Sting Condemns Brazil's Handling of Amazon Fires: 'We Will All Suffer the Consequences'
Sting shared a statement condemning the Brazilian government’s response — or lack thereof — to the devastating fires raging across the Amazon rainforest.
In a note posted on Facebook, the musician heavily criticized President Jair Bolsonaro, a climate change skeptic who has expressed contempt for the indigenous people of Amazonia, opened up the Amazon to deforestation and commercial exploitation and downplayed the global reaction to the ongoing fires. As The New York Times reported, Bolsonaro also rejected a $22 million aid package to help fight the fires that French president Emmanuel Macron announced at the Group of 7 meeting (Bolsonaro later backtracked slightly, saying he’d be open to accepting the offer if Macron took back “insults made to my persons” and insinuations that Brazil doesn’t have sovereignty over the Amazon).
Sting is a longtime advocate of rainforest preservation, having launched the Rainforest Foundation Fund in 1987, which has worked closely with indigenous communities in Brazil and across South America to protect their homes. In his letter he wrote, “Populist leaders citing nationalist agendas, or claiming that climate change and its handmaidens are a hoax, are guilty of much more than standing by and doing nothing. This is criminal negligence on a global scale.”
Read the full note below.
Legend has it that the Emperor Nero “fiddled while Rome burned”. While obviously bristling at the dubious factoid that such a stupid man could have been a musician, none of us, including me, can be complacent about the tragic dimensions of the disaster taking place in the Amazon as I write.
Amazonia is on fire at an unprecedented rate – 80% up from last year and with 39% more deforestation – and the world is suddenly taking notice.
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https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-news/sting-brazil-forest-fires-amazon-bolsonaro-877207/
