The fires in the Amazon

The recent incidents of fires in the Brazilian Amazon seem to have caught the attention of the world’s leaders who were forced to discuss it during the G7 meeting that was recently held in France.

The moot was held in the backdrop of rising US-China tensions over trade and the UK’s impending exit from the European Union but the issue that caught the attention of people the world over was the fires that have sparked protests in Brazil and various parts of the world. Leaders of the international community have accused Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro of following reckless policies that are not only pushing the Amazon rainforests towards destruction but jeopardising the biodiversity of the world as well.

It is not only leaders like French President Macron, German Chancellor Angela Merkel and British Prime Minister Boris Johnson who have expressed concern over the raging fires, the issue has also been highlighted by celebrities and sports personalities. The Brazilian president has countered this outcry by describing these concerns as remnants of a colonial mentality. But the world is not ready to buy this rhetoric of the right-wing head of the state who is known for his anti-environmentalist tirades.

Experts claim that the Amazon Rainforest produces more than 20 percent of the world’s oxygen. The fires in the Brazilian Amazon, accounting for more than half of the world’s largest rainforest, could have catastrophic consequences. Though fires erupt in various parts of the world, the scale of these incidents has stunned millions across the globe. Such conflagrations have witnessed a surge of 83 percent in one year, destroying vast swaths of an important bulwark against global climate change.

It is encouraging to see that world leaders are taking a keen interest in the factors leading to the destruction of the environment. But critics believe that such luminaries of global politics should also turn their attention to other causes that are pushing the world not only towards acute environmental degradation but total annihilation as well. Addressing a few issues here and there is not going to solve environmental destruction. It is time we questioned the very logic of an economic system that is ready to wreak havoc with everything to satiate its gargantuan appetite for profit. It is time we opposed the voracious greed of the corporate world that wants to jeopardise the very existence of mankind for the sake of its unbridled business growth that seems to have no limits.

Environmentalists claim that war and war-related departments are the biggest factors leading to the degradation of environment. The world’s armed forces are one of the biggest contributors to the environmental pollution, responsible for as much as 10 percent of global air pollution besides being the biggest consumer of oil. According to some estimates, we need only 50 billion euro to repair the damage caused to the ozone layer but the world had rather pump more than $1700 billion into defence and arms spending in 2015.

Wars do not only churn out dead bodies, they also make the lives of millions poisonous by the devastation and destruction that they cause. Armed conflicts destroy wildlife besides contaminating land, air and water. For instance, according to Environmentalists against War, an alliance of over 1000 pro-environment NGOs, the US dropped 25 million bombs and 19 million gallons of Agent Orange herbicide and other chemical weapons on Vietnam.

“Millions of acres from Russia’s Baltic Sea to the Pacific Ocean have been contaminated by military chemicals and radioactive wastes. In Cambodia, 1,300 square miles are salted with several million mines that continue to kill wildlife and humans. Angola’s environment is burdened with more than 10 million landmines. Cluster bombs, thermobaric explosions, chemical and biological weapons and projectiles made with radioactive depleted uranium are indiscriminate weapons of mass destruction.”

The alliance further claims that the US dropped 88,000 tons of bombs on Iraq in 1991, destroying 9,000 homes, water systems, power plants, critical bridges and four major dams. “The resulting health emergency contributed to the deaths of 500,000 Iraqi children. In 2002, the US dropped a quarter-million cluster bomblets on Afghanistan. In 2003, the US dropped 28,000 rockets, bombs and missiles on Iraq.” Volumes would be needed to fully assess the damage that has been caused to the environment by the actions of only one country.

Global conflicts also greatly harmed our environment. To fight wars and maintain militaries, a giant oil-based economy must be propped up because conflicts require vast stores of oil and their use generates significant spikes of greenhouse gasses. The world’s armies consume nearly two billion barrels of oil annually.

War-related departments also create a myriad of problems for their own people. The US, which exports wars abroad, also tends to create grave environment problems at home. For instance, more than 15 million acres of land in US is laden with unexploded ordnance while the country also houses more than 14,000 contaminated military sites. According to the Center for Arms Control and Nuclear non-Proliferation, “When it comes to highly radioactive nuclear waste, which primarily consists of spent fuel produced in nuclear reactor operation, the lack of options for permanent disposal is even more severe. Although the United States contains more than 90,000 metric tons of highly radioactive nuclear waste, the federal government has been unable to implement any strategy for its permanent disposal.”

Given all this, it could be said that showing concern over the fires in Amazon is encouraging but it is not enough to deal with the myriad of environmental disasters that have been raging across the world. World leaders should not only ponder over the factors that are contributing to Amazon fires but also assess the damage caused by 1030 nuclear detonations carried out across the world by different countries. They must let people know how much destruction has been caused to the environment by the more than 280 wars, civil strife and conflicts that were partly encouraged by Western countries. They need to honestly state in what ways defence companies are contributing to environmental disasters by carrying out tests of latest arms and fighter jets. It is the duty of French President Macron to tell his people in what way Paris jeopardised the very existence of the Maldives by carrying out nuclear detonations in the South Pacific Ocean.

To cut a long story short, the leaders of the Western capitalist world should also inform the seven billion hapless souls of this world in what way this philosophy of growth is damaging our land and squandering our precious resources. It is not only the Amazon fires that should be a focus of discussion but the very system that advocates the destruction of the environment, the pauperization of the world’s mass majority and the enrichment of a few.

It is this economic system that should come under hard scrutiny if we really want to understand the real causes of environmental degradation.

The writer is a freelance journalist.

Email: egalitarianism444@gmail. com