From: Paul Cockshott (wpc@DCS.GLA.AC.UK)
Date: Mon May 23 2005 - 10:00:00 EDT
Rain forests do have more species than temperate and boreal forests, but from the standpoint of global warming the destruction of either releases large quantities of CO2. The ecological damage and transformation of the mediteranean basin as a result of deforestation 2 to 3 thousand years ago, produced vast ecological changes, producing large semi-arid areas in what were once forested land. It is just that it is too easy to criticise the government of Brazil in these circumstances when they are doing no more than what is normal for the development of capitalist and even pre-capitalist agriculture. You are holding up standards that could only possibly apply in a planned world economy - the preservation of forest lands in one part of the world to benefit another part. In the absence of a planned world economy you can not criticise the head of state in an economy dependent on the world market for allowing the production of exports demanded by that world market. -----Original Message----- From: OPE-L on behalf of Gerald_A_Levy@MSN.COM Sent: Mon 5/23/2005 2:48 PM To: OPE-L@SUS.CSUCHICO.EDU Subject: Re: [OPE-L] accelerated destruction of the Amazon rainforest > We have to be cautious about lambasting the Brazileans here> > We in Europe destroyed our virgin forests in the neolithic > revolution with further final clearances in the middle ages. > That was a precondition for the development of capitalist > civilisation.> > Much of the amazonian forest is secondary regrowth after > the original neolithic agricultural system of the basin > was destroyed by the extinction of the populations there > after european contact. > The process of replacement of forests by agriculture is > a normal phase in the development of pre-capitalist, let > alone capitalist society. Paul C, To begin with, "the Brazilians" aren't being lambasted in the story below. Rather, the Governor of the state of Mato Grosso, who happens to own the world's largest soybean corporation [!], is the party held largely responsible. In addition, the Lula government is held to be complicit in this process because they have not taken effective policies which protected the rainforest from this devastation. It sounds is if this is another example (similar to Goias?) of divisions between the federal and state governments in Brazil. Secondly, your analogy to the destruction long ago in Europe of virgin forest fails to take into account a crucially important distinction: i.e. the story in the Amazon concerns the destruction of the world's largest _rain_ forest. The most important difference is in terms of the _global_ environmental consequences. In addition to threatening the extinction of many species (some estimate that one-half of the Earth's species of plants, animals, and microorganisms will be destroyed or severely threatened in the next 25 years if this devastation of the Brazilian rain forest continues apace) and the implications of this for medicine and disease, the destruction of the rain forest will mean less rain, less oxygen, more carbon dioxide, and more *global warming*. This global warming has implications for _every_ part of the world. For instance, this climatic change has enormous implications in terms of agricultural productivity and patterns of agricultural specialization in many parts of the world. It also has long-term human health consequences. An examination of this story should tell us that this destruction is largely related to the agenda of Neo-Liberalism: all 'barriers' to the expansion of capital accumulation are being lifted, no matter what the long-term human and environmental consequences. In solidarity, Jerry > http://news.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2005/05/20/wjung20.xml <
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