Brazil is burning its way to climate-change apocalypse and the rest of the world is happy to allow it
[Image: Another Angry Voice.]
Jair Bolsonaro seems determined to turn his enormous nation into a desert – a dustbowl incapable of supporting life.
That’s what will happen if the Amazon rainforest is allowed to disappear, you see. The soil on which it stands is not rich enough to sustain farm crops for more than one or two plantings at the most. After that, the people of Brazil will be left in the dust.
That’s science.
Mr Bolsonaro seems to be motivated by something else. Greed? It makes no sense.
He can’t make money by burning the forest. Once it is gone, his people will be doomed. And there should be no aid from other countries because they will have brought it down on themselves – and on the rest of us.
I have wondered whether this is a blackmail play – trying to get us to pay him to keep the forest from harm.
But then he would not have gone ahead and started burning it – or allowing it to be burned.
It makes no sense. It is the action of a loon.
So, while I agree with everything Tom Clark of Another Angry Voice states below, I think there is more to it.
I’m absolutely sick of people saying that the “Amazon is burning” as if it’s some kind of unfortunate accident.
Massive swathes of the Amazon are being deliberately burned in a massive land grab by ranchers and loggers emboldened by far-right Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro’s anti-environmental diatribes and racist rhetoric against the indigenous people and minorities who live there.
This is what happens when extreme-right racist untranationalists cheat their way into power.
For more detail on Mr Bolsonaro’s plans, see this article.
The strange thing is, there won’t be any military intervention by the nations of the West.
It seems that, if fossil fuel isn’t involved, the United States, the UK and the other so-called “great” democracies don’t care.
We certainly don’t care, it seems, about an environmental calamity being committed in front of our noses, despite having declared that the world is in a climate emergency. What hypocrisy.
nice post and blog
Absolute insanity. And downright criminal. He ought to be charged with crimes against humanity.
The cheats have managed to get themselves into power in most of the countries that have the power to change all our lives, the trouble is they wan’t to change our lives for their benefit, they will burn the lungs of the planet, rape the earth of natural resources, steal the air you breath for the sake of profit.
This profit will be used to make them rich, richer than anyone could dream, but then they die, you can’t take it with you, money, the driving force of poverty.
The trouble is that people have forgotten what money is for; it is a means to an end, not an end in itself. Chaucer was right, all of those years since, when he said that the love of money is the root of all evil.
I am familiar with that saying but wasn’t aware it was attributed to Chaucer, I always assumed it was Biblical.
Trees used to cover much of the Earth’s surface but it has been cleared to make way for grass: wheat, barley, oats, millet, maize, bamboo, rice. The Amazon is the largest, Great Rainforest and its loss will affect the Earth’s climate in untold ways, even moreso, I think, than the carbon compounds that were released by its combustion; just look at the Sahara. Static communities are not a good thing and the rise of the city has brought about this form of capitalism. These are the chickens coming home to roost.
1,600 fires in the Amazon and 6,000+ hectares ablaze in Bolivia and all that the world’s leaders can do is argue amongst themselves! It is like arguing with your neighbour, in front if his burning house, about who started the fire but doing nothing to put it out! There should be a global effort to contain the fires, at the very least. £et’s worry about recriminations and trade deals later. All of this squabbling and politicking is doing nothing to address the fires that are raging now!
Make that 800,000+ hectares!
These fires burn every year;
https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/images/145464/fires-in-brazil
“Many people use fire to maintain farmland and pastures or to clear land for other purposes. Typically, activity peaks in early September and mostly stops by November.
As of August 16, 2019, an analysis of NASA satellite data indicated that total fire activity across the Amazon basin this year has been close to the average in comparison to the past 15 years”
It BEEN CLOSE TO AVERAGE so why the interest this year Mike? ……. because Bolsanaro who came to office in January that’s why.
I thought you were honest and even handed Mike but you are not – you are as dishonest as the rest of the prestitutes.
These fires are not those fires. While there may be some every year, they have not been happening on the scale we are seeing now.
You are trying to hide the facts with disinformation. Who are you?
Thanks for the link Derek.
If you read further in the link you will find that the average for the year quoted is across the whole region. Fires have increased in the Brazilian Amazon, as discussed, but the average for the region remains unchanged because they are reduced in neighbouring countries.
See also:-
“the timing and location of fire detections early in the 2019 dry season are more consistent with land clearing than with regional drought.”
“At this point in the fire season, MODIS active fire detections in 2019 are higher across the Brazilian Amazon than in any year since 2010. The state of Amazonas is on track for record fire activity in 2019”.
https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/images/145498/uptick-in-amazon-fire-activity-in-2019
See also New Scientist if you find Vox Political unconvincing:-
“The law hasn’t changed – Brazil’s decades-old forest code means landowners face fines if more than a fifth of their land is deforested – but observers say the political rhetoric has emboldened people to act without fear of enforcement.”
“Deforestation in the region appears to be accelerating by the month, with July being exceptionally bad. More than 1250 square kilometres has been lost in the first 22 days, up more than 100 per cent on the whole of July last year, figures from Brazilian space agency INPE show.”
Read more: https://www.newscientist.com/article/2210621-deforestation-in-brazil-has-rocketed-since-bolsonaro-became-president/#ixzz5xoTHSN5R