On October 25, Brazilians will vote in the second round of their presidential elections. The matter might not be all that suspenseful. The far right-wing candidate, Flávio Bolsonaro, is widely favored to defeat the incumbent, President Lula da Silva, especially after Bolsonaro’s unexpectedly strong showing in the first round, which found both him and the members of his far-right movement broadly in the ascendance. His victory will be a catastrophe for many reasons, but there’s one looming disaster that will extend far beyond Brazil’s borders: The fate of the Amazon rainforest, the world’s largest, hangs in the balance. Its stepped-up destruction will likely dramatically accelerate global warming.
Humanity in general is an environmental catastrophe. There are always too many people who vote and support the wrong side of history and they never change until the worst case scenario happens when it's all too late.
The fascists might try to unite and take it over, but South America is largely going to be a wasteland within the next few years. The Amazon is already experiencing extreme drought and many of the trees there are going to die over the next year even without any more direct human destruction. And those trees won't be growing back any time too soon. The true devastation of the rainforest (and the broader environment) is only just beginning. The economic and societal consequences of this disaster will undoubtedly be quite significant.
[OP] D-R-AZ | a day ago
Lead Paragraph:
On October 25, Brazilians will vote in the second round of their presidential elections. The matter might not be all that suspenseful. The far right-wing candidate, Flávio Bolsonaro, is widely favored to defeat the incumbent, President Lula da Silva, especially after Bolsonaro’s unexpectedly strong showing in the first round, which found both him and the members of his far-right movement broadly in the ascendance. His victory will be a catastrophe for many reasons, but there’s one looming disaster that will extend far beyond Brazil’s borders: The fate of the Amazon rainforest, the world’s largest, hangs in the balance. Its stepped-up destruction will likely dramatically accelerate global warming.
Smash55 | a day ago
Humanity in general is an environmental catastrophe. There are always too many people who vote and support the wrong side of history and they never change until the worst case scenario happens when it's all too late.
nitonitonii | a day ago
It's way more than the climate,
Look at the surroundings, it's full of far right candidate, they took many big Latam countries.
They all get along and could merge the countinent into a fascist mega state
NihiloZero | 17 hours ago
The fascists might try to unite and take it over, but South America is largely going to be a wasteland within the next few years. The Amazon is already experiencing extreme drought and many of the trees there are going to die over the next year even without any more direct human destruction. And those trees won't be growing back any time too soon. The true devastation of the rainforest (and the broader environment) is only just beginning. The economic and societal consequences of this disaster will undoubtedly be quite significant.
https://www.newscientist.com/article/2587998-super-el-nino-set-to-cause-terribly-dangerous-amazon-drought/
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2026/aug/14/el-nino-predicted-peak-amazon-rainforest-climate
https://phys.org/news/2026-10-extreme-drought-el-nio-tropical.html