SUBSCRIBE TO OUR FREE NEWSLETTER
Daily news & progressive opinion—funded by the people, not the corporations—delivered straight to your inbox.
5
#000000
#FFFFFF
5
#000000
#FFFFFF
A fire burns trees next to grazing land in the Amazon basin in Ze Doca, Brazil. (Photo: Mario Tama/Getty Images)
#PrayForAmazonia Goes Viral as Twitter Users Call Attention to 'International Emergency' of Fires Devastating Brazil's Rainforest
"The Amazon rainforest has been burning for three weeks! We are on the verge of losing it completely if the fire isn't put out. The loss of trees, the loss of biodiversity is what is accelerating climate change."
Aug 20, 2019
The hashtag #PrayForAmazonia went viral on Tuesday as social media users attempted to draw the world's attention to the Amazon rainforest, which has been devastated for weeks by fires so intense they can be seen from space.
According to Euro News, it is unclear whether the fires were caused by agricultural activity or deforestation. Both have accelerated rapidly under Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro, who made opening the Amazon to corporate exploitation a key plank of his election campaign.
Twitter users on Tuesday slammed the media for paying too little attention to the Amazon blazes, particularly given the essential role the rainforest plays in absorbing planet-warming carbon dioxide--a capacity that earned it the nickname "lungs of the world."
"The Amazon has been burning for three weeks, and I'm just now finding out because of the lack of media coverage," wrote one observer. "This is one of the most important ecosystems on Earth."
Satellite data collected by the Brazilian government's National Space Research Institute (INPE) published in June showed that deforestation has risen dramatically under Bolsonaro, who dismissed the research as "a lie" and fired INPE director Ricardo Galvao for defending the data.
As The Guardian reported, the INPE findings showed the Amazon "lost 739sq km during the 31 days [of May], equivalent to two football pitches every minute."
As Newsweek reported Tuesday,
One large fire, which started in late July, burnt around 1,000 hectares of an environmental reserve in the Brazilian state of Rondonia--located on the border with Bolivia. This blaze, along with others in the region, created dense plumes of smoke that spread far across the state, endangering the health of people living in the area and the lives of animals.
Two weeks ago, the state of Amazonas in the northwest of the country declared a state of emergency in response to an increase in the number of fires there... Various fires have also been burning in the state of Mato Grosso, according to satellite imagery.
The fires have become so intense that smoke from the blaze darkened the afternoon sky on Monday in Sao Paulo, Brazil's most populous city.
"The Amazon rainforest has been on fire for weeks, and it's so bad it's literally blotting out the sun miles away," tweeted Robert Maguire, research director at U.S. government watchdog group Citizens for Ethics and Responsibility in Washington.
The advocacy group Amazon Watch on Tuesday called the Bolsonaro regime's attacks on the world's largest rainforest "an international tragedy."
"What can we do?" the group tweeted. "1. Support the courageous resistance of the indigenous peoples of the Amazon. 2. Make clear to the agribusiness and financiers involved in the destruction that we won't buy their products."
An Urgent Message From Our Co-Founder
Dear Common Dreams reader, It’s been nearly 30 years since I co-founded Common Dreams with my late wife, Lina Newhouser. We had the radical notion that journalism should serve the public good, not corporate profits. It was clear to us from the outset what it would take to build such a project. No paid advertisements. No corporate sponsors. No millionaire publisher telling us what to think or do. Many people said we wouldn't last a year, but we proved those doubters wrong. Together with a tremendous team of journalists and dedicated staff, we built an independent media outlet free from the constraints of profits and corporate control. Our mission has always been simple: To inform. To inspire. To ignite change for the common good. Building Common Dreams was not easy. Our survival was never guaranteed. When you take on the most powerful forces—Wall Street greed, fossil fuel industry destruction, Big Tech lobbyists, and uber-rich oligarchs who have spent billions upon billions rigging the economy and democracy in their favor—the only bulwark you have is supporters who believe in your work. But here’s the urgent message from me today. It's never been this bad out there. And it's never been this hard to keep us going. At the very moment Common Dreams is most needed, the threats we face are intensifying. We need your support now more than ever. We don't accept corporate advertising and never will. We don't have a paywall because we don't think people should be blocked from critical news based on their ability to pay. Everything we do is funded by the donations of readers like you. When everyone does the little they can afford, we are strong. But if that support retreats or dries up, so do we. Will you donate now to make sure Common Dreams not only survives but thrives? —Craig Brown, Co-founder |
Our work is licensed under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0). Feel free to republish and share widely.
The hashtag #PrayForAmazonia went viral on Tuesday as social media users attempted to draw the world's attention to the Amazon rainforest, which has been devastated for weeks by fires so intense they can be seen from space.
According to Euro News, it is unclear whether the fires were caused by agricultural activity or deforestation. Both have accelerated rapidly under Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro, who made opening the Amazon to corporate exploitation a key plank of his election campaign.
Twitter users on Tuesday slammed the media for paying too little attention to the Amazon blazes, particularly given the essential role the rainforest plays in absorbing planet-warming carbon dioxide--a capacity that earned it the nickname "lungs of the world."
"The Amazon has been burning for three weeks, and I'm just now finding out because of the lack of media coverage," wrote one observer. "This is one of the most important ecosystems on Earth."
Satellite data collected by the Brazilian government's National Space Research Institute (INPE) published in June showed that deforestation has risen dramatically under Bolsonaro, who dismissed the research as "a lie" and fired INPE director Ricardo Galvao for defending the data.
As The Guardian reported, the INPE findings showed the Amazon "lost 739sq km during the 31 days [of May], equivalent to two football pitches every minute."
As Newsweek reported Tuesday,
One large fire, which started in late July, burnt around 1,000 hectares of an environmental reserve in the Brazilian state of Rondonia--located on the border with Bolivia. This blaze, along with others in the region, created dense plumes of smoke that spread far across the state, endangering the health of people living in the area and the lives of animals.
Two weeks ago, the state of Amazonas in the northwest of the country declared a state of emergency in response to an increase in the number of fires there... Various fires have also been burning in the state of Mato Grosso, according to satellite imagery.
The fires have become so intense that smoke from the blaze darkened the afternoon sky on Monday in Sao Paulo, Brazil's most populous city.
"The Amazon rainforest has been on fire for weeks, and it's so bad it's literally blotting out the sun miles away," tweeted Robert Maguire, research director at U.S. government watchdog group Citizens for Ethics and Responsibility in Washington.
The advocacy group Amazon Watch on Tuesday called the Bolsonaro regime's attacks on the world's largest rainforest "an international tragedy."
"What can we do?" the group tweeted. "1. Support the courageous resistance of the indigenous peoples of the Amazon. 2. Make clear to the agribusiness and financiers involved in the destruction that we won't buy their products."
From Your Site Articles
The hashtag #PrayForAmazonia went viral on Tuesday as social media users attempted to draw the world's attention to the Amazon rainforest, which has been devastated for weeks by fires so intense they can be seen from space.
According to Euro News, it is unclear whether the fires were caused by agricultural activity or deforestation. Both have accelerated rapidly under Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro, who made opening the Amazon to corporate exploitation a key plank of his election campaign.
Twitter users on Tuesday slammed the media for paying too little attention to the Amazon blazes, particularly given the essential role the rainforest plays in absorbing planet-warming carbon dioxide--a capacity that earned it the nickname "lungs of the world."
"The Amazon has been burning for three weeks, and I'm just now finding out because of the lack of media coverage," wrote one observer. "This is one of the most important ecosystems on Earth."
Satellite data collected by the Brazilian government's National Space Research Institute (INPE) published in June showed that deforestation has risen dramatically under Bolsonaro, who dismissed the research as "a lie" and fired INPE director Ricardo Galvao for defending the data.
As The Guardian reported, the INPE findings showed the Amazon "lost 739sq km during the 31 days [of May], equivalent to two football pitches every minute."
As Newsweek reported Tuesday,
One large fire, which started in late July, burnt around 1,000 hectares of an environmental reserve in the Brazilian state of Rondonia--located on the border with Bolivia. This blaze, along with others in the region, created dense plumes of smoke that spread far across the state, endangering the health of people living in the area and the lives of animals.
Two weeks ago, the state of Amazonas in the northwest of the country declared a state of emergency in response to an increase in the number of fires there... Various fires have also been burning in the state of Mato Grosso, according to satellite imagery.
The fires have become so intense that smoke from the blaze darkened the afternoon sky on Monday in Sao Paulo, Brazil's most populous city.
"The Amazon rainforest has been on fire for weeks, and it's so bad it's literally blotting out the sun miles away," tweeted Robert Maguire, research director at U.S. government watchdog group Citizens for Ethics and Responsibility in Washington.
The advocacy group Amazon Watch on Tuesday called the Bolsonaro regime's attacks on the world's largest rainforest "an international tragedy."
"What can we do?" the group tweeted. "1. Support the courageous resistance of the indigenous peoples of the Amazon. 2. Make clear to the agribusiness and financiers involved in the destruction that we won't buy their products."
From Your Site Articles
We've had enough. The 1% own and operate the corporate media. They are doing everything they can to defend the status quo, squash dissent and protect the wealthy and the powerful. The Common Dreams media model is different. We cover the news that matters to the 99%. Our mission? To inform. To inspire. To ignite change for the common good. How? Nonprofit. Independent. Reader-supported. Free to read. Free to republish. Free to share. With no advertising. No paywalls. No selling of your data. Thousands of small donations fund our newsroom and allow us to continue publishing. Can you chip in? We can't do it without you. Thank you.