Or you could pay Brasil to stop destroying it. That’s something the current president, as insidious as he might be, is correct about. Why does Brasil have to suffer alone for the world’s lungs? If the world benefits the world should pay.
Aren't "countries that are vital to stopping climate change" and "countries who are causing it" the exact same people? They're vital to stopping it by discontinuing their harmful activities.
And a tariff works as well as a subsidy, but is easier to get the party imposing it to enact because it generates revenue rather than consuming it.
Essentially countries that are causing climate are the industrialised world (obv.). Countries that are vital to stopping climate change because they have huge green areas, ie Brasil, are actually being heavily impacted by climate change and now they are being climateblamed by the first world for chopping down their forests for productive activities. Well if the first world wants the forest to stay they ought to pay for it.
They also ought to drastically reduce their carbon emissions.
It’s funny how the same citizen of the same countries who are not doing their share of reducing emissions (US) are claiming in the same breath that Brasil should be punished for destroying a forest the West is desperate to protect. Well then protect it - tax your corporations for carbon emissions and buy up the amazon to protect it. Simple.
It seems like a pretty direct relationship. Your link is comparing who caused the damage to who suffers it, but that's not the same as comparing who caused to who can prevent it. The people who can prevent it are the people still causing it. Notice that Brazil is the same color (red) in both versions of that map. (It's also a misleading comparison because the "harm" side is measuring change in GDP growth per capita, but GDP growth per capita is smaller in developed countries to begin with. And then comparing that per capita number with absolute rather than per capita CO2 emissions.)
> Countries that are vital to stopping climate change because they have huge green areas, ie Brasil, are actually being heavily impacted by climate change and now they are being climateblamed by the first world for chopping down their forests for productive activities. Well if the first world wants the forest to stay they ought to pay for it.
Should we make the same argument all around? Generating electricity is for productive activities. If the third world wants the US stop burning coal then they should pay for it? No. The country doing the bad thing should suffer the cost of stopping it.
> Well then protect it - tax your corporations for carbon emissions and buy up the amazon to protect it. Simple.
It's easier to get tariffs put on a foreign country than pass a tax on your own people. It would be nice if some other countries (China? Europe?) could put some tariffs on the US tied to some CO2 targets as well.
Regarding your argument about electricity, isn’t that what the US does? It burns coal and oil and has afaik virtually no limits or carbon taxes because “it would hurt American industry”.
Yeah sure if there were tariffs all around. But the US hegemony was until recently sort of predicated on little tariffs and global trade. So your advocating a sort of ... I don’t even know how to describe it - reverse carbon mercantilism where everybody attacks each other’s carbon emissions through tariffs? That sounds like a good recepy for dramatically worsening international relations.
> Regarding your argument about electricity, isn’t that what the US does? It burns coal and oil and has afaik virtually no limits or carbon taxes because “it would hurt American industry”.
Because nobody is forcing them to do otherwise. So get somebody to.
> That sounds like a good recepy for dramatically worsening international relations.
Not really, because the point of the tariffs is to change behavior, not to actually collect the tariffs. You impose a high enough cost that reducing CO2 emissions is less expensive than paying the tariffs, so countries do that and then the tariffs don't get imposed because they're only imposed on countries that don't hit their targets.
There’s a strange sort of perversion to your idea that other countries should shoulder the responsibility to change your climate and carbon policy.
Essentially the citizenship gets off free for not voting in more responsible politicians, and hey, “it’s the other countries fault for not forcing us to do it”. Hilarious.
All I meant is that he is removing all responsibility of the population for their own government and effectively saying “other countries should force the US [to take action on climate change]”
It’s like any internal change is impossible i his mind - the only way anything can happen is if other countries tariff each other, and if other countries force the US’s hand... why isn’t he campaigning for change instead of sitting around and saying other, “more responsible” countries, need to force the US to take action?
That’s what I meant with “getting off free”. The population of the US, as far as I can tell, can choose some of their governments direction.
Looking back at this particular comment with less of a hothead, I can sort of see where you’re coming from.
I still don’t understand how you would get this to work unless it was some sort of universal agreement. If it wasn’t such, what would stop it from descending into a carbon war, similar to the trade wars we have now with Trump, with cleaner countries aggressively adding tariffs to poorer, “dirtier” countries? It would just be a form of de-development for poor countries who can’t upgrade.
> If it wasn’t such, what would stop it from descending into a carbon war, similar to the trade wars we have now with Trump, with cleaner countries aggressively adding tariffs to poorer, “dirtier” countries?
The main reason would be that the poorer countries as a rule aren't actually dirtier. Countries by CO2 per capita:
It's basically a list sorted by approximately how rich they are, with rich oil states and big first world countries like the US, Canada and Australia at the top and impoverished African countries at the bottom.
Moreover, actual poor countries like Haiti and Kenya are irrelevant in this game. They're emitting negligible amounts now and for new infrastructure renewables are already cheaper.
This is all about the western countries and BRIC. None of them are "poor" to the extent that they can't be expected to pay the cost to clean up their own house. It's one thing to worry about countries like Ethiopia, but Russia is not that.
Meanwhile the nature of the shift away from carbon makes it an economic stimulus for non-oil exporting countries like India and China because it allows them to stop paying to import oil and instead pay for renewables that can be from domestic producers.
It’s hilarious that you’re so centred in your own politics that you don’t see the hypocrisy in that statement btw.
“Tariffs are easier to enable”. Sure, FOR YOU. By you are fucking over Brasil twice - once by enacting climate by your irresponsible, untaxed and unregulated carbon emissions. Then by BLAMING Brasil for doing something productive with THEIR forest land.
Why don’t you just tax your own carbon emissions and make a difference instead? Oh it’s politically difficult. Same as any action against carbon emissions.
So let’s fuck over the third world twice by A) causing climate change which will affect them more than us and B) making THEM PAY for OUR IRRESPONSIBILITY.
Why ? Because it’s more politically feasible to fuck them than to limit our own industrial capacity. America First
Distributing blame and accusing people of hypocrisy doesn't change anybody's behavior. Countries screw over other countries for their own benefit all the time and they're not going to stop as a result of moralizing rhetoric.
And it doesn't even necessarily change anything. Read this:
The difference between tariffs and subsidies is who gets the money. But even that doesn't really change very much unless the different people have significantly different preferences. If the American fat cats are just going to invest the money into the same ventures as the Brazilian fat cats then there is no real difference at all.
American fat cats should buy up the amazon for the purpose of protecting it. I’m obviously not defending the idea that they exploit it same as the Brazilians.
Suppose we give them money for the rain forest so they leave it alone, and they take the money and invest it in the S&P 500, and then take the returns from that and reinvest it in the same thing.
Suppose instead we threaten them with trade sanctions if they don't leave the rain forest alone, keep our money and invest it in the S&P 500 ourselves.
It's the same result in practice. The real cost to Brazil is that they don't get to have an agriculture industry where there used to be rain forest. Which fat cat subsequently gets to be the nominal owner of some shares of SPX has no real effect on ordinary humans. The fat cats care but nothing real changes for anybody else.
You couldn’t really expect me to understand all that from what you said. Thanks for explaining in the end but I wonder if your specialised knowledge and thought into this made it harder for you to explain the concept in plain language. Maybe it’s obvious to you, but it wasn’t for me.
I won’t disagree with you there. Even this recent election of the neofascist Bolsonaro was essentially a self destructive act, very much grounded in identify politics (particularly anti-homosexual).
If you’re Brazilian then you’ve made your own bed. I won’t criticise, because why would I.
E sim meus pais e minha família são brasileiros. Portanto, boa sorte meu compadre. Se o Bolsonaro resolver algum problema no Brasil, que Deus abençoe o Fdp. Agora não acredito que o fará, particularmente na corrupção.
E não estou dizendo que Haddad devia ter ganho. O Brasil é o que é e pouco me serve explicar o nosso país para gringo. Mas eu tento. Eu tento.
Bolsonaro has already done good things for Brazil. Violent crime is down more than 20% in 6 months. Particularly, murders are down 25%. Foreign criminals who were protected by the previous administrations are now being extradited.
The economy is back on the growth track. A trade agreement with the EU was announced. The US have recognized Brazil as a major non-NATO ally. We’re about to join the OECD. Our interest rate is the lowest in history. The stock market is at historical highs. The government will sell many of its 400+ state-owned companies, reducing opportunity for corruption and saving billions of taxpayer money. Bureaucracy is being reduced by the Economic Freedom act. Unemployment is down. Minimum wage was raised on his first day in government. A decree that forbids confidential status in credit given by state banks, allowing them to be overseen by regulators, was signed in his first days.
Bolsonaro was the first President in our history elected without money from big corporations or a slush fund. He’s also the first president to avoid nominating his cabinet in exchange for support in Congress. Even without buying Congress support, vital reforms are being passed. Government propaganda costs have been slashed by billions.
Cuban doctors who were brought here under slave-like conditions have been replaced by Brazilian doctors. Eleven billion BRL that were supporting the Cuban dictatorship are now spent here.
I could go on, but you get the point. A lot is being done, and it’s still his first year. You may call him an SOB but there’s no way to deny things are getting better by the day.
> 15 seconds of Google and you can see how your first statement has little support
It’s great that you researched 15 seconds about Brazil. I live here, so what do I know... Your link is basically saying things are getting better, but who knows, they can get worse in the future, because god forbid the press admitting this president has done anything good.
> Privatizations to covert deficit?
First, what I said was that the economy was on the way to start growing again.
And yes, absolutely. Did you know Brazil has more than 400 state-owned companies? We absolutely must cut the deficit caused by the reckless spending that broke the country in the past.
> I could go on
Apparently you can’t, because you just dismissed all the other points with some scare quotes and no substance.
By the way, I think this administration is far from perfect. But it's strong in at least three areas, the Economy, Infrastructure and Justice cabinets, which are three areas where Brazil is severely lacking, and which have been abandoned by previous administrations, to say the least.
I wrote them in Portuguese because I don’t feel like explaining my opinions too much in English. I don’t find it productive and it might just bring other people into the discussion, which I didn’t want. I hope that was clear.
I hope you’re right and things get better. There would be no greater joy in my life than seeing Brasil succeed.
And how do you know I don't? Are you going to tell me you didn't notice my username?
> Your link is basically saying things are getting better, but who knows, they can get worse in the future, [...]
It uses apropriate language regarding future events. Do you have a crystal ball?
A complex system is hard to predict, but you can have an idea of how turning some knobs is going to affect things in the long run.
Also: using caution when talking about the future is what resonable people do; the ones full of certainty about the future are usually polititians of some particular kind.
> Did you know Brazil has more than 400 state-owned companies?
And do you know Canada has 250+?
The USA also has tons of state-owned companies, it just happen that they are owned by states not by the federal government. Most of them are called "public-benefit corporations", which are very similar in the way they operate (often treated as a synonym), see:
Now getting a proper number is not an easy task though, as each state keeps them independently. I have some numbers for New York if you want to have a look:
If every state has at least half of these (~25), you get around a thousand (1000). Yes, three zeroes. And I'm not counting local authorities.
Considering half again (~250), that would push the number to twelve thousand (12000)!
Say what you want about the specifics, but that looks like a very big number for me.
> Like 15s of google?
If 15s of Google is already more factually correct than your sources, maybe you can start there.
Last, but not least, not really into responding all your comment. I've spent some time talking to people defending Bolsonaro. They end up the same way as the guys defending Lula: ridiculed.
Take this as a word of advice: polititians do not deserve your loyalty, specially the ones full of certainty and bringing the "I'll fix everything" motto. I've seen the same thing at least since voting in Brazil became a thing again (hint: Collor). You are not the first and not the last, but you can be one less gullible person to buy into the propaganda. Think about it.
A "corrupt" party that could, but didn't, interfere with the largest corruption probe in Brazilian history was removed in a coup, replaced by a vice president from the party most involved in corruption scandals, allowing a farcical, inquisitorial investigation to jail a former president on thin "evidence" so that a neonazi (with a long history of low-level corruption and close ties with organized crime) could win an election...
It also has to be mentioned that the defendant has been convicted by three independent instances of the Brazilian justice system (local, regional and superior courts), each time unanimously.
> Those were not separate trials, but rubber stamping the first one.
This is what you’d probably like to be true, due to political alignment or something; however, there isn’t any evidence whatsoever that that was the case. Do you really think multiple judges in the country’s higher courts would all, unanimously, simply rubber stamp the decision of a local judge?
> Don't you think the judge privately advising the accusation without communicating the defense undermines the right to a fair trial?
No, because the messages do not reveal anything remotely illegal. The Brazilian justice model admits communication between the judge and the accusation and defense, and none of the leaks have shown anything that can be described as harmful to the defense.
And that is all assuming the messages have been faithfully reproduced; there’s strong indication they’ve been modified, for example when The Intercept published edited timelines and cited people who were not even part of the taskforce at the time.
