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by anthuswilliams
1873 days ago
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That's fair. But in return, I offer the counter-argument: When you double count like this, you are implicitly assuming deforestation ALLOWED the polluting business to occupy the new land, and they wouldn't have polluted to the same degree elsewhere (because it wasn't available, wasn't as profitable, or something else). A totally reasonable claim! I could explore it further. But IMO one should make this claim in good faith, make it clear what you're proposing, not engage in this kind of statistical sleight of hand. I am totally opposed to deforesting the Amazon. But I'm sick of political participants that think it's OK to lie to people, simply because the implications of the lie favor some greater truth. |
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There's absolutely no sleight of hand involved in suggesting that farming on former rainforest land is a consequence of allowing deforestation, and that the climate consequences of that farming are thus also consequences of that deforestation.
Given that enabling such farming is usually the economic driver for performing the deforestation, it's ridiculous to suggest that anyone should consider the deforestation process itself and the subsequent polluting land use as having separate causes that make the latter somehow not count as part of the Amazon's climate impact.
And even if you do honestly feel like the direct effects of the deforestation should be considered as unrelated to the effects of the subsequent land use, it is still quite incorrect for you to refer to this as double-counting. There are two different quantities being lumped together (because they are almost inextricably related), and there's no overlap in the climate effects accounted for under those two categories. It's not double-counting; it's just counting some quantities you'd prefer to sweep under the rug.