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The Wrong Amazon is Burning
The first time I flew from Lima to Pucallpa, Peru it was early morning and I had the privilege of watching the sun break over the mountains as I flew east.
I was twenty when I took my first flight on an airplane, and I remember sitting transfixed as the plane gained altitude and the whole expansive patchwork of America’s east coast spilled out before me. I’ve never lost that love of looking out windows of airplanes. I refuse to let that simple miracle of the modern world become just another mundane marvel I ignore. So when I fly I sit by the window and I watch the world the whole time, and in all my years of window watching, I’ve never seen a sight more lovely than the Amazon jungle from above.
In that early morning with the sun breaking over the mountains I watched the forest breathe. Even from 15,000 feet there was no question that La Amazonia was alive. Great pockets of moisture hung over the forests and the rivers. The forest sucked in the moisture of the skies and held it to the Earth before exhaling it back out. It was no mystery how La Amazonia became known as the lungs of the planet.
In the last week alone more than 9,000 new fires have spread in the Amazon. Some of this burning is natural, all of it is worsened by global warming, and some of it was probably started by those who wish to profit from the clearing of the Amazon.
