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| Plantação de soja na Amazônia resultado da desflorestação da Floresta Virgem |
Our planet can’t take many more populists like Brazil’s
Bolsonaro
Jonathan Watts
Just when Earth badly needs pro-environment leaders, we get
big-business strongmen. There’s a reason for this grim irony
"The Brazilian election results were announced on 8
October – just as climate scientists were issuing their most dramatic warning
yet that humanity has just 12 years to slash emissions or suffer the
consequences of dangerous global warming. If countries do not start planting
trees and cutting fossil fuels now, they said, then it will be impossible to
prevent a rise of more than 0.5C, which would completely eradicate all of the
world’s corals and irreversibly disrupt weather systems, bringing droughts,
floods and extreme heat that will push hundreds of millions into poverty."
Wed 24 Oct 2018 06.00 BST Last modified on Wed 24 Oct 2018
17.35 BST
Unless every poll is wildly wrong, Brazil will probably
elect a racist, sexist, homophobic advocate of torture at the end of this
month. The former army captain Jair Bolsonaro nearly won outright in the first
round, securing the votes of almost 50 million people – despite his extreme
views being well known.
What is less well understood, however, is the catastrophic
environment implications of his rise to the brink of power. And in this,
Bolsonaro is not unique: around the world, diminishing resources are fuelling a
global rise of authoritarian leaders dedicated to doing the bidding of some of
the world’s most environmentally damaging interests.
The Brazilian election results were announced on 8 October –
just as climate scientists were issuing their most dramatic warning yet that
humanity has just 12 years to slash emissions or suffer the consequences of
dangerous global warming. If countries do not start planting trees and cutting
fossil fuels now, they said, then it will be impossible to prevent a rise of
more than 0.5C, which would completely eradicate all of the world’s corals and
irreversibly disrupt weather systems, bringing droughts, floods and extreme
heat that will push hundreds of millions into poverty.
History tells us that when environments deteriorate,
societies turn to 'strongmen' and zealots rather than pragmatic leaders
History tells us that when environments deteriorate,
societies turn to supposed strongmen and religious zealots rather than smart,
pragmatic leaders. That is happening now. In addition to the dictatorships of
China, Russia and Saudi Arabia, a growing number of young democracies have
relapsed into authoritarianism: the Philippines under Rodrigo Duterte, Turkey
under Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, Egypt under Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, and next, it
would seem, Brazil under Bolsonaro. And underlying this is environmental
stress, which has been building for over two centuries.
Starting in Britain, the carbon-capitalist industrial model
has long been extracting minerals and organic resources, and discharging the
waste into the air, sea and land. As more nations developed, they exported
their environmental stress to the next country rising up the economic ladder.
Now that this paradigm is being replicated by the world’s
most populous country, China, there are very few places left to absorb the
impact. Competition for what is left is growing. So is violence and extremism.
Centre-ground politicians who once talked chummily about “win-win solutions”
have been pushed to the sidelines. No one believes this any more. Voters may
not see this in environmental terms, but consciously or subconsciously they
know something is broken, that tinkering is no longer enough.
A soy plantation in the Amazon rainforest near Santarém,
Pará, north Brazil. Photograph: Ricardo Beliel/LightRocket/Getty Images
In the US, with massive support from the fossil-fuel
industry, Donald Trump has undermined the Environmental Protection Agency,
opened up swaths of national parks to industry, cut pollution controls and
promised to pull out of the Paris accord. In Australia, Malcolm Turnbull was
ejected from power by his colleagues because he tried to fulfil promises to cut
carbon emissions. And now in Brazil, voters are backing a politician who has
vowed to pull his country out of the Paris deal, abolish the main government
agency tackling deforestation and end the demarcation of indigenous land.
Bolsonaro has the backing of agribusiness and mining
leaders, who are rubbing their hands in glee at the prospect of an Amazon
denuded of its greatest protections. The markets – which are heavily driven by
extractive industries – also love him. The main stock index and exchange rate
of the Brazilian real spiked after his first round win. An editorial in the
Wall Street Journal endorsed him as a “conservative populist”.
Such neo-fascist politicians should not be blithely
dismissed. They are the hired guns of the industries working against the Paris
accord and other international agreements that aim to prevent further
environmental catastrophes, which hit the poorest hardest. Their
“anti-globalism” is first and foremost anti-nature and anti-future. An
extraction-first approach may bring economic benefits in the short term, as
cronies and campaign donors clear more forests, open up plantations and dig
more mines – but the profits are concentrated while the environmental stress is
shared.
The great fear climate scientists have is that a warming
planet could create feedback loops that will make everything much worse. But
there has not been enough study of economic and political feedback loops. How
drought in China puts pressure on the Amazon to produce more food and clear
more forest. Or how powerful business interests will choose a dictator over a
democrat if it means easing environmental controls that threaten their ability
to meet quarterly growth targets.
We are already seeing a widening gap between politicians and
scientists. While the latter urge more ambitious climate action, the former
know they will receive more campaign funds if they oppose emissions cuts,
support extractive industries and weaken pollution regulations. It is not just
dictatorships. Britain is pushing ahead with fracking, Germany with coal and
Norway with oil exploration.
At some point, voters will realise that ecological stress is
at the core of the world’s current woes. The aha! moment may be when water
grows prohibitively expensive, or crops fail owing to successive heatwaves, or
the refugee crisis sparks war, but at some point the weakness of the strongmen
will be apparent, and people will seek change. The danger is, by then it may be
too late. Climate and politics alike will have passed a tipping point, leading
to social chaos and the morphing of populists into full-blown
dictators-for-life.
That is not yet inevitable, but the risks are growing. What
has become clearer than ever is that the best way to avoid climate and
ecological collapse is by voting for leaders who make this a priority. It will
be impossible to fix the economy unless you first fix the environment. The
global instinct for radical change is right, but unless that is geared towards
ecological rebuilding the world’s democracies may go extinct before the corals
do.
• Jonathan Watts is the Guardian’s global environment editor
Bolsonaro backers wage war on the rainforest
Polls show Jair
Bolsonaro has 78% support in the heavily deforested Amazon state of Rondônia on
Brazil’s western border.
Most in Brazil’s heavily-deforested western border support
Jair Bolsonaro and his promises of progress instead of protection
by Dom Phillips in Porto Velho
Thu 25 Oct 2018 06.00 BST Last modified on Thu 25 Oct 2018
16.40 BST
The growl of a chainsaw and the howl of a straining tractor
engine were enough to draw the environment officials up a rutted track into the
forest.
In the clearing at the end of the road, three young loggers
silenced their machines and proffered their documents. They were paid in cash,
they said – nearly four times the Brazilian minimum monthly salary of £200
($258) – to ship out up to two truckloads a day of huge hardwood logs.
And like most people in the heavily-deforested Amazon state
of Rondônia on Brazil’s western border, they are sure who they will vote for in
Sunday’s presidential run-off vote.
“It has to be Bolsonaro. He supports us,” said Edivaldo da
Silva, 22.
Polls show that Jair Bolsonaro, the far-right former army
captain has 78% support in Rondônia, leaving his leftist rival Fernando Haddad
in the dust.
In the Amazon, Bolsonaro has promised progress instead of
protection.
And his radical proposals – to withdraw Brazil from the
Paris climate deal, neuter federal environment agencies, give the green light
to destructive hydro-electric dams, freeze the demarcation of new indigenous
reserves and open up existing ones to mining – chime with voters here,
including those breaking environmental laws.
Loggers, illegal gold miners and squatters on a protected
reserve all told the Guardian they are voting for Bolsonaro because they
believe he will make their lives easier.
Environmentalists argue Bolsonaro’s plans will prove
disastrous for the Amazon and 33 non-government groups have warned his
proposals represent “concrete and irreversible risks” to Brazil’s forests,
biodiversity and even the reputations of its agribusiness producers.
Bolsonaro’s allies rubbish such concerns. His planned chief
of staff and his party’s candidate for governor of Rondônia criticised foreign
“interference” in the Amazon and told the Guardian they harboured doubts over
global warming science.
Such views are common in a state where where smallholders
say they are unjustly penalised for breaking environmental rules and argue that
responsibility for climate change should be shared globally.
Lucemar Kouchut drives a shipment of logs. Photograph: Dom
Phillips
The three loggers showed the environment officials documents
which they said showed their work was licenced under a plan permitting
“sustainable” tree-cutting.
But the officials later concluded the papers referred to
another patch of land 400 metres away – not this area next to a protected
forest and an indigenous reserve.
This was a common ploy, said Sebastiana Almeida, a forest
engineer in Rondônia’s environmental development agency. “With that document in
their hands, they steal wood from inside the protected area or indigenous
reserve,” she said.
People in Rondônia – 43% of whose territory has been
deforested – largely agree on two things: that they will vote for Bolsonaro,
and that the state is getting hotter and drier.
Government data backs that up. Average annual temperatures
in the northern part of Rondônia averaged between 26C-28C (79F-82F) in 2017,
two degrees higher than five years previously. Annual rainfall has also fallen
across the state.
“The weather is all confused,” said Wagner Matos, 37, an
Uber driver in its capital Porto Velho, who blamed deforestation.
But congressman Onyx Lorenzoni, Bolsonaro’s probable chief
of staff, disputes that global warming is a problem.
“There are things that are solid and there are things that
are ideological,” he told the Guardian, before criticising Greenpeace for
meddling in the Brazilian environment. “Brazilians will be in charge in the
Amazon, my brother, not the Europeans.”
Brazilians will be in
charge in the Amazon, my brother, not the Europeans
Onyx Lorenzoni
Other Bolsonaro allies have called for more industry in the
Amazon. Colonel João Chrisóstomo, a retired army engineer elected as one of the
state’s federal deputies on 7 October for Bolsonaro’s Social Liberal Party
(PSL) said the military should asphalt its dirt roads. “The environment can’t
hold up development,” he said.
Better roads would please Rondônia residents like Sheila
Barros, 44, who lives with her fisherman husband Adegilton Lopes, 44, and their
two children inside the protected Lago do Cuniã reserve.
“There is no highway, no way to get our produce out,” she
said. The reserve is just 70km (43 miles) from Porto Velho, but reaching it
involves driving hours on dirt roads, two boat trips and a hair-raising
motorbike ride down a narrow forest trail.
But Amazon history has shown that paving roads bring
development and destruction to forest reserves like Lago do Cuniã, run by the
government’s Chico Mendes Institute (ICMBio), which only allows small scale
fishing and sustainable farming for 400 residents living beside a majestically
beautiful lagoon home to alligators and flocks of birds.
Fisherman Mabel Lopes, 65, said that until the reserve was
created in 1999, the lagoon was overfished by outsiders. Nowadays, he said,
there is plenty of fish. Nodding at the lush forest, he asked: “Where else is
there this much greenery?”
Bolsonaro says he will put an end to “environmental
activism” by ICMBio, and the environment agency Ibama, and may fold the
environment ministry into the agriculture ministry – whose chief will be chosen
by the agribusiness lobby.
He has also promised help for artisanal miners known as
garimpeiros , some of whom work illegally, dredging mud from Amazon rivers in
search of gold – and in the process dumping tons of mercury and poisoning fish
stocks.
On a recent afternoon, several wooden garimpeiro barges were
moored on the River Madeira near the Lago do Cuniã. Two men manning the
chugging pumps onboard one of the vessels admitted they were working illegally,
and feared raids from Ibama – then said Bolsonaro’s promise to bring them
“dignity and security” had won their votes.
“He promised he would legalise it, for us to work,” said
Aroldo da Silva, 53, the barge’s owner, as a rainstorm whipped up the river.
“He promised changes in the law.”\
Marcos Rocha, a retired police colonel from Bolsonaro’s PSL
party who is leading polling for Sunday’s runoff vote for governor of Rondônia,
also believes garimpeiros should be legalised because people needed to work.
Aroldo da Silva’s
garimpeiro barge.
Aroldo da Silva’s
garimpeiro barge. Photograph: Dom Phillips
“The garimpeiros and the loggers were the people who started
our state, but today they are marginalised. There are many people in poverty,”
he said in an interview. “We want to generate riches and income for our
country.”
The Amazon needed “more industry”, he said, before
suggesting the planet’s alarming temperature rises could be cyclical and
naturally occurring.
Rondônia’s state’s current governor Daniel Pereira and its
state legislature are locked in judicial deadlock over 11 new forest reserves
created by his predecessor and then overturned by state deputies. Rocha sided
with lawmakers and said people squatting on protected reserves should be
allowed to stay.
Some of those squatters live on Jaci Paraná, a
state-government run reserve around 100km (62 miles) from Porto Velho which
only permits sustainable, small-scale agriculture by members of a cooperative.
Cattle are prohibited, but the reserve has been widely deforested by ranchers.
Last week, a group of state environment officials toured the
reserve with an armed police escort. They stopped by a wooden farmhouse
surrounded by grazing cattle, where Jessica da Silva, 23, was sitting with her
two young children while her husband, Alex dos Santos, tended the herd.
A Rondônia state
environmental protection officer Nei Peres looks over a deforested section of
land in Jaci Paraná reserve.
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A Rondônia state
environmental protection officer Nei Peres looks over a deforested section of
land in Jaci Paraná reserve. Photograph: Dom Phillips
Da Silva said she was not planning to vote because she is
registered in another town but that her husband would vote for Bolsonaro.
Further down the dirt road, they passed a motorbike whose
pillion rider was carrying a chainsaw in his lap. Officers waved the bike over
and approached, but before they had got far with their questions, the passenger
made a dash for the undergrowth. One of the officers fired a shot and the man
was brought back in handcuffs – but he was later released.
Nobody pays much attention to environmental laws here.
Ednesio Diogo, 51, and Jonas Dantas, 22, were cooking lunch
beside the frame of a wooden house they were building when the officials
arrived.
Diogo said the house was for his son, Wallan, 21, who had been
given the land where he planned to raise cattle, plant coffee and build a fish
nursery.
When environmental protection officer Nei Peres told the
men, that they were there illegally and would have to leave, Diogo just nodded.
Both men said they’d be voting for Bolsonaro.
On Saturday, Ibama vehicles were set on fire in Buritis, a
day after ICMBio agents on an anti-deforestation mission were left stranded
when locals torched a bridge in Pará, another Amazon state.
Brazil’s new war on its forests and those who defend them
has already begun.
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