Thread by @lisalsong

I’m an environment reporter @ProPublica, and fyi, the Amazon forest is STILL burning.

The # of fires went down, but the cause remains the same: deforestation fueled by beef+ soybean demand, as @yessfun explains. Let’s talk about what’s going on: THREAD
earther.gizmodo.com/fewer-fires-bu… 1/

2/ These aren’t like the California wildfires—the Amazon is usually too humid to burn on its own. Humans are responsible: farmers/loggers cut down trees, pile them up and set them on fire. The fire can spread into nearby healthy forest, adding to the damage.

3/ To explain how beef drives everything, @nytimes reported on a barbecue/auction in Pará, where 45 square miles of a nat’l forest were destroyed this year. The destruction goes back years, and local officials have been linked to illegal logging/burning
nytimes.com/2019/10/06/vid…

4/ We’ve reported how the fires underline a risk to carbon offsets—paying someone else to cancel out your CO2 emissions—based on preserving forests. If offsets require forests to stay standing, what happens when it’s impossible to guarantee their safety? propublica.org/article/if-car…

5/ Keeping forests intact is just one of the reasons why these types of offsets don’t work: features.propublica.org/brazil-carbon-…

But offsets will likely be an unavoidable part of the world’s climate solutions: propublica.org/article/offset…

6/ Brazil’s indigenous communities, who live in and depend on the forest, say the land grabbing has gotten worse since President Bolsonaro took office. @tomphillipsin reported on how they are under assault: theguardian.com/world/2019/oct…

7/ The situation is so bad, even the Pope got involved. He hosted a meeting with church leaders, climate scientists and indigenous people to discuss the moral obligation to protect the Amazon. @georgina_gustin on how it fits the Pope’s record on climate:
insideclimatenews.org/news/05102019/…

8/ @terrence_mccoy traveled with the “fire warriors,” elite firefighters defending the forest in Mato Grosso. “What had taken one person seconds to light had taken three men hours to quell.”

washingtonpost.com/world/the_amer…

9/ It’s also important to remember: Brazil isn’t the only country facing forest fires. The Bolivian Amazon burned for two months before the rain put those fires out, @reuters reports. theguardian.com/world/2019/oct…