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The Amazon isn't "Burning" - It's Being Burned

2019-08-23 · explainer · Hank · 7:27 · watch on YouTube

Topic: World affairs (also: Science & nature) · mode: News analysis · tags: timely hook

Hank argues the Amazon is not 'burning' but being burned: the fires are set to clear land for cattle under Jair Bolsonaro, driven by money and a nationalist ideology that sees the world's concern as a threat, though losing the rainforest's rain would harm Brazil most.

What is said

The parts of the video and what is said in each (★ — how much it matters to the video).

00:00:00 — Tweets say the Amazon is burning; unlike US wildfires, these fires are set to make cattle land, so it is being burned

  • ★★ Hank says recent tweets reporting that the Amazon rainforest is burning, with record wildfires, made him angry. — 00:00:00
  • ★★ Hank says that in America a wildfire is usually an accident, sometimes a normal part of the ecosystem, and sometimes set by criminals the government wants to arrest. — 00:00:29 · United States
  • ★★★ Hank says fire is not a natural part of the Amazon ecosystem, so many rainforest trees cannot survive what in the US would be a trivial burn. — 00:00:58 · United States
  • ★★★ Hank says the Amazon fires are intentional, not as arson but because the land is more economically productive grazing cattle than as rainforest. — 00:00:58

00:01:27 — Natural dry-season fires and how rainforests make their own rain; what changed is Brazil's president

  • ★★★ Hank says the headline should not be that large swaths of the Amazon are burning but that they are being burned. — 00:01:27

    “it should be large swaths of the Amazon are being burned”

  • ★★ Hank says there are natural wildfires in the Amazon in the dry season, now under way, and their number appears to be increasing. (hedged) — 00:01:27

  • ★★ Hank says a single tree can evaporate over 50,000 gallons of water a year that falls again: rainforests make rain, so less rainforest means less rain and more fires. — 00:01:56

    “Rainforests don't just thrive on rain, they make rain.”

  • ★★★ Hank says this year's (2019) many fires are not because it is hotter or drier than normal; what changed in Brazil is who the president is. — 00:01:56

00:02:26 — Bolsonaro's rollbacks and lies; the economic and nationalist ideology behind the burning; world concern seen as a threat; indigenous people

  • ★★★ Hank says Bolsonaro rolled back environmental protections and this month (August 2019) fired the head of Brazil's space research institute after he defended data showing deforestation grew 40% in a year. — 00:02:26
  • ★★ Hank reports that Bolsonaro says the deforestation figure is wrong and that deforestation is down. — 00:02:26
  • ★★ Hank reports that, asked why there are so many fires, Bolsonaro said environmental organizations might be setting them to make him look bad. — 00:02:26
  • ★★★ Hank calls both of Bolsonaro's claims, that deforestation is down and that environmental groups may be setting the fires, lies. — 00:02:26
  • ★★★ Hank says the burning is not pure malice but ideology, starting with economics: the rainforest holds much value and no one makes money from it while it stays rainforest. — 00:02:26
  • ★★ Hank describes a second, civilizing ideology of bringing a 'superior way of life' to the wild jungle, which he likens to manifest destiny. — 00:02:26
  • ★★ Hank says the government encourages legal logging and farming, cuts inspections and regulations, and ignores illegal land grabs where forest is slashed, burned, seeded with grass and sold to ranchers. — 00:03:12
  • ★★★ Hank says most of the good the Amazon does is for everyone: it produces oxygen, traps CO2 and preserves biodiversity for the whole world. — 00:03:12
  • ★★★ Hank says Brazil is not paid for these global benefits, and far-right, ultra-nationalist views, holding that the nation is for the nation only, don't allow for things that help everyone. — 00:03:41
  • ★★★ Hank says these nationalists perceive the world's concern for the Amazon not as a reason to protect it but as a threat, a claim on their sovereignty. — 00:03:41
  • ★★ Hank grants the question of what right an American has to tell Brazil what to do with its rainforests, since America deforested everything it could. — 00:04:10 · United States
  • ★★★ Hank says outside interest in protecting the Amazon becomes a reason for some to destroy it: in a zero-sum world, why should anyone else benefit from our property? — 00:04:10
  • ★★ Hank says the Amazon is not empty: many indigenous and other people live, work and rely on the forest, but nationalists often do not see them as real Brazilians. — 00:04:39
  • ★★★ Hank says nationalism is an inherently exclusionary ideology, which is why fascism, nationalism and racism so often walk together. — 00:04:39

00:05:09 — Why losing the Amazon would be a disaster for Brazil and the world: heat, rain, feedback loop, GDP, food, tipping points

  • ★★★ Hank says an Amazon turned entirely into pasture and soybeans would be a disaster for the whole world and even more of a disaster for Brazil itself. — 00:05:09
  • ★★ Hank says northern Africa, farther from the equator than Brazil, is hot, and Brazil gets more solar energy than Saudi Arabia but stays much cooler thanks to the rainforest's evapotranspiration. — 00:05:09
  • ★★★ Hank says that with less rainforest Brazil would clearly be hotter and drier, and man-made or natural fires would spread on their own. — 00:05:09
  • ★★★ Hank says the spreading fires could lead to a feedback loop that ends the Amazon. (hedged) — 00:05:42
  • ★★★ Hank says 70% of South America's GDP is made in places where Amazon rainforest rain falls. — 00:05:42 · United States
  • ★★ Hank says much of the rain that falls in America is evapotranspired in the Amazon rainforest. — 00:05:42 · United States

  • ★★ Hank says that when he talks about rain falling he really means agriculture and food: we eat that rain. — 00:05:42

    “We eat that rain.”

  • ★★ Hank says there are always many tipping points on the way to destruction, but there is a point where less rain and more fires mean losing most, if not all, of the Amazon. — 00:06:07

  • ★★ Hank says this is why we have science to warn us so we can act, and human rights to protect people whose land and life are their own. — 00:06:07

00:06:36 — Allegiance to ideology over truth; call a lie a lie; the rainforest is being burned; sign-off

  • ★★★ Hank says denial is all too easy with more allegiance to ideology than to truth, which is why we must call a lie a lie no matter who says it. — 00:06:36

00:07:02 — Post-sign-off pointer to linked resources (The Intercept) and thanks for caring

  • ★★ Hank says he linked other resources; his favorite is an article in The Intercept from a few months earlier that basically predicted all this. — 00:07:02
  • ★ Hank thanks viewers for caring, saying it is a big deal and the only way this has been slowed in the past. — 00:07:02

In the description and comments

  • ★★ The description says Bolsonaro's supporters, taking a page from the global warming playbook, say no one knows how bad it is and deforestation is down, playing with words and numbers. — video description
  • ★★ Hank says 'deforestation' only looks down because burning isn't counted: the burned area is unknown while fires still burn and surveys take time, but the number of fires is certainly up across the Amazon. — video description
  • ★★★ Hank says Bolsonaro's government dramatically cut inspections, put military officials in charge of environmental organizations and fired every scientist who publicly disagrees with him. — video description
  • ★★★ Hank calls this the greatest reminder that nationalism is a disaster of an ideology and that how we imagine the world and whom we vote for matter a lot. — video description

Threads in this video

Mentioned

Central: Amazon rainforest · Brazil · deforestation · human impact on the environment · ideology · Jair Bolsonaro · nationalism · wildfire

Also: Organizations: National Institute for Space Research · The Intercept

Groups: Indigenous peoples of the Americas

Concepts: Biodiversity · evapotranspiration · fascism · gross domestic product · Human rights · Manifest destiny · racism · regulation · vicious circle · zero-sum game

Places: Africa · Saudi Arabia · South America · United States

Only in the description or credits: climate change denial

Also centred on Amazon rainforest: The Earth Shouldn't Have Oxygen

Also centred on Brazil: Cheating Cheaters of Cheatery: The Amazing Story of Brazil's Cotton War with the U.S. · Brazil's Government is Falling Apart...and it's Good News?

Also centred on human impact on the environment: October 5th: Feuding, Goonies and Politics · Nine Die in Georgia Floods - Kanye is a Jackass · Some Mind-Bending Earth GIFs · What is the Strongest Force on Earth? · Kill All The Humans

Also centred on ideology: Thoughts from the Edge

Also centred on nationalism: Flags and Helpers

Also centred on wildfire: Trust and Fire - Thoughts from the Smoke

Later videos replying to this one

  • 2019-08-30 · The Earth Shouldn't Have Oxygen (Hank) — corrects — “Last week I joined an extremely unexclusive club of people who said that the Amazon rainforest produces 20% of the world's oxygen. I've since deleted it from the video because it's a fake fact.” (00:00:00)