Home Social While Celebrities Pass Off Fake Pictures Of Burning Amazon, Here’s What The...

While Celebrities Pass Off Fake Pictures Of Burning Amazon, Here’s What The Raging Fires Actually Look Like

4954

The tens of thousands of fires burning in the Amazon right now have caught the attention of environmentalists, politicians and celebrities alike. Unfortunately, many of them have been spreading bad information in the form of decades-old pictures and incorrect facts, such as the claim that the Amazon is the “lungs of the world,” according to Forbes.

Singers and actors including Madonna and Jaden Smith shared photos on social media that were seen by tens of millions of people. “The lungs of the Earth are in flames,” said actor Leonardo DiCaprio. “The Amazon Rainforest produces more than 20% of the world’s oxygen,” tweeted soccer star Cristiano Ronaldo. “The Amazon rain forest — the lungs which produce 20% of our planet’s oxygen — is on fire,” tweeted French President Emanuel Macron. -Forbes

And while the fires raging in the Amazon are undoubtedly concerning, “the photos weren’t actually of the fires and many weren’t even of the Amazon,” according to Forbes.

The photo Ronaldo shared was taken in southern Brazil, far from the Amazon, in 2013. The photo that DiCaprio and Macron shared is over 20 years old. The photo Madonna and Smith shared is over 30. Some celebrities shared photos from Montana, India, and Sweden. -Forbes

And as the New York Times noted on Friday, “These fires were not caused by climate change,” nor is the Amazon the “lungs of the world.”

“It’s bullshit,” said Dan Nepstad - one of the world’s leading experts on the Amazon forest. “There’s no science behind that. The Amazon produces a lot of oxygen but it uses the same amount of oxygen through respiration so it’s a wash.”

Also debunked is a claim by CNN that the fires are burning at a record rate, as well as a claim by a leading climate reporter that “The current fires are without precedent in the past 20,000 years.”

According to Nepstad, the number of fires in 2019 is just 7% higher than average over the last 10 years.

So what do the fires actually look like?

Here are some current photos of the devastation by photographer Leonardo Carrato, via Bloomberg

So what do the fires actually look like?

Here are some current photos of the devastation by photographer Leonardo Carrato, via Bloomberg

The Amazon biome accounted for 52% of Brazil’s fire reports this year, with more than 40,000 outbreaks since January, according to data from INPE.

In August alone more than 26,000 fires were detected there.

Conservation efforts had limited Amazon deforestation, but data from INPE show that trend broke in 2012. Tree losses soared 73 percent between 2012 and 2018, coinciding with a period of economic malaise.

Last season alone, almost 2 million acres, an area bigger than Shanghai, were cleared from the world’s largest rainforest.

An analysis by Global Forest Watch from 2001 to 2015 showed that the conversion of forest and shrubland to agriculture and mining were among the main catalysts for tree loss.

Commodities are key drivers behind the increased pace of deforestation.

Soybean acreage in the Amazon is up more than fourfold in the past 12 years, representing 13% of Brazil’s total soy area in the 2017-18 season. However, almost all of the increase is from pastures that have been converted to farmland

Meat-packing companies in Brazil have made a commitment to no longer source from livestock farmers involved in deforestation. It’s a hard task given difficulties in tracking individual cattle as they move through the supply chain.

Firefighting efforts have been stepped up in recent days as well as the resources available for it. Brazil’s government approved the immediate release of $9.3 million while G-7 leaders have committed $20 million.

Brazilian soldiers unload equipment from a vehicle near the Amazon rainforest in Porto Velho, Rondonia state. President Bolsonaro had authorized military operations in nine states to combat the fires.

Meanwhile, Italian astronaut Luca Parmitano tweeted pictures of the fires from space.

Meanwhile, Italian astronaut Luca Parmitano tweeted pictures of the fires from space.

via zerohedge

RELATED ARTICLESMORE FROM AUTHOR

15 COMMENTS

  1. No suprise here most of what MSMedia and so called celebrities present as factual is pure unadulterated malarkey designed and worded for the sole purpose of getting those they consider to be just above the status of serfs stirred up in order to facilitate their continued bilking of the system they depend on.

  2. Mix alot of false pictures and information and include some actual pictures of the fire and research the false info given with the false pictures and then look at the actual pictures and true information and you see how the SOCIALISTS WORK……..MISINFORMATION MIXED WITH UNTRUE PHOTOS (of the actual AMAZON fire) I’m sure we will be FOREST RACISTS…….will it ever end???

  6. Come America, quit worshiping celebrities. That empowerment is what has allowed them to make them influential to the moronic strata of our society. What they think, say, and believe shouldn’t have any impact on the public whatsoever.

  7. Fuck all of you. Who cares if the pictures are several years old. The amazon has been burning for weeks, and not one news source reported anything on it for three weeks. You also make no mention of Brazil’s new president and his lack of consideration of the amazon forest. Also, why am I not surprised you don’t believe scientists when they says this region is the world’s lung.

    • So what? Forests have to burn from time to time. Pay attention to real science instead of your wacko climate crap. Burns create healthier forests.

    • Apparently you cannot read. Your beloved New York Times said it wasn’t the Lungs of the World. Go back down the rabbit hole.

  9. They weren’t half as concerned about the wildfires in the sewer of the world, California, which created a lot of climate gases. It was the fault of the same people who refuse to listen to real science and therefore do controlled burns.

  10. Hollywood is a waste land of pseudo intellectuals and druggies. More money than brains. They tried to buy the Governor of Georgia for rotund stacey Abrams.

  11. The unholywood crowd is up to par. the real smoke is from their pipes. So this gives them a foggy vision of the truth……which is never in their make believe life they live.

  13. During the early nineties I remember being inundated about global warming and how the seas were rising I remember them telling us that Miami and all of Florida would be the new Sahara desert by the end of the 20th century. I remember during the first gulf war when Sadam Hussein lit the oil field on fire it would take decades if ever to extinguish them, yet Red Adair and his crew got them extinguished I 6 months during this time I remember a record store had a sign stating the Amazon Rainforest was burning at a rate of 5000 acres a day. If that was true 25 years ago then there would not have been a rainforest ther today. Fake news has been going on since I started paying attention to it. It’s nothing new. As for celebrities who run there mouths with BS stop !!! They’re vapid, fake and totally uninformed. Shut up and make entertainment enjoyable again I dontvcare what your opions are but keep them to yourselves!!! Your idea

LEAVE A REPLY

Please enter your comment!
Please enter your name here

CAPTCHA

*