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Fires are raging at a record rate in Brazil's Amazon rainforest, and scientists warn that it could strike a devastating blow to the fight against climate change.
The fires are burning at the highest rate since the country's space research center, the National Institute for Space Research (known by the abbreviation INPE), began tracking them in 2013, the center said Tuesday.
There have been 72,843 fires in Brazil this year, with more than half in the Amazon region, INPE said. That's more than an 80% increase compared with the same period last year.
Several unpredictable and not-accounted-for feedback loops to global warming, such as the possibility of very large increase in average area of global forest fires, here even in rainforests too (!), could bring a lot more warming and sooner and bigger than all the warnings.... Then other outcomes of warming that have been predicted to be far off in time would happen sooner also.
Oh no, what a tragedy
Activists blame Brazil's president
Environmental groups have long been campaigning to save the Amazon, blaming Brazil's far-right president, Jair Bolsonaro, for the endangerment of the vital rainforest. They accuse him of relaxing environmental controls in the country and encouraging deforestation.
Bolsonaro's environmental policies have been controversial from the start. A former army captain, he made campaign promises to restore the economy by exploring the Amazon's economic potential.
Just weeks ago, the director of INPE was fired after a spat with the president; the director had defended satellite data that showed deforestation was 88% higher in June than a year earlier, and Bolsonaro called the findings "lies."
Bolsonaro also criticized the agency's deforestation warnings as harmful for trade negotiations, according to the Agencia Brasil news agency.
Bolsonaro's pro-business stance may have emboldened loggers, farmers and miners to seize control of a growing area of Amazon land, Carlos Rittl, executive secretary of the environmental nonprofit organization Observatorio do Clima (Climate Observatory), told CNN en Español last month.
Budget cuts and federal interference are making it even easier for people to exploit the rainforest. Brazil's environmental enforcement agency has seen its budget cut by $23 million, and official data sent to CNN by Observatorio do Clima shows the enforcement agency's operations have gone down since Bolsonaro was sworn in.
On Wednesday, Bolsonaro said that the recent wave of fires in the Amazon may have been caused by nongovernmental organizations in order to draw international criticism to his government.
"Crime exists, and we need to make sure that this type of crime does not increase. We took money away from the NGOs," he said.
"They are now feeling the pinch from the lack of funding. So, maybe the NGO types are conducting these criminal acts in order to generate negative attention against me and against the Brazilian government. This is the war we are facing."
In July, Greenpeace called Bolsonaro and his government a "threat to the climate equilibrium" and warned that in the long run, his policies would bear a "heavy cost" for the Brazilian economy.
Environmental activists and organizations like the World Wildlife Fund warn that if the Amazon reaches a point of no return, the rainforest could become a dry savannah, no longer habitable for much of its wildlife. If this happens, instead of being a source of oxygen, it could start emitting carbon -- the major driver of climate change.
Oxygens overrat...cough...cough....ed!They are still going and the size of this fire is shocking. This is man made and coming from multiple starting points since fire is traditionally used to clear the land.
The Amazon is the lungs of the planet, giving us 20% of the oxygen for the planet. Not to mention all those unique species that live there.
Amazon rainforest fires are burning at a record rate - CNN
On second thought, maybe carbon based life was a bad idea in the first place. Maybe we should stark again with nitrogen.
It's been theorised that nitrogen could work, too. Silicone as well, and some other electrons.I thought that (complex?) life had to have 4 valence electrons. Or is this a joke?
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