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So Brazil's looking for money to help continue rain forest deforestation. They should talk to Dubai. I hear they're heading to COP28 for the sole purpose of making deals.

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Apropos of right wing governments murdering forests, remember that California redwoods were being harvested day & night under the first GWH Bush administration in a rush to harvest as much as possible before Clinton took office and put a stop to it. They came within a few hundred feet of taking the tallest living tree on Earth.

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Now what about reforestation?

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laterite soils with most of the nutrient rich compost gone due to erosion combined with the fact that you can't just replant old-growth rainforests are going to be extremely challenging even if things go well.

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That’s going to take a very long time.

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Hmmm, let's see what we have here. Yeet one fascist authoritarian wannabe dictator into the sun and it saves a forest! This yeeting thing seems to yield great returns, quickly. We should continue!

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I still contend that yeeting fascist authoritarian wannabe dictators into the sun is an energy-inefficient solution. Yeeting them toward the sun will end up with the sun's gravitational field putting them into a long, slow orbit through the solar system.

That way, they'll come back around in due time, and we can all point and laugh again.

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Ooh, can this be an actual campaign? Maybe we can find a singer to score the "contribute now to the yeeting of fascist authoritarians into the sun and you will personally save this poor tree," ala Sarah McLachlan and the SPCA. Taking suggestions for the artist/song.

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I would suggest Pablo Cruise, "Find your place in the sun". Not a downer like those SPCA commercials that make my wife cry.

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But who is going to rake all the extra forest??

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All the guys deforesting it now. When climate closes a door, it opens a window.

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Although he is obviously very bad Jair Bolsonaro comes off looking pretty darn woke when compared to Henry Kissinger. As far as can be determined Bolsonaro never carpet bombed the Amazon rain forests nor did he destabilize any neighboring country to set up a takeover by genocidal maniacs and then stand aside to let the genocidal maniacs be nothing but genocidal maniacs.

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I've spent a lot of time in Brazil. Bolsonaro did for them what Cheetolini did for the US: gave people permission to be their worst selves. I saw fights break out over political differences. I saw more gay bashing in a region that had been quite gay friendly.

Yes, Kissinger was evil--even down to his banal soul, but Cheetolini almost overthrew 250 years of American democracy, and Bolsonaro almost handed power back to the military. At a certain point, you don't become more evil, you're just evil. Period.

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No one stopped Pol Pot, it was the VIetnamese that went in there and put an end to him. Even under Jimmy Carter:

According to journalist Elizabeth Becker, former U.S. National Security Advisor (NSA) Zbigniew Brzezinski "claims that he concocted the idea of persuading Thailand to cooperate fully with China in its efforts to rebuild the Khmer Rouge. In the spring of 1979, Brzezinski says, he used the visit of Thailand's foreign minister to press forward his plans." Becker has quoted Brzezinski as saying "I encouraged the Chinese to support Pol Pot. I encouraged the Thai to help the D.K. [Democratic Kampuchea] ... we could never support him but China could."

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Nov 30, 2023
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First Joe would have to allow her to get a word in edgewise.

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Yeah, but talk about setting the bar low...

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That bar is now six feet under sea level.

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Thanks for the good news, Dok. I woke up thinking about reforestation today. A gentle reminder to everyone that we can all play a critical role in preventing Amazon deforestation by cutting beef -- especially fast food burgers -- out of our diets. Last I checked, supplying beef for McDonald's was one of the fastest drivers of deforestation. People use slash and burn to open up grazing lands, which is like the worst carbon impact possible.

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By not eating McD's burgers, we can save both the rainforests AND our colons! Win win!

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As a child I loved animals (still do) but as an older teen and adult I discovered that I love plants. Like, let me be poisoned ivy. I love trees, roses, all plants. They will save us all.

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Bolsonaro's policy of "destroy everything before we get stopped" was not just exploitative of the environment -- it was genocidal. Suspending any environmental laws unleashed anyone who thought short-term profits trumped anything else -- and as a result, indigenous people and environmental activists and journalists were terrorized and murdered. You can't just destroy the rainforest in Brazil without killing its inhabitants and stewards. Bolsonaro has much to answer for -- the terrorism campaign against his opponents was part and parcel of the destruction he caused.

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As someone who watches climate news closely, his tenure horrified me as much as PAB's

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OT

𝑇ℎ𝑜𝑢𝑠𝑎𝑛𝑑𝑠 𝑜𝑓 𝑓𝑎𝑘𝑒 𝐹𝑎𝑐𝑒𝑏𝑜𝑜𝑘 𝑎𝑐𝑐𝑜𝑢𝑛𝑡𝑠 𝑠ℎ𝑢𝑡 𝑑𝑜𝑤𝑛 𝑏𝑦 𝑀𝑒𝑡𝑎 𝑤𝑒𝑟𝑒 𝑝𝑟𝑖𝑚𝑒𝑑 𝑡𝑜 𝑝𝑜𝑙𝑎𝑟𝑖𝑧𝑒 𝑣𝑜𝑡𝑒𝑟𝑠 𝑎ℎ𝑒𝑎𝑑 𝑜𝑓 2024

https://apnews.com/article/meta-facebook-2024-election-misinformation-china-956019723463918043e060ac577270f7

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"Why should the Russians have all the fun? We invented gunpowder! We invented fireworks! Stand back and hold our coats! Watch this!"

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𝑴𝒆𝒕𝒂 𝑷𝒍𝒂𝒕𝒇𝒐𝒓𝒎𝒔 𝑰𝒏𝒄., 𝒃𝒂𝒔𝒆𝒅 𝒊𝒏 𝑴𝒆𝒏𝒍𝒐 𝑷𝒂𝒓𝒌, 𝑪𝒂𝒍𝒊𝒇𝒐𝒓𝒏𝒊𝒂, 𝒅𝒊𝒅 𝒏𝒐𝒕 𝒑𝒖𝒃𝒍𝒊𝒄𝒍𝒚 𝒍𝒊𝒏𝒌 𝒕𝒉𝒆 𝑪𝒉𝒊𝒏𝒆𝒔𝒆 𝒏𝒆𝒕𝒘𝒐𝒓𝒌 𝒕𝒐 𝒕𝒉𝒆 𝑪𝒉𝒊𝒏𝒆𝒔𝒆 𝒈𝒐𝒗𝒆𝒓𝒏𝒎𝒆𝒏𝒕, 𝒃𝒖𝒕 𝒊𝒕 𝒅𝒊𝒅 𝒅𝒆𝒕𝒆𝒓𝒎𝒊𝒏𝒆 𝒕𝒉𝒆 𝒏𝒆𝒕𝒘𝒐𝒓𝒌 𝒐𝒓𝒊𝒈𝒊𝒏𝒂𝒕𝒆𝒅 𝒊𝒏 𝒕𝒉𝒂𝒕 𝒄𝒐𝒖𝒏𝒕𝒓𝒚.

Oh, is there a chance it's just Chinese citizens taking up fucking with US elections as a hobby en masse?

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Occam's Razor says no.

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You would be surprised at what a good messageboard full of goons can get up to.

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OT: birb took shower. Feathers feel so clean now.

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The Amazon rainforest is a feast of beauty, water, birds, grasses, and weird little bugs, which birb do not like, but are okay too because that's nature and nature is cool as fuck.

Yipee yay for thee beautiful people of Brazil and Mr. Lula.

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Nov 30, 2023
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Oh yeah, I hear some birbs like that.

I usually eat seeds. Maybe I will give bugs a try.

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The existence of humanity should not have to depend on left wing candidates winning every election forthcoming.

Oxygen should not be a liberal luxury

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I guess this is Poe?

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Ohh, why do you think they're trying to get you to move to one of their domes on Mars or to a space station? "Oxygen's for winners! It's not our fault you can't afford a ticket back home."

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But what about their 401Ks, hhngh?

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I could get behind the science of depriving a few conservatives of the luxury of oxygen.

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Well, if you'd prefer a cooperative and long term based future, rather than a domineering, short term based future, the choice is pretty clear...

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"Future? I'll be dead by then! Haw haw haw!"

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I wonder what satellite imagery like that would show about temperate deforestation. Ahem. US. Canada. Russia.

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Yep. This. And as I just learned here on Wonkette a few days ago, Rome contributed to the deforestation of the Sahara. Think about that.

Leave the mountain as you found it, people. An expression I've heard used. Words to live by.

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A quick dive after all, wiping off the dirt. The Smithsonian thinks the change from verdant to desert started 8,000-4,500 years ago. Earthly precession is thought to be part of it, but maybe people helped things along. Maybe early people arrive there about 6000 BCE -about 8,000 years ago. Way before the Romans got there. https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/what-really-turned-sahara-desert-green-oasis-wasteland-180962668/

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North and South America were full of giant mammals that disappeared within about 1500 years after humans settled there.

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Were they good eatin'?

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Fred Flintstone loved those mammoth ribs for a reason.

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Hmm. I think I remember that the Sahara used to be not desert at one point. I thought it was some climate change longer ago than that. Putting on my spelunking helmet for a dive into that rabbit hole. A new tab to start!

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Yes, some kind of climate change was the major thing. But maybe it wasn't the Romans who contributed after all. Per wikipedia:

"It is also proposed that humans accelerated the drying-out period from 6000 to 2500 BCE by pastoralists overgrazing available grassland."

Also too LOL: "At present, we are in a dry period, but it is expected that the Sahara will become green again in 15,000 years."

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We seem to be trying to make sure that doesn’t happen.

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"Amazon countries will be able to fulfill their 2021 pledge to end deforestation by 2030." Would be cool if non-Amazonian countries would make a similar pledge. Looking at you, USA.

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If Bolsonaro were still president, he'd fulfill the pledge by cutting down all the forest within Brazil's borders so there's no more deforestation to be had. Easy peasy!

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That's pretty much the US in a nutshell. Worked for us, it'd work for them.

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I’ve still got one more tree I need to cut down in the backyard before we do that!

It’s a locust tree that “almost” took down the power line to our house in the ice storm earlier this year, and the maples on both sides will fill in the area it’s in once we cut it.

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Locust are exempt because they're not trees, they're legumes. But I admire their ability to fight back, they're killers!

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But monotonous amber [beige] waves [subdivisions] of grain [builder grade mcmansions].

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Now if we could only yeet the entire bunch of fascist assholes the world over past the sun, into the intergalactic void.

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Or a gigantic brown hole

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Please, Lordt.

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