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THE UNITED NATIONS called for the protection of the fire-plagued Amazon rainforest today as Brazil’s right-wing president blamed NGOs for promoting an “environmental psychosis” to damage the country’s interests.
UN chief António Guterres said he was “deeply concerned” by the fires in the Amazon.
“In the midst of the global climate crisis, we cannot afford more damage to a major source of oxygen and biodiversity,” he said on Twitter.
“The Amazon must be protected.”
France’s President Emmanuel Macron said the wildfires were “an international crisis” and called on the globe’s most industrialized nations to address it at their summit this weekend.
Official figures show nearly 73,000 forest fires were recorded in Brazil in the first eight months of the year – the highest number for any year since 2013. Most were in the Amazon.
The extent of the area damaged by fires has yet to be determined, but smoke has choked Sao Paulo and several other Brazilian cities in the past week.
“Our house is on fire. Literally. The Amazon, the lung of our planet which produces 20 percent of our oxygen is burning,” Macron said on Twitter.
“It is an international crisis. Members of the G7, let’s talk in two days about this emergency.”
Neighboring Peru, which contains much of the Amazon basin, announced it was “on alert” for wildfires spreading from the rainforest in Brazil and Bolivia.
Paraguay and Bolivia are battling separate wildfires that have devastated large areas of their rainforests.
‘Rapid deforestation’
Environmental specialists say the fires have accompanied a rapid rate of deforestation in the Amazon region, which in July quadrupled compared to the same month in 2018, according to data from the National Institute for Space Research (INPE).
President Jair Bolsonaro instead attributes the fires to increased drought, and accuses environmental groups and NGOs of whipping up an “environmental psychosis” to harm Brazil’s economic interests.
“This environmental psychosis lets you do nothing,” the president lamented, adding that it was hampering the country’s development.
“I don’t want to finish the environment, I want to save Brazil,” said Bolsonaro, a climate change skeptic who had advocated opening up tribal lands and protected areas to farming and mining interests since assuming office in January.
Bolsonaro’s comments come as Brazil hosts a UN regional meeting on climate change in the northeastern city of Salvador ahead of December’s summit in Chile.
A senior Brazilian official defended Brazil’s environmental policy at the conference and said it complied with the Paris Agreement against global warming.
“We are teaching the world how to produce. In only 29 percent of our territory we produce food for everyone.
“Worldwide, the average land use for agriculture exceeds 50 percent – we only use 29 percent,” said Roberto Castelo, an environment ministry official who was roundly booed by greens at the conference.
Not ‘Captain Nero’
“I do not defend the burnings, because there always was and always will be burnings. Unfortunately, this has always happened in the Amazon,” Bolsonaro said, referring to dry season, land-clearing fires.
“But accusing me of being a Captain Nero setting fire to things is irresponsible. It is campaigning against Brazil,” the president told reporters outside his Brasilia residence.
The reference to Captain Nero appeared to be to the Roman emperor said to have fiddled while Rome burned. Bolsonaro is a former army captain.
Forest fires tend to intensify during the dry season, which usually ends in late October or early November, as land is cleared to make way for crops or grazing.
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I remember being 10 in the mid 80s worried about nuclear war.
But this Amazon stuff is far more scary.
This interferes with our ability to breath !
@andyearley: in the 80s I remember being afraid of the forest fires in the Amazon and our class drawing pictures about it. Seems we haven’t learned much in 30 odd years
@andyearley: technically not. The Amazon is O2 neutral. Due to the amount of wildlife present, it consumes as much oxygen as it produces.
Obviously burning it is a totally crappy idea but it’s reputation as ‘the lungs of the world’ isn’t correct.
@Dara O’Brien: no way does the Amazon wildlife use all the oxygen. That’s way overestimated.
@andyearley: 2 mature trees produce enough oxegen for a 4 people for a year so the numbers don’t add up at all with what you’re saying. No way is the amazon neutral.
@Dara O’Brien: nonsense, amazon produced 20% of the worlds oxygen.
@Dara O’Brien: you are absolutely spot on! Anyone else that thinks differently is misinformed or a victim of scaremongering. The amazon is O2 Neutral and not the lungs of the world that we’ve been lead to believe.
A football-sized pitch a minute is being destroyed. Another 5% loss and a tipping point will be reached, impossible to reverse. And the EU goes and signs a deal to start mass importation of cheap beef from South America in exchange for selling cars into South America.
What a depressing mess that will hasten the choking off of the world.
@The Quare Fella:
The mercosur countries have been permitted to export an additional 99,000 tonnes of beef into the eu.
Ireland, using about 50% of its land area manages to produce 5x this amount (500,000 tonnes annually). Brazil is 121 times bigger than Ireland.
Only one year of deforestation in the amazon (700,000ha) would be more than enough land required to produce the additional beef needed to supply the european markets.
The mercosur deal is not the end of beef in ireland nor is it the end of the rainforest in Brazil.
@Tim Pot: it “shouldn’t” be
@Tim Pot: so are you supporting deforestation or not
Probably Brazil just getting land ready for all the beef they will be selling to Europe under the Mercosur – EU deal.
@Fr. Fintan Stack: not probably, you’re spot on. I’ve seen it with my eyes, they are replacing the forests with cattle farms.
Capitalism. Its useless trying to get the Irish riled up as we don’t really care or do anything
@Caoimhín O Neill: Ah sure when they have people like Phil Hogan giving it the thumbs up what can you expect? Ye couldn’t be seen to protest now, sure you be told to go out and get a job on this very forum.
@Fr. Fintan Stack: protesting in Ireland, you’re perceived to be a slob or on welfare. It puts most people off. Maybe we are a culture who care too much about what others think tho, and doing so would be scarlet
@Fr. Fintan Stack: yet we have no problem importing soybean animal feeds from the same region to feed our own livestock. “We depend two times more on imported animal feed than our neighbours
“But annual imports of 3.47m tonnes (mt) of animal feed are also part of the picture. Ireland is especially dependent on feed imports because of our high proportion of livestock production compared to tillage area…
“About two thirds of the animal feeds marketed here are imported, compared to 37% in the UK, 27% in France, and 26% in Germany…
“The worldwide growth of the soybean crop has caused large scale loss of biodiversity and wildlife habitat in already vulnerable places such as the Amazon rainforest.”
@Fr. Fintan Stack: no one is forcing anyone to eat beef. Its a major cause of cancer anyway. Better of eating beans an greens!
Boycott, divestment & sanctions.
Once that rain forest goes humanity can kiss its a$$ goodbye .
Enjoy your Palm Oil laden Chocolate and your Bean Salad, this is the price you pay for it.
@➕The Gray➕: started getting that meridian peanut butter. You get some work out mixing it. You’d end up with an arm like a teenager at the height of puberty if you ate enough of it.
@➕The Gray➕: while some palm oil is grown in South America, most is grown in South East Asia,
particularly Indonesia and Malaysia where the equivalent of 3 football pitches are destroyed every hour to make way for palm oil. It’s not just peanut butter, it’s difficult to buy a biscuit, bar of chocolate or soap or shampoo that doesn’t contain it. Almost 80% of orangutans have disappeared, 6,000 a year as a direct result.
In the Amazon the main reasons for deforestation is industrial scale cattle ranching, soybean production for animal feed and logging. Ireland depends more on this imported feed than any other EU country – we import approx 75% of our animal feed compared to 37% in the UK, 27% in France and 26% in Germany.
@EillieEs: Youre right about the palm oil. Palm oil is in nearly everything. it goes under a different name on some ingredient lists too. Only way to avoid it is to cook from scratch.
@EillieEs:
https://www.palmoilinvestigations.org/
Greed & Corruption show there Evil agenda once again.
@T Jay O’Mea: a documentary was made in the 80s about the use of mercury to extract gold from the riverbanks that was powerhosed onto a converyor belt
That is nothing compared to this
@Means of escape: South America & Africa are rife with (Prospectors) destroying the landscape with power housing for gold. The Amazon is the next target. Pathetic race we are.
@T Jay O’Mea: agree but isn’t it human nature. Farmers still burn plenty in Ireland. Our own landscape was greedily cleared not just by the English. And we expect Brazil to keep their virgin land intact.
@Monty Donotno: Point taken, vicious circle. We’re doomed with this logic.
@T Jay O’Mea: the logic has always been cutting down your edge of the forest expecting others not to do the same until there is nothing left.
@Monty Donotno:
The British navy was built on Irish Oak, they cleared most of our native trees.
Boycott Brazilian coffee and beef.
Columbian eco friendly coffee bei g replaced by industrial scale mechanised plantations in Brazil
@Thomas Sheridan: Ireland’s pig, dairy and poultry sectors depend on animal feed coming from the region so I hope you’ll be boycotting those too.
“The main commodities imported are maize and maize byproducts, soyabean meal and soya hulls, and rapeseed meal. Up to 90% of the soyabean and maize products are imported from Argentina, Brazil, and the USA.”
“Our pig, poultry, and dairy sectors are particularly dependent on imports of GM soybean and GM maize by-products. Almost 1.7mt of soya and maize genetically modified (GM) products were imported into Ireland for animal feeds in 2017, constituting approximately 50% of total feed imports.”
https://www.irishexaminer.com/breakingnews/farming/we-depend-two-times-more-on-imported-animal-feed-than-our-neighbours-832683.html
@Thomas Sheridan: No, i like coffee to much to boycott it. We should enjoy life while we can and go out with a bang!
@EillieEs: thank you for adding to my post, although you may slightly miss my point. Soya has always been imported as it is the best high protein mix for animal feed or indeed some vegan dish’s.
It was traditionally imported from the USA but that is now being displaced by soya from Brazilian plantations in deforrested lands & as you suggest, I would oppose this. Grain for animal feed is largely produced in Ireland
This Bolsonaro guy also legalised previously banned pesticides and guess what, half a billion bees died.
Bollockscenerio in the same club as Trump and maybe BoJo, and seemingly the worst of them. No motivation to put the fires out, I suspect. Painfully sad. Only eat Irish beef lads and lassies … and watch where that coffee you drink comes from.
@WoodlandBard: why would they put them out? Perfect way to create new beef pastures and ethnically cleanse the areas while they are at it. As Bolsonaro put it, “[indigenous reserves] are an obstacle to agri-business” and to remedy that “we’re going to rip up [the indigenous territory of] Raposa Serra do Sol. We’re going to give all the ranchers guns.” What’s better than guns? Fire and guns.
@WoodlandBard: but don’t drink Irish milk or eat Irish bacon or poultry because that’s where their GM soybean animal feed comes from
@EillieEs: this is where our politicians have to take responsibility for doing trade deals to facilitate imports that they know are environmentally crazy.
Soya always came from USA but is now being displaced by amazon rainforest plantations
@EillieEs: cows eat grass mostly, this isn’t Texas.
If Trump wants to buy something may I suggest he consider the Amazon to save it for humanity and help with climate change. Oh wait, climate change is Fake News!
@Kevin McHale: Climate change is natural. But this doesn’t help the earths ecosystem chopping down its lungs.
@brendan H:
Long-term climate cycles are natural – what we’re currently witnessing is out of whack with all known natural cycles.
Tax em Lieo…
I’m not defending the burning of the rainforest at all – just wanted to make that clear.
Having said that, here comes the preachy, comfortable developed west firing off on developing countries – basically saying ‘hey, we made a right arse of our part of the world in the industrial revolution and afterwards so you need to not develop anything at all in order to make up for the damage we did.
Sure, we got rich off it and have a much better quality of life than you and of course we won’t compensate you for anything but, be decent and stay in poverty for our mistakes.
Unless the developed world is willing to cough up then we should probably just shut up.
@Dara O’Brien: You are assuming that destroying large parts of the amazon is in the economic interest of ordinary Brazilians. It clearly isn’t. Clearing land is not going to lift many people out of poverty, and the only people who would get richer off it will be the wealthy supporters of Bolsanaro. There are also indigenous people living in the forest who Bolsanaro has more or less declared war against since being elected. We should very definitely not shut up about it and we should be asking ourselves some very serious questions about trade deals and how our own industries are contributing to deforestation, including how reliant we are on imported animal feed.
Another far right populist, what could possibly go wrong?
Is it the era of crap World leaders or what?
@Cupid Stunt:
Yes – it goes hand in hand with the era of anti-science.
I’m just a bit curious here. Everybody is up in arms against Brazil and its government now about the Amazon. Wasn’t Ireland once covered in thick green forest. Wasn’t much of Europe also. Those who live in glass houses should not throw stones. This is a massive catastrophe what’s going on. The Amazon needs to be saved, but every country needs to act on speeding up ReForestation. You’ll find beautiful videos on TED TALKs where this is happening in the old Caledonian forest of Scotland. The jungles of Borneo,. Also very smart initiatives have begun to regrow grasses in land that became desert over the last century. What’s happening in the Amazon is tragic but it’s not all negative folks. There are ways you can help.
And here WE are stopping people cutting a few sods of turf
People who start fires there should be jailed for criminal damage..
Boycott Brazil Burn Bolsonaro!
The place is burning down and this guy thinks it’s everyone else’s psycological problems. Yes that’s what it is everybody is just crazy.
have your say