Economic Trump, Environmental Hope?
Tuesday's Journal offers further insight to why the Economy Trumps Environment, but also offers hope for sustainable development advocates.
The Journal describes Brazil's plans to set up a sovereign-wealth fund. The move is a significant indicator of economic progress and monetary stability. Stability that "has elevated millions of poor Brazilians into the middle class, making it the largest population bracket in a nation long known for having only haves and have-nots." Studies estimate that since 2005 20 million people have entered the middle class. Not bad for a nation of 190 million people.
A substantial portion of the economic development has come from extraction of mineral resources and agriculture. Both activities have had an impact on the Amazon basin's rain forests. However, the article also documents how Brazil now ranks fourth globally in computer sales - an indicator of social and economic transition. As a result of this economic transition, the middle-class is approaching 50% of Brazil's population.
This economic transition is an essential prerequisite to creating the political condition for enacting environmental conversation programs. The development of a sovereign-wealth fund is particularly significant because of the historic debt burden Brazil has faced. Environmentalists should view this development as extremely heartening because it is an indicator of Brazil's ability to utilize all those computers to create wealth through international investment. In other words, economic diversification is a critical enabler to the "sustainable development" strategies so many aspire to. Conversely, could you imagine the condition of the rain forest without this development?