
Amazon deforestation accelerating to unrecoverable 'tipping point' - sandino
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/jul/25/amazonian-rainforest-near-unrecoverable-tipping-point
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tracker1
How much money is made from the farmland from deforested regions... how much
from the lumber and how much from the reuse of the land? How many countries
are trading with Brazil for consuming those goods?

It's a big problem, but without some input from trade partners globally and/or
other support, I'm not sure what the solution really is. Also, not just in
Brazil, but other areas with grasslands that have seen desertification,
countering that is very important. It may be necessary to support global
efforts to increase diverse planting to portions of agricultural lands to at
least try to preserve them. Grazing and crop rotations as well.

Efforts for more diverse use of agriculture as well. More barley and
buckwheat, less soy and corn. Less monoculture in the crops, seed varieties of
crops we already grow to increase diversity in agriculture. Of course, moving
away from Monsonto controlled models, which should mean reverting policy on
patents regarding genetic markers and traits.

Right now, too much of the food supply is from mega farms with no diversity
and lots of chemical pesticides and resistant strains of crops that are
killing off bee populations. I'm not so much against GMO crops as a practice,
but definitely need some genetic diversity in the practice. We have the
ability to feed the world, we need to start concentrating on doing it better.

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heduduhdjjd
The only real solution will be for wealthy nations paying Brazil to not
exploit their natural resources, which seems like a very very high ask for all
parties involved.

Otherwise we'll see the continued destruction for at least another 30-40 years
until there's a global demographic peak.

We're also going to see the destruction of the Canadian Boreal forest as
temperatures rise makes such land viable for industrial farming.

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bgorman
You can donate to charities that directly purchase rainforest.
Rainforesttrust.org is one. They can purchase an acre of land for around 10
dollars.

Right now the main issue is that last year they only received 15 million in
donations. Not nearly enough to stop the problem.

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mikepurvis
Having looked into it only briefly, how are these "owned" acres policed?

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makerofspoons
Loss of the Amazon would be a major tipping point in ecological collapse:
[https://www.nationalgeographic.com/environment/2018/11/how-c...](https://www.nationalgeographic.com/environment/2018/11/how-
cutting-the-amazon-forest-could-affect-weather/)

In one model if the Amazon were deforested the snowpack in the Sierra Nevada
mountains declines by half. There are global impacts for all of this.

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woogiewonka
No sources, but something tells me we are already past the tipping point.

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digitalsushi
A morbid thought I've been struggling with a lot lately.

As we continue to pass point of no return scenarios, will there be an
increasing collective of people that flip to believing there is no hope, and
adopting a congruent lifestyle?

Could an increasing collective of people sharing this narrative, that we've
entered the palliative era of humanity, be the last factor for our ultimate
failure as we navigate this tricky problem of scaling our species for a
planet?

Does the process of giving up, on the individual level, accelerate a 'bank
run' scenario on the planet?

I devote a small minority of my constant focus to remaining calm and trying to
not give in, and I am increasingly fatigued and tempted to join the much
easier position that it's already too late. But I don't want to see who I turn
into once I adopt that position.

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gtirloni
Until we find an _economic_ solution, this trend will just continue.
Unfortunately, people only want to profit at all costs and governments usually
want to be enablers of that, so the economy grows and they can have more votes
in the next election.

I think the real question is: can equivalent money to logging/beef be made
from tropical forests? If we can come up with an answer to that, maybe we can
revert this trend.

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gdubs
If carbon was priced to reflect its negative externalities the Amazon [Rain
Forest] wouldn’t have to generate money because clearing it for agriculture
would be prohibitively expensive.

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rlpb
Perhaps the rest of the world should be sending money to the rainforest areas
to represent the value to the world climate that they provide.

~~~
gdubs
Absolutely; pay a dividend to people that comes out of the revenue of the
carbon tax.

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tempsolution
There needs to be a new international law that classifies nations who
deliberately destroy nature as "at war". The idea is simple: Wrecking your
local environment is not a local action. It affects the entire planet and
should be seen tantamount to war. This will likely pretty much put a lot of
nations into the war section... Then negotiations can continue from there.

While military action is not feasible and in this case counterproductive,
aggressive sanctions might help. Sanctioning these nations back into stone age
if they don't change their course...

Right now, there is no accepted means to stop this from happening.

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makeitrein
This made me feel sad - what's a good charity to donate $500 to?

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overcast
As mentioned above,
[https://www.rainforesttrust.org/](https://www.rainforesttrust.org/) seems to
be a good one.

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makeitrein
Cool, just donated some benjamins -
[https://imgur.com/a/ZOuZMXA](https://imgur.com/a/ZOuZMXA)

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woogiewonka
Thank you! I wish some conscious billionaires got together and bought up as
much land as possible and titled it the local indigenous populations. Why is
this not a thing yet?

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chiefalchemist
No doubt Jair Bolsonaro hasn't helped. However, this has been going on for a
long, long, __long__ time. Tipping point or not, such spin on who's
accountable is irresponsible.

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z3t4
I remember in the 90's there was a drive to buy Amazon forest to prevent
deforestatio. A lot of people bought (i didnt). I wonder if it still stands or
if it was a scam.

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Kaibeezy
I’m interested in this but not knowledgeable.

What is a “tipping point” in this context? The article doesn’t say.

How does the overall size of a forest affect its ability to re-expand?
Wouldn’t this happen at the edges once those are no longer maintained,
regardless of the overall size?

Does “unrecoverable” mean “via natural processes”? Wouldn’t it be possible for
human intervention to reforest?

Thx.

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dharma1
[https://youtu.be/TigV80hwebg](https://youtu.be/TigV80hwebg)

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PinkMilkshake
It feels like we've reached the end of the old land ownership model. If you
were destroying something on your land that supplied my breathable air, I
would have no choice but to stop you, even though I recognize your right to
the land.

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ralusek
That's called a third party negative externality. Even libertarians are fine
with state intervention.

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PinkMilkshake
But what if a state is causing the negative externality and the third party is
_all other states_? (Thanks btw, I hadn't come across that term.)

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ralusek
Then the other states beat up the bad one.

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forgotmypw3
If you buy palm oil, you're complicit.

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aitchnyu
I thought you were digressing to Indonesian forests, but TIL Brazil wants the
palm oil money too: [https://www.theguardian.com/sustainable-
business/2017/jun/29...](https://www.theguardian.com/sustainable-
business/2017/jun/29/brazil-palm-oil-amazon-rainforest-deforestation-temer-
farming-para-cerrado)

~~~
forgotmypw3
I didn't even have to check. Anywhere warm and moist, land is being cleared
for palm oil.

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holoduke
Completely off topic, but it took me more than 2 minutes and more than just
one comment before I understood the word Amazon correctly. I though about some
Jeff bezos announcement about deforestation.

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beefcake
Hopefully this creates a lot of wealth and amazing businesses in Brazil. Why
should they not be able to use their land to make profit?

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abootstrapper
Keep up.

