News from South America: the Amazon rainforest is burning at an incredible and terrifying pace. That’s particularly true in Brasil, the biggest country of the continent and home to the largest portions of rainforests in the world. As visible from the chart below, almost every state of the Amazon area has witnessed an increase in the number of fires during 2019:

I won’t go deep in the details, you can find them everywhere on the Web; let me show you just two more images and give you one humble opinion.

The first picture shows how bad the situation is in regards of the emission of CO (carbon monoxide) coming from the Amazon forest and spreading all across South America. CO is one of the deadliest gases in nature: having a large quantity of this toxic pollutant above millions of squared hectares could be the beginning of an health emergency of staggering proportions.

In the second chart I want to show that the fires problem isn’t exclusively a Brasilian issue. Keep it in mind when you’ll read or hear “it’s that bloody fascist of Bolsonaro!”: sure, he should be blamed for what’s happening in Brasil, but all over South America trees are burning and vanishing at a 3-digits percentage YoY.

Finally, a consideration.

Here in Italy we are promptly discussing about the government crisis; in the UK, Brexit is always on the top of every newscast; US and China have their trade war and tensions for global supremacy; Russia has, sadly, its own wildfires (both natural and nuclear ones)… There is a problem of priorities: why the global leaders are so sightless when talking about environment? The simple reason, I think, lies in the electoral cycle: climate change, the ice-cap melting, increase in Amazon fires (NB caused by arsonists as well as by natural causes) and desertification are all processes that aren’t immediately visible, they take place in 5-10-100 years. Why should a politician tackle these issues seriously instead of merely thinking to his personal re-election (and thus giving to his electorate more urgent needs)? The world needs a change of perspective: the Earth is our common home and should be protected, preserved and perpetuated to our posterity. I totally understand the Realpolitik game, but seriously: is there something more real than our nature crumbling down our own eyes, or even worse, than ourselves dismantling with our own hands our planet?