SMH.
The Amazon Rain Forest is burning at a record rate, and devastatingly, the fires do not look like they’re close to stopping.
It may seem strange that a rainforest, literally one of the moistest places in the world, is on fire, right? Well, it is perplexing until one understands how bad the issue of climate change is right now.
Recently Germany and the Netherlands experienced the warmest days their countries have ever experienced. Iceland had to say goodbye to its first-ever lost glacier. Now, these forest fires are absolutely ripping through the Amazon.
Words cannot adequately express the severity of our ablaze rainforest.
Brazil's Amazon rainforest is on fire.
9,500+ new fires have been detected there since last week. You can see the smoke from space:
(đŸ“·: NASA / Lauren Dauphin / HO) pic.twitter.com/0k7Jwz2YzQ
— AJ+ (@ajplus) August 21, 2019
Besides the crushing destruction of trees and biodiversity, the Amazon accounts for 20 percent of the world’s oxygen. It has never been, and definitely is not now, okay to think that issues in other parts of the world don’t affect you.
The forest fires may be in Brazil, but they are affecting all of us, and we as people have not been strong enough in holding our leaders accountable and of this devastating issue.
The Amazon has been on fire for three weeks, and only in the past couple of days has there been major news coverage. Trees are dying, species are being wiped out, and a massive cloud of smoke has even appeared in Sao Paolo, a city more than 1,700 miles away.
The sky went black in the middle of the day.
The Amazon Rainforest is literally being burned to the ground and the smoke is already coming to Sao Paulo.
That's some apocalyptic shit right there.
Picture taken from my office window at fucking 3 pm pic.twitter.com/zhfXA7mMOf— Toberal Fox (@Toberal_Fox) August 19, 2019
If you’re not scared, you’re not paying attention.
We are killing our planet, and it took three weeks for national news coverage of the event to surface. The Notre Dame Cathedral burning was all over social and national media, surrounding an issue that really doesn’t affect any of us.
Now can we have that same energy for the Amazon Rainforest burning, which affects all of us? Can we put all the petty political bullshit aside for a second and recognize the more serious issues like that the world is burning?
There was worldwide outcry when the Notre Dame cathedral was on fire. Why is there not the same level of outrage for the fires destroying the #AmazonRainforest? pic.twitter.com/VbSda5PYAK
— WWF UK (@wwf_uk) August 21, 2019
The rise of right-wing leaders around the world is coming at a most inopportune time. President Trump has cut funding from environmental programs in the U.S. at every turn, and Brazil’s president Jair Bolsonaro is responsible for massive deforestation in the Amazon since he took office in January.
Brazil’s environmental enforcement agency has seen its data cut by $23 million since Bolsonaro was sworn in. Often, these right-wing leaders are less concerned with public safety and more concerned with their support from massive corporations. The same corporations that profit from acts such as the purchasing of guns and deforestation.
Without any evidence, Bolsonaro claimed NGO’s (Non-Government Organizations) may be responsible for the burning of the Amazon. Bruh. Even he surely doesn’t believe this.
Selfishness and greed can be linked to most of the problems that the world suffers from, and this situation is no different. Put the money aside world leaders and find a course of action.
If our leaders will not be held responsible, we have to find out a way to get them to listen. And if they don’t, we take to the streets. There has never been a more crucial cause.
We have one world, and it is actively being destroyed from within. This is about our future generations even more than us. Shouldn’t we want to bring new lives into a world that is better off than how we left it?