Brasília (AFP) – Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro suggested Friday that people “poop every other day” as a way to save the environment, after he came under fire for a surge in deforestation of the Amazon since he came to power.
The far-right leader offered this idea in response to a journalist’s question as to whether it was possible to simultaneously spur economic growth, feed the world’s hungry and also preserve the environment.
“It’s enough to eat a little less. You talk about environmental pollution. It’s enough to poop every other day. That will be better for the whole world,” said Bolsonaro, who earlier this month sacked the head of a government agency that had reported a major increase in Amazon deforestation.
Bolsonaro has been criticized for a rapid acceleration in deforestation of the Amazon rainforest, which covers vast swathes of Brazil and is considered vital to combatting global warming.
According to Brazil’s National Institute for Space Research (INPE), which tracks clear-cutting of the rainforest, around 2,254 square kilometers (870 square miles) of the Amazon were cleared in July, an increase of 278 percent from a year ago.
That followed a 90 percent increase in June compared to the year prior — figures that Bolsonaro has called “lies,” and which prompted the sacking of INPE chief Ricardo Galvao on August 2.
The rapid rise in deforestation has triggered a global outcry and threatens to create problems for the recent free trade agreement between the South American trade bloc known as Mercosur. The pact includes Brazil and the European Union.
The Amazon is vital to the exchange of oxygen for carbon dioxide in the atmosphere — a check on global warming.
But Environment Minister Ricardo Salles said the INPE data was published in a way that satisfied “sensationalist interpretations” and was aimed at getting “more donations from foreign NGOs”.
Data from INPE, an institution of international repute, showed that overall deforestation has increased 40 percent in the last twelve months compared with the same period a year ago.
Bolsonaro, a combative politician frequently denounced for derogatory remarks about women and minority groups, said the rapid rise in populations around the world needed to be addressed.
“When you see how the world’s population is increasing by 70 million a year, you need a family planning policy,” said the former army officer, declining to use the term “birth control” for fear of an adverse media reaction.
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I had no idea he was so full of shit.
Dr. Perry Staltic thinks Bolsonaro’s recommendation will impact Brazilians in a bad way, and is starting a movement to eliminate something so awful.
I took the statement to be clear satire of the idiotic “solutions” that Climate Catastrophists propose.
Perfectly suitable for publication here.
Our developed world solution has always been to supply subsidised birth control to the underdeveloped world, then wonder why this is not happening, then propose compulsory sterilisation. Having few or no kids is equivalent to an early death sentence for many, if not most, people in these places. In the absence of a working social security contributions and disbursement system, a large family is the only survival option. All the multiple children together eventually contribute a little each to keep mum and dad alive as they get older. Or, one of the kids strikes it rich, which is highly unlikely given that the education system is probably in worse shape than the social security system. And we expect poor parents to sign up voluntarily for this in exchange for nothing at all?
Robin Matyjasek
Absolutely 100% spot on.
The solution is obvious to those people themselves. Allow, and help them to build fossil fuelled power stations to drag themselves from poverty.
The biggest mistake Africa and India made was to kick out the Colonist’s who are now so roundly condemned by the WOKE western world.
Both were progressing socially and industrially very nicely thanks to inward investment brokered by white Colonialists. Zimbabwe was recognised as the Bread Basket of Africa until Mugabe rocked up, now it’s the Basket Case of Africa.
It’s time for Africa to get real and start encouraging western Colonisation once again because if they don’t get us, China will mop them up and the consequences of that are a whole lot worse than the worst excesses of their historic colonisation.
When ya gotta go, ya gotta go.
MarkW
Hold that thought. 🙂
I saw a story the other day about seaweed washing up and overwhelming the beaches in Florida and the Carribean and this seaweed was strung out for thousands of milies from North to South America and the report claimed they thought the cause was from fertilizers being washed into the Atlantic ocean from clearcut areas in Brazil, where commercial crops were planted and fertilized.
I was in SoCal during the 4th of July and the beaches were covered in seaweed. So that explanation might not be applicable for the west coast.
It is interesting to hear of stuff like that however as it suggests there might be more plant growth and death in the oceans as well as on land. I wonder if marine biologists track underwater vegetation?
I was in SoCal during 4th of July and noticed a ton of seaweed washed up along the beaches as well. So the theory that fertilizer from Brasil may not make much sense for excess plant death on the west coast.
Reminds me of the Europeans reportedly make a tea pot that heated more slowly to save energy. They were too scientifically illiterate to understand it takes “x” amount of energy to boil water, whether one delivers it rapidly or slowly. Pooping every other day does not change the volume. Starving the population does, but frequency does not.
Just curious, are we reading the Presidents own words or Yahoo’s translation?
Other than that the concept is sound.
Eating a little less,thus reducing personal waste would reduce the strain on the plumbing infrastructure,waste disposal systems and usage of paper.
That said ,Yahoo? seriously,other than their comedic offerings I would not value their opinion on anything.
As demonstrated by the slant of their narrative..what is “Far Right” measured from where?
My political position has not changed,but now I am slandered as “Alt Right,Hater and Nazzi”
Being non of those things I now doubt the labeller rather than those they smear.
It would appear our progressive comrades are incapable of holding a nuanced view on any subject.
John Robertson
I am as far right as one can get, and proud of it.
I believe in freedom of speech, Democracy, the freedom to work, peaceful political discourse, small governments and low taxes.
I do not wander round wearing bovver boots with sw@st!ka’s tattooed on my head waving N@zi flags, marching and beating people up.
That is the preserve of Ad0lf H!tl3r who was left wing, not right. This may help to clarify: https://research.calvin.edu/german-propaganda-archive/haken32.htm
It’s also woth noting that H!tl3r based his definition of the J3ws on the concept of the American Democrats ‘one drop’ identification of black heritage. Except even H!tler couldn’t stomach that identification, he moderated it to three grandparents necessary to qualify as J3wish.
Please do not fall for the MSM and left wing rhetoric that right wing means violence. We have our issues but every left wing regime the world has ever known has ended in violence, poverty and disaster.
Thanks HotScot,yes I know,I guess my sarcasm failed.
My point was,Do we trust the source?,for this “quote”, as it comes from the same Presstitutes who lie nonstop.And who invent labels while demonstrating a total ignorance of our past.
You could not make up the idiocy of “Alt Right Nazi” what a meaningless ignorant phrase,which clearly identifies the user as a fool.
John Robertson
My bad John, I didn’t get the sarcasm.
Love your last paragraph. 🙂
Bolsonaro is not an environmentalist. He is not a believer of post-normal scientific prophecies (e.g. CAGW). He is also not Pro-Choice, is he? Is he a diversitist (i.e. racists, sexist)? In this context, this report must be assumed to be satire, and his comment a parody of his critics.
We don’t see the reporter, but Bolsonaro first recommends him eating less, which is going to make him feeling better, (hint of a generous girth?) together with the… brown sentence: if you just do it every two days, our life will also improve. It is clearly a joke. Then he goes onto the population increase. Two points he makes: 70 million a year requires “planning, planning, don’t write birth control to fill the cover (of your publication)”; and states the higher the culture, the lower the birth rate. And he says “I have less culture because I have 5 (children), but in general terms, this is the rule.”
Figaro
“Two points he makes: 70 million a year requires “planning, planning, don’t write birth control to fill the cover (of your publication)”; and states the higher the culture, the lower the birth rate. And he says “I have less culture because I have 5 (children), but in general terms, this is the rule.””
If this is what he said, the guy has the correct end of the stick.
An urbane culture prioritizes the pursuit of wealth, pleasure, and leisure.
I’m calling BS on that claim.
Bolsonaro has only been President since January 2019 so he’s not been responsible for much of anything yet. I also doubt that anyone has a real-time handle on what rates of deforestation are across the entire Amazon rainforest. It’s just a number or estimate that is plucked from where the sun don’t shine.
Why does Piglet smell so bad? He always plays with Pooh.
‘The far-right leader’
You know you can disregard all that follows. Lefties are never introduced as ‘far-left.’ ‘Far-right’ is a pejorative, telling the reader that all that follows isn’t just wrong, but evil.
Authorizing hatred of the speaker.
Sounds like a sarcastic remark from their president is being blown out of proportion. South American countries press has clearly joined the green peace movement. How’d that happen?
This is good advice, however high-minded ideals don’t often meet the real-world expectation, especially if a Greenie who eats a high-fiber vegan nosh which generally induces unrestricted purging … from both ends.
Yes, you can save the world … but at what cost?
Don’t know how many people on this thread are brazilians, or at least have a real knowledge of brazilian internal affairs. I am, so I feel entitled to give you all some informations.
1. Our president is widely regarded as ill- and short-tempered with news people (with ample reason for it IMNSHO), with special contempt for big newspapers reporters. This phrase was one of many cases where a reporter shouts him a provocative question and he fires back an ill-considered answer. He intends to be ironic but press always choose to portrait him as if he really meant what was said.
2. The issue behind all this are the numbers about deforestation in the amazon, which are being published with a not=so-veiled intent of casting a bad light over the federal government, and over the president .
3. The director of National Space Researrch Institute (INPE) was fired for publicly disagreeing from the president and environment minister, which said that INPE’s numbers of deforestation weren’t correct, and were being publicized without considering the ill effects over brazilian image abroad and giving ammunition for those who wish to use the supposed lack of care of environment as an excuse to achieve other objectives.
4. An example of such troubles: Mercosul and European Union recently agreed over a free trade agreement, which didn’t get french farmers happy, and so french government officials are quite vocal over environmental issues as reasons for not ratifying the agreement. Recently french foreign minister came to Brazil, but the president didn’t met him. He went to barber shop, and didn’t make any effort to hide this from the french minister. Some say he’s simply rude. Seems to me more like a calculated move to show dislike of he and other french officers are saying.
5. Finally, are the INPE numbers right or not? There are many issues, and I’m not seeing anybody interested in really resolving them:
a) Monthly deforestation numbers are published by INPE using a system called DETER, and the web page describing the system is quite clear to say that it’s numbers aren’t reliable to assess rates of deforestation. DETER data are meant solely to give clues to environmental inspection officers where to look for possible problems. But this is exactly how the press is using the DETER data, and INPE’s officcers didn’t make any effort to show that this is not reliable.
b) Many people seem to think tha amazon forest is a huge natural reserve, which has to be kept untouched. That’s simply not true. There many kinds of land usage defined by law. There are natural reserves, indigenous people land, land reform and former fugitive slaves descendants settlements, government-owned vacant land and land that can be used for agriculture or livestock, and each of these assigned land uses have strict rules of how much (if any) of the original forest environment must be preserved. There’s a very comprehensive data base os all the land use assignments mantained by another govenment entity: Agricultural Research Brazilian Enterprise (EMBRAPA), so it seems quite simple to corss-examine INPE deforestation data with EMBRAPA land use data and check if the deforestation is taking place where it shouldn’t happen or not.
Thanks for this post, Sir. I can’t believe the French would ever use one issue to hide their pro-French business agenda. /sarcasm.
Nothing new with deforestating the Amazon basin – makes room for Terra Preta:
https://www.google.com/search?q=Amazon+indigenous+terra+preta&oq=Amazon+indigenous+terra+preta&aqs=chrome.
Easy for him to say poop every two days . Half their population only eats every two days .
Argentina is even worse .
Go to Rio for a holiday and you stand a good chance of losing a kidney .
You’d better change your information sources about Brazil. But there’s lots of nonsense in these comment
threads, so I’m not surprised.
Looks like this climate warrior is hanging on to a five coil steamer .
Don’t think indigenous Brasilia will return to tuk tuks:
https://www.google.com/search?q=brasilia+tuk+tuk&oq=brasilia+tuk+tuk&aqs=chrome.
My fault. Brasilia IS tuk tuk.
Servus Brasilia!
And, while we’re at it, why not skip eating as well ever other day?