
Amazon fires: Record number burning in Brazil rainforest - andreiursan
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-49415973
======
jeanlucas
Gonna 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...](http://theconversation.com/the-world-protests-as-amazon-forests-are-
opened-to-mining-83034)

[1] - [https://www.tnp.no/norway/panorama/toxic-waste-from-
norwegia...](https://www.tnp.no/norway/panorama/toxic-waste-from-norwegian-
hydro-amazon-water-brazil)

~~~
gtirloni
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.

~~~
jeanlucas
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.

~~~
PauloManrique
That's because the Norway mining thing is totally irrelevant to the big
picture?

------
nikivi
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.

[https://github.com/nglgzz/awesome-clean-
tech](https://github.com/nglgzz/awesome-clean-tech)

~~~
pjc50
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.

~~~
chrdlu
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/](https://projectwren.com/)) to offset my own
footprint and a bit more!

------
vfc1
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?

~~~
Hitton
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](https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-48964736)

[2]: [https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/observations/no-
climate...](https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/observations/no-climate-
change-will-not-end-the-world-in-12-years/)

~~~
sprafa
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.

~~~
piva00
Why are you so defensive about all of this?

~~~
sprafa
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.

~~~
piva00
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.

~~~
sprafa
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.

------
isostatic
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.

------
newsgremlin
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.

~~~
PauloManrique
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.

~~~
newsgremlin
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.

~~~
PauloManrique
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.

------
AlexDragusin
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.

~~~
bromuro
In *your life. I would indeed make myself few questions :)

------
hjrnunes
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.

~~~
jeanlucas
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.

------
higherkinded
For some reason I've thought about the other Amazon. Even São Paulo didn't
help the title to ring a bell.

------
screye
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.

------
MaximumYComb
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.

~~~
emblaegh
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.

~~~
jeanlucas
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.

~~~
V3ritas1337
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.

------
honestoHeminway
How much would one need to pay per square kilometer rainforrest for keeping it
to be competitive against steak/soy-farming?

------
turrini
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](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M5bOtqmvJHE)
(in Portuguese only, sorry)

~~~
doliveira
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.

~~~
doliveira
BTW, the multi-hundred-percent increase was referring to a single month
compared to the previous year.

~~~
turrini
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...](https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/landsat/news/40th-
top10-amazon.html)

