The Amazon is ablaze. This is horrific news for Brazilians, especially the indigenous peoples who have called the rainforest home for millennia, and for all of humanity as well.
The Amazon rainforest is a crucial carbon sink, absorbing atmospheric carbon that would otherwise heat the planet and accelerate the global climate crisis. Often called “the lungs of the planet,” the Amazon region is also a crucial source of oxygen for all people.
Alarmingly, these fires are no natural disaster. They’re a political disaster—one that’s all too familiar to us here in the United States.
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