Fernando Alcoforado*
This article aims to demonstrate what Bolsonaro and his disastrous government represent for the degradation of Brazil’s environment and for catastrophic global climate change. The Bolsonaro government’s environmental policy is disastrous as it fails to take into account the guidelines of science, render the Ministry of Environment inoperative, contribute to the growth of forest fires and deforestation in the Legal Amazon, as well as not complying with the Paris Agreement to combat climate change global signed by the Brazilian government. Since 2019, the Bolsonaro government has taken a series of measures that contribute to the increase in deforestation in Brazil responsible for most of Brazil’s CO2 emissions. Bolsonaro’s speech has served as a incentive of deforestation. There has never been, in any Brazilian democratic government, the incentive to deforestation like Bolsonaro’s with the argument that those who want to protect the Amazon would be foreign interests to seize their wealth. Another consequence of the Bolsonaro government’s action has been the complete dismantling of the environmental inspection bodies. This is a major catastrophe produced by the Bolsonaro government whose action is leading to the destruction of the Amazon Forest with the manifest intention of paving the way for mining, agriculture, livestock and timber activities.
It is important to note that the forest fires commonly carried out in Brazil to prepare the area for agricultural activities are responsible for the significant emission of gases that cause the greenhouse effect, such as carbon dioxide (CO2) that contribute to climate change that tends to become catastrophic for life on the planet as we demonstrated in our book Aquecimento Global e Catástrofe Planetária (Global Warming and Planetary Catastrophe) published by Editora Viena in São Paulo, Brazil, in 2011. Forest fire are part of the process of transforming forests into fields and pastures. Forest fire is the instrument used by farmers to clear the land and prepare it for agricultural activity or to control the development of invasive plants. In most cases, they are carried out at the end of the dry season, when the largest volume of ash is obtained and when the vegetation is most vulnerable to fire. Despite the low cost, this process has innumerable environmental impacts, mainly when it escapes the control with forest fires, reaching areas that were not wanted to burn. Initially, burning can act as soil fertilizer, as the ash produced is converted into plant nutrients by the microorganisms of the earth. However, the successive burning of the same region can kill these same microorganisms, making the soil increasingly impoverished and unsuitable for agriculture. The destruction of tropical forests, in addition to reducing the planet’s biodiversity, causes soil erosion, degrades watershed areas, releases carbon dioxide into the atmosphere and causes social and environmental imbalance. The reduction of humidity in the Amazon reduces the rainfall in the south-central region of Brazil, that is, in the southeast and central-west regions of Brazil..
The main damages caused by deforestation and forest fire are the destruction of vegetation and animal habitats, the death of animals, the local extinction of species, the loss of organic matter in the soil and its exposure to erosion. In addition, they also contribute to the greenhouse effect by releasing large amounts of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere and are also the cause of air pollution in the countryside and cities. Agricultural and logging activities are responsible for a large part of the deforestation that occurred in the Amazon. The destruction of tropical forests also has consequences for the climate and the water cycle. Pastures and crops absorb less solar energy than the original vegetation and can contribute to a reduction in rainfall and an increase in temperature in the Amazon region. Forest fires are also responsible for the significant emission of gases that cause the greenhouse effect, such as carbon dioxide (CO2). Burning produces far more carbon dioxide than plants can absorb. About 70% of the area previously covered by forest, and 91% of the area deforested since 1970 in the Amazon is used as pasture. In addition, Brazil is currently the 13th largest CO2 emitter in the world with 1.3% of global emissions. Deforestation was responsible for 44% of the country’s total CO2 emissions in 2020.
According to the Assessment of the Risk of Amazon Dieback report prepared by the World Bank, there may be only 5% of forests left in eastern Amazonia in 2075 if everything continues as it is today. This process is the result of deforestation, climate change and burning [AMARAL, André. Desmatamento, queimadas e mudanças climáticas podem acabar com 95% da Amazônia até 2075 (Deforestation, forest fires and climate change can end 95% of the Amazon by 2075). Published on the website <https://decoamaral.wordpress.com/2010/page/118/>]. This study had the collaboration of Brazilian researchers from the National Institute for Space Research (Inpe) Carlos Nobre and Gilvan Sampaio who work with the concept of “Amazon Dieback”, a term that would mean a reduction in forest biomass. It can be said that there is a risk of collapse of part of the Amazon rainforest. It should be noted that tropical forests recycle around 8% of the global carbon present in the atmosphere. It seems little, but it is a crucial process for life on Earth. And they do this simply through photosynthesis. Plants absorb the CO2 present in the atmosphere and accumulate biomass in the form of trunks, roots and leaves. They thus become giant carbon warehouses. Any disturbance in these “warehouses”, such as those resulting from deforestation, has effects on the global carbon cycle and negative impacts on the planet’s atmosphere. About 200 billion tons of carbon are stored in the tropical vegetation that covers the planet and the Amazon Forest is responsible for a large part of this stock. The photosynthesis carried out by the forest vegetation absorbs an enormous amount of carbon from the atmosphere each year.
The Amazon Forest alone is capable of absorbing six billion tons of CO2, equivalent to 10% of the photosynthesis of the world’s lands. Most of this absorption is compensated, however, by the release of carbon through the decomposition of organic matter and the respiration of the forest itself. The remaining part may be being absorbed by the forest, becoming a sink for carbon dioxide (CO2). The data presented here about the Amazon are contained in our book, Amazônia Sustentável (Sustainable Amazon), published by Editora Viena (Santa Cruz do Rio Pardo, São Paulo, 2011). To avoid the destruction of the Amazon Forest and to ensure that the natural resources existing in the Amazon are used rationally for the benefit of the population residing there and for the economic and social progress of Brazil, as well as in the fight against global warming, defense at all costs of the integrity of Amazon Forest is essential. The Brazilian people must fight to stop the environmental crime that is practiced in the Amazon with the complacency of the Bolsonaro government.
Brazil’s environment is threatened by the Bolsonaro government because it has been noted for its positions that are frankly opposed to the defense of the environment and for showing total ignorance of the environmental issue. In a month and a half of government, his Minister of the Environment, Ricardo Salles, declared that climate change is a merely “academic” issue and a concern “for 500 years from now”, he defended transgenic soy plantations in indigenous lands prohibited by the Constitution and the reduction of controls on pesticides, in addition to stating that the blame for the increase in deforestation in the Amazon lies with the “pyrotechnics” of environmental inspection and that climate conferences only serve to afford luxury vacations for public officials in Europe and that NGOs they do “environmental terrorism to sell a lecture”. The Minister of the Environment of the Bolsonaro government admitted in the TV program Roda viva, on TV Cultura, in 2019, that he had never visited the Amazon nor knew Chico Mendes, but had heard from people “from agribusiness” that the greatest Amazonian environmental hero was a profiteer who “Used rubber tappers to take advantage”. Trying to get rid of the controversy caused by the response, he asks what a difference it makes who Chico Mendes is at this moment when it is known by all that he was one of the great defenders of the preservation of the Amazon rainforest and because of this he was murdered.
Minister Ricardo Salles has been noted for positions that are clearly contrary to the agenda of the Ministry of the Environment of previous governments and for exhibiting total ignorance of the environmental issue. As one of the first measures of the Ministry of the Environment, Ricardo Salles made the decision determining the suspension for 90 days of all agreements with NGOs, an illegal measure that he had to reformulate the following day. He made a mistake in promising the press to buy “a satellite” of R$ 100 million to produce data that would guide the inspection of deforestation unaware that INPE (National Institute for Space Research) has been doing this in partnership with Ibama since 2004. In In summary, unfortunately, Salles is the perfect Minister of the Environment for Bolsonaro for Brazil’s disgrace. The Bolsonaro government represents a real disgrace for Brazil’s environment.
On the 22nd and 23rd of April, President Joe Biden of the United States held a Summit meeting with the participation of 40 other heads of state invited. The meeting prepared discussions for COP26, the United Nations (UN) Climate Conference, which this year will take place in November, in the city of Glasgow, Scotland. According to a statement released by the White House, Presidents Vladimir Putin, of Russia, and Xi Jinping, of China, were the most important players. This Summit has the strategic role of stimulating the creation of plans by the largest economies in the world to reduce emissions of pollutants and carbon dioxide by 2030. The target is considered as crucial by the United States to maintain the limit of 1.5 °C in the increase of the average temperature of the planet that was established with the Paris Agreement (COP 21). Before this meeting, Bolsonaro signaled changes in his disastrous environmental policy, with a letter he sent to Joe Biden with a commitment to end illegal deforestation in the Amazon by 2030. At the meeting, Bolsonaro spoke and promised that the country will have climate neutrality by 2030 anticipating in 10 years the previous signaling with the full and prompt application of the Brazilian Forest Code with the reduction of almost 50% of CO2 emissions in Brazil until that date. Among the necessary measures for this, he highlighted the commitment to eliminate illegal deforestation by 2030.
President Jair Bolsonaro of Brazil has announced that the country will end illegal deforestation by 2030 despite having significantly weakened Brazil’s environmental enforcement agencies. Bolsonaro promised that they will be strengthened, but, contradictorily, he made cuts in the government budget for inspection of deforestation the day after the summit meeting when he said he would double spending on this inspection. Bolsonaro’s speech was misleading because he has no intention of fulfilling anything he promised. It was Bolsonaro’s “fake speech”, in the same line as the fake news that has characterized his government. This promise was met with extreme skepticism by the international community linked to the environment that has followed how the destruction of the Amazon grew dramatically during the disastrous Bolsonaro government. With Bolsonaro at the head of the Brazilian government, there will be continued degradation of Brazil’s environment, putting at risk the fight against global climate change and not the other way around.
The evaluation of the Bolsonaro government in its 2 ½ years of presidential term has been disastrous not only in relation to the environment. It is disastrous from any angle of analysis. It has been the most disastrous in the history of Brazil in terms of foreign policy, economics, job creation, science and technology, education and culture, social rights, the environment, public health and, also, for the democracy threatened by Bolsonaro. This balance sheet of the Bolsonaro government shows that it is more than a problem for the environment of Brazil and the planet, but, above all, a huge problem for the future of Brazil. The prospects for the future of Brazil are extremely negative with the Jair Bolsonaro government in the face of the threat it poses to national economic development, democracy, social rights, public health and the environment. With Bolsonaro, there is no space for advancing the economy, democracy, social rights, public health and the environment in Brazil.
* Fernando Alcoforado, 81, awarded the medal of Engineering Merit of the CONFEA / CREA System, member of the Bahia Academy of Education, engineer and doctor in Territorial Planning and Regional Development by the University of Barcelona, university professor and consultant in the areas of strategic planning, business planning, regional planning and planning of energy systems, is author of the books Globalização (Editora Nobel, São Paulo, 1997), De Collor a FHC- O Brasil e a Nova (Des)ordem Mundial (Editora Nobel, São Paulo, 1998), Um Projeto para o Brasil (Editora Nobel, São Paulo, 2000), Os condicionantes do desenvolvimento do Estado da Bahia (Tese de doutorado. Universidade de Barcelona,http://www.tesisenred.net/handle/10803/1944, 2003), Globalização e Desenvolvimento (Editora Nobel, São Paulo, 2006), Bahia- Desenvolvimento do Século XVI ao Século XX e Objetivos Estratégicos na Era Contemporânea (EGBA, Salvador, 2008), The Necessary Conditions of the Economic and Social Development- The Case of the State of Bahia (VDM Verlag Dr. Müller Aktiengesellschaft & Co. KG, Saarbrücken, Germany, 2010), Aquecimento Global e Catástrofe Planetária (Viena- Editora e Gráfica, Santa Cruz do Rio Pardo, São Paulo, 2010), Amazônia Sustentável- Para o progresso do Brasil e combate ao aquecimento global (Viena- Editora e Gráfica, Santa Cruz do Rio Pardo, São Paulo, 2011), Os Fatores Condicionantes do Desenvolvimento Econômico e Social (Editora CRV, Curitiba, 2012), Energia no Mundo e no Brasil- Energia e Mudança Climática Catastrófica no Século XXI (Editora CRV, Curitiba, 2015), As Grandes Revoluções Científicas, Econômicas e Sociais que Mudaram o Mundo (Editora CRV, Curitiba, 2016), A Invenção de um novo Brasil (Editora CRV, Curitiba, 2017), Esquerda x Direita e a sua convergência (Associação Baiana de Imprensa, Salvador, 2018, em co-autoria) and Como inventar o futuro para mudar o mundo (Editora CRV, Curitiba, 2019).
Site Title 