using that approach, producing electricity using the type of coal found in the US would lead to 400 times (not 400%, but 400 times) as many deaths than nuclear.
Everyone knows that air pollution is a bad thing, but almost everyone lives with it anyway - and therefore discount the impacts as 'normal'. I'm not a great fan of nuclear energy, but it's undoubtedly the case that has an undeserved reputation as being unsafe because it has almost no 'normal' impact on us - the impact only occurs in relation to 'abnormal' events like at Chernobyl and Fukushima, which are perceived as far more damaging than they really are (exactly the same mechanism that leads to fears of terrorism or mass shootings being hugely magnified compared to far more statistically dangerous things like traffic accidents or smoking).
On your wider point I agree with you that it's unhelpful to present apocalyptic scenarios. I think though it is helpful to explain the implications using sliding scale type approaches. So for instance you could present information that residents of Florida currently have a 5% annual chance of experiencing a hurricane (I just made that figure up by the way) and compare that with, say, a 20% chance expected by 2050. Or you could reflect that 1% of people's homes in Louisiana would be lost to flooding if world temperatures rise by 1.5 C, but 5% if they rise by 3 C (more made up figures). You get the idea anyway - just build on what people currently see happening, rather than try and convince them something totally new will happen.
By the way, in checking the location for the program on deaths related to energy production, I noticed another program had just been broadcast on illegal immigration and crime. I've posted before on the fact that illegal immigrants are far less likely to be involved in crime than native-born Americans, but the analysis of figures underpinning that conclusion is a bit dry. Some people might be interested in an 8 minute radio program explaining that in a more accessible way.
Bolsonaro's reaction is that the concern is the result of a "misplaced colonial mindset" - ignoring that what is done in one country has real effects on others. Instead of considering how to tackle an escalating problem (which he's responsible for), he's using standard tactics of misinformation and shifting blame - with NGOs as "the biggest suspects".
Fake news. He was not against France discuss it with other countries. He was saying about G7 discussing it and IGNORING the countries who have the Amazonas. Lets suppose that France has an advanced IA who can predict detect forest fire, would not be interesting to discuss how to use this technology with Bolsonaro?
Seriously. Imagine i was only American countries discussing Chernobyl without even listening to an single Russian or Ukrainian?
ps : The use of false flag operations to justify military interventions are not very common??
Macron suggested the issue should be discussed at the G7 because it's something that affects all countries and therefore is worthy of discussion at the G7 - that forum is not intended as a place to discuss items just occurring in the G7 countries, but rather items of more general international importance. Incidentally, the head of the UN has made a similar call about the need for international discussions.
Bolsonaro's reaction is "The French president's suggestion that Amazonian issues be discussed at the G7 without the participation of the countries of the region evokes a misplaced colonialist mindset, which does not belong in the 21st century,"
It seems to me the only fake news being generated here is from Bolsonaro. He's using the same tactics as Trump, i.e. that any dubious behavior he's engaging in he will both deny is happening (irrespective of the available evidence), while simultaneously saying that someone else is to blame . It is actually him who is the one with an outdated mindset in believing that things that happen in a particular country can only be of interest or relevance to that country ...
"The French president's suggestion that Amazonian issues be discussed at the G7 without the participation of the countries of the region evokes a misplaced colonialist mindset, which does not belong in the 21st century,"
As i've said, the problem is not an international discussion about something that affects the world, from south pole to north pole, from Chile to Japan, is discussing it "without the participation of the countries..." Why you are blaming Bolsonaro? Dilma(socialist) was responsible for cutting 72% of the deforestation source translated
And the deforestation reduced on Bolsonaro government
"As of August 16, 2019, satellite observations indicated that total fire activity in the Amazon basin was slightly below average in comparison to the past 15 years. Though activity has been above average in Amazonas and to a lesser extent in Rondônia, it has been below average in Mato Grosso and Pará, according to the Global Fire Emissions Database."
In fact, EVERY indicative becomes better at Bolsonaro government.
Bolsonaro election according to the mainstream international extreme media
"an guy in a country where whites are an minority and is common for castizos/quadroons to identify as white and 52% of voters are woman won by an platform of sexism, the return of an sanguinary dictatorship and white supremacism. This evil president even married to an woman of mixed race, but we all know that is only to hide his racism, then he started to burn the Amazonian forest by encouraging criminal arson attacks that curiously mostly happens near the Venezuelan border and some powerpoints that he used in some speeches are leaked documents showing that he plans to turn the forest into an desert and then sterilize 80%+ of Brazilian population who have non white blood, and start machine gunning everyone who voted in Haddad, who have non white blood, we don't need to translate anything that he said, just trust on us. And after everything, he plans to make slavery legal again, develop an nuclear program and Nuke Venezuela and Cuba."
Sorry if this looks like an strawman, but the media is extremely dishonest and looks like some people take dis disinformation seriously... I an not accusing anyone of dishonesty. I had only knew English and only had access to the extreme media news, i would have the same impression.
Bolsonaro's reaction is that the concern is the result of a "misplaced colonial mindset" - ignoring that what is done in one country has real effects on others. Instead of considering how to tackle an escalating problem (which he's responsible for), he's using standard tactics of misinformation and shifting blame - with NGOs as "the biggest suspects".
Fake news. He was not against France discuss it with other countries. He was saying about G7 discussing it and IGNORING the countries who have the Amazonas. Lets suppose that France has an advanced IA who can predict detect forest fire, would not be interesting to discuss how to use this technology with Bolsonaro?
Seriously. Imagine i was only American countries discussing Chernobyl without even listening to an single Russian or Ukrainian?
ps : The use of false flag operations to justify military interventions are not very common??
Macron suggested the issue should be discussed at the G7 because it's something that affects all countries and therefore is worthy of discussion at the G7 - that forum is not intended as a place to discuss items just occurring in the G7 countries, but rather items of more general international importance. Incidentally, the head of the UN has made a similar call about the need for international discussions.
Bolsonaro's reaction is "The French president's suggestion that Amazonian issues be discussed at the G7 without the participation of the countries of the region evokes a misplaced colonialist mindset, which does not belong in the 21st century,"
It seems to me the only fake news being generated here is from Bolsonaro. He's using the same tactics as Trump, i.e. that any dubious behavior he's engaging in he will both deny is happening (irrespective of the available evidence), while simultaneously saying that someone else is to blame . It is actually him who is the one with an outdated mindset in believing that things that happen in a particular country can only be of interest or relevance to that country ...
"The French president's suggestion that Amazonian issues be discussed at the G7 without the participation of the countries of the region evokes a misplaced colonialist mindset, which does not belong in the 21st century,"
As i've said, the problem is not an international discussion about something that affects the world, from south pole to north pole, from Chile to Japan, is discussing it "without the participation of the countries..." Why you are blaming Bolsonaro? Dilma(socialist) was responsible for cutting 72% of the deforestation source translated
And the deforestation reduced on Bolsonaro government
"As of August 16, 2019, satellite observations indicated that total fire activity in the Amazon basin was slightly below average in comparison to the past 15 years. Though activity has been above average in Amazonas and to a lesser extent in Rondônia, it has been below average in Mato Grosso and Pará, according to the Global Fire Emissions Database."
In fact, EVERY indicative becomes better at Bolsonaro government.
Bolsonaro election according to the mainstream international extreme media
"an guy in a country where whites are an minority and is common for castizos/quadroons to identify as white and 52% of voters are woman won by an platform of sexism, the return of an sanguinary dictatorship and white supremacism. This evil president even married to an woman of mixed race, but we all know that is only to hide his racism, then he started to burn the Amazonian forest by encouraging criminal arson attacks that curiously mostly happens near the Venezuelan border and some powerpoints that he used in some speeches are leaked documents showing that he plans to turn the forest into an desert and then sterilize 80%+ of Brazilian population who have non white blood, and start machine gunning everyone who voted in Haddad who have non white blood, we don't need to translate anything that he said, just trust on us. And after everything, he plans to make slavery legal again, develop an nuclear program and Nuke Venezuela and Cuba."
Sorry if this looks like an strawman, but the media is extremely dishonest and looks like some people take dis disinformation seriously...
Well that portrait is certainly not something I recognize from the UK media. The information I've provided about Bolsonaro is essentially limited to reporting his own words and actions. I just take a very different slant on those than you. For instance you suggest above that Bolsonaro is justified in criticizing Macron for wanting to discuss the situation at the G7 on the grounds that Brazil would not be party to that discussion. That entirely ignores the fact that the G7 is the G7, not the United Nations. Issues (including environmental issues) are discussed at the G7 all the time without inviting countries that are not part of the G7 - that does not of course mean that the discussions at the G7 won't lead to wider talks (which of course would involve Brazil if Bolsonaro was willing to allow that).
As for deforestation, figures from Brazil's own monitoring system show that has been running at roughly double last year's level - though that's not quite the same as the position specifically in relation to the prevalence of fires, which was the point Macron was raising.
You quote the statement from NASA in support of your position, but please note the following:
- there's a distinction between the total area affected by fires and the number of individual fires (the latter is more directly linked to human activity than the former).
- the statement was about the whole Amazon basin (including Bolivia and Peru).
As I expect you know much better than me, the Amazon has had a series of droughts in the summer in recent years - with 2016 being particularly bad. Fortunately, 2019 has been an exception to that and there have not been drought conditions this year - which might give rise to an expectation of some reduction in fires.
I've taken a bit of time to pull out the figures on the numbers of fires used in the Global Fire Emissions database (which is compiled from NASA data). Those are as follows:
Looking at the figures I think it's not surprising that people are showing concern. The data on numbers of fires is consistent with the separate satellite data showing the progress of deforestation has considerably increased in recent months, but not consistent with the idea that the number of fires is driven mainly by weather conditions - as recently claimed by Brazil's Environment Minister. It seems clear to me that Bolsonaro's attack on Macron is simply an attempt to deflect attention from the evidence by reviving old divisions between and within countries. That attempt may have some success in Brazil where he clearly has a lot of popular support and people are less inclined to question what he's saying, but I don't see any reason to expect the international media to be so uncritical.
Great post @Grond0. I will just repeat something I said earlier in the thread on the rape comment that was mentioned here.
When I read about it in a newspaper it was correctly reported in the full context, e.g. that it was made to a congress woman claiming that he encourages sexual violence and who responded affirmatively when Bolsonaro asked her if she was calling him a rapist.
But I don't see why this context matters. There isn't any acceptable context for saying to someone that you wouldn't rape them because they don't deserve it. There just isn't. Even if you think he was understandably enrage then it is profoundly disturbing that this would be his first comeback. I could understand some sort of generic insult, but this? Even worse he repeated the statement in a newspaper statement after he had time to cool down...
Great post @Grond0. I will just repeat something I said earlier in the thread on the rape comment that was mentioned here.
When I read about it in a newspaper it was correctly reported in the full context, e.g. that it was made to a congress woman claiming that he encourages sexual violence and who responded affirmatively when Bolsonaro asked her if she was calling him a rapist.
But I don't see why this context matters. There isn't any acceptable context for saying to someone that you wouldn't rape them because they don't deserve it. There just isn't. Even if you think he was understandably enrage then it is profoundly disturbing that this would be his first comeback. I could understand some sort of generic insult, but this? Even worse he repeated the statement in a newspaper statement after he had time to cool down...
The entire crux of the comment is that "You're not attractive enough to rape", which implicitly implies that it's ok to rape someone who IS attractive. Which is total bullshit anyway, since rape is almost exclusively about power and not sex. So are comments like this. George Carlin had a bit about a burglar robbing a house and raping an 80-year old woman in the meantime. He was a professional comedian, and it's funny in the moment when you listen to it. It doesn't offend me. But the fact is that in real-life, elderly women that old DO get raped, and, again, it CLEARLY isn't about attraction in those situations.
When I read about it in a newspaper it was correctly reported in the full context, e.g. that it was made to a congress woman claiming that he encourages sexual violence and who responded affirmatively when Bolsonaro asked her if she was calling him a rapist.
No, she din't said that he encourages sexual violence, this type of attack, Bolsonaro always answered this type of things with arguments. She CLEARLY accused/insulted him of being an rapist and he said it in a rage moment.
You can see he asking the "camera man" to record she accusing him of being rapist and giving an answer by rage. Bolsonaro as an congressman always defended the right of self defense for woman, chemical castration to rapists and other things that unfortunately din't got approved.
An interesting comment
Anyway, some people UNironically said that Bolsonaro is a nazi only due the fact that one of his ancestors fought for Wehrmacht and that makes absolute no sense.
And Grond0, in this time of the year, the forest be comes much more "dry" and this dry season is becoming far worse than the usual. This is why the fire is an bigger problem now than in January. There are a lot of factors
"You're not attractive enough to rape"
He NEVER said that. He said that she doesn't deserve it as an insult in answer to another insult.
Deserve: to show qualities worthy of reward or punishment
Now, CLEARLY if he was returning an INSULT, he meant the former, because the later doesn't make any sense in that context. Thus the only thing that could have been being conveyed here is that she doesn't deserve the pleasure and honor of being raped by someone of his stature, which would imply there are people that DO deserve it, just not her, ostensibly because there is some quality lacking in her that would make her an unwanted rape target.
I just read an article about this incident in The Guardian that discusses a study in which 58% of Brazilians agreed partially of fully with the statement “If women knew how to behave, there would be less rape.” And people wonder why there is talk about patriarchy. The idea that women either need to put out more or dress so men can control themselves is one of the most disgustingly pervasive lines of thought in all society, because it implies that women are nothing but pieces of meat subject to the urges of any man they come across on the street at any given time.
When I read about it in a newspaper it was correctly reported in the full context, e.g. that it was made to a congress woman claiming that he encourages sexual violence and who responded affirmatively when Bolsonaro asked her if she was calling him a rapist.
No, she din't said that he encourages sexual violence, this type of attack, Bolsonaro always answered this type of things with arguments. She CLEARLY accused/insulted him of being an rapist and he said it in a rage moment.
You can see he asking the "camera man" to record she accusing him of being rapist and giving an answer by rage. Bolsonaro as an congressman always defended the right of self defense for woman, chemical castration to rapists and other things that unfortunately din't got approved.
An interesting comment
Anyway, some people UNironically said that Bolsonaro is a nazi only due the fact that one of his ancestors fought for Wehrmacht and that makes absolute no sense.
And Grond0, in this time of the year, the forest be comes much more "dry" and this dry season is becoming far worse than the usual. This is why the fire is an bigger problem now than in January. There are a lot of factors
"You're not attractive enough to rape"
He NEVER said that. He said that she doesn't deserve it as an insult in answer to another insult.
You are replying to what you think I said, not what I wrote. Let me try to repeat my version as concisely as possible:
She tells him he encourages rape
He angrily asks her whether she is calling him a rapist
She answers yes
He says she does not even deserve to be raped
Some time later, in an interview he repeats that she does not deserve to be raped and adds that she is too ugly
And I will also say again: even if your chains of events was the correct one, it does not help him in my eyes. What he said is unacceptable under any circumstances; I don't even care whether she said he is a baby eater before the incident.
And Grond0, in this time of the year, the forest be comes much more "dry" and this dry season is becoming far worse than the usual. This is why the fire is an bigger problem now than in January. There are a lot of factors
I certainly agree that fire is going to be a bigger problem during the dry season. The question though is whether the dry season is worse this year - which might then go some way to explain why there are so many more fires in 2019 than 2018.
The articles I've seen suggest that 2019 is not a particularly bad year for drought - see here for instance. However, I've been unable to find a free and comprehensive source of robust rainfall data to check that for myself. The rainfall data I have found does not suggest that 2019 is any worse than 2018, but if you can point me to a good source of data, I will check that conclusion more thoroughly.
Comments
The Brazilian constitution protects the rights of indigenous people to maintain their way of life. They're not forced to do this, this is their life. Forcing them out of it is actually bad, and ultimately is the sort of thing that can lead to genocide, as it did with the indigenous people during the colonization of the Americas. The US for example has a history of slaughtering the Native Americans, stealing their land, violating treaties with them, and forcing their children into schools where they intended to "kill the Indian, save the man." Oh, and of course this was used as inspiration for the implementation of the Holocaust in the far right state, Nazi Germany.
https://www.fastcompany.com/90258155/jair-bolsonaro-6-disturbing-things-to-know-about-brazils-new-president
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/the_americas/lgbt-rights-under-attack-in-brazil-under-new-far-right-president/2019/02/17/
https://www.americasquarterly.org/content/system-failure-behind-rise-jair-bolsonaro
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2018/10/jair-bolsonaro-brazil-presidential-candidate-181007020716337.html
https://fpif.org/bolsonaro-is-a-threat-to-brazils-democracy/
https://brazilian.report/opinion/2018/09/29/jair-bolsonaro-fascist/
https://www.independent.co.uk/voices/jair-bolsonaro-brazil-election-results-president-fascism-far-right-fernando-haddad-a8606391.html
https://truthout.org/articles/fascist-jair-bolsonaro-arrives-to-meet-with-trump/
https://theintercept.com/2019/02/16/brazil-bolsonaro-indigenous-land/
Actually a more proper deadline is about 600 million years into the future, when the carbonate-silicate cycle breaks down and there's not enough carbon dioxide in the air for plants to photosynthesize. Which kills all but a few types of plants. The die-off would have rendered the earth almost uninhabitable.
A much more certain fate is about 1,000 million years, when increasing solar output will have raised the temperature so much that the oceans boil, ending plate tectonics and all but some bacteria. At that point we're basically Venus.
The stellar lifecycle goes main sequence->red giant->white dwarf.
For that matter, how do we expect plants (crops for food) to grow and how are we going to work to harvest them?
It is not just humans we have to look after. It's everything.
Hell, I've noticed that ants don't come out in the daytime anymore. ANTS!
That cheap energy is GOING TO GO AWAY. Even discounting the fact that it physically goes away (although we can reproduce it at horrible expense), other energy sources ARE going to become cheaper in the long run. The future is fourth gen fission reactors and ever more efficient solar and wind, possibly fusion. At which time, it becomes the expensive energy, doesn't it?
Indeed as a (technical) Episcopalian, Confession is right there in the book of common prayer every Sunday. It's basically reduced to a rote speech, no work necessary.
I don't know, and really don't care about other even more talibangelical groups.
The key difference, that you're not addressing, imo, is that fossil fuel companies are pushing for a status quo on the issue that will hurt "regular people" far more than any sacrifices hypocritical celebrities might be calling for. As well, fossil fuel executives have funded decades of misinformation on the issue.
There is a reason we've heard for decades about how important the rain forest is. The answer?? It's science. It's about absorbing carbon dioxide. We all learned this in middle-school. Bolsanaro is selling it to the highest bidder. It's a global danger. 500 million bees have died in Brazil in the last 3 months. News flash folks, we can't sustain our food sources without pollination.
CO2 emissions have basically been flat since 1990, in per capita terms they've dropped slightly because they haven't kept up with population growth. But they still far exceed what a bunch of other wealthy countries such as Western Europe. I'm sorry, but that's indicative of a continuing policy victory for a certain wealth elite -- not the ones based in Los Angeles.
And I'm always going to find myself being a tad skeptical when folks say they also oppose those elites. If you don't call them out without first being prompted. If you repeat fossil fuel industry misinformation about climate change? Can you really say you're opposing the ruling elite?
Call them out how? What the Hell are we supposed to do? Shame them? Unless we all grab the pitchforks and the military stays out of it, there's zilch any of us here can do about the 'rich elite'. Unless they fuck up and prey on underaged girls...
And they would be stupid to accept that million dollars. They would lose universal healthcare, free college, workers rights, have to much worse education system, lose guaranteed paid family leave, and they'd have their minimum wage cut in half (~$16.34 to $7.25). Not to mention they would have a much smaller voice in representation and probably be treated about as badly as Trump (and others to be fair) has treated Puerto Rico.
These effects would hurt them and future generations of Greenlanders. They would be stupid to accept this offer. And this is probably why the PM of Denmark laughed at the ridiculous suggestion Trump had of buying Greenland.
Disagree. There's plenty we can do. We can for one, stop repeating fossil fuel industry misinformation about climate change. We can stop reading partisan news outlets that back those lies. And we can stop voting into office politicians that repeat those lies. We can create legislatures that aren't stocked halfway with people who refuse to accept the science. Other democracies are not as much in thrall to these industries as the USA, there's plenty of ground to be won by the general public here.
I think she felt the idea that Denmark could sell Greenland ridiculous, as it ignores the principle of self-determination agreed after WW2. If Trump had said he would like to discuss, with Greenland, whether they would be interested in joining the US she wouldn't have found the idea so ridiculous - though I imagine she would still have hated it.
What Trump could have done of course, if he were not such a terrible negotiator, would be to invite Greenland to discuss concerns of common interest. There are plenty of those, e.g. strategic worries about Russia and the need to update the existing defense agreement, resource exploitation in the Arctic, cleaning up waste dumps left by the US from the Cold War (and of course climate change). It would have been simple to establish both a continuing mechanism for dialogue and a means for the US to pump funding into Greenland (in principle that might well be welcomed by Denmark given they currently provide 2/3 of the budget for Greenland). A few years of doing that, without any talk of 'buying' the country, and the idea of Greenland petitioning the US to join would not seem so outlandish.
Bolsonaro's reaction is that the concern is the result of a "misplaced colonial mindset" - ignoring that what is done in one country has real effects on others. Instead of considering how to tackle an escalating problem (which he's responsible for), he's using standard tactics of misinformation and shifting blame - with NGOs as "the biggest suspects".
https://www.eneuro.org/content/6/4/ENEURO.0094-19.2019
Brazil had many constitutions, the actual is big and contradictory. The unique solution to this country is or an return to monarchy or Balkanization And the """evil powerpoint leaked plans""" that din't got translated that you posted only was talking about investments in technology to make easier to detect fire and modernization on the regulatory system.
Look, i saw with my own eyes how the midia distorts what he says. For eg, an congresswoman accused/insulted him of being an rapist and he that he will never do that and said that she doesn't deserve, some media puts it out of contest and ignore that the discussion is mainly because he was in favor of lowering the penal age...
Fake news. He was not against France discuss it with other countries. He was saying about G7 discussing it and IGNORING the countries who have the Amazonas. Lets suppose that France has an advanced IA who can predict detect forest fire, would not be interesting to discuss how to use this technology with Bolsonaro?
Seriously. Imagine i was only American countries discussing Chernobyl without even listening to an single Russian or Ukrainian?
ps : The use of false flag operations to justify military interventions are not very common??
In a way it's a play right out of Chavez/Maduro's book. Blame international NGO's and accuse the international community of some kind of neo-colonialism.
I quite agree - so remind me again why anyone would want to promote coal as a source of fuel
The economic comparison also ignores the costs of pollution - which are very considerable. I've mentioned before I think the BBC radio program "More or Less" which looks at the real world impacts of statistics. They did a recent program looking at the deaths that had resulted from Chernobyl. The direct numbers there were 31, but the estimated indirect effect (mainly through increased chance of cancers) was 15,000 up to 2065. That may seem a lot, but to put that in context they also provided some information on the indirect deaths associated with fossil fuels using the same sort of methodology to account for the effects of pollution. Using that approach, producing electricity using the type of coal found in the US would lead to 400 times (not 400%, but 400 times) as many deaths than nuclear.
Everyone knows that air pollution is a bad thing, but almost everyone lives with it anyway - and therefore discount the impacts as 'normal'. I'm not a great fan of nuclear energy, but it's undoubtedly the case that has an undeserved reputation as being unsafe because it has almost no 'normal' impact on us - the impact only occurs in relation to 'abnormal' events like at Chernobyl and Fukushima, which are perceived as far more damaging than they really are (exactly the same mechanism that leads to fears of terrorism or mass shootings being hugely magnified compared to far more statistically dangerous things like traffic accidents or smoking).
On your wider point I agree with you that it's unhelpful to present apocalyptic scenarios. I think though it is helpful to explain the implications using sliding scale type approaches. So for instance you could present information that residents of Florida currently have a 5% annual chance of experiencing a hurricane (I just made that figure up by the way) and compare that with, say, a 20% chance expected by 2050. Or you could reflect that 1% of people's homes in Louisiana would be lost to flooding if world temperatures rise by 1.5 C, but 5% if they rise by 3 C (more made up figures). You get the idea anyway - just build on what people currently see happening, rather than try and convince them something totally new will happen.
By the way, in checking the location for the program on deaths related to energy production, I noticed another program had just been broadcast on illegal immigration and crime. I've posted before on the fact that illegal immigrants are far less likely to be involved in crime than native-born Americans, but the analysis of figures underpinning that conclusion is a bit dry. Some people might be interested in an 8 minute radio program explaining that in a more accessible way.
Macron suggested the issue should be discussed at the G7 because it's something that affects all countries and therefore is worthy of discussion at the G7 - that forum is not intended as a place to discuss items just occurring in the G7 countries, but rather items of more general international importance. Incidentally, the head of the UN has made a similar call about the need for international discussions.
Bolsonaro's reaction is "The French president's suggestion that Amazonian issues be discussed at the G7 without the participation of the countries of the region evokes a misplaced colonialist mindset, which does not belong in the 21st century,"
It seems to me the only fake news being generated here is from Bolsonaro. He's using the same tactics as Trump, i.e. that any dubious behavior he's engaging in he will both deny is happening (irrespective of the available evidence), while simultaneously saying that someone else is to blame
As i've said, the problem is not an international discussion about something that affects the world, from south pole to north pole, from Chile to Japan, is discussing it "without the participation of the countries..." Why you are blaming Bolsonaro? Dilma(socialist) was responsible for cutting 72% of the deforestation source translated
And the deforestation reduced on Bolsonaro government
"As of August 16, 2019, satellite observations indicated that total fire activity in the Amazon basin was slightly below average in comparison to the past 15 years. Though activity has been above average in Amazonas and to a lesser extent in Rondônia, it has been below average in Mato Grosso and Pará, according to the Global Fire Emissions Database."
https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/images/145464/fires-in-brazil
In fact, EVERY indicative becomes better at Bolsonaro government.
Bolsonaro election according to the mainstream international extreme media
"an guy in a country where whites are an minority and is common for castizos/quadroons to identify as white and 52% of voters are woman won by an platform of sexism, the return of an sanguinary dictatorship and white supremacism. This evil president even married to an woman of mixed race, but we all know that is only to hide his racism, then he started to burn the Amazonian forest by encouraging criminal arson attacks that curiously mostly happens near the Venezuelan border and some powerpoints that he used in some speeches are leaked documents showing that he plans to turn the forest into an desert and then sterilize 80%+ of Brazilian population who have non white blood, and start machine gunning everyone who voted in Haddad, who have non white blood, we don't need to translate anything that he said, just trust on us. And after everything, he plans to make slavery legal again, develop an nuclear program and Nuke Venezuela and Cuba."
Sorry if this looks like an strawman, but the media is extremely dishonest and looks like some people take dis disinformation seriously... I an not accusing anyone of dishonesty. I had only knew English and only had access to the extreme media news, i would have the same impression.
Also, he could send someone to G7.
Well that portrait is certainly not something I recognize from the UK media. The information I've provided about Bolsonaro is essentially limited to reporting his own words and actions. I just take a very different slant on those than you. For instance you suggest above that Bolsonaro is justified in criticizing Macron for wanting to discuss the situation at the G7 on the grounds that Brazil would not be party to that discussion. That entirely ignores the fact that the G7 is the G7, not the United Nations. Issues (including environmental issues) are discussed at the G7 all the time without inviting countries that are not part of the G7 - that does not of course mean that the discussions at the G7 won't lead to wider talks (which of course would involve Brazil if Bolsonaro was willing to allow that).
As for deforestation, figures from Brazil's own monitoring system show that has been running at roughly double last year's level - though that's not quite the same as the position specifically in relation to the prevalence of fires, which was the point Macron was raising.
You quote the statement from NASA in support of your position, but please note the following:
- there's a distinction between the total area affected by fires and the number of individual fires (the latter is more directly linked to human activity than the former).
- the statement was about the whole Amazon basin (including Bolivia and Peru).
As I expect you know much better than me, the Amazon has had a series of droughts in the summer in recent years - with 2016 being particularly bad. Fortunately, 2019 has been an exception to that and there have not been drought conditions this year - which might give rise to an expectation of some reduction in fires.
I've taken a bit of time to pull out the figures on the numbers of fires used in the Global Fire Emissions database (which is compiled from NASA data). Those are as follows:
Looking at the figures I think it's not surprising that people are showing concern. The data on numbers of fires is consistent with the separate satellite data showing the progress of deforestation has considerably increased in recent months, but not consistent with the idea that the number of fires is driven mainly by weather conditions - as recently claimed by Brazil's Environment Minister. It seems clear to me that Bolsonaro's attack on Macron is simply an attempt to deflect attention from the evidence by reviving old divisions between and within countries. That attempt may have some success in Brazil where he clearly has a lot of popular support and people are less inclined to question what he's saying, but I don't see any reason to expect the international media to be so uncritical.
When I read about it in a newspaper it was correctly reported in the full context, e.g. that it was made to a congress woman claiming that he encourages sexual violence and who responded affirmatively when Bolsonaro asked her if she was calling him a rapist.
But I don't see why this context matters. There isn't any acceptable context for saying to someone that you wouldn't rape them because they don't deserve it. There just isn't. Even if you think he was understandably enrage then it is profoundly disturbing that this would be his first comeback. I could understand some sort of generic insult, but this? Even worse he repeated the statement in a newspaper statement after he had time to cool down...
The entire crux of the comment is that "You're not attractive enough to rape", which implicitly implies that it's ok to rape someone who IS attractive. Which is total bullshit anyway, since rape is almost exclusively about power and not sex. So are comments like this. George Carlin had a bit about a burglar robbing a house and raping an 80-year old woman in the meantime. He was a professional comedian, and it's funny in the moment when you listen to it. It doesn't offend me. But the fact is that in real-life, elderly women that old DO get raped, and, again, it CLEARLY isn't about attraction in those situations.
No, she din't said that he encourages sexual violence, this type of attack, Bolsonaro always answered this type of things with arguments. She CLEARLY accused/insulted him of being an rapist and he said it in a rage moment.
You can see he asking the "camera man" to record she accusing him of being rapist and giving an answer by rage. Bolsonaro as an congressman always defended the right of self defense for woman, chemical castration to rapists and other things that unfortunately din't got approved.
An interesting comment
Anyway, some people UNironically said that Bolsonaro is a nazi only due the fact that one of his ancestors fought for Wehrmacht and that makes absolute no sense.
And Grond0, in this time of the year, the forest be comes much more "dry" and this dry season is becoming far worse than the usual. This is why the fire is an bigger problem now than in January. There are a lot of factors
"You're not attractive enough to rape"
He NEVER said that. He said that she doesn't deserve it as an insult in answer to another insult.
Now, CLEARLY if he was returning an INSULT, he meant the former, because the later doesn't make any sense in that context. Thus the only thing that could have been being conveyed here is that she doesn't deserve the pleasure and honor of being raped by someone of his stature, which would imply there are people that DO deserve it, just not her, ostensibly because there is some quality lacking in her that would make her an unwanted rape target.
I just read an article about this incident in The Guardian that discusses a study in which 58% of Brazilians agreed partially of fully with the statement “If women knew how to behave, there would be less rape.” And people wonder why there is talk about patriarchy. The idea that women either need to put out more or dress so men can control themselves is one of the most disgustingly pervasive lines of thought in all society, because it implies that women are nothing but pieces of meat subject to the urges of any man they come across on the street at any given time.
You are replying to what you think I said, not what I wrote. Let me try to repeat my version as concisely as possible:
And I will also say again: even if your chains of events was the correct one, it does not help him in my eyes. What he said is unacceptable under any circumstances; I don't even care whether she said he is a baby eater before the incident.
Anyway, about the guardian "study", lets be real. If you let your house unlocked is easier to rob/invade, but doesn't means that is your guilty.
I certainly agree that fire is going to be a bigger problem during the dry season. The question though is whether the dry season is worse this year - which might then go some way to explain why there are so many more fires in 2019 than 2018.
The articles I've seen suggest that 2019 is not a particularly bad year for drought - see here for instance. However, I've been unable to find a free and comprehensive source of robust rainfall data to check that for myself. The rainfall data I have found does not suggest that 2019 is any worse than 2018, but if you can point me to a good source of data, I will check that conclusion more thoroughly.
Pretty bold of the media to do something quite so dishonest as quoting Jair Bolsonaro's own words and draw obvious conclusions about them.
Also far right extremists.