Posts Tagged ‘Brazil’

Jack Lesgrin’s week: Is it time for UN climate-keepers for Brazil’s rainforest?

01/08/2021, 12:44:04 AM

by Jack Lesgrin

Is it time for UN climate-keepers for Brazil’s rainforest?

Thursday before last, we learnt that the appalling, man-made destruction of the Amazon rainforest in Brazil has meant that this, the world’s largest carbon sink, may for the first time be emitting more CO2 than it consumes.

Here’s a thought experiment. Most people (although not many of the hard left) think that state sovereignty should be overruled when a genocide is happening, to protect victims, prevent broader instability and deter future violators by punishing those who commit crimes against humanity. What if a state, through act or omission, was causing environmental and ecological damage that will affect the long-term health of not only the citizens of their own territory but the whole world? What if this damage caused not merely ill-health, but the long-term viability of life as we know across vast swathes of the world?

We might be reaching a time when the egregious actions in the Amazon, of far-right populist, President Jair Bolsonaro, may require the international community to take action that prevents the destruction of what is a global environmental asset, as well as a national territorial possession. Of course, the first steps would need to be diplomatic and seek to induce better behaviour. Next might come sanctions of some kind. But countless cases in recent geopolitics show that diplomacy, international sanctions and strong words often have no effect. The time might soon come when the international community will have to be far more robust with states that cause irreparable damage to our environment.

Fortunately, the UN Environment Programme is doing interesting work in this area and in June, an international panel of legal experts defined and proposed a new category of international crime – ‘ecocide’ that if taken up by the Parties to the International Criminal Court, would become the fifth category of offences prosecuted by the court alongside war crimes and so-on. Increasingly, legal cases are being taken by campaigners and individuals to hold companies to account for the environmental damage they cause. But as countless victims of oppression or genocide know only too well, international law normally only has effect after massacres have occurred, to prosecute only a tiny minority of offenders, decades later. In other words: ‘too late’. As recent news about how the UK climate has already undergone damaging change shows, we cannot wait before acting. What if the whole of the Amazon was destroyed? Would anti-interventionists cling to the notion that ‘sanctions and diplomacy works’ or that ‘state sovereignty is everything’ or that ‘the UN Security Council didn’t pass a resolution, so your intervention was illegal’? Or might we need a UN climate-keeping force to protect the rainforests?

Premium presenters promoted to plum positions preventing progression

I’ve been on holiday so have been listening to even more Radio 4 than normal, hearing its talented journalists, producers and editors, creating content that by itself is more than worth the licence fee. You can deduce that I’m a fan. So what I’m about to say is in no way a criticism of the individual presenters or journalists, all of whom are brilliant and I’m sure decent people who try to help out their colleagues.

I have a hunch that the BBC management, like management everywhere, decides who are the golden boys/girls and gives them the most challenging and often rewarding roles to the exclusion of others. A couple of years ago, in a single weekend, Andrew Marr presented a TV political documentary on Saturday, the Andrew Marr Show on Sunday, followed by Start The Week on Radio 4 on Monday. I thought this must be an aberration, for surely it would be more equitable to share these prize positions around the BBC stock.

(more…)

Facebook Twitter Digg Delicious StumbleUpon

The Sunday review: “Why nations fail: the origins of power, prosperity and poverty” by Daron Acemoglu and James A Robinson

29/04/2012, 08:00:44 AM

by Anthony Painter

In 1978, workers at the Scania factory in Sao Paulo went on strike in protest at the Government manipulating the rate of inflation meaning they were worse off than they had thought. Strikes had been illegal in Brazil since 1964. The metalworker union’s president was called in to convince the workers to return to work. He refused. Brazil’s long march to economic and political freedom had begun. The president’s name? Luiz Inatio Lula da Silva – “Lula”.

Critical to Daron Acemoglu and James A Robinson’s Why nations fail: the origins of power, prosperity and poverty is the notion that these events in 1978 are connected to today’s Brazilian prosperity. Their central argument is that prosperity is generated through inclusive political and economic institutions. They reinforce each other. A pluralistic political system tends to support private property, encourages investment and innovation, creates a level-playing field and prevents elites from extracting too much wealth. As long as you have sufficient centralisation to enable the rule of law, these are the circumstances in which nations develop and poverty is diminished.

Lula was part of a broad civic movement for democracy and social justice. Over time this movement enhanced pluralism within Brazil’s political system and cracked open its economy. The first local administration to be run by the Workers’ Party, Porto Alegre, introduced ‘participatory budgeting’ which consulted residents about spending priorities. Inclusive political institutions promote inclusive economic institutions which unleash creative destruction against privilege and monopoly.

The great trust-buster, Teddy Roosevelt, confronted the ‘Robber barons’ in the early twentieth century. He was responding to popular concern with their market power. America’s institutions enabled this transmission from popular discontent to action. The same would be less likely to happen in Yemen.

Two things distinguish Why nations fail the simplicity of its argument and the sheer range and scope of historical references. Acemoglu and Robinson cover the Roman Empire, the history of Ethiopia, Congo, Bolivia, Peru, Japan, India, China, Austria and many more.

They devote considerable attention to a small European nation called England. Our divergent path came through the colonisation of north America which emboldened a merchant class to insist on political reform. It all came to a head in the Glorious Revolution of 1688.

Acemoglu and Robinson are particularly adept at comparing starkly diverging destinies of seemingly similar locations that have been taken in different institutional directions: Nogales, Arizona and Nogales, Sonora; North and South Korea; the Bushong and Lele of Kongo; north and south London. OK, they don’t include north and south London but you get the picture.

The book is staggering, accessible but not without flaws. Its core thesis does become quite repetitive and this breaks its pace from time to time.

(more…)

Facebook Twitter Digg Delicious StumbleUpon

Mike Forster looks at the leadership contenders: David Miliband is Brazil.

12/06/2010, 04:59:11 PM

Much has been said on this site and others about communicating with our core constituency in a language they can understand. So thought I’d have a crack at explaining the second-most interesting contest going on at the moment in terms of the first.

True, there aren’t 32 contenders in the Labour leadership contest, but there are parallels with the world cup.

Whichever team wins the football, though, it is unlikely to have much of an impact on your life or anybody you know. Even England winning will only have a fleeting impact, mainly a stinking hangover on July 12th.

Our eventual choice of leader, though, could mean the difference between 5 years of a Tory government or 10, or even more. (more…)

Facebook Twitter Digg Delicious StumbleUpon