New Facts About The Amazon Fires

THE AMAZON

Burning Down the House

This summer, a lot of people feared the Amazon rainforest might burn to the ground, destroying an oxygen-generating ecological treasure sometimes called the “lungs of the world.”

Fears about the massive forest fires in Brazil turned out to be exaggerated, however, according to Forbes and others. For example, some of the viral images of the conflagrations turned out to be fake, wrote Mother Jones.

The revelations led Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro, a right-wing nationalist, to demand an apology from French President Emmanuel Macron, who had criticized Brazil’s management of the Amazon, as well as Bolsonaro’s antipathy to indigenous people who live in the jungle and his openness to agricultural interests that clear the land to make way for farms and ranches, the Guardian reported.

Still, Science magazine was skeptical of Brazilian Environment Minister Ricardo Salles, who blamed “dry weather, wind, and heat” for the fires. The publication was clear: deforestation was a major reason why fires in the region were growing more frequent and more intense.

In fact, the New York Times noted, the world arguably is on fire. Major infernos have gripped regions not only in South America but also in Africa, the Arctic and Indonesia as temperatures have risen worldwide due to climate change.

The Amazon sucks as much as 2 billion tons of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere annually, or around 5 percent of total human-made emissions. If the jungles turn into savanna and fires continue to wipe out greenery in other regions, the planet could reach a “tipping point” that could change the atmosphere permanently in 20 to 30 years, Public Radio International reported.

In Indonesia, the fires have engulfed large swaths of the country in a “toxic haze,” wrote CNN. More than 21,000 square miles of Siberian forest burned in August, melting permafrost that holds massive carbon deposits, Salon reported.

Bolsonaro took actions to deal with the Amazon fires, including temporarily banning burnings to clear trees and sending troops to fight the fires. Scientific American reported that the land clearing continued, though.

The Brazilian president has said he would reject a $20 million international aid package to deal with the problem. That might seem nuts. But Vox pointed out that beef exports generated $6.7 billion in foreign revenue for Brazil last year. Farmers use most of the soy produced in farms on former jungle soil to feed cattle. In other words, it would take more than $20 million to upend Brazil’s economy.

When it comes to deforestation and climate change, half measures simply won’t do.