Amazon fires: Record number burning in Brazil rainforest
bbc.comGonna give my 2 cents, bear in mind I'm in Brazil and am involved in projects related to the Amazon forest.
My problem with all this are some things:
* One problem I have is that during the last years Amazon savagery was going uncontrollable, no one cared, especially BBC, now that a president was elected that is not aligned with their point of view was elected, this became a front news issue.
* Assuming this is all true (and bear in mind, it isn't always) that fire was in Brazil's frontier, not just Brazil, the article forgot that part.
* One more point is: the supposed German and Norway money to "help maintain the forest", if you need to learn anything from investigative journalism, is to follow the money. Norway had a mining operation in the middle of Amazon[0] - the thing they are supposed to prevent! Funny enough, that mining rig polluted all the area [1] and they settled down not paying the locals, that are still protesting. I really wonder if that Amazon fund was really to support and protect our forest or to pay off NGOs to ignore what they were doing over there. Bonus: this all happened in the previous "good" government administration.
I really worry about the forest and was in Sao Paulo when that happened two days ago, but I really suspect the politics around it.
[0] - http://theconversation.com/the-world-protests-as-amazon-fore...
[1] - https://www.tnp.no/norway/panorama/toxic-waste-from-norwegia...
One interesting point is made by Slavoj Zizek on our society[0] about the "good" billionaires that give with one hand what they destroyed with the other. This what it feels like about all of what is happening over there, 1st world countries give "aid" to cover the problem themselves did over there.
Also, bear in mind the Brazilian Amazon territory borders British, French and Dutch interests in Guyana, French Guyana and Suriname respectively.
I can't speak for all nations, but certainly here in northern Europe, NGOs and others have worked for decades on preservation efforts, in concert with local organizations. Deforestation (especially the Amazon rainforest) has been a high priority for conservation and environmental efforts for decades.
So please don't think that we only started caring about Amazonia because a person with disagreeable politics was elected recently. Deforestation affects everyone, it's a global issue.
However, said person has made a number of statements that are directly threatening towards the future preservation of South American rainforests, and thus the awareness and conservation efforts have increased their visibility, in order to counteract the damage your governments politics will do to the rainforest.
>So please don't think that we only started caring about Amazonia because a person with disagreeable politics was elected recently. Deforestation affects everyone, it's a global issue.
That is not my point, let me go further, some mining companies from those countries used this political position to lobby themselves and continue to operate in the forest, and they are "untouchable" despite polluting the area (check my sources in the beginning of the thread.
Said that, I think the current president is an idiot for saying lots of those things too. One thing does not justify the other.
I am in no way defending the corporations who are exploiting Amazonia and have been doing it for years. This exploitation has increased massively during the current presidency.
Environmental orgs and groups have been working against these companies for decades, no matter which government has been in power. It goes beyond partisan politics, we consider it a global issue way beyond petty political squabbles.
That's the problem right now in Brazil. Any criticism to the current administration is because "ideology", like that's a valid argument to invalidate anything that's said. The current president thinks there are communists in every corner.
The fires are happening, any satellite can confirm that. Easily. The the head of the public institution doing very scientific work to track that got fired because he wasn't a true "Brazilian" since he was obviously trying to hurt his country by reporting the truth.
It seems we have imported the dualism in politics from the US/Argentina and everything now now is "us" vs "them". It's impossible to have a reasonable discussion about public policies without people resorting to hidden motives and conspiracy theories.
I've followed the international news about the Amazon fires and there's very little wrong facts in them. But unfortunately they don't help our current extreme right administration so.
I hope reasonable minds prevail in the next election and we're able to elect an administration that is rational. Unfortunately, due to the increasing duopoly in politics, we'll probably have a extreme left president. It's all very sad.
gtirloni, I agree that tying to administration is ridiculous and avoid real criticism. This just bugs me because the rate of deforestation was going up really high in the previous one (that was impeached, but not because of that).
The fires are happening, I agree, but I really disagree that there are little wrong facts, mostly people hide important stuff, like the Norway mining I rig, and I really bet you didn't know about that one, it barely made the news. Only the convenient news come up.
It's impossible to say about only reasonable minds when the arguments are so skewed towards politics and extreme actions.
That's because the Norway mining thing is totally irrelevant to the big picture?
What people forget is that even if Americans may be divided, they're not sacrificing any of their territorial sovereignty to other countries.
Anyone seriously suggesting anything like this be done to America would be met with total annihilation "warnings" from any administration.
I wouldn't be so sure about that...
Interesting, because according to Norsk Hydro and various Brazilian authorities there never were overflows or leaks. [0]
"Around the time of the floods, there were local reports that the floods had affected the residue deposits and rumors circulated that they had overflowed into the surrounding area and contaminated local communities. The Brazilian authorities were likewise concerned and initiated multiple inspections of Alunorte."
[0] - https://www.hydro.com/en-US/media/on-the-agenda/the-alunorte...
> now that a president was elected that is not aligned with their point of view was elected, this became a front news issue.
Or maybe they are just push articles their audience want to read. There is def more env awareness now than before for whatever reason.
The sad part of reading news like this is the feeling of paralysis and helplessness of watching it all unfold.
There are no actionable calls to action or advice laid out in articles like these.
Awareness is good though. Perhaps it inspires people to work directly on solving nature's greatest problems. A friend of mine made a GitHub curated list about tech companies working in this space.
Thanks for your github Nikivi.
I remember asking this question some time ago and it got ignored by people here (of course): https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12864591
If it doesn't include the words: dividend, stock, option, etc. it doesn't work here.
If the government is not comitted to the preservation of the Amazon, then there's really nothing that can be done. One could consider imposing international sanctions, but the chance of that backfiring would be quite high IMHO.
Individual action is very limited. Collective action is the only way forwards, which means you're going to have to get political, and convince other people that it's real, important, and deserving of action.
Money talks, if companies can make billions of dollars from individual $10-20 subscriptions, I don't see why we can't do it for climate change/deforestation!
I personally use Project Wren (https://projectwren.com/) to offset my own footprint and a bit more!
Brasil needs to be heavily sanctioned by the international community, I'm talking Cuba-level stuff if we want to even have a chance at stopping the rise above 2 degrees, we only have 12 years which means that it's already probably too late.
More worrying is the rise of populism in the world supported by fake news, ignorance and social media that led to this.
How did someone as ignorant as Bolsonaro ever managed to get elected as president of a democratic country, and get away with some of the things he says?
I consider such approach rather oppressive and reeking of colonialism attitudes. It sounds like: "Fuck Brasil, let's ban them from using their natural resources, while we happily keep using ours". There is literally no reason why other countries countries couldn't plant more forests to enhance their carbon depositions, now Brasil thanks to their rainforests does more of biosequestration than any other country on Earth and don't they dare doing less and not pick other nations' slack...
Also 12 years is just another arbitrary alarmist number, similarly to recently heard 18 months [1]. But in reality there is no upcoming end of the world [2].
[1]: https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-48964736
[2]: https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/observations/no-climate...
IT is colonialist, patronizing, and evil. The US and the "developed" world have set course for self annihilation and the US in particular has done nothing to solve its own path by leaving the Paris Agreement. But hey let's blame Brasil, easier than solving our own problems.
Two things can be true at the same time. Clearly, both countries should change their behavior. I think what is happening in Basil is mostly due to the West fault, due to demand for cheap meat.
The Amazonian forest is mostly being tore down due to soy production for cattle feed.
Why are you so defensive about all of this?
So defensive? It’s the second time news like this have shown up and it’s the second time people have suggested sanctions. Usually Americans living under a regime that is one of the few countries to pull out of the Paris Agreement. You don’t see a problem with that? Why is Brasil having to shoulder the blame for CO2 mostly produced elsewhere?
There’s a lot that can be done but really it’s the usual thing for me - if you’re going to criticise someone clean up your own house first.
I'm a Brazilian, living in Sweden and I'm going to push and get in touch with people I know who have connections or work at Riksdagen (the Swedish parliament) to start any kind of discussion on sanctioning the beef and mining industry in Brazil.
It's possible to criticise something even if you live in a glasshouse, even more when what's being done down there is senseless for the future of the whole country, like I mentioned on another comment: this is utterly myopic and stupid, extract and destroy now to have something for 5 years or do the proper thing and invest in educating society taking 1-2 generations (so about 20-30 years) and reap the benefits for the next centuries.
I am also Brazilian but yeah I’m not saying any of this is right. I just don’t get the sanctions idea being so popular around here.
If you asked, most people who are arguing for sanctions on Brasil would also support sanctions on America for pulling out of the Paris Agreement.
>if you’re going to criticise someone clean up your own house first.
Is a terrible attitude to have and will never lead to any solutions.
How is this not obvious? Industrialization is a rapid road to prosperity. The West industrialized and is prosperous, and now requires the other countries not take the path they took? It’s never going to happen.
You can’t dump 7 times as much carbon as a Brazilian into the atmosphere and then ask them to cut emissions. Especially when you have the money and resources to be carbon negative and choose not to.
The economy at those times was VERY different, there weren't alternatives that are getting cheaper than oil nowadays for energy, the future is in green energy, pushing this agenda of "we need to develop the same way as the current developed nations have done is the only way" is stupid and myopic.
If Brazil was interested in developing itself (and I know firsthand how that place works, fucks sake, I lived my first 27 years of life there) it'd be pushing its development through research on this new green field (pun intended) that is still immature and open for the newcomers to be bold and create the industry the world will rely on. It's a prime place to research and develop renewable technology with abundant hydro and solar energy, with vast swaths of land covered by the most diverse bioma on Earth. Brazil could be doing novel technologies to sell the future world on this, instead it's pushed down by exporting mostly iron ore, soybeans and beef, it's stuck in the past and society is kept uneducated and living on primary commodities exports. Hell, even with a lot of oil Brazil has no technology to refine and produce its own fuel, it sells the oil out just to buy it back in the form of refined oil products.
Brazil doesn't have any internal incentive, politically, to become better, technologically, educationally or culturally, it's a place stuck in time, nothing works, no infrastructure is properly developed. I know that, I haven't visited it for 3 years after moving to Sweden and going back to visit friends and family just made me see how... Nothing really ever changes, projects are always late, bogged down by corruption and bureaucracy, overspending and ultimately most of them are never finished. Lack of reliable and proper transportation in major cities keep poor people poor, being stuck in a bus 4 hours of your day to earn R$ 1.500,00 per month doesn't leave you much time and energy to be able to study, that money barely cover your basic expenses, it's horrible.
So instead of complaining that other countries want it to do better do some thinking and see that it's because there are many other ways to be better, there is no need to follow the missteps of other countries, pave a fucking new way instead of always looking up to what others have done and mimic it. It's the country of poor imitation, the only benefit is that we are inventive and given constraints our people are really creative.
Brazil, as we say, will always be the country of the future. The problem is that the future never arrives to become the present over there.
So the answer is to throw our hands in the air and give up because our ancestors did something we now to be extremely harmful so we have to let everyone else do it too?
Absolutely not. But I don’t think sanctions are a great idea.
And what would be your proposal? Bolsonaro will only listen when the scummy people who supports him (and I'm talking about business, not the voters) get hurt in their pockets.
No other country can plant a rainforest the size of Amazonia, come on that does not make sense.
The Amazonia rainforest is unique and cannot be replaced, I don't get how the rate that it's getting tore down to plant soy crops for cattle feed to allow for the production of cheap meat is not alarming to anyone.
If you want the rainforest to remain, then pay for it to remain. Otherwise, let those who own the rainforest use the rainforest.
You may have been downvoted, but the the developed world has yet to provide a good retort to your point.
Such a question is answered by blatant hypocrisy every time.
Who says any human should “own” a rainforest?
Who says any human should "own" the oil in the ground or the ground itself?
We can't champion private ownership while denying private ownership to others. Especially when you have no control over said land.
It's cliche to blame capitalism, but it is capitalism that has given us a distorted view of the world and of the concept of ownership.
> We can't champion private ownership while denying private ownership to others.
Of course we can. It's called colonialist and it's what made Europe and USA the economic powerhouses of the world.
I don't agree on sanctioning Brazil to Cuba levels. I do agree with sanctioning the beef/cattle industry there and I want to explain why:
Some of the staunchest supporters of Bolsonaro are from agrobusiness, they support him because of the removal of environmental protections so they are more free to take over land, illegally at first and I see that more and more this government will create frameworks to make that legal.
They support him because of his anti-environmental stance, because of his defunding of IBAMA (Brazil's environmental protection agency, responsible for investigation and enforcement of those laws), defunding and removing security to the officers that go to remote areas on the north of Brazil. These people risk their lives, that area of Brazil is a wild west with hitmen and killings happening if those farmers get a wiff that their illegal land grab is being scrutinised. Usually those officers would have support from the police and the army or national guard, now they have nothing and they refuse to do their inspections without it.
Apart from that, just this year his government has approved 290 new pesticides to be used in Brazilian fields, there are another 500+ to be "analysed" but will probably get a straight stamping out of it, news this week just reported that half a BILLION bees have died in Brazil this year, there is a very strong signal to connect those.
I was born and raised in Brazil, I've been educated and hearing about these massive land grabs and deforestation in the Amazon since I was a kid in 4th grade, it's never got much better and that is because of the agroindustry in Brazil, if the world keeps consuming beef from there it's only going to get worse. And fast.
So yes, I advocate now for sanctioning these industries that are the base supporters and financiers of Bolsonaro, he has the evangelical votes but those people are a danger to Brazil's society, not to the world as a whole, cattle farmers burning and destroying the Amazon, mining and oil companies applying for permits to install themselves in the jungle, THOSE are the industries that are gonna kill the Amazon and a big part of Earth with it.
The US burns by far the most fossil fuel per capita. If any country needs to be sanctioned for causing climate change, it's the US.
Yeah. Even Europeans are shocked at the level of consumption in the US. Driving absolutely everywhere. Air conditioning everywhere keeping the buildings colder than necessary. Heating keeping them warmer than necessary. All plastic packaging is twice as thick and there's twice as much of it. Eating enough food to maintain an overweight/obese body. It's an extremely wasteful society.
If we as a species are going to do anything it has to be all together. We all have to make cuts. Only a tiny number of individuals will voluntarily give up what they have. Why would they? It's just not fair. Many simply can't give it up without losing their jobs etc. We cannot point at Brasil while we are also living far beyond our means.
Two things can be true, the rainforest cutdown needs to be quickly stopped with urgent measures, AND countries like the US and the West in general need to change their meat consumption behavior.
It's not one or the other, both are needed. Most of what is going on in Brasil is due to the West demand for cheap meat, that is what is driving the deforestation.
According to the latest science, we only have 12 years for preventing the planet temperature from rising to 12 degrees
We are all in the same boat. If Brasil decides to smash holes in their side too, we all drown.
I don't disagree, but burning the Amazon has a double effect, it releases massive amounts of CO2, but also kills trees that can remove the CO2. The Amazon is called the 'lungs of our world' for a reason.
Climate change doesn't work on a per-capita basis.
Humans do. No human is going to accept emitting less CO2 just because they live in a populous country, if other humans are allowed to emit more per person just because they live in a less populated country.
How else do it aggregate to the sum of all on earth? Climate change do not care about borders
Guess what? If you're driving a massive SUV and heating your home every winter, I'm not going to listen to you telling me I have to oil the bearings on my bike to prevent friction heating.
Take the beam out of your eye and maybe I'll listen.
> Brasil needs to be heavily sanctioned by the international community...
Along with the US, Saudi Arabia, Russia and Australia. And probably a bunch of others.
it would be more effectiveif the northern hemisphere started paying a rainforest tax to the southern as proposed by the likes of prince charles
Equador tried asking for that, but it was ignored: https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/ecuador-asks-worl...
So the "developed" world sets course for anihilating itself and Brasil gets the blame? How very American of you.
I'm a Brazilian, and yes, our country needs to be heavily sanctioned until this president wakes up.
Yeah, first world countries made bad decisions in the past, but by 2019 everyone should know better. And he knows it, he just don't give a damn about it.
Would be all for the sanctions, but the EU just signed a free trade agreement with Brazil (Mercosur). That agreement put Brazil's farmers at an advantage, they can now sell to the EU, and produce cheaper than European farmers. If anything that accelerated the trend we see now in the Amazon.
Also, Trump's trade war with China led China to heavily invest in Brazil's soy. Another accelerator of Amazon burning.
So, after all it isn't just Bolsonaro, it is also our (the western world) fault. The officials we elected allow for this in the first place.
What part of the EU-Mercosur agreement do you see impacting this? Soya was already imported without tariffs, and the low-tariff beef quota is just 100k tonnes, divided over the four Mercosur countries, whereas Brazil alone already produces 11 million tonnes of beef.
> How did someone as ignorant as Bolsonaro ever managed to get elected as president of a democratic country, and get away with some of the things he says?
This has to be sarcasm right ?
You ask that question when Duterte, Erdogan, Trump, Brexit, LePen and the like have occurred in the last 5 years preceding him.
Bolsonaro was democratically elected. We may not like it (I absolutely despise him), but that is the will of the people. Naive, easily misled and disheartened people. But, democrated elected nevertheless.
> How did someone as ignorant as Bolsonaro ever managed to get elected as president of a democratic country, and get away with some of the things he says?
Just like Trump, probably.
Anecdotally, having met a few Brazilians who voted for him, the phrase "taking him seriously, not literally" does seem to apply as well.
That said, other than that the situations seem quite different. Brazil was in a political quagmire that is hard to fathom in the US, at least for someone seeing both from afar.
How about the rest of the world buy the rainforest and put it in a trust? It could then be dealt with like Antarctica - an area that isn't a country.
Same applies with say the DRC and other rainforest areas.
If we truly care about nature then Brazil should be made one of the most politically and economically stable countries in the world by the powers of the world.
If that seems like too much effort to give up our own resources to protect the environment then leading world powers should re-evaluate whether its in humanities best interest to have few stable places of living that don't come at the cost of the environment to deal with poverty and suffering.
If you or your country is not stable, the last thing you will be concerned about is the environmental impact on the world.
Your point implies that we need to deflorestate in order to be economically stable. No, our economy is not bad because of the environment, it's bad because of bad decisions of politicians of the past.
Think you misunderstood my point, I'm saying that deforestation is a result of a economic woes. If the economy was in better shape we would be seeing less deforestation.
The politicians make decisions against the environment because it's how they gain political points, being seen as the fiscally conservative leader is always a winner in uncertain times.
Not in our case. Our current president is a climate change denial, in favor of reducing protected areas, he's cutting funding to inspections and so on.
It took me a few good seconds to realize that the title is not about Amazon burning cash or something, shows how entrenched in our lives Amazon (the company) is.
In *your life. I would indeed make myself few questions :)
If environmental disasters are enough pretext for questioning sovereignty, shall we compile a list, together with the territory to be subtracted? I suggest with start with North America. I'll go first:
- Deepwater Horizon platform; Gulf of Mexico, 2010.
This is downvoted, but it is a fair point, that is being used as politics weapon. The Amazon forest was savaged before, but the previous administration was seen as "good".
And more than that, those supposed good funds from Germany and Norway that were basically a form of bribe for the previous administration look to the other side on the mining atrocities these countries did in the forest.
For some reason I've thought about the other Amazon. Even São Paulo didn't help the title to ring a bell.
This hits at one ideological conundrum that I have been grappling with for a while.
All major developed nations did so on the back of dirty energy, exploiting resources and with huge climate change implications.
Now that the smaller developing nations are finally capable of doing so themselves, they are being discouraged by the same developed powers. The developed powers did the same, but got away with it because there was no oversight. I don't see why these underdeveloped nations are now being expected to take the moral high ground.
We wouldn't need the Amazon as much, if we weren't pumping as many pollutants into our air and water supplies.
Plenty of species went extinct when the now developed powers expanded with reckless abandon. Now that Brazil is doing the same, the outrage seems hypocritical.
Some may say that the Amazon is special and not a resource that Brazil can singularly exploit, when it has global implications. But, the same has been true of fossil rich nations that have pumped cheap gas into the market indiscriminately, while they all individually became billionaires.
This whole argument extended to new developing economies like India and Central Africa at large.
Just to be clear I am not advocating for the deforestation of the Amazon. It can be seen as a right wing talking point, but I myself am completely at my wits end and do not have a retort to the argument.
Is anyone surprised? It's easy to be upset over this but most readers here live relatively privileged lives. The poor farmer lighting a fire is doing his best to improve his life by clearing more land.
I don't know to improve the situation but I feel like we also need to have empathy and understanding.
I can be proven wrong, but I don't think it's poor farmers who are responsible for the deforestation of the Amazon. It's mostly big latifund owners with lots of lobbying power.
Gonna scream that one here: mining, look at norwegian and international companies mining in the middle of the forest. Plus previous administrations actions, like a giant power plant that will divert one of the biggest rivers over there.
mining only equates for roughly 10% of the deforestation of the amazon rainforest, we should be looking at the meat industry, it equates for roughly 75% - 80% of deforestation.
The poor farmer lighting a fire is doing his best to improve his life by clearing more land.
Ah yes, the "think of the poor" argument. Deforestation at this scale isn't done by individual poor, it's done by wealthy organizations.
AFAICT this is not a matter of small farmers clearing a bit of land in order to survive. It's a matter of huge cattle producers and industrial soy farms burning clear vast swathes of the Amazon jungle, for profit.
And producing soy in Brazil has become even more profitable now that the US vs China trade war is in full swing and the Chinese have stopped purchasing US soy. There’s no easy solution for this in an world as inter-connected as ours, apart from breaking all said connections (for example the Chinese reverting to only eating things that they actually grow in their land, which will most probably create a mass famine or two) or somehow for us to consume a lot less things, which hasn’t been the case for at least 200 years (since the Industrial Revolution started).
How much would one need to pay per square kilometer rainforrest for keeping it to be competitive against steak/soy-farming?
Please stop.
It is not the fault of the current government. Burning happens every year in the Amazon, and everywhere across the world.
The leftist party is using international media to alarm against the current government.
There are also investigations being carried out on these burnings, as there are indications that several are criminals and were executed by NGOs in this region. Those are the same who have lost benefits (money) in recent weeks.
Yes, it is the responsibility of the current government to intervene, hold responsible and take steps to prevent this from occurring or diminishing its impact in the future. It is worth remembering that this government is only 8 months old.
People behave as if previous governments were constantly extinguishing fire and that in the last 16 days, "by the current government", the water has run out and started to set fire to everything.
The problem of Amazonian care comes from decades of neglect, and this government is only 8 months old. There should be no external intervention. Other countries (first world or not, there are no excuses) should reforest as much as they can for the global good and not just point the finger at this region (important, of course).
NGOs in Brazil are almost totally corrupt, they are cancer here in Brazil. As well as much of politics.
Many forget or do not know that former President Lula [1] assumed in interviews that his government lied about important statistical data, such as hunger and misery in Brazil to impact abroad and then present the true numbers as the savior of this country. Pure manipulation.
The current government is revisiting all research departments through a thorough process to check all numbers that were presented as true and many are questionable.
[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M5bOtqmvJHE (in Portuguese only, sorry)
What you wrote is the government narrative, it lacks sources. The reality is that the current government has been loosening its controls a lot by dismantling the Ministry of Environment's supervisory bodies, using the narrative that climate change is alarmism. This veiled incentive to deforestation promoted by the government is being reflected in satellite data and increased burns.
Just so you know guys, this sounds like a typical Bolsonaro voter. Even implying that the multi-hundred-percent increase in deforestation just this year was fabricated by the communist scientists and that Lula somehow has anything to do with it. Or that it's good that Bolsonaro is "reorganizing" the research departments to get rid of the commies that dare to present evidence against his corrupt children or about his family's relationships with Rio militias. Or just plain firing scientists and managers from organs like INPE (National Institute of Space Research) and IBAMA (Brazilian Institute of the Environment and Renewable Natural Resources) that dared to speak out against his anti-environment speech, policies or even environmental infractions.
BTW, the multi-hundred-percent increase was referring to a single month compared to the previous year.
As I said, these burns are being investigated because they look criminal, made on purpose.
You can see in EVERY NASA report/study about Amazon's deforestation, this has been going on for decades[1] and the alarm from the international media has always been mediocre.
And no, I'm not a Bolsonaro voter.
[1] https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/landsat/news/40th-top10-a...