As the climate crisis escalates, so have raging fires in Brazil’s Amazon rainforest. Scientists warn this disaster could strike a devastating blow to the fight against climate change. Not only does the Amazon sequester a massive amount of the planets atmospheric CO2, but it also produces 20% of the Earth’s oxygen, which is why it’s often referred to as the planet’s lungs. It’s the largest rainforest on the planet, roughly half the size of the United States.
The country’s space research center, the National Institute for Space Research (INPE), began tracking the fires in 2013. INPE says that now the fires are burning at the highest rate since they started monitoring them. This year alone there have been 72,843 fires in Brazil, with more than half in the Amazon region, which is an 80% increase compared with the same period last year. This is scary news because the Amazon is considered vital in the battle to slow global warming, and it’s home to an uncountable amount of wildlife and species of fauna and flora.
Photos of the animals killed and attempting to escape the flames are being shared across social media with hashtags such as #SaveTheAmazon and #PrayForTheAmazon.
Dramatic photos and videos have been flooding social media streams showing giant plumes of smoke rising from the greenery and lines of fire leaving blackened waste in their wake. One Twitter user, Shannon Sims, wrote:
Just a little alert to the world: the sky randomly turned dark today in São Paulo, and meteorologists believe it’s smoke from the fires burning *thousands* of kilometers away, in Rondônia or Paraguay. Imagine how much has to be burning to create that much smoke(!). SOS
The smoke is so bad that it has even spread across the country to the east Atlantic coast thousands of kilometers away, covering nearly half of the country already, and even spilled over into neighboring Peru, Bolivia and Paraguay, according to the European Union’s satellite program, Copernicus.
Environmental groups and activists blame Brazil’s far-right president, Jair Bolsonaro, for the endangerment of the vital rainforest saying he is relaxing environmental controls in the country and thus encouraging deforestation. It’s easy to believe this since he partly got into office making campaign promises to restore the economy by exploring the Amazon’s economic potential. On top of that, scientists who called him out on Amazon deforestation lost their job. When the director of INPE defended satellite data that showed deforestation was 88% higher in June than a year earlier, Bolsonaro called the findings “lies” and fired him.
Many Brazilians have blamed Bolsanaro for allowing the fires to happen, including tribespeople that live in the Amazon, stating that the fires are started to clear the land of their trees and wildlife to be used for cattle farming. Cattle farming is a leading cause of deforestation in the Amazon. Up to 80% of deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon is illegal, which raises the question; What is the Brazilian government doing about it?
Carlos Rittl, executive secretary of the environmental nonprofit organization Observatorio do Clima (Climate Observatory), told CNN en Español last month that Bolsonaro’s pro-business stance may have emboldened loggers, farmers, and miners to seize control of a growing area of Amazon land. On top of that, budget cuts and federal interference are making it even easier for people to exploit the rainforest. Many believe a lot of the fires may have been caused by people to make space for cattle farms.
On the flip side of the coin, Bolsonaro said that maybe the recent wave of fires in the Amazon 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 the end, it really doesn’t even matter whose fault it is. One of the most important rainforests on the planet, vital for the survival of our species and all others, is burning away. If the Amazon reaches a point of no return, the rainforest could become a dry savannah, no longer habitable for much of its wildlife, explains the World Wildlife Fund. If that happens, it would be a catastrophe. Instead of the Amazon being a source of oxygen, it could start emitting carbon — the major driver of climate change. We all know where the rest of that story leads.
