| This hits at one ideological conundrum that I have been grappling with for a while. All major developed nations did so on the back of dirty energy, exploiting resources and with huge climate change implications. Now that the smaller developing nations are finally capable of doing so themselves, they are being discouraged by the same developed powers.
The developed powers did the same, but got away with it because there was no oversight. I don't see why these underdeveloped nations are now being expected to take the moral high ground. We wouldn't need the Amazon as much, if we weren't pumping as many pollutants into our air and water supplies. Plenty of species went extinct when the now developed powers expanded with reckless abandon. Now that Brazil is doing the same, the outrage seems hypocritical. Some may say that the Amazon is special and not a resource that Brazil can singularly exploit, when it has global implications. But, the same has been true of fossil rich nations that have pumped cheap gas into the market indiscriminately, while they all individually became billionaires. This whole argument extended to new developing economies like India and Central Africa at large. Just to be clear I am not advocating for the deforestation of the Amazon. It can be seen as a right wing talking point, but I myself am completely at my wits end and do not have a retort to the argument. |