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Jair Bolsonaro, the popular right-wing candidate of Brazil's presidency, swept the polls Sunday in Brazil, winning the elections.
The reason for Bolsonaro's victory is largely due to the fact that Brazilians are "exhausted by corruption, by rising violence, by an economy that has not improved," and Bolsonaro promised to remedy these problems, according to Peter Prengaman, Brazil's director of information for the Associated Press.
Bolsonaro, nicknamed "the badet of the tropics" and renowned for his anti-gay, misogynistic, violent and racist comments, also attacks the country's environmental policies.
Scientists around the world are worried because, as president of Brazil, Bolsonaro will control nearly two-thirds of the Amazon – the world's largest rainforest. The president-elect says the country has too many environmentally protected areas that hinder its development.
Bolsonaro said he planned to open a highway crossing the Amazon, while banning environmental NGOs such as Greenpeace and the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF), the Guardian reported.
Bolsonaro plans to knock down more of the world's largest rainforest and critics fear it "institutionalizes genocide" in the Amazon
Bolsonaro recently promised reporters that Brazil would remain in Paris agreement, the historic global climate deal to which he had criticized the past. But it is unclear how he would have managed to keep the end of this Brazil deal while cutting large swathes of the Amazon, which would help keep the world cool. Bolsonaro also wants to eliminate the Brazilian Ministry of Environment, Science Magazine reported.
"His irresponsible plans to industrialize the Amazon together with the Brazilian and international agribusiness and mining sectors will cause immense destruction in the world's largest tropical rainforest and in the communities that reside and sow there. the catastrophe for the global climate, "said Christian Poirier, director of the Amazon Watch program. in a statement after hearing the news about President Bolsonaro.
Pear tree is not the only one concerned.
"I think we are heading towards a very dark period in the history of Brazil," Paulo Artaxo, a researcher on climate change at the University of São Paulo in Brazil, told Science Magazine. "There is no point in gobbling in. Bolsonaro is the worst thing that can happen to the environment."
Professor Geneviève Guenther, who founded EndClimateSilence.org, said on Twitter that the election of Bolsonaro "guarantees that Brazil will do nothing to reduce pollution emissions and that untold acres of the Amazon rainforest will be destroyed", while a meteorologist Eric Holthaus is disputed that the proposed privatization of forests envisaged by the new president is essentially a "global suicide".
Other scientists, like Jess Phoenix volcanologist, who lost a democratic primary race in southern California during the summer, agreed.
Some indigenous peoples living in forests fear for their own safety, as more and more loggers and miners could go home under Bolsonaro.
"We are very scared, I fear for my own life," said Dinaman Tuxa, national coordinator of the Association of Indigenous Peoples of Brazil, in an interview with de facto Brazil. "It will institutionalize genocide."
Christopher Dick, Tropical Plant Expert of the University of Michigan says on Twitter that if [Bolsonaro] Continues in his rhetoric we can expect tribal genocide, the torture of dissidents and the destruction of the Amazon rainforest, which alters the climate. It's a nightmare scenario. I hope I'm wrong. "
The Amazon literally breathes life into the planet
Tropical forest plants suck up carbon dioxide (CO2) from the atmosphere, use it to grow and release oxygen in the air. This is why the colossal Amazon, with an area of 2.1 million square kilometers, is often referred to as "lung of the planet". The forest helps our rotating ball to breathe carbon dioxide and exhale oxygen, performing a critical control of climate change fueled by humans. Scientists estimate that the Amazon could contain one-sixth of the carbon stored in vegetation around the world.
Environmental experts argue that this system of carbon extraction is one of the best solutions to combat climate change.
"We need to remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere to prevent a very dangerous increase in temperature and floods, severe storms and heat waves," said Doug Boucher, scientific advisor to the Union. of Concerned Scientists, says Grist. "The best way we have to remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere is to preserve and rebuild forests."
Although the Amazon is the most diverse forest on the planet, scientists claim that less than 0.5% of Amazon flowering plant species have been studied for their medicinal potential, according to the WWF. According to a damning new report released Tuesday by the NGO, nearly 20% of the Amazon would have "gone for 50 years".
While Brazil has been striving to keep pace with the demand for increased production of beef and soy, Amazonian pieces of the size of entire countries have been cleaned up. During a particularly intense tree cutting period from 1991 to 2000, an area the size of Spain was cut off. This rapid rate of deforestation has slowed in recent years, although the trend towards tree trading for livestock and agriculture is expected to continue.
Although Amazon soil is not conducive to agriculture, scientists estimate that a Delaware-sized area was bulldozed in the forest in 2017, a number that they hope to see increase under Bolonaro. Today, more than 1,930 square kilometers of forest are cleared each year.
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