Ever since Jair Bolsonaro proclaimed that economic growth was more important than protecting the Amazon, there have been 74,155 fires. For the past three weeks, a giant fire has been blazing its way through the forest, and an interactive map lets you watch it.
Many of the fires are set by farmers to clear land. In early August, farmers in the Amazon self-declared a “fire day” to burn trees, emboldened by the fact that the government isn’t enforcing rainforest protections that are part of national law.
“It’s very rare to have fires starting naturally in the Amazon,” says Weisse. “And so almost everything that we’re seeing is a result of human activity, and it’s mostly happening along roads or in farms or where people are.”
Check It Out: This Real-Time Map Shows You the Amazon Forest Fires
How to quickly extinguish forest fires
Just use a network of infrared satellites, seaplanes and helicopters to both extinguish fires in a few minutes after starting and catch pyromaniacs. Couple that with severe punishments. End of problem worldwide. But it seems that we are much more interested on communication satellites for basically 99% useless social networks.