The reality about Brazil

[JP Schriefer 5,591]

As a Brazilian I can say that everything that was said in this video is true, and there are still many things ... (it's in english, subtitles in portuguese).

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JTCgiuTjKC8

 

 

 

[NielsC007 499]

I never realised it was this bad in Brazil. But with the football world championship being helt in Brazil the chances are bigger that this will get some attention. 

[Roman_Samudra 213]

Few of many things I appreciate from Brazil

 

1. Ayrton Senna (duh)

2. Emerson Fittipaldi (duh)

3. Grand Prix de Sao Paulo (duh)

[A Nonny Moose 8,262]

One of the most important things in Brazil is keeping as much of the rain forest as possible.

[BLANKBLANK 4,414]

One of the most important things in Brazil is keeping as much of the rain forest as possible.

 

How will that help to increase the Brazilian's standard of living?

[AkemiAzula 280]

My tin of chicken had meat from that land and Thailand.

[NMUSpidey 3,956]

Wanting equality is great and all, but I do fear that the culture in the ghettos and squatting areas (please forgive my lack of tact, I'm not sure what a better word to choose than those would be and I do not mean insult nor denigration) would be resistant to change, or that gangsters would simply take advantage of whatever changes were attempted to enacted.  I've read elsewhere that Brazilian police do not enter those areas because they are dangerous.  I suspect a large portion of those living at (or below) the Brazilian minimum wage live in those areas.

Also, if things are going this poorly in Brazil now, they will go much worse once the Summer Olympics is done.  They'll have spent all that money to show off for a couple of weeks, and then everyone leaves and they're stuck with buildings they can't use or maintain.  That is one of the reasons the Greek economy fell apart, and a HUGE part of the reason why I am so against the Olympics (or at least the way they have it set up now).  Brazil is going to be screwed because of this, just like Greece was (or at least a large part of the screwing will come from Olympic-related expenditures), and with Japan's rapidly aging population, I have doubts about the wisdom of Tokyo hosting the 2020 games.  If that dude that sounded like a Texan is right, then Brazil has an even bumpier ride ahead of it.

[A Nonny Moose 8,262]

 

One of the most important things in Brazil is keeping as much of the rain forest as possible.

 

How will that help to increase the Brazilian's standard of living?

 

It won't very much, but it will help them to keep breathing.  Countries that have been looted by their political arm can only be improved by the people determining to improve it.  The rulers rule with the consent of the ruled.

[Ocram's Razr 964]

Deforestation actually diminishes agriculture output by lowering fertility. Therefore, it is very short-sighted to burn down parts of the Amazon Rain Forest in order to grow cattle. There are ways to grow fruit in the amazon while cows consume many more times the calories than the meat you get from them.

 

Favelas are a problem but I read that a lot of innovation comes from them because their residents make do with less resources. As horrible as the conditions in slums are, the rural poor have it even worse.

 

--Ocram

[BLANKBLANK 4,414]

 

 

One of the most important things in Brazil is keeping as much of the rain forest as possible.

 

How will that help to increase the Brazilian's standard of living?

 

It won't very much, but it will help them to keep breathing.  Countries that have been looted by their political arm can only be improved by the people determining to improve it.  The rulers rule with the consent of the ruled.

 

 

While I agree that cutting down large sections of rainforest to make way for pasture is a waste of farmland, it would not be such a problem if the areas were irrigated and crops were grown instead. I say let the Brazilians do with their part of the Amazon rainforest as they wish, it is their jungle to use as they see fit.

 

Now, in my neck of the woods, in England, most of the country was covered in woodland and it had incredible biodiversity. I say that because England is the most geologically diverse country in the world, containing dozens of areas with different predominant rock types. Thus there are many different soil types which leads to a great amount of plant diversity and thus animal diversity.

 

Much of England's woodland is gone to make way for farmland and for use as fuel in the pre-Industrial Revolution times. A lot of creatures were either hunted down (bears, wolves and other beasts) or driven extinct by the loss of habitat, I can only imagine the thousands of bird, plant, flower and insect species lost during the last two thousand years. Of course as Britain industrialized the air quality deteriorated and life in the cities was not exactly pleasant what with all of the vehicle fumes and smoke from the factories- the masonary of buildings turned black from all of the soot. Most of the rivers, the lakes and the coastland were dead in these urban areas.

 

It was like this up to the 70s until finally catalytic converters, air filters and other anti-pollution measures came into effect. Industrial areas were cleaned up and forty years later the environment is in great shape, even in places like Teesside which has heavy industry. The lower part of the river Tees was once devoid of fish, but now the fish stocks have recovered.

 

My point is that even during the worst of the pollution it was never approaching cataclysmic levels. Yes life expectancy was lowered by at least ten years and nature looked pretty crummy, but it recovered pretty quickly after anti-pollution measures were enacted.

 

Brazil is simply going through the same process except a lot more quickly. Eventually, should the country remain stable and a fair form of capitalism prevails, Brazil will become a first world country. It will have the necessary industrial base, sufficient farmland to cover and/or satisfy food requirements and the general efficiency required to employ anti-pollution measures; measures which do increase costs and curtail output somewhat. Brazil does not have the luxury of implementing costly green reforms, well it could but it would become a third world country.

 

As the video shows there is massive income inequality in Brazil, but seventy years ago in Britain it was just the same. The majority of the people were in dire poverty living in crummy city dwellings: it was crowded, dirty, noisy and downright unimaginable in this day and age. Brazil is in the same transitional period, but I believe it could reach first-world status even more quickly due to todays technology and the economic and political measures which are available.

 

But the only way for Brazil to do this is to ensure it can continue to develop its industrial base, utilize its natural resources and be able to export them. A consumer nation, like that of the US and Britain, can only arise after a substantial period of industrialization, agricultural renovation and capital reforms have taken place. Who knows, perhaps Brazil will become the next major export nation, the next Germany or China?

 

However turning the Amazon rainforest into a gigantic national park is not going to provide the money necessary to further increasing the standard of living in Brazil. What right do other countries have in telling Brazil, or any nation aspiring to industrialise, that it must curb its economic development for the sake of the greater good of this planet, on the basis of scientific models and projections which are either correct or way off the mark, to avert global warming which may be predominantly natural in cause or predominantly man-made in cause?

 

Yes most of the Amazon rainforest could be cut down in the future, but to say that preserving it will help the people breathe or that it is the 'lungs of the world' is a little silly. Most of the oxygen is produced by plankton and if the Amazon rainforest does disappear in its stead will be vast stretches of fields and pastures. Crops and grass do produce oxygen as well, so the loss will not be as bad. Furthermore vast deserts such as the Sahara which have little to virtually no grassland are still breathable and that is due to the atmospheric diffusion (plus convection) of elements and particles. Which is why the oxygen levels, depending on elevation, in the middle of a vast jungle are somewhat higher than the oxygen levels in the middle of a huge desert.

 

The idea that we have to preserve the planet in its current state is frankly idiotic. Since the planet is changing every day, every week, every month, every year and so on. The will of nature and the state of the environment are not fixed, constant or steady things, even if they give -- to the human mind anyway -- the illusion of constancy and a steady state. Consider the Sahara, several thousand years ago it was once a lush rainforest with numerous rivers and lakes. But then for some reason the rainfall patterns changed and the soils became dry and were blown away by the wind to create one of the largest deserts on Earth.

 

I say we utilize what resources are available and use them to reach a technological state where we can either control nature or we reach a state where we are no longer at its mercy. The obvious two keys to this are fusion power to vastly increase the maximum amount of energy an individual can consume, and with such available energy use it to conduct scientific experiments into matter editation. Once we can replicate any atom, element, molecule and compound, then we can produce all of today's items and more. The primary industries, those of resource gathering, will become obsolete: no more farming, forestry, mining, quarrying, oil drilling and every other resource extracting process known to man which are today used on a huge industrial scale.

 

The green's dream of having an economy, a way of life, which is based around living with the environment will finally come true. However, right now there is no such system where we can have both the luxuries of the first world and maintain a low CO2 footprint. But we could do it right now, it's just we would have to shut most of the economy first and set ourselves back two hundred years. Even renewables have limits, that being of reliability which is why they are complimented by power plants which burn fossil fuels. So shooting ourselves in the foot with such a drastic solution will pointlessly set us back as a species. We are masters of this planet and nature is the ultimate guardian, we have altered nature to our advantage and devised technologies to protect ourselves from her perils.

 

For the sake of our longtime survival we need to continue along this curve of ever increasing technological prowess to increase our control over nature; which is one fundamental tenet of human evolution. All countries should be able to use these technologies and the benefits they confer, and we should not let global warming be used as an excuse to digress or to go backwards, or use global warming as a political tool which allows 1st world nations to impose unfair restrictions to 2nd and 3rd world countries abilities to use their natural resources; all under the pretext of protecting the planet for the greater good. That to me resembles a form of economic colonialism, or even mercantilism, and a feeble excuse for the west to continue its attempts to maintain a high standard of living at the expense of others- or removing the competition if you will.

 

So in short IMO, Brazil can do whatever it likes to the Amazon rainforest, and non-Brazilians have no place in telling this country what it should and should not do.

[Sleeping Politician 32]

 

One of the most important things in Brazil is keeping as much of the rain forest as possible.

 

How will that help to increase the Brazilian's standard of living?

 

Tourism. I say that because tourism brings service economy jobs to the indigenous people and tourism is promoted by the quality of the rainforest.

[cmdp123789 710]

Now, this might sound a little too forward and rude, but please... And I'm begging you, please stop.

Listen.. I know you all mean well, and that you all want to contribute with some alternatives, but to be honest, you don't have a clue of what is like in South America, unless you were born there or you live there.

I'm from argentina as some of you know.. And I've been to Brazil for vacations, and also lived there. First thing you will notice about Brazil is that the south part of the country is nothing like the north side. You have places like floripa, São Paulo, and Rio.. Which are all from the south yet very different... And places like Brasilia... Which are very different from the ones above.

Now, I saw some comments about favelas... And amazonas... And even the World Cup and the Olympics... And that's the general knowledge people from the outside have... But it's not.

That's why I'm telling you it's not like that.

1) you need to understand that our countries are nothing like the United States or Europe. People in here are used to live with that amount of money because that's the way it's always been. I know it's little, and people should get pay more in order to have a better life, but it doesn't happen.

2) countries are run by the people with the real money, and the mafias... Which you guessed it, we are used to. It is one of the worst thing that happen to our countries, politics and corruption.. But again, that's the way it has always been, and people are used to this.

3) don't try to apply american or European policies, or even alternatives, cause again, they won't work. In order to formulate solutions, you need to understand the essence and the cultural roots of our societies, and you never will, because you were raised in a different world.

4) I don't want to be rude, and I'm sorry if anyone feels offended by this.. But please, it is important to understand that it's not about one area in particular like Olympics or World Cup, it's about lack of education, living each day as if it was the last, which in fact is the culture in the favelas... Or in any "favela" in South America.. We don't call them favelas.. But you get the idea... And our politicians, believe it or not 10 times worse than any politician around the world, make money out of this...

I lived in paraguay for 8 years, and I was lucky enough to live during 2 election periods... Since most of our countries have a high amount of low class and poor people, those are the perfect targets for candidates...

Now this is how elections are run in South America..

You go to a favela ( or it's equivalent in any other country in SA) and they drive 2 trucks.. One with empanadas and another with coke and cigarettes... You give them 1 empanada.. A coke.. And a box of smokes! Bam! You have a vote!

Another great way I saw politicians getting votes in paraguay was very simple... They would go to towns and little cities, and buy their votes for 10$ each... In USA... That's nothing.. I live in here now, and you get a sandwich and a juice at Starbucks... In South America.. That's a lot!

So guys.. Please.. I know you mean well.. But you have absolutely no idea of what it's like.. And I read some of the comments and I was like "wow.. " its so easy when you don't know what's truly going on...

[Ocram's Razr 964]

I understand that South America has a vastly different culture and economy than North America. I admit that I know very little about politics, especially in other countries but I know mathematics, biology, ecology, and a bit of economics. Even if cattle are no longer raised in Brazil but the Amazon is clear cut to increase Agricultural land area, the output would greatly diminish from lowered fertility, less frequent rains, and other environmental factors. Clear cutting the Amazon will not automagically give you a whole lot of farmland, it will give you a desert. US Americans should live within their means as well.

--Ocram

[cmdp123789 710]

Yeah.. I was just trying to say that this thread is not about the amazon, or farms or anything.. It's a whole different thing.. And comparing it to the US is absolutely ridiculous...

On the other hand, I don't know about ecology or biology, but I do know a lot about economics and finance.. And yes.. Cutting the amazon down won't make a difference, at least not the way they are doing now... And it definitely won't make a difference in the current situation.

[A Nonny Moose 8,262]

One thing is clear:  Removing the rainforest will probably result in flooding that will denude the land of soil resulting in a rocky desert.  All the industrial development in the world won't help when the countryside is dead or dying.

[cmdp123789 710]

And again.. The thread isnt about rainforest. Rainforest has nothing to do with the video or the thread itselft... And yes, that is clear, that leads to nowhere.. Now, I watched a video some time ago, in which The United Nations (not sure) asked Brazil to protect its rainforest, since it was a "patrimony of humanity" or a lung for the world. What truly amazed me is the answer to that, and how sharp that answer was.

 

Im gonna try to find the link for you guys...