A crime against nature.
9
Stop eating beef!
7
Will repeat:
This, the collapse of nations tut o our south, is not going to get any better. See the Central American nations of El Salvador, Honduras and Guatemala. Brazil is no different but has a larger population. And already, we are seeing more Brazilian 'immigrants' at out southern border with the others attempting to enter illegally. Moreover, consider those folks who come here with tourist visas and don't leave. We cannot save them. They must save themselves. At home. Learnt more today. Hehehe.
1
Humanity will pay a dear price for this atrocity. Mr. Bolsonaro is allowing the greatest treasure Brazil has to literally be burned to the ground. It is unfathomable and unbelievable that any intelligent sapient would follow this path in the 21st century. Humanity won't need an asteroid to take it out if it continues down this idiotic path. This story also shows a dictum from the Bible proves true: "The love of money is the root of all evil."
5
What's happening in the Amazon is truly tragic, and I couldn't help but notice this data point as well.
"From January through July, deforestation and fires in the Brazilian Amazon released between 115 and 155 million tons of carbon dioxide emissions — roughly the total for the state of North Carolina".
Assuming North Carolina is an average state in terms of emissions, that means the US is contributing CO2 equivalent to 50x of these Amazon deforestations/burnings.
These are both deplorable situations.
9
Not to minimize the impact of Bolsinaro's words and actions and the dire conditions of the Brazilian Amazon, but if you look at the map, Bolivia- who until recently has been ruled by an Indigenous leader who expressed great love of nature- seems to have just as much if not more burning relative to it's Amazonian ecosystem.
Clearly this issue is bigger than the current Trumpian leader of Brazil, and this problem will not be solved by a positive outcome with the next Brazilian election.
1
This boils down to this: there is no global leadership or will to tackle global climate change crisis, including incentivizing and helping Brasil to protect its forests.
4
The World I knew as a child and young adult is already gone.
5
So what happens when it stops raining and Brazil becomes arid ? Some of the oldest and advanced civilizations in Central America fell , became extinct because of drought and population growth . Will Brazil and surrounding countries become like North Africa ? Ten , twenty , thirty years pass rapidly ; our World is fast heading towards self destruction for the momentary pleasure wealth brings to greedy men destroying our planet . What will they do when their cattle die and soy does not grow because there is no rain .
5
Extinction or evolution - its our choice. Unfortunately, with our past and current behavior we are choosing the former...
6
Among the countless invaluable and life giving services of rainforests is that they are storehouses for medicines that humans depend on. Rainforests contain about seventy percent of the plants identified by the U.S. National Cancer Institute as useful in the treatment of cancer, and these plants are found only in rainforests.
4
In my opinion the President of Brazil is correct in stating that Brazilians have the right to do as they wish with their natural resources as we Americans have a right to do as we wish with our natural resources. Just imagine if the European Union was castigating us for drilling in Alaska, we would not be happy. However, I agree that we should do whatever we can to persuade Brazil to protect the Amazon forest since it effects everyone. I propose that we incentivize Brazil to protect it, perhaps by paying them.
2
The U.S. China trade war has fueled the Amazon’s raging fires, as China stopped buying American soybeans and turned to Brazil. As a result, Brazilian soybean exports to China surged. The Amazon rainforest will not be able to sustain China’s appetite for beef and soybeans much longer because it will be gone.
5
Unless voters put a Democrat in the White House and Democrats in the Senate an House Trump and his GOP enablers will continue to destroy the planet and not defend it. And the cost we will all pay is no longer in dollars but in terms of who will survive this ecological holocaust. Voters can support politicians who vow to do a better job of leading the world on a path that makes sense not a path that just makes money for the few. I've worked in Brazil and the people who live there no more want their country destroyed than anyone would after seeing the devastation taking place because money from America and China pours in and overwhelms the Brazilians trying to do good. As Americans we must demand a government that leads the world not helps to corrupt and destroy it at every opportunity. Vote in 2020 to begin the long road back to defending our planet.
6
Yes and we ave 3 fingers pointing back at us....let’s just begin with the water in Flint that’s still not cleaned up.
2
This is about far more than pollution. It is about losing the planet's buffer against excessive CO2.
1
If Brazil’s “lawless,” we’re pathological criminals.
For the world’s historically egregiously dominant polluter, to now wring its hands about Brazilian rain forests, seems a bit, a way bit, beyond hypocritical.
And when we strip away environmental protections that took decades to come into being, it is likely no one cares about our environmental demands of others.
5
'Don't mistake your house burning down for the dawn'
It's sadly ironic how a self-styled nationalist is boastfully destroying the greatest natural asset his great country has. Which if left unchecked will ultimately turn most of the nation into uninhabitable desert.
2
Time for a UN resolution, with the threat of NATO enforcement if necessary, telling Bolsonaro in no uncertain terms that the massacre of the Amazon stops now. Or else.
2
We are just doomed. Money trumps everything (yes, pun intended).
2
Accusing actor Leonardo DiCaprio of bankrolling the massive rainforest fires is not the first absurdity spouted by Brazilian president Jair Bolsonaro; he did, after all, theocratically state last summer that his presidency was “fulfilling a mission from God”.
And though the Amazonian rainforest is home to a third of all known terrestrial plant, animal and insect species and our planet’s natural environment honours no national boundary, he told the rest of the rightfully concerned world, “You have to understand that the Amazon is Brazil’s, not yours”. He also advised France’s president to “mind your own business”.
If only it were true the environmental damage done by morally and ethically corrupt governments and corporate puppet-masters was all somehow poetically miraculously confined strictly to the owners’ territory.
It’s like humanity is confined to a massive interstellar spaceship, owned and operated by the fossil fuel industry, but on which we’re all permanently confined; and while we’re adamantly arguing over finite resources and how much one should have to pay for it, the spaceship is burning and toxifying at locations not normally investigated—or else those areas are occupied thus claimed and controlled by one narrow-minded possessive party.
Astonishingly, what matters most to this hazardous leader is the creation of jobs, however limited or temporary, and economic stimulation, however intangible the concept when compared to the large-scale environmental destruction.
2
Just another friend of Trump showing his true colors.
1
Thanks for reporting, it's sad and depressing to see how much harm bad govts. do to one of nature's greatest asset that we humans are blessed to have or not anymore?
Judging from the world reaction (or lack of it), the out of control lawlessness which Bolsonaro’s government is giving its blessing to, the reaction to criticism of what is happening by Brazilians, and China’s complete lack of accountability, appetite for beef and resources, and land grabbing actions across the world, this tragic catastrophe is not going to end anytime soon. When it does and the Amazon rain forest is history, people will be asking why world governments and leaders did not do anything to stop it.
4
America chose Trump to make the US great. The Brazilians voted for Bolsanaro to turn the Amazon into productive farmland and jobs. Its not anyone's business but the majority voters of Brazil. We love the Amazon but it is for Bolsanaro to do what he promised Brazilians.
The burning will not stop until U.S. consumers stop eating beef imported from South America. How odd that North American farmers cannot fill the demand for soy beans and cattle.
1
Angela, as the article states, Amazon deforestation is increasingly linked to China's demand for beef exports.
I agree short-sighted, reckless, and devastating. The US really can't say much though since we're certainly not doing everything in our power to help slow climate change. The money men here are the same as the logging, mining companies in Braziil without a lot of government intervention, which the US won't do. It's pretty hard to ask someone to do something we ourselves are unwilling to do.
1
So true on so many different political issues. Do as I say not as I do. That logic only works with parents when you’re young and maybe your boss at work.
At some point, though I do not advocate this, violence is going to be viewed as the only suitable alternative to the current course of action the world is following. Someone, somewhere, is contemplating extreme measures to protect this planet's resources and possibly stave off our extinction. I wonder if it will express itself in small scale violence or as a full fledged ideology with the power of a nation-state to enforce its ideals. Either way, I'm certain I'll see the answer in my lifetime.
2
Burning the forest to raise animals to slaughter. How shameful. Stop eating animals.
2
"He (Bolsonaro) falsely accused the actor Leonardo DiCaprio of bankrolling fires in the Amazon." This guy is a clone of Trump. He spouts the same sort of lies and paranoia we see in our own vile president, and he will always side with extraction industries (in Trump's case coal and oil) against environmental interests. Both of these clowns dismiss climate change as a false theory. They are a dual threat to humanity.
5
Humans cannot go extinct at a fast enough pace to save our planet.
3
Lawless? It's perfectly sanctioned under capitalist law.
1
I'm Brazilian and cannot understand Bolsonaro's supporters. Bolsonaro reminds me of the villain Immortan Joe from "Mad Max: Fury Road." He governs a civilization in collapse, destroys the environment, treats women like property, despises moral values, commands militias, and discriminates against minorities.
5
@Lucas Rezende that description Sounds more like Trump..
3
The Legal deforestation is the same as the illegal, since the ones that approves the permits are Bolsonaro's political officers that have replaced the professionals of the IBAMA( Environmental protection ) that he fired in the first months of his Presidency. Right now, the Amazon is Lawless and unregulated. The only ones that make their way are the Professional Arsonists that work for the Ranchers, Miners, Loggers and Soybean producers. The World is losing one of the Lungs in a very fast speed.
3
Bolsonaro and all his allies are matricidal and ecocidal in their relentless destruction of Mother Earth.
The sad thing is, this same level of already-ruinous destruction of native ecosystems, flora and fauna is accelerating worldwide to fuel human population and consumption growth--we are living in a rapidly increasing mass extinction event.
There will come a time when life for humans on this planet will resemble a combination of Mad Max, Blade Runner, and other dystopic movies and books.
So sad!
4
Bolsonaro, Trump, and the rest of the "cast of characters" have no education, morals or any ethics. They are purists of "Greed". Greed is their life blood, surrounded by swarms of giant leaches originating from all walks of industry, business and special interests. The intentionally uneducated public does not recognize the harm it all creates for their livelihood, and all ours as well.
This playbook continues until it's too late everywhere through consuming pressures resources for no other reason than more consumption. We all should start at home and change the senseless consumption, by not having the coffee in a paper cup and plastic lid, food ordered via UBER eats, and Amazon orders. All these great activities play into the hand of the same greedy people who are destroying the planet. Good Luck to all of us!
3
There are massive arrests of environmentalists in Amazonia. Moreover, even representatives of state environmental institutions are jailed. http://cstcommand.com/index.php/countries/yuzhnaya-amerika/braziliya/item/575-cst-command-soobshchayut-iz-brazilii-ob-usilenii-repressij-organizovannykh-temi-zhe-kto-presledoval-rossiyan
2
Regulations just ruin stockholder value. Won't someone think of suburban boomers for once?
1
As one scientist with a longer view of time said, the planet will survive long after we humans are gone the way of the dinosaurs. We are only destroying ourselves.
2
All about money money money.USA grows corn for ethenol to supplement fuel . When usa could feed world uses those resources for profit insted . Cure is build the hyperloop end need for all fossil fuels . Amazing how our leaders have selective hearing an seeing. They know we have techolgy but refuse to use it for profit.Where all doomed
3
This could be end game for the planet. I can't believe there are not enough powerful people who see this as an utter threat to humanity. This is equivalent to burning the house down for firewood for a couple evenings because we're too lazy to do anything.
2
A take home message: eat less soy (which, in the USA, is largely in processed foods) and beef. We can’t do much as individuals but at least we can do that.
7
I recommend reading a magnificent book: "The Hidden Life of Trees." Deeply moving knowledge about a highly intelligent & sensitive, very-much living species.
8
Other governments could lease the Amazon from Brazil, paying cash for every square mile that isn't destroyed, making the land more valuable intact than it is in soya farms.
Put our money where our mouth is, given our countries have destroyed much more of our forest cover than Brazil has.
Or perhaps we should encourage replanting of those forests, recognising that Brazil as a developing country is entitled to use their land resources as they see fit?
6
I am writing from Belém in the Amazon region. I see: Brazilians continuing to eat more beef (with pride), widespread deforestation (in the name of progress) and more precipitation in the state of Pará than the current infrastructure can withstand. Bolsonaro is president to get rich quick and the world is already suffering. However, many Brazilians will defend him to the death and call you a communist if you disagree, while quickly referring to other past politicians, such as Lula, as being corrupt (Sound familiar?) This has been a difficult decade for Brazilians and it appears that Jair is going to make the next one just as tough for this struggling young democracy full of talented, hard-working and patriotic citizens.
18
Blaming Bolsonaro is only partly justified. Blaming any "supply-side interventions" in general is also woefully inadequate, since deforestation doesn't happen for *random* purposes or with *random* motivations. Like with all activities that require regulation, the most effective interventions are DEMAND-side. In this case, it would be addressing the fact that people are purchasing the items that are produced through these land grabs: lumber, agricultural output, meat, livestock, and so on.
Blaming any administration or individual politican is just an intellectually lazy form of hand-wringing.
6
Bolsonaro is acting like trump, and indeed, has probably been emboldened by him.
15
Regarding the climate change crisis: The die was cast when China and then India embarked on rapid, market-oriented economic development in the last decades of the 20th century. Until then, the two countries where more than one-third of humanity resides were poverty-stricken agrarian societies.
That is now in the past, and there is no turning back. Certainly Europeans, Americans, and Japanese people who inflicted enormous damage on their respective environmental regions in the quest to achieve industrialization have little to no right to tell Chinese and Indians that they need to effectively de-industrialize and forget about living in modern homes with insulation and air conditioning.
2
@AR so we just give up? Sustainability is a modern aspiration too, not just luxury.
4
When I was a kid, my family moved to Brazil for several years. I remember learning at the time, the previous year the amount of Brazilian rain forest lost was roughly equal to size of the state of New Jersey. I found it mind boggling. I was also reassured by the fact that what remained was also roughly the size of the lower 48 west of the Mississippi River. Almost every year since then the amount of rain forest destroyed went down. By the early 2000's the destruction was only a small fraction of what it was when I had been a child. Almost to the point where it seem sustainability was on the near horizon. It gave me pride that Brazil had seemed to become enlightened on the importance of the place. Unfortunately it seems that period of time appears to have been an anomaly. The destruction has come back with a vengeance, and until the political climate changes I fear it will only get worse.
3
I think that we should reflect on what we have done and continue to do to America's ecosystems in the name of survival/prosperity, as we hand out advice to others. I am not surprised that Brazilians are doing what they are doing to the Amazon forest because I see what Europeans did and continue to do with natural resources in America--devouring them. Self control with regard to consumption and pursuit of comfort is not something most peoples seem to possess.
4
Destruction on this scale is a crime against humanity, and the president of Brazil should be tried in The Hague.
11
It might be time to take up arms against the right wing, terrorist Brazilian government. Tell me, how is Bolsonaro any different from Bin Laden or Isis? He poses a far greater threat to humanity than either of those terrorists. This is the one time in the history of Latin America when a an American led coup would be morally justified.
8
@jskinner Except that the Americans are led by environmental criminals of their own, under trump and republicans. Trump’s push to exempt the Tongass National Forest from logging restrictions is along the same lines. The Tongass is the world’s largest, intact temperate rain forest. It’s not the Amazon but still important to global climate.
7
In 1941, the Allies united against what Churchill described as a threat to civilization. That threat reached a new historical threshold and gave rise to an entirely new legal concept: "crimes against humanity."
Where is the alliance against Bolsonaro's existential threat to the ecosystem? What new concept of crime is needed to deal with the ecological holocaust he and his aiders and abetters are carrying out?
The destruction of the planet is an evil monstrosity never before seen and irreversible. Those who are doing it are Horsemen of Death on the horizon.
It will be them or us... reader's choice.
5
Humans committing suicide by not deeply understanding Power and how it works in society and how to catch who has it before things happen like this.
Time to indulge in ignorance for personal pleasure has run out.
2
we are going to lose everything we hold dear on this planet unless the USA can break the logjam of republicans that has been in place since the SCOTUS appointed George Bush over Al Gore..Thats a long time.. It needs to end now..Impeach Trump, get rid of McConnell and all the Trump enablers, and lets get Nancy Pelosi to take climate change more seriously than she takes the necessity of keeping her jowls in place and her dress size a "1", and we ready have the ability to move forward with protecting the earth and all our fellow being on it, we just need to get american pols behind it 100 per cent...
3
Perhaps Bolsonaro is one of those not afraid of (seeking?) End Times?
2
Given the crisis in China re: African Swine fever I can only imagine this crisis will worsen as China shifts to beef importation to satisfy the countries rising demand for meat.
1
Mr. Bolsonaro will go down in history as the architect of the doom of climate change.
3
We shall reap what we sow.
Or rather, our children and theirs will.
Tragic, thoughtless, and cruel.
3
Why should we all not boycott Brasil, including tourism in that country, and all other countries that aren't part of the world effort against climate change?
8
@Robert Wallace
...and become vegetarian as well!
1
Bolsonaro's completely self-destructive and self-limiting policies gives, in a very literal sense, a new twist to the idea of crimes against humanity.
If we had a decent, caring U.S. president pressure would be brought to bear. But we don’t.
Thank a so called Green Party voter for dinner much horror and destruction these past few years.
2
Brazil, sowing the seeds of their own destruction and that of the rest of the world. Often wonder if humans can still be considered "Intelligent Life"
3
If ever there was a need for the entire world community to come together and intervene, this is it. The UN, NATO...literally everybody has to make a bold decision to step in and stop this greedy rape of an area that doesn't belong to any country or to anybody. Failure to do so will result in a quicker-than-anticipated extinction of our species. If the world powers don't act, then we deserve that end. It's just a shame we'll take everything else with us.
2
This is awful. Is there anything we can do here in the US?
1
Greed Over Planet and Greed Over People is fatal to humans.
Gas Oil Pollution (and all of their oily bedfellows) is globally-assisted suicide.
December 3 2020
Wake up, America.
6
It’s all relative. When man still used to live in trees eating what grew in them all of them were home, now they’re just in the way of the cattle we now eat. Our bad for climbing down out of them. Just imagine how the cattle feel as well.
1
Some social needs require restraining peoples’ natural impulses. The temptations presented by quick returns from destroying ecologies like the Amazon are easy to understand. That’s why only string government restraints can stop the damaging encroachments upon the great forest.
2
This is horrific! The world URGENTLY needs a financial deterrent for pollution and destruction.
And we need to start with our own habits:
Do not buy any imported beef (or none at all if you can) - because that rainforest is lying on our plates: each hamburger, each steak destroyed a tree (or more)
7
I am so extremely appalled by what seems to be a renewed effort to rape world resources whether it be fossil fuel consumption, or cutting down virgin forests for the land. It feels like the desperation of a ruling class that sees the end of civilisation so grab everything of value and live a personal life of opulent wealth.
1
This breaks my heart. I hope our next democratic president puts sanctions tougher then Iran has on Brazil to force them to change their ways
5
My understanding is that we are well beyond the tipping point for mass extinction, in which case none of this really matters any more. I say to Brazil have at it if it will make you happy before End Times.
1
Terrible. And let's not forget the winner in any rainforest destruction is animal agriculture. Indigenous people as well as farmers can get easier money by raising cattle rather than by conserving rainforest, so it should be the government's responsibility to preserve this ecosystem. Sadly, it works the opposite in many countries where rainforests are located. If we want to seriously control climate change, then far-reaching changes in current animal agriculture practices and our consumption patterns must be reevaluated, critical and timely, if environmental problems from the farm animal sector are to be mitigated.
Here in the U.S. we should look at the deforestation of our own lands, mostly to commercial enterprises. The flooding problems of my own city of Lafayette is because of development. Houses are flooding that never flooded before because we are insistent in cutting down trees and vegetation, building houses in what were once swamps and cane fields, and pouring concrete over every patch of land that we see without a concern for drainage. It's a crime. We do not need yet another Exxon or Shell station or mini shopping plaza. There are two shopping plazas sitting nearly empty close to where I live, and they continue to cut down trees and build new ones. So sad, especially for the little animals that lived in those places.
10
I hate to say it but we might need to go to economic war to stop this.
If that means tariffs and trade embargoes, so be it. At least for a worthy cause.
Or domestic subsidies for beef and soy -- perhaps we could couple with carbon offsets to mitigate the environmental impact -- to drive down the economic incentives for Brazil to clear cut for agricultural production.
This seems more important than most of the problems we read about in the paper.
Of course, we should dialogue first and reach consensus, but ultimately we need to be able to threaten a "big stick".
7
As horrific as this is, we can't really ignore that the US is doing parallel damage when our president rolls back California's emission standards, denies climate change, and shows nothing positive to the world. This is a global problem. We need to figure out not just how to improve the odds in the Amazon - and that may be too late - but how to make every country participate in ameliorating climate change. Not electing populist, climate change deniers is imperative.
10
But I was told this is all Leonardo DiCaprio’s fault. Or was it Sting’s?
Bolsonaro’s assault on the Amazon is really an assault on its indigenous people. So too the right wing coup in neighboring Bolivia. They are of a piece and you can’t condemn the one without the other.
13
The ideal scenario would be that earth will quickly have another great die off, including the complete annihilation of all the humans on earth. With humans no longer on the planet, the earth can renew itself after a few million years with something better than us, the large brained and super destructive parasite that kills or destroys everything (forests, animals, insects, the land, and contaminates the air and water and even the ozone).
19
Thank you New York Times for alerting on this disastrous government in Brazil.
He will not only damage Brazil economy , but also damage the entire world with his old fashioned view.
Brazilian president stuck in the sixties and he will bring the country down if not stopped soon.
Please continue to report on what is happening
21
A large, flourishing ecosystem, teeming with all sorts of life -- burned. This is planetary scaled murder.
16
We need an international trade system that imposes rising penalties for both emissions and for this kind of environmental destruction.
8
The Amazon is burned to grow soybeans to feed cattle, which have an inordinate carbon footprint for the calories provided.
So don’t eat beef. It’s that simple.
11
gotta love the NYT, its readers and Americans in general. Imbedded in an article on the destruction of the rain forest in another country are ads for overpriced, unnecessary perfume. Americans are the biggest consumers of products and resources, eat beef and food produced all over the world and flown in year round, wrap every item possible in layers of packaging and drive to the gym. Oh, and then we export our voraciouness through media and manufactured desire. Look in the mirror, dear reader, while the rain forest burns.
9
@carr kleeb I was thinking the same. The incongruity of those ads with this piece speaks to the whole problem. Ugh.
2
Now that this devastation is well underway, how long will it take to correct it, or better said, try to correct it?
4
The only solution to this problem is to force Bolsonaro and his family to live for the rest of their lives in those destroyed forests.
1
Literally not seeing the forest for the trees.
45
I wonder why dictators hate nature? Is it because it’s just one more thing that turns the spotlight away from them? trump may turn on bolsonaro without warning, but attacks on the natural world are a tie that binds them.
9
Bolsonaro needs to go. By any means necessary. He's very near the top of a very long list.
7
Us too are too blame. Not just by eating too much red meat, but by electing a leader who takes apart the world order and turned our outrage into hypocrisy.
There used to be a time when Europe and the US would use economic sanctions in these types of situations, but now anything in the world goes.
6
I fear that humanity as a whole is not smart enough to avert a catastrophe that'll cost many millions of lives. Like it or not, the planet will self-correct our overpopulation, over-consumption, and inability to get our priorities straight.
Short-term economic gains, a belief that the Earth can somehow support infinite growth, consistently electing leaders who pledge to prioritize economics over survival. Any effort to build a green economy is instantly opposed by entrenched interests.
Across the globe, any steps taken will inevitably be reversed by the next leader because they're just "too hard and costly" and will use that hardship to vilify the other side and bray their way to power.
6
If the destruction of Brazil’s rainforest is a threat to our climate (and the air that we collectively breathe); if Brazil views the rainforests as a barrier to their economic development; if developed nations who have done their own share of environmental destruction for their own economic advancement view the destruction of Brazil’s rainforest as a threat to everyone across the globe...why not pay Brazil to preserve the rainforests and reverse deforestation (i.e., plant more trees)? We are willing to pay for every other limited resource in the world ( oil, water, gold). Why not allow developing nations the opportunity to form rainforest equivalents of OPEC and encourage them to view sustaining the forests as more lucrative than destroying them.
I know it sounds ridiculous. It’s just hard to sit back and ridicule a country for climate destruction when we contribute to it every time Amazon delivers an 8 dollar item from one coast to the other, every time we leave the water on while brushing our teeth, and every time we do all the other things that have accelerated climate change.
5
The deforestation of the Amazon is thoughtless, short-sighted, and devastating. The Amazon Basin supplies over 30 percent of moisture for rainfall that impacts the planet, and Brazil has been facing a terrible drought, not to mention habitat loss for some of the world's rarest plant and animal species. How much damage can be done under this current government? It is sickening.
81
@Birdygirl
No. Your 30% number is a terribly wrong interpretation of science and blatantly fake news. The incredibly vast majority (80%-90%) of moisture in the air comes from the giant body of water covering the earth - the ocean. Not from a small - yet very important - part of land surface area. The water cycle is pretty basic science.
When given the chance, this order of travesty seems to just...be what the "royal we" do, or, at least have done. Use, be-spoil, pollute, exploit...in an unsustainable fashion, nature for profit.
Thank you for continuing to keep up with this....existential issue.
1
The pro-Big Business version of capitalism practiced currently around the world and the failure of the post-WW2 global institutions has allowed this to happen. Make Brazilians economically and politically pay dearly for their actions. Of course, the far-right Trump administration loves the far-right Bolsanaro administration and both regimes have a rapacious attitude towards the environment.
Were the Brazilians practicing communism, the US would have used the CIA, military, sanctions, and other tools by now.
2
The rainforest stores an enormous amount of carbon. But another overlooked component of vast importance is this: the soils in a tropical rainforest are quite thin. In the warm, wet ecosystem of the rainforest, most of the nutrients are held in the canopy of the forest, not in the soil. In a warm climate, these nutrients are cycled in an intact rainforest quickly, as plant debris falls and decomposes in a short time but the nutrients released are taken up quickly by plants in this intact forest. Burning totally disrupts this rainforest cycle. For a year or so, the nutrients released by the burning give some fertility to the soil. But soon, these nutrients are exhausted and the land is left with poor or sterile soils for agriculture or anything else. The cleared land is not so much farmed as mined and eventually impoverishes all.
5
I predicted that one of the results of Trump’s trade war with China would be to cause the Chinese to move away from dependency on US soybeans and instead look to Brazil, whose agricultural interests would start burning the rainforest to accommodate production. But wait: now there is more. The longer this trade war goes on, the more dominant the Brazilian soybean industry becomes. China will soon rely on Brazil to the near exclusion of the US. Because that will be the new norm, the conclusion of the trade war will be of no consequence. By then, it is too late. There will be two permanent losers: the Amazon rainforest and US farmers.
4
“The rainforest stores a huge volume of carbon dioxide, which is unleashed through the fires. “
Trees store carbon. Carbon dioxide is produced when the carbon is combusted.
It would’ve been nice for the author to explain why this additional land is needed for soybean and cattle production. The answer is most likely that China no longer buys US soybeans because of Trump’s tariffs, with Brazil filling the gap in production.
5
Even with the 30% increase, deforestation levels are way below historic levels. The total deforestation accounts for less than half percent of the total forest area... and we are not even taking into account the forest natural regeneration.
On top of that one must note that not all deforestation in the Amazon is illegal, there's public forest concession for sustainable logging, there's minning concessions, there's about 30+ million habitants on the amazon region and about 500k offical farmlands lots that were given on land reforms in previous govements, as recent as Mr Lula and Dima Rousseff.
All of this have nothing to do with Bolsonaro's 11 month term.
2
This is a monumental tragedy which if left unchecked will harm the whole planet.
5
My understanding is that most of the deforestation in the Amazon other rain forests is to farm palm oil. It would seem, therefore, that the simplest way to reduce deforestation would be to reduce our reliance on that product. Unfortunately, palm oil is an ingredient in so many products. Manufacturers must be incentivized to find an alternative.
3
@MJT693 The article says "Cattle ranches account for up to 80 percent of deforested land in the Amazon, according to the Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies."
4
“From January through July, deforestation and fires in the Brazilian Amazon released between 115 and 155 million tons of carbon dioxide emissions — roughly the total for the state of North Carolina”
I find interesting that what has been an anomalous situation in Brazil has created the same impact of business as usual every year in *one* of the 50 states of US — and then it’s a huge crisis with people calling for harsh measures to be taken.
3
@EV The crisis already existed. The 'anomalous situation' has only highlighted it.
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We've been hearing warnings about the Amazon for most of my life - since the 1970's.
Just one more reason I suspect we're too late to make the changes needed to prevent a coming planetary 'reset' - one that may not include humans.
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I'll make a bold, maybe unpopular statement. Something as important to humanity as the Amazon Rainforest shouldn't belong to one (potentially erratic country), but rather, to a global steward, like the UN (but something more powerful). It doesn't seem right that the rest of the world has to watch as the lungs of the world burn. I guess the same could be said for key natural resources in every country, so maybe I'm just calling for stronger global government, but more and more I think that has to be the answer.
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@Dulynoted88 Sounds nice, but it is not our country. We would not be happy if someone did that to our lands and maybe should have a century or two ago. Global government would turn into global dictatorships. Man will survive this, maybe not everyone, but life finds away.
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@Dulynoted88 sure. And something as important to humanity as the American army shouldn’t belong to one erratic country like the Us, but rather to a global steward like the UN. It doesn’t seem right that the rest of the word have to suffer the mismanagement of US forces when Americans decide to elect a poor leader like Trump.
Neocolonialism much?
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@EV It's not neocolonialism because I agree that my statements apply to the U.S. as well. It's about putting the interests of all of humanity above the petty regional interests of one small-minded leader or government.
Seeing this scale of damage makes my heart hurt. What can one do in this country to help stop/decelerate the destruction?
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Mother Earth, blindfolded by consumerism, greed, and autocratic leadership, continues to be raped for short-term satisfaction.
The images of the reckless ravaging of this life-sustaining treasure is an ugly reminder of the price of ignorance.
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That guy is even more dangerous than Trump.
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@Igy
Much much more. Our institutions are fragile and the few free and indepedendent press is under attack. We are expecting for the worse. Dark times ahead.
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@Igy Much much more. Our institutions are fragile and the few free and indepedendent press is under attack. We are expecting for the worse. Dark times ahead..
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@Igy Much much more. Our institutions are fragile and the few free and indepedendent press is under attack. We are expecting for the worse. Dark times ahead..
As much as we laud the greatest people on the planet with Nobel prizes, so too there should be a prize for the worst person on the planet as a result of horrific acts. If we could establish such a prize for indecency, then certainly we know who the winner would be for 2019.
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@Jeff Who would be ? Trump or Bolsonaro or the 2 share the Medal?
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This is sickening. One fact leaps out: the consumption of beef products is the biggest reason that the Amazon is being burned. I am not a vegetarian, but can live without eating beef and eat it only very occasionally. My doctor told me 20 years ago that beef is bad for you. Let's stop eating hamburgers, steak and other beef product except on special occasions.
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@James Barker
Priced a rib roast lately? Eating beef is less and less a choice these days. It's become unaffordable.
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@James Barker Also most of the soybean plantations in the Amazon are growing food for pigs in China to eat, not for humans to eat. It would require fewer acres of farmland if people were getting their protein from soybeans, and not from pigs.
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@James Barker This is exactly why I gave up eating beef (and all meat) on Jan 1, 2019. I haven't had a bite of meat since then and I haven't missed it (I thought I would). To stop eating meat is one small way that each of us can contribute to help mitigate climate change. I recommend it.
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International communities should ban and stop supporting any goods produced from Brazil. That will put pressure internally within Brazil for a change. If there is no rewards nor demand for goods from the Amazon then there won’t be motivation to burn the amazon for profits. As long as international communities purchase and support goods from Brazil, it will drive deforestation for profit.
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Taking our cues from those harrowing images that, quite unequivocally depict immense areas of scarred forests where once lush vegetation abounded at the foot of secular trees. All of which can be seen today either already in the process of being liquidated or like, in too many instances, repurposed entirely. This new state of play yet raises a question for the next generation, one as to how the so-called "Amazonian forest" will be referred to, in a world where the striking absence of trees will render such denomination obsolete.
And, this may very well happen sooner than most people think, given the pace of Bolsanoro's unfailing effort to get to the bottom of this on top of the lack of international intervention yet following up the global public outcry.
As it goes, in a couple of decades, this massive patch of land, once the size of several countries bound together, will be coined the Soybean & Beef continent, for the pleasure of all.
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We were afraid of the far right indifference towards the earth{ s health and future. This article is a dramatic reminder of the inheritance that our grandchildren will receive. Bolsonaro and friends don't believe in statistics, science, and facts affecting the Amazon. A picture is worth more than a thousand words, many thanks for this effort.
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@M Martínez To much fatalistic thinking. I grew up in pollution, bad pollution, guess what it changed. We inherited a world that we would not recognize if we saw it 100 years earlier. I cannot control another country, but I do know that man will survive it, you grandchildren will too.
Focus on teaching to survive the world in your circle because that is all you can control
I lived in a rainforest country and saw this firsthand. At one point coming home over the forest I saw burning that it took several minutes to fly over, at jet speed, and I was shocked and mentioned it to others aboard, but I couldn't get anyone else to react because fire to manage the forest was so common. People cared about the forest, but not that much. They were more concerned with using the resources around them to live better the lives they had. Look, before the whites arrived, the US was forested too, from coast to coast. Europe took down its great forests before that, and killed the teeming life that was in their rivers. So who is the West to complain?
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@Joe, we and Europe deforested before we knew the danger & damage we were doing to the planet & our own futures. Now we do know, so what's the excuse? I am repeatedly & naively dumbfounded at the shortsightedness of the supposedly intelligent people who run countries! Do they ever look at their children & grandchildren, and wonder what they're doing to their future? Is this how they show their love?
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So much for human progress. Things will NOT work out in the end. Really hard to stay positive when we lack infrastructure and resources needed to educate each subsequent generation that we must tread lightly on the only earth we have.
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The world’s two largest economic blocs, the US and the EU need to band together and place bans on the import of Brazilian agricultural products until certain key changes are made. The destruction of this vital ecosystem is an existential threat to humanity and our need to address it supersedes any concerns about Brazil’s internal sovereignty. The key way to force change is to go after their pocketbooks.
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@Ian Know, considering the attitude of our President towards climate change in general, and the environmental damage being done in our own country, I highly doubt the US will be part of any pact to protect the Amazonian rainforest!
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"the fires create much needed jobs" ...
Of course jobs are needed-- there are over 4 times as many Brazilians as there were in 1950. As long as "human rights" ideology reigns and includes that people are free to have as many babies as chance or choice provides, destruction of global ecosystems is assured. Where are the "rights" of other living things?
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@Si Campbell
"Where are the "rights" of other living things?" Perfect question.
Unfortunately other living beings have the same rights as those who get those much needed jobs - most that keep "workers in conditions analogous to slavery." It is the Republican economic model being pushed on Americans - and the wealthy around the world too, that horde all the wealth and all "rights" - where human workers are treated like cattle or burning rainforests so they can amass ever more wealth regardless of the existential damage done to our only planet.
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Very, very sad, but with a man like President Trump setting an example for the world, who are we to talk?
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Uncontrolled capitalism has only one end: destruction. Take and take and take from the many to enrich the few.
All around the world we have greedy and selfish rising to power at the same time so there are few moderating forces to prevent the destruction of what keeps us alive and well.
Conservatives have no idea what conservative is. Its just a marketing term that has been hung on reactionary contrarianism to give legitimacy to taking for profit.
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@Marie Thanks Marie for stating what I have been thinking for a long, long, time. A good book that helps explain where we have been, and where we are heading is "A History of the World in Seven Cheap Things
A Guide to Capitalism, Nature, and the Future of the Planet" by Raj Patel
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Condemnation to Brazil but any compensation Brazilians to keep it when industrialized countries have devastated their own forest to become industrialized? Seems to be quite the opposite: steel imports from Brazil were, recently, practically banned into the U.S.
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@Miguel Well, yes, but in defence of "industrialised" countries, they destroyed their forests before we know what a vital role forests played in keeping us alive on a livable planet. Unfortunately, your argument cannot fly.
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The human species will eventually go extinct, just a matter of time. What will be different from others however, is that we will directly have played a hand in our own demise.
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@InMn Humanity is not in danger of extinction, I'm afraid. We have the big brains, the opposable thumbs, and the ruthless intensity that have brought us to our present dominance over nature. We will take down all other life forms before we ourselves go down.
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This is a great article. The burning of forests, especially in Brazil and Indonesia, combined with increasing carbon emissions from China and India should make us think of international efforts to combat the world's warming. We will accomplish little by spending trillions of dollars here in America if we cannot get global cooperation to solve this great problem.
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“... an important buffer against global warming...”
One of those platitudes many in the media love to casually toss around. The destruction of the Amazon is in keeping with all the other ways we are ensuring the demise of our civilization. People get rightly upset by deforestation in Brazil, but what are they doing in their own lives to address the systemic collapse that is coming? Or do they expect that they can continue to fly around the world, consume huge quantities of cheap oil, expect next day shipping on anything at any time, and somehow it will all be fine as long as Brazil doesn’t touch the Amazon forest?
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@W. Stevens
That’s pretty much it in a nutshell. Your comment should have been one of the NYTimes picks. Guess they don’t like to be called out for resorting to platitudes. I can say that I no longer fly and I use 7-10 business days delivery for items I order online and that includes amazon where I request the longest amount time possible for delivery. But guilty as charged for consuming huge quantities of cheap oil. An electric car will address that issue.
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@COH Agree with you and W. Stevens. I gave up eating meat and flying. I now order less stuff on amazon, and I'd like to get down to ordering NO stuff on amazon. Next on the list is to get an electric car.
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@COH
And the true meaning of Christmas is buried under the shopping frenzy, useless stuff we accumulate, & instant gratification of on-demand delivery. STOP.
Slow down. Engage in conversations using long sentences & nuanced thinking. Allow your heartbeats to keep time. Think twice before buying anything that adds absolutely no value to a meaningful day. And use those smart phones smartly...is the latest text that important?
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It is like watching your grandchildren burn. Because it is my grandchildren who will be the ones who will suffer the most. All our grandchildren will be victims of the lawlessness of our, the grownups, inability to make the adjustments needed to stave off the crisis coming . Each new article by scientists admits that crucial time is fast approaching, sooner than anticipated.
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Fascinating and terrifying, this article. The scale of the destruction, both illegal and legal, is staggering. The efforts to control it seem futile, like removing a teaspoon of water from a raging river to help prevent a flood.
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Regardless of climate change, the mention of which causes most people to tune out, the destruction of large intact ecosystems is a major issue facing humanity and the biosphere itself. Focus on the loss, the destruction of systems, and not on climate science in situations like this. We need everyone to care.
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What an absolute disgrace us humans have become to this planet. Economic growth is no different than cancer. I feel nothing but shame for being indirectly complicit.
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This like watching someone burn their most valuble asset in order to replace it with garbage that longterm will corrupt him, his country and the entire world, but he persists in thinking that he's rich and will get rich by doing so....Climate change will catalyse not only the largest displacement of people but the largest genocide.
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Right wing Brazilian government orchestrated by American’s interests. Let’s not kid ourselves, is the United States of America that pushed Bolsanaro to power. The USA, the Koch brothers “investing” hundreds of millions of dollars to “peacefully” and aggressively disrupt the country. The burning of the Amazon has been long planned by American interest in Brazil. Lawfare has been using in Latin America to destroy left leaning elected governments. In Brazil, Dilma Roussef was impeached, Lula was jailed, thanks to the “grassroots” movements created by money poured by the USA.
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You response is not accurate. The leftist party has indeed placed the country in a better economic path. However, the cost of corruption, done by the leftist, eventually set the country into recession that will last for decades.
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@Jaguar
Dear Jaguar. Corruption is endemic in Brazil either by right or left. Blame the recession by the cost of corruption is a fantasy created by fair right wing with help of Koch Brothers money. Democracy in Brazil is in dangerous. Today, the country is dominated by fanatic mobs that complete dismss science and decency.
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@RBR Mass arrests in Amazonia are led by an international terrorist in the uniform of the federal police. It is he who destroys the forests of the Amazon. And the United States uses him for their own purposes. http://cstcommand.com/index.php/countries/yuzhnaya-amerika/braziliya/item/22-mezhdunarodnyj-prestupnik-berjot-v-zalozhniki-amazoniyu-i-rabotaet-na-ssha-rassledovanie
Crying.
Deeply morning the death of our planet.
Seeing the animals caught in the blazes.
Livid that the beauty and need for this amazing place is not seen by the greedy billionaires.
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@Xfarmer Indeed, but it is not the death of our planet it is the death of us.
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@Xfarmer I doubt he's in sound mind. And his accusation that vocal environmentalist actor Leonardo DiCaprio is bankrolling the massive rainforest fires is not the first absurdity spouted by Brazilian president Jair Bolsonaro; he did, after all, theocratically state last summer that his presidency was “fulfilling a mission from God”.
And though the Amazonian rainforest is home to a third of all known terrestrial plant, animal and insect species and our planet’s natural environment honours no national boundary, he told the rest of the rightfully concerned world, “You have to understand that the Amazon is Brazil’s, not yours”. He also advised France’s president to “mind your own business”.
If only it were true the environmental damage done by morally and ethically corrupt governments and corporate puppet-masters was all somehow poetically miraculously confined strictly to the owners’ territory.
Astonishingly, what seems to matter most to this hazardous leader is the creation of jobs, however limited or temporary, and economic stimulation, however intangible the concept when compared to the large-scale environmental destruction.
@Xfarmer There is nothing new on the planet we call home. Since the beginning of time everything has been recycled and remade here on Earth. I am old, and won't see it, but the end of life as we know it is coming soon.
1
I am speechless. Several superb articles in today's heroic New York Times foretell a dire future. This horror can be reversed, but assuredly will not.
Name names. Provide arresting photos. Identify the agents of destruction. Progeny needs to know. Day by day.
Thanks, New York Times. Keep it up, please. So well done.
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Well, most Americans would rather save two cents on the price of a Big Mac, than do something to save the rain forest and maybe mitigate the worst effects of climate change. And they definitely won't pay ten cents a gallon more in gasoline taxes or give up their SUVs to avert an environmental catastrophe. Shameful.
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I could not figure out how to leave a comment so I am replying to yours but not intentionally.
Maybe my thinking isn't logical and others will argue differently but didn't we already do this to our land in the IS for economic growth? I realize we all should know better now and it saddens me deeply to see this destruction. And they want to make money just like most people. It's not an excuse just a reality.
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With our current knowledge, we can look back and say it was not okay for the industrialized world to have destroyed its lands, but the difference is that ours were able to regenerate, because the soils were rich. Rain forest is, specifically, forest growing in infertile sand, with all life dependent upon its own fallen, rotting duff as the source of nutrients. Once everything has burned, there is, temporarily, a rich bed of carbon on the former forest floor for growing grass or soybeans; but, after that is exhausted, the land is dead and unrecoverable (at least in human scales of time), so more land must be burned for the business to move on. This is the mechanism though which the burned forest becomes savannah. The mass (loosely, the weight) of the new grasslands is far less than the mass of the former forest, which has been transformed into Carbon Dioxide, and released into the atmosphere.
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@Susan
This is true to a point. The US did extend to about every corner of our country in the name of progress and expansion and growth But we have also protected most of the land from development (or at least tried to until the current White House administration).
However, the rain forest is one case where the "they did it so we can do it too" mentality had better yield to common sense or we will all pay the price.
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