Speaking of fires, the BBC reports that Angola has them, too:
The severity of fires in the Amazon has prompted a global outcry. But, amid the protest, some are questioning how this compares with the rest of the world, with surprising results.
The issue has got people checking out Nasa’s maps of fires around the world. When you look at the map from Sunday, it clearly shows more fires burning in central Africa.
Some have expressed amusement (or taken umbrage) that Africa’s fires, despite their being more widespread and, reportedly, intense, have not received the kind of breathless coverage in the U. S. media that Brazil’s have. I think that claiming that the difference in coverage is completely apolitical strains credulity but there are important differences. For example, many of the sub-Saharan fires are in savannah rather than forest so their implications are different.
However, the causes of the Brazilian and African fires are the same. They’re both due to poor people using slash-and-burn techniques to clear land for farming. The solutions to both are the same, too: the people need alternatives other than agriculture to support themselves.
People throughout the tropics, and once upon a time in North America, have used slash and burn farming for several thousand years. It’s the only effective way for Stone Age farmers to clear forest. What is different now is the huge population growth in the tropics.
I have no idean how to solve the problem, or what the likely outcome will be. Political leaders like Bolsonaro or Macron, and their policies, are most certainly irrelevant.
The prime mover behind all this clearing and burning is the world’s increasing demand for meat, whether on the hoof or secondarily through the growing of soybeans for feedstock. Reduction in meat consumption would make little difference to the trend, as people still gotta eat and soybeans can be used in may ways other than sating pig appetites.
I agree that much of the coverage is to support the nationalization or internationalization of resources in the name of combating Anthropogenic Global Warming. Their solutions won’t work, but that’s not the point of the exercise. For the good of the planet the people cannot be allowed to choose their own destiny. They need guidance, and plenty of it.
Smokey is getting long in tooth and can’t get around as much anymore. Come on guys, show a little respect for the elderly.
There may be something to that claim but it certainly does not seem to be true in the case of Angola. Nearly all of Angola’s exports are oil and diamonds (mostly to China). They export almost no beef or pork or anything used for animal feed and don’t import much of them either. They import a little poultry. Nearly all its agriculture is devoted to feeding its people: cassava, corn, beans, potatoes. The cash export trade practically vanished with colonialism.
An increasing domestic population is what drives Angola’s slash-and-burn practices.