Produce More Until When? When Excess Begins to Produce Less Future - Brazil 2026 Presidential Election

Industry, agriculture, mining, energy, and a BrainLatam question: can we create more value while extracting less from the territory?

Perhaps we learned an association too early.

Producing more means growing.

Growing means developing.

Developing means living better.

For a long time, these three ideas almost moved together.

More tons.

More barrels.

More minerals.

More productive hectares.

More exports.

More GDP.

But can we look again?

Imagine two countries.

One extracts one hundred tons from its territory and exports raw materials.

The other extracts twenty, processes them, researches, patents, industrializes, and sells technology.

Both may generate the same income.

But only one had to move five times more territory.

And then the question guiding this Blog 9 appears:

How long can we keep producing more?

We are not proposing an anti-production vision.

We need to produce food.

Energy.

Medicine.

Housing.

Technology.

Infrastructure.

The problem may begin when production stops responding to a need and must continue expanding simply because the economic system itself depends on producing more the following year.

This is what we call Production of Excess.

What if the problem is not producing, but having to produce more and more?

A particularly important study for this discussion was published in 2026.

Ecuadorian researchers Fander Falconí, Rafael Burbano, Pedro Cango, and Ruthy Intriago analyzed material extraction in Latin America and the Caribbean between 1970 and 2023.

The result deserves our attention.

Regional GDP growth remained associated with increasing material extraction. The authors found only weak relative dematerialization: in some situations, we became capable of producing more economic value per unit of material, but this was not enough to generate an absolute reduction in material pressure. Growth itself continues to push extraction upward. (sciencedirect.com)

Perhaps this is exactly the point.

Efficiency alone does not solve the problem if every efficiency gain is accompanied by an even greater expansion of production.

The region continues to occupy a historically familiar position: we export large quantities of nature and frequently import products containing much more knowledge and added value.

ECLAC estimates that natural-resource-based activities account for around half of Latin American and Caribbean exports, while representing a much smaller share of regional value added. (cepal.org)

This is where our proposal begins:

More added value. Less production of excess.

Territory is not a warehouse waiting to be emptied

Perhaps a Decolonial Neuroscience can help us perceive something traditional economic indicators tend to hide.

When we say that a certain region “produced” millions of tons, we usually look at what came out.

But the Body-Territory also lives with what remained.

Changes in temperature.

Water.

Dust.

Mercury.

Noise.

Transformation of the landscape.

Employment.

Roads.

Income.

Displacement.

Memories.

Future possibilities.

Márcia Tait, Alcides Peron, and Marcela Suárez revisit the Latin American concept of body-territory precisely to make visible power relations that simultaneously cross bodies and territories. (tandfonline.com)

Uruguayan thinker Eduardo Gudynas also proposed in 2024 that we think of territories not merely as cartographic surfaces, but as constructions lived and felt-thought by communities. (revistas.uis.edu.co)

So perhaps we can ask together:

When we remove something from a territory, are we accounting for everything that territory may no longer be able to do?

A biome also produces

Here we need to correct another economic idea.

A standing forest often appears as if it were doing nothing.

But it is not.

Brazilian researchers have shown that the conversion of native vegetation in the Amazon, Cerrado, and Pantanal reduces evapotranspiration and modifies water and energy cycles. Other recent studies show that changes in the Cerrado are associated with reduced rainfall, while Amazon savannization combined with global warming may increase temperature extremes and affect agriculture and hydropower generation in other Brazilian regions. (sciencedirect.com)

Therefore:

a preserved biome is not an absence of production.

It produces conditions that allow other forms of production to continue.

Water.

Thermal regulation.

Humidity.

Biodiversity.

Soil stability.

Future possibilities.

And this brings us to the proposal we call Green Petrobras.

Green Petrobras: not making oil green, but making the rule of extraction green

We need to begin with an important clarification.

Oil does not become green because we plant trees after burning it.

Forest preservation does not thermodynamically neutralize a barrel of oil through a simple equivalence between combustion energy and evapotranspiration.

Climate responsibility must primarily consider greenhouse gas emissions across the full life cycle, including emissions generated by the final use of sold products.

Petrobras itself recognizes that the use of sold products constitutes the most significant category of its Scope 3 emissions. (sec.gov)

Our proposal is different:

Oil does not become green through compensation. What can become green is the rule according to which we decide whether to extract it.

Petrobras reached total own oil and gas production of approximately 3.34 million barrels of oil equivalent per day in the second quarter of 2026. (agencia.petrobras.com.br)

But what if we stopped asking only:

How much can we produce?

And began with:

How much does Brazil actually need?

First sufficiency. Then surplus.

BrainLatam proposes a National Energy Sufficiency Range.

It would need to be technically recalculated each year, considering domestic consumption, refining capacity, energy security, strategic reserves, different oil grades, and the actual pace of the energy transition.

It does not mean commercial isolation.

It means establishing an order.

First, what the country needs.

Then, what it chooses to remove in order to supply other territories.

Beyond this threshold, every additional barrel primarily destined for export would enter an Excess Production Regime.

And it would acquire a new value:

The Biome Barrel

Imagine, simply as an initial model, that oil trades at US$70.

For exportable surplus production, we could establish:

US$70 for the energy resource

US$70 in Biome Income

=

US$140 as the sovereign minimum value of that surplus barrel.

The legal mechanism could take the form of an ecological royalty, an export levy, or a contribution to a sovereign biome fund.

The instrument is not the most important part at this stage.

The principle is:

The further production moves beyond what we need and into excess, the greater the value required to remove a finite resource from the territory.

And what if the international market refuses to pay?

The oil remains underground.

Perhaps wealth is also what we are able not to sell cheaply.

But where would the Biome Income go?

Not simply into an account labeled “environmental compensation.”

It would need to finance measurable ecological integrity.

Preservation of mature native vegetation.

Restoration of degraded areas.

Water.

Biodiversity.

Ecological connectivity.

Territorial protection for Indigenous peoples and traditional communities.

Science.

Climate monitoring.

Emissions reduction.

And part of this income could finance what we call Biome Income, potentially integrated in the future with Citizen Drex and with the constitutional recognition of each Body-Territory as a participant in the nation’s ecological wealth.

In this model, keeping a forest standing would no longer mean economically:

“producing nothing.”

It would mean:

preserving the ecological infrastructure that allows the country to continue existing and producing.

And this does not apply only to oil

Think about rare earths.

Brazil could simply increase mining, export ore, and celebrate higher production.

Or it could extract less and build domestically:

refining capacity,

permanent magnets,

motors,

batteries,

semiconductors,

medical equipment,

aerospace technology.

Perhaps this is where Augusto Cury and Renan Santos touch on a point particularly relevant to our proposal.

Augusto Cury’s plan explicitly states that Brazil should stop being predominantly a supplier of raw materials and expand processing, industrialization, and high-value-added goods based on strategic minerals. (tse.jus.br)

Renan Santos presents a similar diagnosis regarding rare earths: he criticizes raw exports and proposes national separation and refining capacity. His program also supports Angra 3, green hydrogen, and nuclear fusion research. (tse.jus.br)

We may agree or disagree with the specific technologies.

But the correct question has appeared:

Why sell tons of something that could be transformed here into grams of high-value technology?

When the green transition repeats the old colonialism

Latin America needs to be particularly careful here.

Argentine sociologist Maristella Svampa has warned that an energy transition can remain colonial when it replaces oil with lithium, copper, or rare earths but leaves intact the international division between territories that extract matter and territories that concentrate technology.

Her recent work discusses precisely the risks of energy colonialism and extractivism associated with the green transition. (conicet.gov.ar)

Miriam Lang, a researcher at Universidad Andina Simón Bolívar in Ecuador, argued in 2024 that the growth imperative can also produce harm in the Global South and that “green growth” strategies may deepen extractive frontiers if colonial and commercial relationships remain unchanged. (cambridge.org)

Perhaps changing the color of the technology is not enough.

An energy transition that requires Latin America to extract more and more so that other countries can consume more and more remains an economy of excess.

And what do the presidential candidates propose?

It is interesting that almost all of them recognize some part of the problem.

Lula proposes leading a transition toward a low-carbon economy, expanding renewables, bioenergy, and productive sustainability. But his plan simultaneously celebrates the recovery and record production of oil and gas. (tse.jus.br)

Perhaps this is one of the central tensions in his proposal:

How can Brazil lead the transition while simultaneously expanding the fossil frontier?

Flávio Bolsonaro combines an economic expansion agenda with a target of eliminating illegal deforestation by 2029 and proposes environmental monitoring using AI, satellites, and integrated public databases. (noticias.uol.com.br)

Romeu Zema treats nature as an economic asset, proposes combating illegal deforestation and mining, and even includes the economic reuse of existing mining waste. This raises an interesting question within our framework: Can we extract value from what we have already removed before opening another mining frontier? (tse.jus.br)

Ronaldo Caiado emphasizes modernization of agriculture, permanent rural insurance, climate monitoring, traceability, and turning sustainability into a commercial advantage. (tse.jus.br)

Clariana Barão presents a broader agenda of energy security, infrastructure, and higher-value-added exports, without developing in the plan we consulted a material or extractive policy as specific as some other candidacies. (polyapoio.com)

On the left, we find different responses.

Edmilson Costa proposes slowing the pace of oil extraction, using petroleum revenues to finance clean energy, combating illegal mining, and expanding biome protection. (tse.jus.br)

Hertz Dias connects economic dependence to resource exports, proposes state control over sectors such as oil and mining, supports agroecology, and opposes oil exploration in the Equatorial Margin. (tse.jus.br)

Rui Costa Pimenta proposes a fully state-owned Petrobras, nationalization of mineral reserves, and use of oil revenues for domestic needs. His program, however, emphasizes ownership and sovereignty more than the existence of ecological production limits. (tse.jus.br)

Samara Martins proposes defending the Amazon environment, preventing foreign exploitation of mineral resources, and reversing what her program describes as the surrender of Brazil’s rare earths. (tse.jus.br)

Wilson Grassi proposes using Brazil’s renewable energy matrix as an industrial advantage, combating illegal deforestation through traceability, and opening debate on mining in Indigenous territories with consultation and economic participation by communities. (tse.jus.br)

For Pablo Marçal, the TSE proposal repository consulted for this text still does not provide an official document that would allow us to safely attribute an equivalent material and environmental policy. (tse.jus.br)

Perhaps development means needing to extract less

Eduardo Gudynas and Fernando García-Quero argued in 2025 that transitions imagined from the Global South must go beyond simple technological substitution and confront peripherality, inequality, and dependency as well. (researchgate.net)

Perhaps we can bring that question directly into the Brazil 2026 Presidential Election.

We do not need to choose between:

producing

or

not producing.

We can choose between different ways of producing.

An economy can extract more and more material in order to keep growing.

Or it can increase knowledge, technology, durability, circularity, and added value per unit removed from the territory.

Within 5D Consciousness, we can also ask why “more” acquired so much Qualia of progress.

More oil looks like power.

More soy looks like success.

More ore looks like development.

Perhaps our collective attentional maturity begins when we are able to observe that brightness and ask:

More for what?

More for whom?

For how long?

And what is this “more” taking away from the future possibilities of the Body-Territory?

This is why the BrainLatam proposal is not anti-production.

Perhaps it is precisely the opposite.

We want to continue producing.

But we want our children to be able to produce too.

Producing better may mean learning to produce more future with less excess.

References

FALCONÍ, Fander; BURBANO, Rafael; CANGO, Pedro; INTRIAGO, Ruthy. Extraction and dematerialization in Latin America, 1970–2023. Ecological Economics, vol. 244, 2026. DOI 10.1016/j.ecolecon.2026.108947. (sciencedirect.com)

LANG, Miriam. Degrowth, global asymmetries, and ecosocial justice: Decolonial perspectives from Latin America. Review of International Studies, vol. 50, 2024. DOI 10.1017/S0260210524000147. (cambridge.org)

GUDYNAS, Eduardo. Sentipensando territorios: una revisión del concepto, sus expresiones y urgencias en América Latina. Cambios y Permanencias, vol. 15, no. 2, 2024. DOI 10.18273/cyp.v15n2-202406. (revistas.uis.edu.co)

GUDYNAS, Eduardo; GARCÍA-QUERO, Fernando. Repensando las transiciones desde el Sur: un diálogo con Raúl Prebisch sobre periferia, desigualdad y capitalismo. Desenvolvimento e Meio Ambiente, vol. 66, 2025. DOI 10.5380/dma.v66i.99113. (researchgate.net)

SVAMPA, Maristella. Dilemas de la transición ecosocial desde América Latina; La transición energética vista desde el Sur; Thinking about Ecosocial Transition: Lithium and Energy Colonialism. Works published between 2023 and 2024. (conicet.gov.ar)

TAIT, Márcia M.; PERON, Alcides Eduardo dos Reis; SUÁREZ, Marcela. Terrestrial politics and body-territory: two concepts to make sense of digital colonialism in Latin America. Tapuya, 2022. DOI 10.1080/25729861.2022.2090485. (tandfonline.com)

HOFMANN, G. S. et al. Changes in atmospheric circulation and evapotranspiration are reducing rainfall in the Brazilian Cerrado. Scientific Reports, 2023. (nature.com)

BOTTINO, Marcus Jorge et al. Amazon savannization and climate change are projected to increase dry season length and temperature extremes over Brazil. Scientific Reports, 2024. (doi.org)

ECLAC. Natural Resources Outlook in Latin America and the Caribbean 2023. Published in 2024. (cepal.org)

PETROBRAS. 2025 Sustainability Report and operating results for the second quarter of 2026. (sustentabilidade.petrobras.com.br)

SUPERIOR ELECTORAL COURT. Government Proposals — 2026 Elections. Official documents used for the comparison of presidential candidacies. (tse.jus.br)