More than a hundred dolphins have been found dead in the Brazilian Amazon amid an historic drought and record-high water temperatures that in places have exceeded 102 degrees Fahrenheit [38.8 °C].
The dead dolphins were all found in Lake Tefé over the past seven days, according to the Mamirauá Institute, a research facility funded by the Brazilian Ministry of Science.
The institute said such a high number of deaths was unusual and suggested record-high lake temperatures and an historic drought in the Amazon may have been the cause.
The news is likely to add to the concerns of climate scientists over the effects human activity and extreme droughts are having on the region.
I don’t want the rainforest to be deforested, but it’s kinda fucked up to tell all the South American countries covered in trees they aren’t able to do exactly what Europe did. Most of Europe used to be covered in trees 200+ years ago and they deforested it all for industrialization and profit. America cleared untold amounts of fields for farming and building suburbs. Just because this was done before global warming was a real concern we now all feel entitled to tell countries like Brazil they can’t do the same. It’s basically just the same old story of the west wanting to exploit the developing worlds resources for themselves all over again. Just now the resource is air.
True, however letting them make the same mistakes just because America or Europe did isn’t the right answer either. All 3 regions should be reforested and all push towards deforestation should be stopped.
While I agree that it’s a bit hypocritical, we didn’t know what clearing those forests would do in the Renaissance and Industrial Revolution. It wasn’t widely known until the post war era. Now that we do know we need to act.
But we shouldn’t just tell them they can’t do stuff. We should be pouring massive amounts of money into helping them skip over coal, farm vertically, and get away from slash and burn farming.
There’s more we can do than just tell them they’re being bad.
Not to be rude, but South America’s energy production is overall greener than many developed countries. If anything, it’s you guys that need to start reforesting, going greener and lowering your carbon emissions.