O Pantanal brasileiro é a maior área úmida tropical do mundo, cobrindo uma área quase do tamanho da Grã-Bretanha. Só que hoje, não está tão molhada. Após um verão de seca, estão ocorrendo incêndios catastróficos que já devastaram 2,4 milhões de hectares de terra este ano. (Isso é mais do que queimou na Califórnia, Oregon […]
climate change
World on Fire
Brazil’s Pantanal is the world’s largest tropical wetland, covering an area nearly the size of Britain. Only today, it isn’t so wet. After a summer of drought, catastrophic fires are raging that have devastated 2.4 million hectares of land already this year. (That’s more than has burned in California, Oregon, and Washington combined.) Its precious […]
Extinction and the Revolution of Love
Contrary to its self-conception, Extinction Rebellion is not actually about climate change. The climate issue is, rather, the vehicle for the expression of a deeper yearning. Greta Thunberg and the climate strikers embody a refusal to comply with a system that is anti-life. “I will not go to school. I will not participate in this. I want no part of the program.”
The Amazon: How do we heal a burning heart?
Like a lot of people, I’ve been deeply affected by what’s been happening in the Amazon in 2019.
Deforestation has reached double the rate of last year, as the red line of logging and fires, many of them set deliberately to clear land for soybeans and cattle, encroaches deeper and deeper into the heart of the Amazon rainforest.
Armed land-grabbers are dislocating Indigenous people and killing those who resist. Even legally protected lands are getting logged and destroyed. It’s just horrifying. And I feel, sometimes, these waves of helplessness, like watching a car wreck in slow motion. The grief is so strong – what do I do with it?
Initiation into a Living Planet
Most people have passed through some kind of initiation in life. By that, I mean a crisis that defies what you knew and what you were. From the rubble of the ensuing collapse, a new self is born into a new world. Societies can also pass through an initiation. That is what climate change poses […]
Why I am Afraid of Global Cooling
In the run-up to the publication of my next book, I’ve been monitoring sources across the spectrum of opinion on climate change. The other day I happened upon this piece, which describes recent measurements of ice mass and ice extent gains in the Arctic, Antarctic, and Greenland, along with cool surface and tropospheric temperatures. My heart sank. […]