[BeaverFever]

N_Fiddledog wrote:

Hang on, I'm having a little trouble following your blame game.

The article says as follows:

"In the last half-century, about one-fifth of this forest, or some 300,000 square miles, has been cut and burned in Brazil, whose borders contain almost two-thirds of the Amazon basin."

"The last half century"

But Bolsonaro took power on January 1 2019. Who was the bad guy for the other 49 1/2 years?

Well, there's this from the Washington Examiner 2018:

Quote:

The people of Brazil are rejecting a corrupt socialism that has ruined the nation’s economy. Jair Bolsonaro of the Social Liberty Party (PSL) in Brazil is a lock for president this weekend while running against a committed socialist. This is great news and shows a shift in the thinking of the people of South America.

South America has had an ugly history of socialism leading to corruption, crime and poverty. Venezuela is a great example of the failure of socialism.

Brazil’s past experiment with socialism and the Workers’ Party was a failure. Former President Luiz Inacio ‘Lula’ da Silva is jailed on corruption charges. His successor, Dilma Rousseff helped continue the economic decline of Brazil and ended up getting impeached for corruption. The Bolsonaro’s campaign against socialism and corruption is striking a note, because the Workers’ Party is corrupt. Brazilian’s are sick and tired of the empty promises of socialism and total government control over the means of production and natural resources.

https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/20 ... in-brazil/

So let's put our detective caps on and try to figure this out, shall we. The article tells us the desecration of the Amazonian rain forest has been happening for a half a century. Bolsonaro only took power a little over a half a year ago. Before that there were socialists in charge.

So who could the perps of this horrible environmental crime possibly be? Hmmm...what a mystery.

I think your detective cap has a hole in it.

Quote:

Amazon fires: Fines for environmental crimes drop under Bolsonaro

The record number of fires in Brazil's Amazon rainforest has coincided with a sharp drop in fines for environmental violations, BBC analysis has found.

Official data from Brazil's environment agency shows fines from January to 23 August dropped almost a third compared with the same period last year.

At the same time, the number of fires burning in Brazil has increased by 84%.

It is not known how many of these fires have been set deliberately, but critics have accused President Jair Bolsonaro's administration of "green lighting" the destruction of the rainforest through a culture of impunity.

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-49460022

Quote:

Amazon Deforestation Shot Up by 278% Last Month, Satellite Data Show

By Brandon Specktor 18 days ago Planet Earth

Deforestation of the Amazon rainforest increased by 278% in July 2019 compared with July 2018, resulting in the destruction of 870 square miles (2,253 square kilometers) of vegetation, new satellite data from the Brazilian National Institute for Space Research (INPE) show.

That’s an area about twice the size of the city of Los Angeles. And, while the forest still spans some 2.1 million square miles (5.5 million square km — just a little bit bigger than Mexico), the spike in tree loss is part of a dangerous trend. According to the Associated Press, this is the single biggest surge in rainforest destruction since INPE began monitoring deforestation with its current methodology in 2014.

https://www.livescience.com/66120-amazo ... onaro.html

Quote:

Bolsonaro has blessed ‘brutal' assault on Amazon, sacked scientist warns

In interview with the Guardian, Ricardo Galvão says if the far-right leader doesn’t change tack the Amazon will be ruined

Tom Phillips
First published on Fri 9 Aug 2019 06.00 BST
Illegal loggers are ramping up a “brutal, fast” assault on the Brazilian Amazon with the blessing of the far-right president Jair Bolsonaro, the sacked head of the government agency tasked with monitoring deforestation has warned.

Speaking to the Guardian five days after his dismissal, Ricardo Galvão said he was “praying to the heavens” the far-right leader would change tack before the Amazon – and Brazil’s international reputation as an environmental leader – were ruined.

“What is happening is that this government has sent a clear message that there will not be any more punishment [for environmental crimes] like before … This government is sending a very clear message that the control of deforestation will not be like it was in the past …. And when the loggers hear this message that they will no longer be supervised as they were in the past, they penetrate [the rainforest],” Galvão said, claiming “enormous” damage had already been done since Bolsonaro took power in January.

“It is a question of brutal, fast economic exploitation.”

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/ ... tist-warns

[N_Fiddledog]

Your alleged record fires are over a short period of time - 6 months, I think. There were many more fires in the amazon this year than last year, is the theme of your sources.

Your allegation of cause is fewer fines and more fires for that 6 month period means fewer fines were the cause. But correlation does not equal causation. You can check that out with Tricks if you like. He tells us he's the science guy.

Here's one from a Brazilian professor who's using a data set over a longer period of time:

Quote:

7. And when it comes to the deforestation in the Brazilian rainforest, there is a clear long-term, downward trend. In fact, the annual deforestation rate in the Brazilian Amazon decreased from 27,700 km2 in 2004 to 7500 km2 in 2019, representing a 72% reduction.

https://twitter.com/filgmartin/status/1 ... 5522227201

But if we're postulating about this year, Bolsonaro suggests the fires were started by environmental NGOs wanting to embarrass his government. He also blames drier than normal weather.

I get it though, you'd like to mock that. Very well explain to me why the BBC and The Guardian's 'correlation equals causation' hypothesis of fewer fines as cause is more credible than Bolsonaro's proposal of abnormally dry weather and sabotage as cause.

[Martin15]

Sunnyways wrote:

Not true. What sort of desolate wasteland do you want to hand on to the next generation? BTW give me so called virtue signalling over vice signalling any day.

Yeah yeah of course I want to burn every blade of grass on the planet,
including your personal fucking Christmas tree, because that's the only kind
of fallacy based bullshit you have left, because you can do nothing to disprove
the obvious... the fires in Brazil are nothing special, it's only about the politics.



Just stop, I can't stop laughing.

[llama66]

The problem with the Amazon, is its one of the largest remaining tracts of untouched mature rainforest on earth.

[PluggyRug]

llama66 wrote:

The problem with the Amazon, is its one of the largest remaining tracts of untouched mature rainforest on earth.

You haven't seen my backyard.

[Tricks]

PluggyRug wrote:

llama66 wrote:

The problem with the Amazon, is its one of the largest remaining tracts of untouched mature rainforest on earth.

You haven't seen my backyard.

Holy fuck the weeds in my back yard are ridiculous.

[BartSimpson]

xerxes wrote:

And before that, there was a military junta, the kind Bolsanaro is probably going to turn Brazil into.

Quite to the contrary, Bolsonaro is restoring the right of the people to arm themselves to defend against the possibility of such dictatorships in the future.

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-braz ... SKCN1P91Q6

[BeaverFever]

BartSimpson wrote:

xerxes wrote:

And before that, there was a military junta, the kind Bolsanaro is probably going to turn Brazil into.

Quite to the contrary, Bolsonaro is restoring the right of the people to arm themselves to defend against the possibility of such dictatorships in the future.

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-braz ... SKCN1P91Q6

Pffft...Small arms in the hands of private citizens don’t stop militaries with jets and attack helicopters and tanks. When will you guys give up the delusion?

[BartSimpson]

BeaverFever wrote:

Pffft...Small arms in the hands of private citizens don’t stop militaries with jets and attack helicopters and tanks. When will you guys give up the delusion?

Small arms in the hands of the Taliban defeated the USSR and they've held NATO at bay for eighteen years.

Small arms are also quite effective when civilians need to topple scum sucking socialist dictators like Ceausescu, Mussolini, Zhivkov, & etc.

[BeaverFever]

BartSimpson wrote:

BeaverFever wrote:

Pffft...Small arms in the hands of private citizens don’t stop militaries with jets and attack helicopters and tanks. When will you guys give up the delusion?

Small arms in the hands of the Taliban defeated the USSR and they've held NATO at bay for eighteen years.

Small arms are also quite effective when civilians need to topple scum sucking socialist dictators like Ceausescu, Mussolini, Zhivkov, & etc.

The Taliban was being supplied by the US , Pakistan and Saudi Arabia with artillery, anti-tank and anti-aircraft missiles, heavy machine guns, a lot more than private collections of small arms.

Also they haven’t held NATO at bay. ICYMI, their government was overthrown and they’re reduced to ineffective terrorist attacks that accomplish nothing.

[BartSimpson]

They are holding NATO at bay. It's a war of attrition and they're doing pretty damned good for a bunch of illiterate goat fuckers with homemade firearms.

Proof: Eighteen years and four trillion dollars later we're still fighting them.

[BeaverFever]

Actually NATO us training and advising the Afghan forces, we’re no longer leading combat. The current NATO force is about 10% of what it was at the outset. The Taliban have lost

[BartSimpson]

BeaverFever wrote:

The Taliban have lost

Then who are we fighting?

https://www.thebureauinvestigates.com/d ... tions-2019

[BeaverFever]

BartSimpson wrote:

BeaverFever wrote:

The Taliban have lost

Then who are we fighting?

https://www.thebureauinvestigates.com/d ... tions-2019

Mopping up the losers

[llama66]

BartSimpson wrote:

BeaverFever wrote:

Pffft...Small arms in the hands of private citizens don’t stop militaries with jets and attack helicopters and tanks. When will you guys give up the delusion?

Small arms in the hands of the Taliban defeated the USSR and they've held NATO at bay for eighteen years.

Small arms are also quite effective when civilians need to topple scum sucking socialist dictators like Ceausescu, Mussolini, Zhivkov, & etc.

We both know it was not the small arms in the hands of the Mujahideen that defeated the Soviets. It was the US military training and Stinger Missiles that defeated the Soviets (and give rise to the Taliban)