Death by Omission: Power and Politics in the Amazon

I’m a bit delayed in posting this, but my latest piece on environmental politics in the Amazon was recently published by Public Seminar. Here’s the opening part of the story.

My stomach churned as I read the latest screed against protecting the Amazon by self-proclaimed eco-modernist Michael Shellenberger. In his Forbes op-ed titled Why Everything They Say About The Amazon, Including That It’s The ‘Lungs Of The World,’ Is Wrong, he criticized public figures who shared inaccurate information about the threats facing the Amazon, such as “we are harming the lungs of the planet” or the “unprecedented” fires. By Shellenberger’s logic, such statements amount to little more than romantic anti-capitalist-fear mongering when what we should be doing is promoting industrial soy agriculture, which will somehow magically keep the Brazilian economy going and help protect the Amazon forests. It is this sort of false narrative that is actively destroying the Amazon and contributing to a climate where land-hungry settlers are willing to kill Indigenous people for their land. By overlooking the assassination of Indigenous activists and land right activists in the name of expanding extractive activities, Shellenberger is placing profits over people and selling a false environmental narrative that harms us all.

You can read the full story on PS here.

If you’re interested in learning more about the political ecology of the Amazon, IU’s @InThisClimate had an excellent short podcast talking with Eduardo Brondizio, an expert on rural and urban populations and landscapes in the Amazon. You can listen to this episdoe, Bonus: Burning the Amazon, below.