Scientists point to carbon dioxide as the primary suspect in this unfolding story of ecological cataclysm. Specifically, carbon dioxide from fossil fuels in industrialized countries-with the United States first and foremost. But the burning of tropical forests runs a strong second-tropical forest destruction has contributed some 20 percent of the carbon dioxide buildup in the atmosphere. The burning of the Brazilian Amazon as measured in the Landsat pictures alone contributes about 5 percent of annual global carbon dioxide emissions. The recent wildfires in Brazil, Indonesia, Mexico and the United States have triggered an alarm.
More fires mean even more carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.
The fire that burned out of control in the Amazon forest for two months last year may look like kindling the next time around. Runaway industrial energy consumption plays out in everyone else's atmosphere, and so do the fires in the Amazon. The carbon dioxide emissions of Amazon fires may be close to 10 percent of the world total. In order to change the way things are headed in tropical forests, people and organizations in the United States have to work with allies that are there, who can do something about it and who have a real interest in changing the status quo. Indigenous peoples in the Amazon have made major gains over the last decade.