KENN ORPHAN—Bolsonaro, backed by a cadre of evangelical fanatics, racists, homophobes, and an entrenched military junta, is now dismantling any remaining protections for the besieged ecosystems and communities of the country. He has emboldened loggers, ranchers and mining interests with his fascist rhetoric, many of whom have threatened indigenous peoples with violence.

CAPTAIN PLANET—According to Reuters news agency, 72,843 fires were recorded in Brazil this year alone – a new record. Since last Thursday, 9,507 new fires have been added. Fires during the dry period are normal, but not that number. The drought favors the fires, but it is not the cause. According to Reuters, many of the fires are caused by loggers, farmers & miners.

ERIC ZUESSE—One of the billionaires-controlled news-media, the New York Times, promptly headlined its news-story about it, “Bernie Sanders’s ‘Green New Deal’: A $16 Trillion Climate Plan”, and said little else about it than its total expense-side, no mention at all about its income side (and virtually nothing at all about its benefits, which were detailed in those 14,000 words).

BILL VILLERS—The prospect of the Green New Deal becoming morphed into Sustainable Development by another name is real, given the powerful forces so adept at co-opting and repackaging things to serve their own ends. The development/growth debate has long been dominated by business interests, economists, advertisers and corporate journalists, with biologists neglectfully absent. And yet, it all boils down to biology, for when species “overshoot” the capacities of their environments to support them, collapse is the result.

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CAITLIN JOHNSTONE—If I could strike one word from the English language, “philanthropist” would be it. That word’s sole meaning these days is a label that gets attached to parasitic plutocrats who donate a very small percentage of their wealth to tax-exempt charities so that people won’t notice they’re living in a plutocracy and roll out the guillotines.