OAN:
BRASILIA/SAO PAULO (Reuters) – Amid growing international criticism over the wildfires raging through the Amazon, Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro on Thursday admitted farmers could be illegally setting the rainforest ablaze but told foreign powers not to interfere.
French President Emmanuel Macron and United Nations Secretary General António Guterres both took to Twitter to express concern about the fires that have reached a record number this year, devastating vast swathes of forest considered a vital bulwark against climate change.
Bolsonaro responded angrily to what he regarded as meddling.
“These countries that send money here, they don’t send it out of charity. … They send it with the aim of interfering with our sovereignty,” he said in a Facebook Live broadcast.
But earlier on Thursday, he said that Brazil alone lacked the resources to control the fires.
“The Amazon is bigger than Europe, how will you fight criminal fires in such an area?” he asked reporters as he left the presidential residence. “We do not have the resources for that.”
Fires in the Amazon have surged 83% so far this year compared with the same period a year earlier, government figures show.
Although fires are a regular and natural occurrence during the dry season at this time of year, environmentalists blamed the sharp rise on farmers setting the forest alight to clear land for pasture.
Farmers may have had at least tacit encouragement from the firebrand right-wing president, who took power in January. Bolsonaro has repeatedly said he believes Brazil should open the Amazon up to business interests, to allow mining, agricultural and logging companies to exploit its natural resources. more here
Topsoil is very thin in the Amazon. When you clear and farm land like this, you can farm it once, then you have to move on because the land can’t support another crop. This isn’t a global warming thing, it’s a short-sighted land management problem that gets you through this year, then creates a desert for next year. Not a good plan, but no politician thinks long term…
I live in a HUGE city with miles upon miles of extended city. It’s like Star War’s Coruscant, the city-covered planet.
The concrete jungle is pretty terrible after a while. It should be engineered at least 70% city 30% nature in some reasonable way, block by block.
I told my cows to quit worrying about farting.
Whadya expect from a guy that tells the people to hold off on pooping to every other day!
Brazil’s number one import is comments from people who can’t mind their own business. If they could find a market for unsolicited opinions, they could spare the rain forest.
Old McDonald had a farm and on his farm were some cows with a fart, fart here and a toot, toot there E I E I O….
Meanwhile weenie and marshmallow sales in Brazil are skyrocketing.
It’s funny to watch all the Chicken Littles on social media. Now they’re taking their potshots at Notre Dame because they’re too stupid to realize that forests grow back and buildings don’t.
I figure the result of this is that next year everyone’s grass and trees will grow faster than they did this year and the years before that.