Pinoso
July 4
Our personal knowledge these days is heavily influenced by sound bites and headline news. Possibly because we suffer from attention deficit! Short reports that I have heard and read recently trouble me.
I promise to give my full attention to anyone who can explain the flaw in the following argument formulated from those reports.
In Brazil, the government are abandoning efforts to protect the Amazonian rain forest. The Brazilian farmers are ecstatic because they can clear the land to graze cattle. This means that they can earn more money.
Environmentalists are distraught because it destroys a huge area of carbon dioxide absorption. It also destroys a huge area of oxygen generation, then it creates a large area of cattle flatulence (methane gas).
All this is bad for the health of the world’s atmosphere and it enhances the greenhouse effect (global warming).
A completely separate report tells me that, in our modern financial world, money is created from nothing. What most of us recognise as money (coins, notes, etc.) is a minute percentage of the world’s money. Most of it exists as ‘symbols’ stored in characters on paper or a variety of electronically generated ‘bits’.
If it is true that money can be created from nothing, then the solution for the rain forest is simple. Create enough money to pay the Brazilian farmers what they want and let the rain forest grow.
Win-Win for the farmers and the environment. The world loses ‘nothing’. Where is the flaw?
If there isn’t a flaw then this must be an excellent solution for every environmental funding issue.
Cliff Bell
