Singers and actors
shared wildfire photos
on social media.
Tens of millions of people
saw the photos.
“The lungs
of the Earth
are in flames,”
said the actor
Leonardo DiCaprio.
“The Amazon Rainforest
produces more than 20%
of the world’s oxygen,”
tweeted soccer star
Cristiano Ronaldo.
“The Amazon rain forest
— the lungs which produce
20% of our planet’s oxygen
— is on fire,” tweeted French
President Emanuel Macron.
"The photos weren’t actually
of the fires and many
weren’t even of the Amazon,"
according to Forbes.
The photo Ronaldo shared
was taken in southern Brazil,
far from the Amazon, in 2013.
The DiCaprio and Macron photo
they shared is over 20 years old.
The photo Madonna and Smith
shared is over 30 years old.
Some celebrities shared photos
from Montana, India, and Sweden.
Dan Nepstad - one of the world's
leading experts on the Amazon forest,
said:
"There’s no science behind that
( 20% OF THE WORLD'S OXYGEN CLAIM ) .
"The Amazon produces a lot of oxygen,
but it uses the same amount of oxygen
through respiration, so it’s a wash."
Also debunked is a claim
by CNN that the fires
are burning at a record rate.
According to MR. Nepstad,
the number of fires in 2019
is just 7% higher than THE
average over the last 10 years.
The Amazon biome accounted for
52% of Brazil’s fire reports this year,
with more than 40,000 outbreaks
since January, according to INPE data.
Conservation efforts reduced
Amazon deforestation,
but INPE data show
that trend broke in 2012.
Tree losses increased 73%
from 2012 and 2018, coinciding
with a period of economic weakness.
Last season, almost 2 million acres
were cleared from the world’s
largest rainforest.
Global Forest Watch reports that
from 2001 to 2015, the conversion
of forest, and shrub, land to agriculture
and mining were he main reasons
for tree loss.
Amazon soybean acreage
is up more than fourfold
in the past 12 years --
accounting for 13%
of Brazil's total soy area
in the 2017-18 season.
Almost all of the increase
is from pastures
converted to farmland
Brazil President Bolsonaro
authorized military operations
in nine states to combat the fires.