[chaostheory]

It’s not a pointless argument if voters agree. Nations don’t necessarily have to buy the land, but regular payments to Brazil to give them a reason to maintain the rain forest as opposed to burning it is a reasonable proposal. It’s better than just complaining about it.

[mrpopo]

See the Amazon Fund project, mainly funded by Norway, where donations are invested to fight against deforestation.

http://www.amazonfund.gov.br/en/home/

Unless it gets 100x bigger, this is a drop in the ocean, though. A lot more money could be made by exploiting that land.

[tdsamardzhiev]

No, it's pointless. Sinking more money into the black hole that is Brazil's corrupt government? What's next? How about regular payments to US and Russia so they have a reason to maintain their nuclear weapons instead of just using them?

[chaostheory]

I think we did do that for a time when Russia was unstable, post USSR, to prevent terrorists from getting their hands on nuclear weapons.

Also we can keep Brazil honest via satellite imaging. More burning? No more money

[StreamBright]

>> Sinking more money into the black hole that is Brazil's corrupt government?

Given the history of Brazil, you meant governments I guess.

[Myrmornis]

Any such proposal is considered by many Brazilians to be patronizing a sovereign nation.

[chaostheory]

Sure, but the international community just complaining hasn’t yielded the best results. The reason the rain forest is burning is for economic reasons. Similarly, I don’t see why the international committee can’t provide economic reasons to preserve it if it’s that important

[Myrmornis]

Yes, I do understand what you're saying and I wish/hope it happens. I wonder if the answer to your implicit question is that the degree of economic incentive that would be necessary to persuade Brazil to agree to something that it considers demeaning would be so great that it is either (a) unrealistic to imagine funding it as others have suggested elsewhere in this comment thread, or (b) would verge on economic aggression (i.e. persuading someone to do something they would rather not via financial means is of course not always considered ethical, even by the most red blooded free-marketeers.)

[chaostheory]

A) It’s not unrealistic. Just recently France have offered 20 million for assistance for the rainforest. As I’ve mentioned elsewhere, the US made payments to Russia when it was unstable to help it secure its nuclear inventory

B) I’m not sure that offering aid is “aggressive” vs economic sanctions or IMF loans

My comments are more critical of developed nations rather than Brazil.

[Myrmornis]

OK, but 20 million??? Brazil is a huge industrialized nation! The Amazon is basically the entire northern one third of the country! That figure has to be several orders of magnitude off. OK, here's an absurdly crude and possibly buggy attempt which suggests that 20 million is out by a factor of tens of thousands:

  # https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amazon_rainforest
  amazon_area = 5.5e6  # km^2
  fraction_brazilian = 0.6  # 60%
  # http://www.buybrazilland.com/rainforest-property-for-sale/
  price_per_acre = 1000

  acres_per_sq_km = 247.105
  brazil_amazon_price = amazon_area * fraction_brazilian * 
  acres_per_sq_km * price_per_acre

  => $815,446,500,000.0

  brazil_amazon_price / 20e6
  => 40772.325

[chaostheory]

> OK, but 20 million??? Brazil is a huge industrialized nation!

20 million is one offer, yes only a modest one, by only a single nation in the EU to help with the immediate crisis of controlling the raging fires. I only pointed it out because you and others wrote that it was unrealistic for any nation to even think about making payments. Obviously, all the developed nations complaining about what's happening in Brazil should pay up and it would amount to a lot more than just 20 million. It should be a number that is much higher than ranchers' and industrial farmers' missed economic opportunity.

Again, my comments are mainly critical of nations who are condemning Brazil about what's happening to the Rain Forest, while ignoring the fact that many everyday people in a developing nation need money to meet basic needs.

Also I am not saying that nations should buy the Amazon, but just make aid payments that are greater than the missed economic opportunity of destroying it for farmland. i.e. it's going to be less than the amount you calculated

[wiseleo]

That's less than a trillion, which is likely much cheaper than the future cost to mitigate the damage caused by the loss of this forest. It feels like a very reasonable solution.