September 4, 2019 | The Clarion
Opinion
Page 5
Brazil is burning
It’s time to step up for our planet
By Lande Simpson
staff Writer
As many may know, fires in the Amazon
rainforest have been burning for the past
month or so in Brazil, and Brazil’s president,
Jair Bolsonaro, is now calling for a state of
emergency within the region.
People on social media are media are not
shining a whole lot of light on this issue. You
might see posts about it here and there but it
is not on the top of everyone’s priority list it
seems like.
Now, what is the big deal about this tire?
The fires are destroying the homes of the 400
indiginous tribes that live in the rainforest,
threatening millions of animal species and could
possibly be threatening twenty percent of the
earth’s oxygen supply.
Bolsonaro seems to be like Brazil’s Trump.
He bashes people on twitter (most recently the
French President’s wife). The French President
offered to help save the Amazon and send lots
of money to support and help extinguish the
fires but, Bolsonaro took offense to the offer,
declined it and bashed the French presidency
on twitter and in public.
A couple of scary facts about this record
breaking burning is that one and a half soccer
fields worth of the Amazon is being burnt every
minute according to INPE, Brazil’s National
Institute for Space Research.
“Environmental activists and organizations
like the World Wildlife Fund warns 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,” Jessie Yeung of CNN said.
We need to do whatever we can to help save
the Amazon Rainforest. You can do your part
by informing others, protecting an acre of land,
challenging corporations and obviously reducing
your plastic and paper waste.
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Photo from National Geographic
Photo credit NASA.gov. This natural coior image captured by NASA on Aug. 20 shows clouds This graphic shows the state of the fires as of Aug. 26, 2019
of smoke across the nation of Brazii. based on images taken by NASA and the NOAA. It compares
this year’s fires with those in years past.