The hashtag #PrayForAmazonia has gone viral as social media users have attempted to draw the world’s attention to the Amazon rainforest, that’s been devastated for several weeks by fires so intense they can be seen from space.
From the other side of Earth, here’s the latest on the Amazonia fires 🌳
— WMO | OMM (@WMO) August 20, 2019
Produced by @CopernicusEU’s atmosphere monitoring service, it shows the smoke reaching the Atlantic coast and São Paulo 🇧🇷
DATA HERE▶️https://t.co/Q6qzFdPfIT pic.twitter.com/aJKU2YwRpJ
São Paulo, 3:30 PM #gothamcity pic.twitter.com/KyR1YOGg8q
— Leandro Mota (@leandromota_) August 19, 2019
As Euro News reported, it’s unclear whether the fires were caused by agricultural activity or deforestation. They’ve both accelerated rapidly under Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro, that made opening the Amazon to corporate exploitation a key plank of his election campaign.
Pontualmente 4h da noite em SP pic.twitter.com/07ZJdUeOM6
— Gianvitor Dias (@Gianvitor) August 19, 2019
People on Twitter have slammed the media for paying too little attention to the Amazon blazes, especially given the essential role the rainforest has in absorbing planet-warming carbon dioxide—a capacity which earned it the nickname “the lung of the Earth.”
The Amazon rainforest has been on fire for weeks, and it's so bad it's literally blotting out the sun miles away https://t.co/oDjcECJVgp
— Robert Maguire (@RobertMaguire_) August 20, 2019
According to The Mind Unleashed, satellite data collected by the Brazilian government’s National Space Research Institute (INPE) published in June 2019 indicate that deforestation has risen dramatically under Bolsonaro, and dismiss the allegations that the research as “a lie” and fired INPE director Ricardo Galvão for defending the data.
🌎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🌎 pic.twitter.com/P1DrCzQO6x
— Shannon Sims (@shannongsims) August 20, 2019
Lance King/Getty Images
Reuters
The fires are now so intense that smoke from the blaze darkens the afternoon sky in São Paulo, Brazil’s most populous city.
NASA image, August 11, 2019
NASA image, August 13, 2019
This is the Brazilian environmental policy under president Bolsonaro. He doesn't care about life. The Amazon Rainforest's burning for about 3 weeks and nothing's been done. @BadAstronomer @azmoderate #PrayforAmazonia #PrayforRondonia pic.twitter.com/haIrQzFdk9
— olhaoalho (@olhaoalho) August 20, 2019
Reuters/Windy/Google
Reuters
The advocacy group Amazon Watch has called Bolsonaro regime’s attacks on the world’s largest rainforest, “an international tragedy.”
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