
A Dam-Building Boom Is Transforming the Brazilian Amazon - Red_Tarsius
http://e360.yale.edu/features/how-a-dam-building-boom-is-transforming-the-brazilian-amazon
======
thiagooffm
I think it's a fair move. A lot of people around the world and organizations
try to do anything on their hands to protect Brazil from using its own lands.
Meanwhile all countries have devastated their own forests to build ships and
make wars, people from Brazil are hungry and the country must grow to make the
lives of all the human beings there good.

But no, instead we've got first world countries which give us always very
shitty trade deals speaking about what we do with our own land, when they
complete wrecked theirs. And if you check their energy solutions, it's always
coal, or they all got cars, or anything. They've got their own problems, which
are potentially even worse for the environment but they keep looking at a poor
country, just as they did in the past, to perhaps steal gold, slave people,
make money... They want us to follow their crappy and shitty agenda when they
can't even get decent politicians, they get shitty ones as we do, they go on
middle-east and make fucking wars everytime, killing millions. But no, we
can't do whatever the fuck we want with our forests.

The sad part is that much of Brazil has succumbed to environmentalists from
abroad. If those who complain about it would go to Brazil and try to live a
middle-class life there with a job in shitty conditions going through a crisis
every decade, always feeling things aren't stable enough to make a living.
Perhaps living in a big city, taking 2-3 hours to go to work, then 2-3 hours
to go back, I've bet that they wouldn't care too much about Amazon or whatever
countries from abroad says... but they don't, they come from privileged
backgrounds, sometimes they say that they know poverty, sure, everybody can
look at a magazine, but did they ever feel it like they do in a country like
Brazil?

my 2 cents, thumbs down as much as you feel like.

ps: I completely get the point of environmentalists, but this will never work
out while people are still hungry. Perhaps you should ask for your country to
help Brazil to reach its enlightenment and then have enough cash and
businesses to be willing to protect its own forest. But no, you just make the
situation worse.

~~~
kikoreis
Not downvoting, but as a Brazilian living in Brazil I don't agree with the
false dichotomy you imply here, that you can't develop in an environmentally
sane way. What the current government is implementing is criminally
irresponsible and walks us back to 20th century exploitation. My dad worked
for Shell and Rio Tinto for years, and travelling with him around the country
you could see how practices changed as environmental regulations came into
play. It was definitely less lucrative for the companies, but they were not
major employers or generators of local business anyway. We can do better than
suggesting we should replicate environmental damage the first world committed.

~~~
marcosdumay
There is environment friendly development, and there is pushing a country into
forbidding every kind of energy generation available. What do you want to
replace hydroelectricity with?

~~~
iraphael
> there is pushing a country into forbidding every kind of energy generation
> available

which is _not_ what is happening in Brazil. There are enormous opportunities
for energy generation far away from the Amazon. In fact, a lot of foreigners
don't know but the vast majority of Brazilian population lives _nowhere near_
the Amazon. Creating an energy grid in the forest is a great way to waste
energy due to traveling long distances in transition cables.

~~~
marcosdumay
> There are enormous opportunities for energy generation far away from the
> Amazon.

Like where?

The Amazon is 50% of the area of Brazil, and the only place where most large
falls aren't harvested yet. Besides, most of the Brazilian rivers are there by
number, and an even bigger share of them by volume.

~~~
namarie
Wind energy in the south, solar in the northeast - both closer to major
population centers.

~~~
marcosdumay
You know, there are plenty of articles just like this one criticizing the
construction of wind farms in the NE (there, because the South is way too
small to have a sizeable project).

There aren't enough articles criticizing Brazilian solar farms. That's
probably because they are expensive. As they get cheap enough to turn a
profit, you can be sure the articles will appear.

------
badosu
It's sensible to understand (for us, brazilians) that much of our land is a
bastion of pristine environment and that we should preserve it. On the other
hand I think it's very hypocritical of many countries to point a finger at us
when they have enriched themselves through pillage, exploitation of their own
environment, slavery and shady practices from their government and
corporations, most of which had consequences on the troublesome political and
economical development of the (South American) region.

That being sa(i)d, does not justify bad behaviour from both parts and a mutual
understanding can only arise when both sides have a dialogue to work together
on these issues.

If you want people not to burn forests to grow cattle then you need to
understand why there's economical sense on that and mitigate the issue on it's
root instead of trying to enforce a law that's very difficult to apply. Same
thing for energy requirements of a country vs exploitation of it's environment
where it's so much easier to point a finger than to propose and help on a
solution. Case in point:
[http://www.npr.org/sections/money/2013/09/02/216878935/ecuad...](http://www.npr.org/sections/money/2013/09/02/216878935/ecuador-
to-world-pay-up-to-save-the-rainforest-world-to-ecuador-meh)

> _President Correa said scrapping the program was one of the hardest
> decisions of his presidency. "The real dilemma is this," he said in a
> televised address last week. "Do we protect 100 percent of the Yasuní and
> have no resources to meet the urgent needs of our people, or do we save 99
> percent of it and have $18 billion to fight poverty?"_

I also looked for a translation of a great speech form Cristovam Buarque for
when there was pressure to internationalize the Amazon, it's worth the read:
[http://www.diaplous.org/amazo.htm](http://www.diaplous.org/amazo.htm)

> _If the Amazon Region, from a humanist΄s point of view, has to be
> internationalized, then we should internationalize the oil reserves of the
> entire the world as well. Oil is just as important to the well being of
> humanity as the Amazon Region for our future. Nevertheless, the owners of
> oil reserves feel it is in their right to increase or decrease oil
> production and to raise or lower the price. The rich of the world, feel they
> have the right to burn this valuable possession of humanity. Similarly, the
> financial capital of the wealthy nations should be internationalized. If the
> Amazon Region is a natural reserve for every human being, then it could not
> be burned down by the decision of a landowner or a country. To burn down the
> Amazon Region is so tragic, as the unemployment provoked by the arbitrary
> decisions of world wide speculators. We cannot permit that the world΄s
> financial reserves serve to burn down entire nations according to the whims
> of speculacion._

------
aurizon
And when those dams all silt up, what next - whining?

~~~
mhkool
The silt is the key to fertile soil. Can you image what happens when soil
becomes infertile?

~~~
sriacha
Yeah, that's also true. But the dams will still silt up. This is a huge
problem worldwide.

~~~
aurizon
Yes, the foreigners put up the foreign aid to build it. The corrupt people
running it simply thieve the $$ they sell the power for and do not manage the
silt

