A Bicycle Journey Across Brazil to Find a Vanishing Savanna | Hacker News Reader

A Bicycle Journey Across Brazil to Find a Vanishing Savanna

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57 pointsthrowaway203715 comments

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Great film, sad story

I imagine the same thing happened in large parts of the U.S. and now it's a Ag superpower.

One day, perhaps, we'll meet all our needs with indoor hydroponics and let the land return to its natural state.

Need to manage it well so it isn't completely destroyed in the meantime.

For the near future this will be a huge boon to the Brazilian economy and global food supply.

I see a good use of hydroponics, growing herbs indoors. Every kitchen having something the size of a fridge, for growing things like fresh basil, and sage.

Unless we start building tons of fission plants or "solve" fusion power, 95% of our staple crops will be more efficient to grow directly with the sun. So maybe indoor in a greenhouse sense, but not an artificially lit warehouse.

The only plants that need less sun are shade tolerant herbs and leafy greens which are already a very tiny portion of our agricultural land usage.

Thanks for the reality check. Urban vertical farms are such a great visual, but you are right, obviously they can't compete with actual staple crops on vast farmlands.

I wondered about growing crops in space with endless solar power.. the next frontier in monetizing access to space? Where would the elemental inputs come from? Not much C, O, N, or H to go around.

Just another raspberry pie in the sky for now..

Interesting reading about developments in space farming tho.

Brazil is a beautiful place to bike. It would be great if it was a bit safer tho.

Brazil is almost an undiscovered country for the international bicycle-travel community. Long-haul South American routes go down the west side of the continent. Historically this was blamed on Brazil's roads being regarded as unusually narrow and dangerous. However, in the bikepacking era when lots of people want to ride rough tracks, not roads with many vehicles, it's odd that no such rough routes across Brazil have become popular among cyclists coming to the region from elsewhere.

I've driven along the coastline of Uruguay. Always wanted to return for a bikepacking trip. Beautiful landscape.

The western routes offer favourable climate conditions for cycling. Brazil's savannah is alright but the idea of pedalling 1000s of kilometres through the heat, humidity and mosquitoes of the amazon sounds atrocious to me.

I feel there are good reasons for it. First, it's dangerous in terms of traffic and crime. Second, it's immense and not really interesting between points of interest. I follow a couple of motorcycle bloggers and it feels underwhelming compared to the neighboring countries

Would that also apply to the U.S and if not, why ?

There are thousands of miles of bikepacking routes around the US where one will hardly see any cars, so traffic is not a big concern, nor the kind of (mostly dense urban) environments where violent crime is likely, so crime is not a big concern.

I'm interested in building a business around bikepacking. Internationally or domestic. Gear, guides, lodging, ...

Cycling through the Andes mountains is far more appealing to most people than cycling through the Brazilian savanna is, for various practical reasons. Steep and windy vs flat and tedious. Sweeping varying scenery vs close-range monotonous scenery. Sometimes cool vs always hot. Dry dirt (in dry season at least) vs muddy dirt. Less bugs vs more bugs. Less (although still quite a few) infectious diseases vs full-on tropical infectious diseases.

Great film, Brazil is beautiful

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