This story was originally published by the Guardian and is reproduced here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration.
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story → publish → collaboration
That is the prospect for the Amazon rainforest for at least the next four years if Flávio Bolsonaro holds on to the lead he established this week in the first round of Brazil’s presidential election.
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he → hold → election
This appears to be of far more concern to the outside world than to voters in Latin America’s biggest, richest, and most biodiverse nation.
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This → appear → nation
The far-right son of the former president and jailed coup-monger Jair Bolsonaro won 47 percent of the vote, putting him in pole position before the October 25 runoff with the incumbent, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, who was backed by 44.2 percent.
The result is an unnerving jolt to climate and nature campaigners.
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result → jail → campaigners
Taken out of context, this appears to be a vote against the forest.
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this → take → forest
The current administration of Lula (as the veteran Brazilian president is best known) has reduced deforestation in the Amazon by almost 50 percent.
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president → know → percent
But that success secured little noticeable electoral traction for either Lula or pro-forest candidates in other polls held the same day.
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success → secure → polls
The former environment minister Marina Silva lost a bid for the senate and Joenia Wapichana, a former head of Brazil’s Indigenous affairs agency, Funai, failed to win a seat in the nation’s congress.
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Wapichana → lose → congress
Out of 57 Indigenous candidates, only two won.
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two → win → candidates
Flávio Bolsonaro is the heir to the political legacy of his father, Jair Bolsonaro, a former army captain whose four years in power resulted in a 59.5 percent increase in Amazon deforestation, roughly equivalent to destroying 2 billion trees.
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years → result → trees
If he wins, Bolsonaro has promised to free his father, who was imprisoned for plotting a military coup and attempting to annihilate democracy in Brazil.
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who → win → Brazil
He has said that his father could have any position he wants in his administration.
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he → say → administration
Flávio Bolsonaro has shown that he will be just as willing as his father to dismantle protections for climate and nature and allow illegal miners, loggers, and land grabbers to invade Indigenous territories.
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miners → show → territories
As a lawmaker, he backed a 2019 bill to eliminate requirements for landowners in the Amazon to conserve a proportion of native vegetation.
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landowners → back → vegetation
In his manifesto, he completely ignored the climate crisis.
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he → ignore → crisis
And he has courted support from some of the most predatory landowners in the rainforest.
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he → court → rainforest
He is also part of a movement—Bolsonarism—that is geared towards maximizing profits for extractive industries regardless of the environmental cost.
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that → gear → cost
Take its victorious candidate for the Amazonian state of Pará, Daniel Santos, who was fined $275,000 for deforestating 690 acres of his land without authorization and is now promising to waive such penalties.
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who → take → penalties
As a result of Sunday’s election, Bolsonarists now control seven of the nine states in the Brazilian Amazon, and could win an eighth in the runoffs.
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Bolsonarists → control → runoffs
Bolsonarist influence in the legislature, which is dominated by agribusiness interests, is also growing.
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which → dominate → interests
Flávio’s brother, Carlos, and mother-in-law, Michelle, were elected to the senate, while an uncle and brother won seats in the lower house of deputies.
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uncle → elect → deputies
Even before the election, the National Congress had been pushing hard to weaken environmental protections.
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Congress → push → protections
Now it will be almost impossible to stop, particularly given the current chaos in the supreme court, which has been a partial check on untrammelled expansion by miners, ranchers, and monoculturalists.
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which → stop → miners
Against these forces, Lula would struggle to govern even if he wins the runoff.
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he → struggle → runoff
The question now is why voters paid so little heed to these concerns.
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voters → pay → concerns
Many focus on the influence of social media, which has been used far more effectively by the far right.
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which → focus → right
During the Bolsonaro administration, his sons were part of the “hate cabinet” that spread fear and disinformation via WhatsApp groups and other online channels—Bolsonaro’s second son, Carlos, was indicted by federal police for leading the group.
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son → spread → group
Another factor is the expansion of US-style Pentecostalism, which is steadily supplanting Catholicism across Brazil, particularly in the Amazon.
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which → supplant → Amazon
The political and environmental consequences of that religious shift can be seen by comparing the pro-nature treatise of the past two popes with the sermons of many evangelical preachers who encourage followers to seek wealth today as much as, if not more, than following moral creeds to ensure a good afterlife.
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who → see → afterlife
Lula, 80, has been slow to adapt.
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Lula → adapt → ?
Although he is arguably the most iconic and successful Latin American politician of the 21st century, his messaging seems less attuned to the people than it was in his heyday.
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it → seem → heyday
The Workers party has struggled in an era of weaker unions and in some ways been the victim of its own success—with education and social policies that raised millions out of poverty and created greater expectations for consumption and entrepreneurism; and huge subsidies to farmers, who now support the right wing because they chafe at environmental limits.
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they → struggle → limits
Tied into those explanations are the geopolitics of the climate and nature crisis, which is exacerbating great power rivalry between the US and China and amplifying extreme ideologies as much as extreme weather.
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which → tie → weather
In this light, the Brazil election is just the latest in a broader pattern of the far right taking control to expand extractivism despite growing evidence that the capitalist economy is breaking planetary boundaries.
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economy → take → boundaries
In the past two years, Donald Trump has ripped apart environmental regulations in the US and treated the rest of the Americas as his sphere of influence.
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Trump → rip → influence
Venezuela has been invaded for its resources, while in Colombia, Peru, and Chile there has been a sharp shift to the right.
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Venezuela → invade → right
Will Brazil be the next domino to fall to Trumpism and its bonfire approach to nature?
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Brazil → fall → nature
The Bolsonaro family certainly hope so.
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family → hope → ?
Jair went so far as to salute the US flag.
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Jair → go → flag
His son Eduardo urged the US to apply tariffs on Brazilian people to “punish” the government for imprisoning his father.
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son → urge → father
…and 7 more, not listed.
The Aporia
