However grim the trajectory might seem, I’ve always believed that sense will ultimately prevail.
uncertain
sense → seem → ?
As the great perils of dismantling the living world become increasingly obvious, even the most rapacious exploiters must come round.
asserted
exploiters → dismantle → world
Nobody wants to live on a dead planet, do they?
asserted
they → want → planet
There are – or were – signs that this wasn’t just wishful thinking.
asserted
this → be → ?
Since 2015, mostly thanks to China, the area of the planet being reforested has increased, while thanks in large part to Brazil, the global rate of forest destruction has declined.
asserted
rate → reforest → destruction
The area of the Brazilian Amazon forest cleared each year is one-sixth of what it was when records began in 1988.
asserted
records → clear → 1988
In the past four years, as a result of Brazilian government policy, the deforestation rate has fallen by 71%.
asserted
rate → fall → %
If Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva is re-elected president on Sunday, the country could reach zero deforestation by 2030.
uncertain
country → re → 2030
The arc of the moral universe seems to have bent towards justice.
asserted
arc → seem → justice
But what my faith in human nature failed to account for was a perverse delight in destruction among a small cohort of the economic elite.
asserted
failed → fail → elite
There are people who appear to hate life and love death.
asserted
who → be → death
Donald Trump’s removal of protections on public lands, the small bite – doubtless the first of many – he wants to take out of Yosemite, his assaults on the US National Park Service and the US Forest Service, his trashing of the Endangered Species Act: all are partly a response to lobbying by ranchers, loggers, frackers and miners.
asserted
all → want → ranchers
But this, I think, is not the primary driver.
asserted
I → think → ?
More important to him, I’ve come to believe, is a vengeful desire to hurt.
asserted
desire → come → him
I doubt Trump hates the monarch butterfly.
asserted
Trump → doubt → butterfly
I’d be surprised if he knows what it is.
asserted
it → know → ?
But he does appear to hate people who love the monarch butterfly.
asserted
who → appear → butterfly
Destroying the habitats on which this and many other endangered species in the US depend seems to be part of the “retribution” he promised.
asserted
he → destroy → retribution
The New York Times was unable to find evidence that Trump has ever visited a national park.
asserted
Trump → find → park
He probably doesn’t hate them either.
asserted
He → hate → them
But seemingly anything valued by the enemy – greens, liberals, socialists, feminists, anti-racists, “bureaucrats” and “blockers” – should be attacked on principle.
asserted
anything → value → principle
Wiping ecosystems off the map is an obvious demonstration of power.
asserted
Wiping → wipe → power
Extinction leaves a permanent mark, which is every dictator’s dream.
asserted
which → leave → mark
It’s also a highly effective means of hurting those who resist him: the Indigenous people and other people of colour so often on the receiving end of environmental destruction; the regulators; the scientists and the rest of the intelligentsia; above all, people who care.
asserted
who → ’ → all
Caring could be seen as the far right’s meta-target.
uncertain
Caring → see → target
The “suicidal empathy” theme now crops up repeatedly in videos, newspaper columns and speeches: a professed belief that those who care about other people or species should be destroyed by those who don’t.
asserted
who → crop → those
What exhausts my optimism is that, conned by shallow promises such as the use of brutal methods to address crime, people keep electing those who subscribe to it.
asserted
who → exhaust → it
Physically and politically, Flávio Bolsonaro is the spitting image of his father, the jailed coup-plotter, Jair.
asserted
Bolsonaro → spit → father
When Jair Bolsonaro was president of Brazil, he appeared to see ecological destruction as a kind of a holy duty.
asserted
he → appear → duty
The deforestation rate rose by 59% in his four years, and attacks on Indigenous people and other forest defenders, as well as invasions by illegal ranchers, loggers and goldminers rocketed.
asserted
attacks → rise → ranchers
The crudest forms of extractivism – regardless of their costs, or how they might hold back all kinds of progress – were a matter of policy.
uncertain
they → hold → policy
The ideology of the far right in Brazil has been described as “beef, Bible and bullets”: violence against those who resist the seizure of their resources, an ultra-conservative evangelism and the expansion of cattle ranching, which is both a potent symbol of far-right machismo and the primary driver of deforestation in the Amazon.
asserted
which → describe → Amazon
Jair Bolsonaro looked back with nostalgia to the military dictatorship of 1964 to 1985 – which was actively supported by the US government – during which local oligarchs could do as they pleased, and those who opposed them were tortured and disappeared.
uncertain
who → look → them
The warnings couldn’t be clearer, but Brazil seems determined to revisit its nightmares.
asserted
Brazil → seem → nightmares
Flávio Bolsonaro won the first round on 4 October, and is likely to become president.
asserted
Bolsonaro → win → October
If he wins the second round this week, the gleeful rampage of his supporters, catalysed by government policy, threatens not only the Amazon but the Atlantic forest in the south, the Pantanal wetlands, the Pampa grasslands and the savannah habitats of the Cerrado.
asserted
rampage → win → Cerrado
Let’s eradicate our life support systems – that’ll teach the liberals!
asserted
that → eradicate → liberals
Trump has been using all possible means to help Bolsonaro win.
asserted
Bolsonaro → use → means
He gives the impression of seeing Latin America as the conquistadores did – one big heap of treasure, ready for looting.
asserted
conquistadores → give → looting
The region’s far-right demagogues are only to happy to help.
asserted
demagogues → help → ?
…and 10 more, not listed.
The Aporia
