LULA SAVES TREES
Some Amazon stats:
As one of the world’s most important “carbon sinks,” the Amazon rainforest, when healthy, is able to capture and store about the equivalent of Germany’s total greenhouse gas emissions. If all the carbon it’s storing was released, it would account for 20 years’ worth of global emissions at current rates, according to Bloomberg.
On the biodiversity front, the Amazon is home to 14% of the world’s birds and 18% of its vascular plants, per Vox. And those are only the ones we know about—a new species of animal or plant is discovered in the Amazon every three days on average, the World Wildlife Fund estimates.
It won’t be easy. Much of Brazil’s Congress is friendly with Bolsonaro, so they could challenge Lula’s environmental policies. Plus, the people who earn a living from mining and agriculture in the region say environmental laws will leave them with no alternatives for work—a sentiment shared by local leaders and other Brazilians. In more than 50% of the states that make up the Amazon forest, Bolsonaro won the popular vote, per the NYT.
