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South America unique Advantages to AGW and Human Overshoot

A forum for discussion of regional topics including oil depletion but also government, society, and the future.

South America unique Advantages to AGW and Human Overshoot

Unread postby Ibon » Sun 01 Nov 2015, 11:47:55

We recently split the Americas Forums (Thanks Tanada & Davep) between North and South America because there are unique differences to these continents. There are many endemic challenges and problems in South America which I am sure will be highlighted in this Forum. I thought it would be helpful to also mention some unique advantages in this region in light of AGW and human overshoot. Here are a few:

1) Population Density; Compared to Europe, ME and SE Asia South America has far lower population densities. Actually with the exception of a few places like Haiti this is true of the western hemisphere in general. http://data.worldbank.org/indicator/EN.POP.DNST

2) Few coastal urban areas; Buenos Aires, Rio, Guayaquil, Recife. You can't name many others. Compared to SE Asia, Europe and North America, South America has few large coastal metropolis areas that will require massive human migration inland when sea levels rise due to climate change.

3) Minimal ethnic divisions: Again, unlike ME, Africa, Eastern Europe and parts of Asia, South America has mostly a dominant homogeneous culture and only two main languages. The indigenous populations, the only real ethnic divergence, do not pose any significant threat of separatist movements, etc.

4) Abundant Agriculture; Few deserts except in Peru and Chile. Large diverse bio-regions with good rainfall and agricultural resources. If you remove large scale industrial agriculture and the massive exports of corn and soy and the growing of sugar for fuel, South America would have no problem being self sufficient in agriculture for its current population

5) Intact agrarian communities and farmers; Although South America is suffering more and more from the same fate that happened in North America with the loss of family farms, this is still a region with many thriving agrarian communities, many small scale food producers hanging on. South America has yet to convert its small agrarian communities over to largely industrial agriculture. Sure, there are massive industrial farms of soy and corn and wheat which are for the export market, but most countries in the region still have a significant percentage of their population dedicated to small scale farming.

6) Population socialized to minimal health care; In South America health care is basic and is a privilege for most and not entitled as a right. Older folks with serious illnesses like heart disease or cancer usually die instead of massive resources being dedicated to heroic efforts extending life. Since this will continue into the future, it is a huge advantage to have a culture already socialized to accept this. Contrast this with North America for example.

7) Opportunities for altitudinal migration; If climate change really becomes severe, there are mountain ranges and extensive foothills along the whole western spine of the Andes starting from Venezuela and moving through Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, Bolivia and Chile. The eastern foothills of the Andes down toward the Amazon basin represent a huge area of cooler climates that can one day receive refugee populations from lower elevations.

8 ) Intact trade and cottage industries; Think a moment how dependent the North American economy is to consumption, service sector, financial sector, retail. South America is moving in this direction but still has many small mom and pop cottage industries, many trades still intact, a culture that is skilled to fix and restore instead of replace.


These are some of the advantages of the region. I may post others if I think of them.
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Re: South America unique Advantages to AGW and Human Oversho

Unread postby Ibon » Sun 01 Nov 2015, 17:27:43

pstarr wrote:But what about Central America, where you live Ibon? Isn't it a bit overpopulated and somewhat of a chokepoint for population movement?


Panama is not quite self sufficient in food production although has relatively low population density with only 3.5 million inhabitants occupying a land area the size of South Carolina. Central America as a whole has higher population density along with smaller geographic area and probably will suffer greater consequences to climate change and human overshoot in the century ahead.

Pre-Colombian Panama acted as a trade center for indigenous trade between South and North America. Today it sill has a major global role in trade with the Panama Canal. This role will not change during this century if we see climate change driven human migration. Panama will profit charging expensive tolls to migrants who wish to cross their territory by land. This might off set lost revenue as the Panama Canal loses importance with the opening of the circumnavigation of the Northwest Passage for shipping. http://www.livescience.com/1884-arctic- ... ssage.html
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Re: South America unique Advantages to AGW and Human Oversho

Unread postby Plantagenet » Sun 01 Nov 2015, 17:49:31

Another advantage is South America is the existence of small but intact indigenous (native American) communities living independently of modern globalized civilization. The descendants of the Incas in the Andes Mountains of Peru still speak Quecha and farm and live much as people did in pre-contract times. Some descendants of the Mayas in central America and scattered tribes in the Amazon are also not dependent on modern society.

These relict indigenous groups will barely notice when collapse occurs in the rest of the world.
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Re: South America unique Advantages to AGW and Human Oversho

Unread postby SeaGypsy » Sun 01 Nov 2015, 18:08:00

Tasmania is 15,000 km square bigger than Panama with a population a 7th the size, maritime climate, lots of high country, very isolated from less than very well equipt travel. Cultural backwater though.
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Re: South America unique Advantages to AGW and Human Oversho

Unread postby ennui2 » Mon 02 Nov 2015, 12:18:08

Plantagenet wrote:These relict indigenous groups will barely notice when collapse occurs in the rest of the world.


You could make the same argument about any rural population. It assumes that the way collapse will happen will result in massive concentrated die-offs in the cities and the hicks in the country side will just sit by and laugh it off with full bellies. I don't see it playing out that way. Just look at the Syrian migrant crisis. People are more mobile than you think, and when certain places in the world become unlivable, they will fan out over the globe. You just can't assume that current demographic clustering of where people live will remain static all the way through the Malthusian catastrophe.
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Re: South America unique Advantages to AGW and Human Oversho

Unread postby Plantagenet » Mon 02 Nov 2015, 13:10:33

ennui2 wrote:
Plantagenet wrote:These relict indigenous groups will barely notice when collapse occurs in the rest of the world.


You could make the same argument about any rural population.


Actually no.

I can tell by your answer that you've never travelled to Peru or Africa or into remote areas in the Himalayas etc. and actually seen Masai or Incan people or other similar indigenous peoples and actually don't know anything about them.

I suggest you do so---its eye opening.

In the US and other parts of the modern globalized economy rural populations are very dependent on the use of fossil fuels. Yes, there are some doomsteads scattered about, but most small towns and surrounding farms use huge amounts of fossil fuels to run farm equipment, run generators, drive long distances from the farm to town, use fossil fuel based fertilizers etc. etc.

In contrast, the few remaining indigenous tribes in Africa or the Brazilian rain forest or the farmers in the high Andes make minimal use of fossil fuels. They grow, gather and hunt most of their own food, just as their ancestors did in pre-contact times. They don't use fossil fuels---they don't even own machines. They make many of their own clothes from Llama wool in Peru. They don't have TV---they don't even have electricity. They gather dung for fertilizer. If they go to Cusco for a festival, they walk the 30 miles from their mountain village.

These relict indigenous groups will barely notice when collapse occurs in the rest of the world.

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Harvest time in rural America

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Harvest time in rural Africa

Can you spot the difference?
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Re: South America unique Advantages to AGW and Human Oversho

Unread postby vox_mundi » Mon 02 Nov 2015, 15:54:52

Harvest time in rural Brazil, Chile, Argentina (South America)

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Over the last four decades, Brazil has changed from being an importer to become the second largest exporter of agricultural products in the world. According to the Brazilian Confederation of Agriculture and Livestock (CNA), during this period the country has tripled its land productivity, becoming “an agribusiness giant. Today, the sector accounts for 23% of GDP, 27% of jobs and 44% of Brazilian exports.

According to the Ministry of Agriculture, Livestock and Supply (MAPA), Brazil is the third largest global producer of chickens and has the second largest cattle herd in the world, with more than 211 million head. The country is also the leading producer and exporter of coffee, sugar, sugarcane ethanol and orange juice. Furthermore, it occupies the top position in external sales of the soya complex (meal, oil and grain). The 21st century witnessed the industry’s rapid expansion. According to the latest projections published by MAPA, grain production should expand from 100 million metric tons in 2000 to 193.8 million metric tons this year. The total area planted - currently 67 million hectares - will increase to 75 million hectares by 2023, according to the Ministry. Soya beans alone will account for nearly 7 million hectares. As a result, it is expected that over the next ten years grain production will increase by 20%.

The fact that the sector has experienced economies of scale has contributed to this evolution. Crops are now planted in large holdings, farmers have become professional and the agricultural equipment industry has expanded. "New production techniques were adopted, such as direct drilling with crop rotation, allowing the producer to harvest two crops per year," says Ivan Wedekin, director general of the Brazilian Commodities Exchange.

According to the Brazilian Agricultural Research Institute (Embrapa), inputs such as seeds, fertilizers and pesticides were responsible for almost 70% of the growth of agricultural production over recent decades.

https://globalconnections.hsbc.com/braz ... ness-giant

Agriculture is Chile’s second largest source of exports, and is expected to grow rapidly in 2012 - 2016. Therefore, an efficient agro-food industry is a top priority in Chile. Today, the food industry represents 25% of Chile’s economy and employs more than 1 million people. It is expected that in 2030, the food processing industry will account for one third of the country’s economy. The fruit, wine, poultry, beef, pork and dairy industries offer large export potential.

http://chile.um.dk/da/~/media/Chile/Fin ... nology.pdf

In Argentina, factory farms replacing grass-fed beef

Today, much of the country’s famous grasslands have been turned over to crops. Beef consumption and exports are way down. And lest you think it’s because overall meat consumption is down, irony would have it that Argentina is now the world’s No. 1 exporter of soymeal, No. 2 of corn, and No. 3 of soybeans, increasingly used as animal feed in China, where meat-eating is through the roof.

Images of cows on pasture are still common in Argentina’s guidebooks and on postcards and butcher shop windows, but cattle production now largely relies on the feedlot.

http://grist.org/sustainable-food/in-ar ... -fed-beef/
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Re: South America unique Advantages to AGW and Human Oversho

Unread postby Sixstrings » Mon 02 Nov 2015, 16:03:32

Brazil's having some problems lately:

Brazil: How could so much go so wrong?

President Dilma Rousseff faces impeachment threats
Economy limps along in recession
Corruption probes snare politicians and business execs

It would be bad enough if Brazil’s embattled president, Dilma Rousseff, just had a recession and a plummeting currency to deal with. But in a perfect storm, she also has two corruption investigations, a fractious Congress and impeachment threats on her plate.

Inflation is running at nearly 10 percent, there is a soaring budget deficit and the value of the real has fallen by 32 percent. Average wages are declining and unemployment in Brazil’s six major metropolitan regions was 7.6 percent in September after years of almost full employment. And the bad news keeps on coming: In the first nine months of this year, 657,761 jobs were lost, and 1.5 million jobs are expected to disappear from Brazil’s formal economy in 2015.

The government's economic statistics agency IBGE said in a recent report that 197,000 people have lost jobs since August 2014 in the industrial sector, while 120,000 people were fired from construction sector jobs in the same period. Has Brazil’s real estate bubble burst? When adjusted for inflation, residential real estate prices in Brazil’s top 20 cities fell for the first time since 2008, adding to the country’s economic woes.

Standard & Poor’s has downgraded Brazil’s credit rating to junk status, and Fitch Ratings downgraded Brazil to BBB-, which places it at just a notch above junk. Corruption investigations into both Petrobras, the state-run oil company, and the construction industry already have damaged investor confidence. Dozens of members of Congress are under investigation and important corporate leaders have been jailed.

The swiftness of Brazil’s fall from grace has given many analysts pause.

http://www.miamiherald.com/news/nation-world/world/americas/article42134757.html


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Brazil's embattled President Dilma Rousseff


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A woman shouts slogans and bangs on a pan during an anti-government protest demanding the impeachment of Brazil's President Dilma Rousseff


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In this Aug.21, 2015 file photo, Eduardo Cunha, president of Brazil's Chamber of Deputies, attends a meeting with union workers in Sao Paulo. Brazil's Supreme Court seized $2.45 million in Swiss accounts allegedly belonging to Cunha, a powerful political figure who can largely determine whether widely sought impeachment proceedings against President Dilma Rousseff begin.
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Re: South America unique Advantages to AGW and Human Oversho

Unread postby vox_mundi » Mon 02 Nov 2015, 16:07:55

Genocide of indigenous peoples in Brazil

Over eighty indigenous tribes were destroyed between 1900 and 1957, and of a population of over one million during this period eighty per cent had been killed through disease, violent enslavement or murder.[3] The 1988 Brazilian Constitution recognises indigenous peoples' right to pursue their traditional ways of life and to the permanent and exclusive possession of their "traditional lands", which are demarcated as Indigenous Territories.[4] In practice, however, Brazil's indigenous people still face a number of external threats and challenges to their continued existence and cultural heritage.

Since the 1980s there has been a boom in the exploitation of the Amazon Rainforest for mining, logging and cattle ranching, posing a severe threat to the region's indigenous population. Settlers illegally encroaching on indigenous land continue to destroy the environment necessary for indigenous peoples' traditional ways of life, provoke violent confrontations and spread disease.[5] Peoples such as the Akuntsu and Kanoê have been brought to the brink of extinction within the last three decades.

Brazilian ranchers attacks on indigenous people intensify
Two Guarani teenagers are feared dead amidst a wave of attacks on indigenous communities in west-central Brazil.

The teenagers went missing earlier this month during an attack on their community, known as Mbarakay, by ranchers’ gunmen. The gunmen beat up several community members, tore out women’s hair, and shot at the Indians.

The Guarani reported that a police squad stationed nearby was aware the violence was unfolding, but failed to intervene. Similar reports are emerging from other communities under attack.

Whilst the ranchers earn huge profits from sugar cane, corn, soya and cattle on the Guarani’s ancestral land, the Indians are forced to live in appalling conditions in roadside camps and overcrowded reserves, where malnutrition, disease and suicide are rife.

Their leaders, who are attempting to reoccupy their ancestral territories known as 'tekohá', are being assassinated, one by one.

The Brazilian constitution stipulates that all indigenous lands should have been recognized by 1993, but thousands of Guarani are still waiting even for small parts of their territory to be returned to them. Politicians are now debating a constitutional amendment which, if passed, would set indigenous rights back decades and drastically worsen the Guarani’s plight.

http://delgadodolphin.net/2015/10/living-on-the-land-brazilian-tribes-fight-with-farmers/

On Aug. 9, while looking for his child by the river, Semião Vilhalva, 24, got shot in his face. He is a part of the ethnic group Guarani-Kaiowá, an indigenous tribe from Brazil. Mr. Vilhalva was one of the leaders of the movement that tries to retake the Indian lands in the city of Antônio João, where at least five farms are being occupied and reclaimed as part of indigenous lands.

The conflict between farmers and the tribe has been going on for quite some time. According to anthropological reports, the Guarani-Kaiowá tribe has been living in the disputed area since 1950. Due to the agrarian growth system implemented by the government at that time, land belonging to the tribe was taken and their presence was denied so the government could expel them from the land.

http://www.planetexperts.com/category/i ... us-rights/


Indigenous tribe watches houses burn and points fingers at the World Bank
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Re: South America unique Advantages to AGW and Human Oversho

Unread postby ennui2 » Tue 03 Nov 2015, 18:58:48

Plantagenet wrote:the few remaining indigenous tribes in Africa or the Brazilian rain forest or the farmers in the high Andes make minimal use of fossil fuels.


I'm not arguing against that point. But are you really expecting them to just remain undisturbed while billions of people die?

The reason these pockets remain undisturbed is because there's enough civilization intact to keep people from fanning around the globe looking for sustenance like locusts. That's also why there's still any extant forest cover, because we're burning fossil fuel instead of wood. I see sort of a "heat death of the universe" play out to this where every last remnant of ecological productivity is exploited and razed to the ground.

I just don't buy the idea you can hide yourself away in just the right little shangrila and the masses will die quietly out of sight out of mind in the cities. It's just a doomer fantasy.
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Re: South America unique Advantages to AGW and Human Oversho

Unread postby SeaGypsy » Tue 03 Nov 2015, 19:52:19

More, it is a response to threat. You live in the middle of one of the great megalopolis of the world, wall to wall humanity, which informs your view in exactly the opposite way to my experiences living in places like Cape York, Arnhem Land, the MacDonnell ranges, where nature is still abundant & at mega scale & extreme geographic isolation, where hunter gathering & simple agriculture can still easily provide sustenance. You can barely believe such places exist, you will probably try to tell me they are hallucinations I had. To your view a western desert Arrernde man is a pending invadee, a doomed relic of a bygone era. To him, you are part of this bizarre white conglomerate building concrete cancer & choking on your own detritus, who could never in a million years inhabit the great deserts. You both see each other as illusory & temporary, but the Arrernde has been where he is for 2000 generations.
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Re: South America unique Advantages to AGW and Human Oversho

Unread postby ennui2 » Thu 05 Nov 2015, 12:19:43

SeaGypsy wrote:More, it is a response to threat. You live in the middle of one of the great megalopolis of the world, wall to wall humanity, which informs your view in exactly the opposite way to my experiences living in places like Cape York, Arnhem Land, the MacDonnell ranges, where nature is still abundant & at mega scale & extreme geographic isolation, where hunter gathering & simple agriculture can still easily provide sustenance. You can barely believe such places exist, you will probably try to tell me they are hallucinations I had. To your view a western desert Arrernde man is a pending invadee, a doomed relic of a bygone era. To him, you are part of this bizarre white conglomerate building concrete cancer & choking on your own detritus, who could never in a million years inhabit the great deserts. You both see each other as illusory & temporary, but the Arrernde has been where he is for 2000 generations.


Dude, have you read recent reports about how little wildlife remains on this planet? The planet is almost totally converted over to some managed human-use. How about the destruction of sea-life on top of it? What's left (like deserts) are not worth trying to live in anyway. We're going to turn the entire earth into a desert by the end of it. If someone wants to but out in a Tatooine environment, fine. That's a whole other story. The question was whether self-reliant rural people like in the Andes would remain undisturbed. Anywhere that has a lot of biological productivity, decent soil, water, etc... is going to get inundated with refugees eventually. Look what happened during the Irish potato famine, for instance, and that was at a time when mobility was a lot less than today. When push comes to shove, people will move around. Sure, some will hunker down in the city for jobs and services, but some will want to get closer to the land. I mean come on here. The planet is shooting for 10 billion plus people.

This whole idea of kicking back in the woods or some permaculture paradise munching on grapes and avocados and watching everyone else die without banging down your door is a childish fantasy.
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Re: South America unique Advantages to AGW and Human Oversho

Unread postby Plantagenet » Thu 05 Nov 2015, 13:10:30

ennui2 wrote: The question was whether self-reliant rural people like in the Andes would remain undisturbed.....
This whole idea of kicking back in some... permaculture paradise munching on grapes and avocados and watching everyone else die without banging down your door is a childish fantasy.


Yes, your fantasies are childish fantasies.

In reality, remote Quechuan villages in the Andes are not "permaculture paradise". The people who have lived there for millennia don't eat "grapes and avocados." They are remote and life is hard there. The people live mainly by herding llamas and growing a small variety of crops that can survive at 10,000-13,000 feet. There is essentially no electricity----no cars---no mechanized farm equipment.

Same thing in Africa---you leave the road system and even today there is village after village of peoples still living essentially a traditional subsistence lifestyle dotting the hillsides off into the distance. There are villages of Masai people, Zulu people, Jubu people and other ethnic groups in Africa that have little to no contact with the globalized world. Again---its not an easy life. I visited a Masai Kraal just off the road in the Serengeti that would allow visitors----the smell alone could stun you. The people never bathe. Their diets are very restricted. I've seen the same thing in Zululand---But if the cars stopped coming, the Masai would still have their land and cattle and the Zulu would have their fields for food. Not much would change for them.

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Re: South America unique Advantages to AGW and Human Oversho

Unread postby ennui2 » Thu 05 Nov 2015, 13:30:12

Plantagenet wrote:They are remote and life is hard there.


Everything's relative. Life is harder in the desert. That's why the term "greener pastures" exists. Just because it's not attractive to people now doesn't mean it will remain unattractive during a worldwide famine when people are living at a NK bug-eating level.
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Re: South America unique Advantages to AGW and Human Oversho

Unread postby Ibon » Thu 05 Nov 2015, 15:42:06

ennui2 wrote:This whole idea of kicking back in the woods or some permaculture paradise munching on grapes and avocados and watching everyone else die without banging down your door is a childish fantasy.


I don't see much of this sentiment in South America, except for some of the children of the very wealthy who are sent to universities in the US and having never planted a garden in their lives and always had maids while growing up can then find themselves captured by this romantic notion of permaculture grapes and avodados.

More seriously, in urban areas in Latin America you have many folks just as removed from organic agrarian life as you will find in any American suburb. Many countries though, as Plantagent pointed out, have intact indigenous cultures that did not get destroyed culturally to the same extent as you see in many native american cultures. These cultures, like the Quechua mentioned, still practice agriculture in the Andes much in the same way as their ancestors.

There are many indigenous groups as well that have been marginalized and survive on meager handouts by government subsidies. In Panama for example there are several indigenous groups. Some have cultures that have sadly degenerated during the past few generations due to alcoholism and poverty and failure to find a place in a society based on money and commerce. These groups are subsidized by the government and live in a kind of welfare poverty. Other groups are thriving commercially.

So it's all quite a mixed bag. I never wanted to suggest that South America is some sort of shangrila when I started this thread, I was just pointing out some advantages.

In terms of intact rural agrarian life with intact small communities and small scale truck farmers, this still does represent a significant percentage of the population in many countries and that is a skill set that is not a bad starting point if the economy goes into the tank.
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Re: South America unique Advantages to AGW and Human Oversho

Unread postby onlooker » Mon 09 Nov 2015, 20:46:16

I am sorry to note but one must also account for military and standing armies relative to North and South America. When things really become dicey, one has to expect a widespread assault/attack by the super potent American military upon South America. If we are going to truly predict and estimate scenarios one cannot rule out full scale genocide and use of lethal force. Particularly as their is such a disparate difference in military might between US and the rest of the countries in the Western Hemisphere. Having said that yes South America has some advantages in a purely ecological sense and in terms of rudimentary know-how. Again, we are imagining things which are an affront to all of us because as we know survival competition can get quite messy. As we speak I have to believe that the Pentagon is also beginning to mull over such matters. This is not pleasant to talk about but hearkens to the point of Ennui that people are not just going to stay still and die.
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