That's not what I'm talking about.

Suppose we give them money for the rain forest so they leave it alone, and they take the money and invest it in the S&P 500, and then take the returns from that and reinvest it in the same thing.

Suppose instead we threaten them with trade sanctions if they don't leave the rain forest alone, keep our money and invest it in the S&P 500 ourselves.

It's the same result in practice. The real cost to Brazil is that they don't get to have an agriculture industry where there used to be rain forest. Which fat cat subsequently gets to be the nominal owner of some shares of SPX has no real effect on ordinary humans. The fat cats care but nothing real changes for anybody else.

You couldn’t really expect me to understand all that from what you said. Thanks for explaining in the end but I wonder if your specialised knowledge and thought into this made it harder for you to explain the concept in plain language. Maybe it’s obvious to you, but it wasn’t for me.