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Earth Politics

Brazil Says It Will Reject Millions in Amazon Aid Pledged at G7 (nytimes.com) 240

Posted by msmash from the not-the-onion dept.
Brazil's President Jair Bolsonaro has ruled out accepting a G7 offer of aid to fight fires in the Amazon rainforest unless he gets an apology from his French counterpart, Emmanuel Macron. From a report: Hours after leaders of some of the world's wealthiest countries pledged more than $22 million to help combat fires in the Amazon rainforest, Brazil's government angrily rejected the offer, in effect telling the other nations to mind their own business -- only to later lay out potential terms for the aid's acceptance. President Jair Bolsonaro of Brazil expressed his ire in a series of Twitter posts on Monday, and specifically criticized and taunted President Emmanuel Macron of France, who had announced the aid package at the Group of 7 summit meeting. Their comments extended a verbal feud between the two leaders.

But early the next day, Mr. Bolsonaro offered possible terms for the acceptance of the aid package when he spoke to reporters in the capital, Brasilia. He said that if Mr. Macron withdrew "insults made to my person," and what Mr. Bolsonaro interpreted as insinuations that Brazil does not have sovereignty over the Amazon, he would reconsider. "To talk or accept anything from France, even with their very best intentions, he will have to withdraw his words, and then we can talk," Mr. Bolsonaro said. "First he withdraws them, then he makes the offer, and then I'll answer."

Mr. Bolsonaro, who has suggested earlier that Mr. Macron's real motive is to shield France's agriculture from Brazilian competition, had tweeted on Monday that the president "disguises his intentions behind the idea of an 'alliance' of the G7 countries to 'save' the Amazon, as if we were a colony or a no-man's land." His chief of staff, Onyx Lorenzoni, told the Globo broadcast network that the administration would be turning down the offer, and insulted Mr. Macron with a reference to the fire that gutted the Cathedral of Notre-Dame in Paris in April. The Brazilian government later confirmed his comments, Globo reported.
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Brazil Says It Will Reject Millions in Amazon Aid Pledged at G7 More

Brazil Says It Will Reject Millions in Amazon Aid Pledged at G7

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  • I'll keep punching my face (Score:5, Funny)

    by peterofoz ( 1038508 ) on Tuesday August 27, 2019 @12:25PM (#59129974) Homepage Journal
    until you apologize.....

    • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

      by hey! ( 33014 )

      The politics of Brazil is something most of us could scarcely imagine.

      Brazil has a longstanding problem with abandoned children on the street begging, stealing and turning to prostitution. The county's response was the formation of private death squads in which the police took an active part.

      Bolsonaro was elected in response to an influx of Venezuelan refugees. He has a long history of inciting public violence and advocating for dictatorship, and his son has ties to death squads. He's often compared to T

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by HiThere ( 15173 )

      Perhaps not. There have been suggestions that Brazil is being ineffective in fighting the fires to enable clearing the Amazon jungle and its people.

      OTOH, about a decade ago there were reports that we should be expecting the Amazon jungle to die because of changing weather patterns (increased dryness) due to global warming. So it might just be "expected causes".

      That said, and whatever the reason, as the Amazon jungle dies, we should expect the increasing dryness to cause more of the jungle to die. (The ju

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by gweihir ( 88907 )

      Unfortunately, this guy has really bad aim and half of the punches hit somebody else. Otherwise one more self-destructive moron would not make much of a difference.

    • Except he's not punching his face - he and Brazil are reaping immediate economic rewards at the expense of huge tracts of rain forest. So it's more like "i'll keep eating cake until you apologize"

  • A Brazilian Donald Trump (Score:2, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Hey, I wanna buy Greenland. What, it's not for sale? Well then I'm canceling my trip.

  • Morons everywhere! (Score:2, Insightful)

    by SirAstral ( 1349985 )

    So here we have worldwide concern about a burning Amazon and zero concern for all of the other burning done around the world that totals far more than this collectively.

    We also have a butt hurt tool bag running the project that wants people to apologize for insulting him personally before he will talk again.

    Children are running the world and many people are worshiping them instead of throwing them out.

  • "Big Ego"?

  • Embargo Brazilian Goods (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Only Time Will Tell ( 5213883 ) on Tuesday August 27, 2019 @12:38PM (#59130032)
    Fine, burn down the fucking forest and raise as much shitty cattle as you want. Europe and North America should simply embargo Brazilian goods and strangle them financially. Let them play in the cinders of their stupidity and hubris.

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by MightyMartian ( 840721 )

      Except we like cheap beef, and won't worry about the wide scale environmental impact until it's already upon us. You see, humans are fucking morons. Here and there are some bright ones, but none of the bright ones ever actually get a chance to be in charge. Instead it's evil hot headed halfwits who tell even duller-witted people what they want to hear who get into power.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Chromal ( 56550 )
        You'd think they could just put a 30% tariff on Brazilian beef....

        • You'd think they could just put a 30% tariff on Brazilian beef

          Hey! I already pay enough for my Brazilian prostitutes!

          With a 30% tariff . . . I will switch to east Europeans!

      • Re:Embargo Brazilian Goods (Score:5, Informative)

        by dunkelfalke ( 91624 ) on Tuesday August 27, 2019 @01:20PM (#59130212)

        France, the Netherlands and Luxembourg are already considering dropping the EU - MERCOSUR free trade agreement.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Ichijo ( 607641 )

        The Democrats have got it all wrong. We need to stop trying to protect people from themselves, and instead let Darwin prune the idiots out of the gene pool.

        • Re: (Score:3)

          by jythie ( 914043 )
          The problem is idiots and jerks tend to prune a lot of people who are not themselves.

      • Except we like cheap beef

        How would we like something we've never had? Beef is insanely expensive in Europe compared to much of the world.

      • Except we like cheap beef, and won't worry about the wide scale environmental impact until it's already upon us. You see, humans are fucking morons. Here and there are some bright one ho tell even duller-witted people what they want to hear who get into power.

        Dude, the second coming of god has decided climate change is a Chines hoax and doubting that is blasphemy!!!

      • Yes, it's why the Obama administration removed the country of original labeling on beef - so it could kill the US beef industry.

    • One of the pressures on the Amazon has been the chinese tarrifs on soy beans have prompted a 27% shift from the US the brazil. Farmers therefore clear more land for the increased demand.

      In the long run with climate change the amazon will be gone anyhow, replaced by a monsoon rejeuvenated sahara forest as the worlds carbon sink. A few thousand years ago there was no greater amazon forest, it was smaller and a lot of savanah. Meanwhile the sahara was a forest. Rain fell in different places. Current long r

    • I mean, there's a Brazilian of them? You can't get them all...

      In all seriousness an embargo would suit the right wing nationalistic government just fine. Short of regime change there are probably better diplomatic tools.

  • Last I read, in the print edition of the Wall Street Journal, Brazil is running a big deficit.

    Probably related to all the bedbugs in the Presidential Palace.

    He needs to man up and apologize to Macron.

  • The way Macron delivered his "aid" was monumenbtally stupid. If you want to help someone, you don't insult him. Yes, Bolsonaro is behaving like the spoilt brat he is, but offering 20 million dollars "aid" for all of the amazon rainforest, is just insulting, not to mention it won't help a bit. So Macron is acting as the arrogant ass he is, not wanting to help Brazil or the rainforest but making points to his own base in Europe how enlightened he is.

    The brazilians burn their rainforest, under express orders

  • The new breed of populist politicians ... (Score:5, Interesting)

    by kbahey ( 102895 ) on Tuesday August 27, 2019 @12:55PM (#59130100) Homepage

    Bolsanaro is Trump, Latin America version ...

    He mocked Macron's wife. No common decency, no decorum, no respect for his office.
    And he wants Macron to apologize! For what? For exposing that he does not care about the environment (he campaigned on that).

    Sadly, this new breed of aggressive, apparently macho, politicians who employ populist techniques is gaining in popularity. It plays into their constituents: "he is genuine", "does not mince words", "says it like it is", "talks from the heart", and so on. Add to that "tough on Iran", "tough on China", "tough on the West" and you have people who go with this rhetoric and we end up with these destructive leaders ...

    • Re: (Score:2, Informative)

      by mapkinase ( 958129 )

      You are a lying piece of shit:

      The leaders have been feuding in recent weeks, with Macron blaming Bolsonaro for fires in the Amazon and accusing him of lying about climate change policy.

      Bolsonaro responded on Sunday to a Facebook post that compared the looks of his wife Michelle, 37, with Macron’s 66-year-old wife Brigitte.

      What Bolsonaro did was just replying to the insult by insult.

    • Re:The new breed of populist politicians ... (Score:5, Funny)

      by Freischutz ( 4776131 ) on Tuesday August 27, 2019 @02:20PM (#59130450)

      Bolsanaro is Trump, Latin America version ...

      He mocked Macron's wife. No common decency, no decorum, no respect for his office. And he wants Macron to apologize! For what? For exposing that he does not care about the environment (he campaigned on that).

      Sadly, this new breed of aggressive, apparently macho, politicians who employ populist techniques is gaining in popularity. It plays into their constituents: "he is genuine", "does not mince words", "says it like it is", "talks from the heart", and so on. Add to that "tough on Iran", "tough on China", "tough on the West" and you have people who go with this rhetoric and we end up with these destructive leaders ...

      ... and yet despite all of this apparent toughness it is remarkable how quickly and easily these right wing strong men manage turn into whining little bitches.

      • Re: (Score:3)

        by kbahey ( 102895 )

        ... and yet despite all of this apparent toughness it is remarkable how quickly and easily these right wing strong men manage turn into whining little bitches.

        It is by design: they play the victim, and always repeat that the majority in their country are being "oppressed".

        Look at how Trump uses that: with choice of words like : "we have been taken advantage of", "we have been treated unfairly", ... Whether it is Canada's dairy market not being open to US farmers, or steel and aluminum from various countries

      • As opposed tot he left wingers who start out being little bitches? The folks who are in power across the world apparently are children.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by jythie ( 914043 )
        It isn't that they are tough, they just have certain ideas about the proper place of people. I see the same behavior from open carry people... the gun doesn't make them look tougher, but boy do they get pissed when the respect they believe they deserve doesn't materialize.

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by gweihir ( 88907 )

      I disagree. We end up with these utterly destructive and negative people in power, because they were voted into power. The thing that is really broken here are not the leaders, it is the voters that give their vote to these barbarians.

  • I'm butthurt, so I'm going to let the Amazon rainforest burn to the ground! That'll show you all!!!

  • why give aid for choice (Score:3)

    by sdinfoserv ( 1793266 ) on Tuesday August 27, 2019 @01:10PM (#59130158)
    The Amazon fires where willing set by ranchers and farmers. This "aid" changes nothing. It's business as usual for them to slash & burn to "create" more farm and ranch area.
    https://www.nytimes.com/2019/0... [nytimes.com]
    Like the silly plan to simply "pay fishermen to retire" in an effort to save endangered species:
    https://www.hakaimagazine.com/... [hakaimagazine.com]
    the reality comes back to the same question - how do you feed the world? People require food. food takes land. More people = more food = more land....

    • You don't have to buy Brazilian beef.

      Replace it with scrub-fed Bison from Canada and the USA and eat less red meat, try alternating chicken, fish, carbon-negative shellfish like mussels, oysters, and clams, and vegetable proteins.

    • how do you feed the world? People require food. food takes land. More people = more food = more land....

      Stop. Making. So. Many. People.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Idgarad ( 530269 )

        How else can you sustain the Ponzi Scheme of socialism without a newer, larger generation, to pay for the older generation?

    • Re:why give aid for choice (Score:4, Interesting)

      by ceoyoyo ( 59147 ) on Tuesday August 27, 2019 @03:37PM (#59130834)

      More people = more food = more land

      Despite increasing population, most of the western world is increasing forest coverage and decreasing farmland as the remaining agricultural land becomes more productive and excess people move to cities. Many parts of the rest of the world also see this trend.

  • Like they do to stop hurricanes.

  • ... in his ego.

    Sad little man.

  • Mr. Bolsonaro offered possible terms for the acceptance of the aid package when he spoke to reporters in the capital, Brasilia. He said that if Mr. Macron withdrew "insults made to my person,"

    Good golly, has it struck anyone that we seem to have a massive surplus of pride on this planet? How is it that there are so many thin skinned people running so many countries at once? It leaves one to wonder how we have global warming and yet so many snowflakes.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by nwaack ( 3482871 )
      And it's only going to get worse as the everyone-gets-a-trophy-and-an-orange-slice generation becomes middle-aged and come into positions of power. Our planets is screwed.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by gweihir ( 88907 )

      And the worst part: Most of these are not dictators, most of them got voted into office by even more stupid people. The real problem is the voters, the utter disgraces they voted for are just a symptom.

  • Brazil has its own version of Donald Trump. I guess the best form of learning is experiential. I am sure the people of Brazil are not likely to make the same mistake of electing a sociopath in the future.
  • if you dont want all that money then have it forwarded to me, i could sure use a few million dollars
  • They acquire popularity by insulting, threatening and breaking every convention of decency, and then they act like spoiled brats when they're subject to even mild criticism. It's all the same, worldwide.
    • As opposed to left wingers like Che and Fidel who simply murder those who they disagree with, or those who insult them.
      • We're talking about democracies here. Dictators shouldn't be your benchmark for choosing politicians.

  • His chief of staff (Score:3)

    by dafradu ( 868234 ) on Tuesday August 27, 2019 @02:32PM (#59130484)

    I read most comments, looks like no one mentioned the last part of the post, the one with Bolsonaro's chief of staff comment.
    "His chief of staff, Onyx Lorenzoni, told the Globo broadcast network that the administration would be turning down the offer, and insulted Mr. Macron with a reference to the fire that gutted the Cathedral of Notre-Dame in Paris in April. The Brazilian government later confirmed his comments, Globo reported."

    His comment was something like this:
    "We appreciate, but maybe this resources are more relevant to reforest Europe. Macron couldn't even prevent an expected fire in a world heritage church, so what he expects to teach our country? He has too much to handle back home and in the french colonies."

    This is typical of Bolsonaro's blind supporters.

    When Germany and Norway pulled the aid from the amazon fund Bolsonaro comment on the same lines, "Norway, the one that kills whales up there in the north?" And posted on twitter a video from the Faroe Islands. Also on Germany, he said Merkel should reforest Germany with that money. The next day the german embassy posted a video on how well german forests are preserved.

    The next day he says Brazil has no funds to fight widespread fires deep in the amazon, surreal.

    This right wing populists are as much of a danger to the world as their left wing counterparts, they both make up stories, deny facts, and their blind supporters love to read about them on social media.

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by gweihir ( 88907 )

      This right wing populists are as much of a danger to the world as their left wing counterparts, they both make up stories, deny facts, and their blind supporters love to read about them on social media.

      Essentially, populists of all colors are still populists at the core, they do not care about actual issues. Even "left" and "right" are misleading characterizations. And yes, populists are quite dangerous, as are the people that vote for them.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by dafradu ( 868234 )

      Another piece of story that might not have hit the news worldwide.

      Acre's governor, one of the states in the northern part of Brazil with some 85% of its area covered by the amazon rainforest, told supporters in May that anyone fined by HIS OWN environmental agency to ignore the fine and to let him know. He is the one hiring the agents, so he is in charge.

      In August Acre declared state of emergency because of the fires...

  • That direct-violence approach seems to have worked on Trump, after all.

  • Honestly, if the man is genuinely going to put his own personal pride ahead of what is probably best for his country, then that's just too darn bad. Frankly, I don't even care if the insults were deserved or not... if the guy is stupidly going to let his own country burn for the sake of "insults against his person", then by all means, let him do it.

    I would keep the offer of monetary aid open, however.... Brazil may yet still change its mind at some point and accept the help despite previous confrontatio

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