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And Brazil literally caught fire. In 2019, the first two weeks of August had dark skies in broad daylight in the south-central and southeastern regions of the country. The reason were burned logs in the Amazon. A technical note from Instituto Nacional de Pesquisas Espaciais - INPE and another from Instituto de Pesquisa Ambiental da Amazônia - IMPA disclosed the extension of the phenomenon, its association with human activity, and possible consequences of the occurrence. The clouds of smoke spread over much of South America.

The blackout in Brazil did not begin now, but in the last year when Jair Bolsonaro was elected president. A populist man, extremist, homophobic, misogynistic, prejudiced towards blacks, northeasterners and other Brazilians outside the Rio-São Paulo axis. He set up a government of unprepared people, polemic ridden, associated with corruption, and equally extremists with prejudiced positions. As it unfolds, this government resets environmental and indigenous policy issues, labour, education, health, and even science and technology budgets. This new government shows that it will leave no stone unturned.

With the pretext of being efficient and reducing a bloated state, the newly created government is going to extremes of inefficiency and signaling that it will not only not reduce the size of the state, but will co-opt it for its own interests. In addition, it increasingly places military personnel in key political and technical government posts, showing it has a clear ideological agenda. That’s why it is paralized, and has no clear roadmap or even a plan about what it wants. It almost certainly wants nothing more than to take over the governmental structure and use for its own sake.

The uncertainty has already taken a toll in the market, as seen by a deppreciation of Brazilian Real against the US dollar,and the increase in public debt and government spending. Ex-ministers have threatened to denounce corruption in the electoral campaign (officially the most expensive in the world) and inside the Bolsonaro government. With controversial statements, Bolsonaro and his ministers accumulate disaffection with celebrities and politicians from around the world and approach tyrants and neo-Nazi leaders. The impression one has in Brasília is of an airplane without a pilot and flying into the dark.

The Amazon environmental tragedy (which coincidentally occurred shortly after Bolsonaro spoke to landowners in the region, indicating that they had the right to do as they pleased) was not the first this year and it seems that it will not be the last. At the beginning of the year, the Brumadinho dam burst, killing hundreds of people and changing a biome the size of countries, with tragic consequences for the environment that are not yet known. This event exposed a country where mining companies are not supervised, where a corrupt government is allied with the interests of capital and its eyes are on serious environmental and social problems due to mineral exploration.

It does not stop there. I don’t think the outlook is positive. All the challenges that arise before our country during this government will be systemically lost, as we are facing a group that is not interested in society, but only in itself and in those who support them with money. I hope that at least nature will be lighter for us in the coming years. However, we cannot really count on it.