Dear Diary. The main purpose of this ongoing blog will be to track global extreme or record temperatures related to climate change. Any reports I see of ETs will be listed below the main topic of the day. I’ll refer to extreme or record temperatures as ETs (not extraterrestrials).😉
Main Topic: Deforestation Of The Amazon Hits A Record In May
Dear Diary. The last few years I’ve often written that the most important thing we can do as a species, second to stopping carbon pollution itself, is ceasing the destruction of the world’s lungs, the Amazon. It has been a few months since we checked in on what Bolsanaro has been doing to stop loggers and others who have no regard for our future. Sadly, I can’t report report any good news today. Apparently the last few months there have been new records for deforestation.
Here is a new summary from PHYS.ORG:
https://phys.org/news/2021-06-brazilian-amazon-deforestation.html
JUNE 4, 2021
Brazilian Amazon deforestation hits record for May
Deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon reached a record for the month of May this year, the space research institute INPE said.
A total of 1,180 square kilometers of the Amazon was lost in May, representing a 41 percent increase compared to the same month in 2020.
It was the third straight month in which such a record was set and raises serious questions over President Jair Bolsonaro’s commitments to protecting the rainforest.
“This is worrying because May is the start of the dry season when devastation intensifies in a large part of the Amazon region,” said the Observatorio de Clima NGO, which is highly critical of the government’s environmental management.
Deforestation figures have been collected by INPE’s satellite observation system since 2015.
In April, 580 square kilometers of rainforest were lost.
Since coming to power in 2019, the far right Bolsonaro has promoted the commercialization of the Amazon and described NGOs trying to protect the jungle as a “cancer.”
However, he recently pledged to eliminate Brazil’s illegal deforestation by 2030, some 10 years ahead of target.
But environmentalists accuse his government of being ignorant and even of sabotaging environmental protection measures.
“It has spent two and a half years dismantling the policies controlling deforestation,” said the Observatorio.
The NGO hit out at Environment Minister Ricardo Salles for “paralyzing” the IBAMA inspection body that monitors deforestation.
IBAMA’s “leadership has just been removed over suspicions it was operating in favor of loggers,” said the NGO.
Salles and other members of his ministry are under investigation by prosecutors over alleged involvement in the export of illegal wood to be sold in Europe and the United States.
From the start of the year until May 28, some 2,337 square kilometers of Amazon rainforest were cut down by the logging and farming industries.
If the increased monthly figures continue in June and July, it would mean an unprecedented fourth record year (from August to July) of deforestation in a row, said the Observatorio.
In the last year from August 2019 to July 2020, 9,216 square kilometers were lost, an area the size of Puerto Rico and a 34 percent increase on the previous year.
Explore further Deforestation of Brazilian Amazon hits record in April
Related:
Here are some “ET’s” reported from Saturday and Sunday:
Here is more climate and weather news from Sunday:
(As usual, this will be a fluid post in which more information gets added during the day as it crosses my radar, crediting all who have put it on-line. Items will be archived on this site for posterity. In most instances click on the pictures of each tweet to see each article. The most noteworthy items will be listed first.)
Now here are some of today’s articles and notes on the horrid COVID-19 pandemic:
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Guy Walton “The Climate Guy”