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▲ ceroxylon 2 hours ago

There is a lot of money involved in getting Bolsonaro back in power:

> Brazil’s government announced Friday that annual deforestation in the Amazon fell to its lowest level since records began in 1988 [. . .] During Jair Bolsonaro’s presidency, from 2019 to 2022, Amazon deforestation surged by about 60% [0]

This highlights the greatest difference between these two candidates (imo), one wants to preserve the 'lungs of the Earth', the other wants to rip them out for profit and give the world a middle finger on their way out.

[0] https://apnews.com/article/brazil-amazon-deforestation-lula-...

▲privacyishuman 2 hours ago | parent | next [-]

Well that sucks then: https://polymarket.com/event/brazil-presidential-election

80% chance Bolsonaro wins.

▲matheusmoreira 2 hours ago | parent [-]

https://globalelectionsimulator.com/brazil/

  Bolsonaro 52.26%
  Lula      47.74%
Election starts a few hours from now. We'll know the results by tonight.
▲somenameforme an hour ago | parent [-]

FWIW, these two datums aren't mutually exclusive.

If you have a high enough degree of certainty somebody could have a 99% chance of winning with an expected 50.1%/49.9% split. For the split to mean anything you need to know the confidence/variance.

▲krystalgamer 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

brazilians are extremely poor, even with the programmes that try to masquerade the numbers.

why would they care about the amazon if they barely have any money?

climate pov is a first world luxury. no one serious about this election would even attempt to make.

▲nextaccountic an hour ago | parent | next [-]

Because the rain in most of Brazil depend on the Amazon. If the forest is gone, we will have desertification in the most populous regions of Brazil. The southeast is already facing droughts periodically, and it will get worse with more deforestation. With less rain we will produce less food, which means not only that food will become more expensive in Brazil (and a lot of people will face hunger), but we also depend on the agricultural output to avoid a trade deficit. Less rain means less food exports which means less dollars getting into Brazil, which will, among other things, turn Brazil into a hotter Argentine.

https://piaui.uol.com.br/web/six-conclusions-about-model-of-...

No seriously. There's a flying river, kilometers high in the sky, that goes from the Amazon to various Brazilian regions. It transports more water than the Amazon river itself (which is already the river with the highest discharge of the world). The water source is transpiration from Amazonian trees. Without the trees, the flying river is gone

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flying_river

▲matheusmoreira an hour ago | parent [-]

> Less rain means less food exports which means less dollars getting into Brazil

Why not industrialize instead of exporting soy and meat until the end of time?

▲nextaccountic 13 minutes ago | parent | next [-]

I'm all for industrializing Brazil, I'm not defending the current economic model. I'm just describing the Brazilian economy the way it is.

Also, it's not really possible to industrialize the country by destroying the Amazon. There is no button that turns the forest into a top tier semiconductor industry or anything like that, that's pure fantasy. And the people destroying the forest now is doing this to raise cattle to export meat, exactly the thing you are criticizing.

The only thing that destroying the forest will accomplish is to make Brazil inhospitable, desertified, unable to support its huge population. That's not climate nonsense like you say in another comment.

▲matheusmoreira 5 minutes ago | parent [-]

> Also, it's not really possible to industrialize the country by destroying the Amazon.

Flávio Bolsonaro proposed the creation of railways in the Brazilian north and northeast. These efforts are always paralyzed by leftist environmental NGOs, and leftist parties like PSOL have taken these environmental battles all the way up to the supreme court.

So, do you support Bolsonaro's proposal?

Are you prepared to sacrifice the climate for national development?

This is what this comes down to.

▲californical an hour ago | parent | prev [-]

Why not both?

▲matheusmoreira an hour ago | parent [-]

Sure. Industrialization comes first though. We can care about jungles if we ever reach superpower status.

This climate nonsense is a tax on developing nations. We're sacrificing for the planet, meanwhile the US puts a couple centuries of distance between us.

▲matheusmoreira an hour ago | parent | prev [-]

If I had a button that would burn that entire jungle down and replace it with a top tier national semiconductor industry, I'd press it twice.

Only university leftists care about the Amazon to the point they sacrifice national interests for it. Completely disconnected from reality.

> Europe is not worried about the trees in the Amazon, they want the subsoil.

Dr. Enéas Carneiro.

It's all about the rare earths.

▲alpineman 41 minutes ago | parent | next [-]

You need to go for a walk in nature. There’s more to life than semi-conductors. Sad!

▲matheusmoreira 38 minutes ago | parent [-]

Wanna trade?

Transfer all your technology to us. We'll give you the Amazon.

▲dachris an hour ago | parent | prev [-]

Seems like a false dichotomy, don't see how sacrificing jungle would get Brazil a top-tier semiconductor industry.

And I guess the native peoples living in the Amazon are not university leftists.

I'm not into Brazilian politics, the little I know seems to indicate that it's a choice between a rock and a hard place (both seem to have corruption allegations). The objective aspect I can judge is whom Trump strongly supports. US influence in South America is a pretty bloody chapter in history.

▲matheusmoreira an hour ago | parent [-]

> don't see how sacrificing jungle would get Brazil a top-tier semiconductor industry.

It wouldn't. It was just a rhetorical device to express the fact I care far more about national industrial and economic development than some jungle.

> US influence in South America is a pretty bloody chapter in history.

I agree, but Lula's no paragon here. He's had ~20 years to undo the neoliberal privatization policies enacted as of the Washington Consensus.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Washington_Consensus

Instead of actually reindustrializing Brazil, he anesthetized the population with handouts and lined his pockets. Meanwhile, banks are literally raking in record profits.