As vast tracts of rain forest are cleared, Brazil has become the world’s fourth-largest producer of the greenhouse gases

As Brazil’s Rain Forest Burns Down, Planet Heats Up | icon gravatar.comwww.mcclatchydc.com/226/story/19533.html | sent by OrpRam since 21 hours 31 minutes

For more than a decade, Vigilio de Souza Pereira has carved his living out of the thick Amazon rain forest around his ranch in northern Brazil. When Pereira needs more land for his crops and cattle, he cuts more virgin jungle and sets the vegetation ablaze. When the nutrient-poor soil has been depleted, he moves on and cuts down more jungle.

#1 Such slash-and-burn agriculture has helped the 51-year-old Pereira and millions of other farmers and ranchers scratch out a living from the forest, but it’s put Brazil at the heart of the environmental challenge of the century.
As vast tracts of rain forest are cleared, Brazil has become the world’s fourth-largest producer of the greenhouse gases that cause global warming, after the United States, China and Indonesia, according to the most recent data from the U.S.-based World Resources Institute.
And while about three-quarters of the greenhouse gases emitted around the world come from power plants, transportation and industrial activity, more than 70 percent of Brazil’s emissions comes from deforestation. ...