As the Amazon Burns, "Freaking Out" is NOT ENOUGH
The Amazon is burning, but freaking out is not enough. We have to ask WHY it's burning.
Why is it burning?
The answer is like an onion - it has multiple layers. Let's start with the outermost layer, and peel them one by one.
Onion Layer 1: WHO is burning it?
Answer: Cattle ranchers, mainly. And a few miners and loggers as well.
Onion Layer 2: WHY are they burning it?
Answer: Because they're getting PAID to burn it.
Onion Layer 3: Who's paying them?
Answer: Us.
You, me, everyone reading this.
We're paying them.
Oops.
Onion Layer 4: Why are we paying them?
For beef, mainly.
And for soy beans, the vast majority of which are NOT fed to humans, but rather to cows, pigs, and chickens, in meat factories, to make meat.
If you buy these things, you're contributing to the deforestation.
If you want to stop being part of the problem, then there are a few things you can do immediately, to reduce your personal contribution to the fires:
1. If you're still a beef-eater, quit it. Purchasing beef at this point is nothing short of sociopathic.
2. Stop buying meat in general. Meat, on average uses 20 times more land and resources than a plant-based diet. That means it takes 20 times more land and resources to produce 1 calorie of animal protein than plant protein. Get as close to stopping as you can. Reduce as much as you can.
3. If you're not confident enough in your own willpower to quit meat altogether overnight, then reduce it as much as you can. Even if you can't get to zero right now, at least try. Get as close as you can. Start cutting it out of your diet, and start replacing it with plants. Even if you're not ready to FINISH the process, you at least need to START. And you need to start NOW. This is an EMERGENCY.
4. Consume less products, in general. It's not *only* about meat. ALL consumption comes from Nature, and ALL consumption degrades Nature. Meat is certainly the worst culprit that the average person participates in regularly, but it's by no means the only culprit.
Any time you buy something - anything, anywhere - ask yourself:
"Do I really need to buy this? What NEED am I trying to meet? Is there another way I can meet this need that results in less consumption?"
If we want to survive on this planet, we need the Amazon. But we also need the other forests too. We need a healthy biosphere. And the more we consume, the sicker it becomes.
And the other forests are burning, just like the Amazon. The Congo is on fire. Borneo and Sumatra (and the rest of the Indonesian archipelago) is falling to flame and chainsaw at record pace (for palm oil, to make sugary snacks). The Arctic, the coldest place in the world, is on fire.
As if you weren't already frightened enough, we need to not only save the Amazon, but ALL THOSE OTHER ECOSYSTEMS TOO.
Our entire planet is under direct assault. We are in the midst of an OMNICIDE - a systematic extermination of ALL LIFE on the planet.
And personal choices are not enough. Even if you quit meat, and stop buying consumer products, it's not enough.
A collective effort is required. Our ENTIRE CIVILIZATION must change its most fundamental mode of operation. We must change the philosophical bedrock of our civilization to embrace the value of ecological consciousness - of respecting the planet that we live on, and consuming as little as we can. We have to not only make that A value, but THE value. Right now, if you say you consume very little, people will nod their heads and say that's nice, that's good. But they want really admire you for it, because it's not a main value. But it needs to be.
It WAS, thousands of years ago. Before our technocratic society changed it. And it's STILL that way among the aboriginal peoples and cultures, who, ironically, are now the explicit targets of the genocide by Brazilian Hitler.

We need those people - the indigenous peoples, not only of the Amazon, but of the world - because they're the ones who still carry the Original Story. The story of mankind as a member of Nature.
Our sick society treats Nature as "property" - an inanimate resource to be exploited, rather than the living Community of Life. This society views us as the "masters" and "dominators" of Nature.
But the indigenous peoples view themselves as members of nature, with a responsibilty to respect the other members - the trees, the flowers, animals, and even the insects. They hold the answers to CURING this disease that infects our society.
And that's precisely why Brazilian Hitler wants to exterminate them.
That's why the Empire has BEEN exterminating them, for centuries, ever since the Age of Colonization began in the 1500's. And it goes back even further, to the time of Rome, when the legions invaded Europe to extinguish the Celts, Gauls, and other native peoples who held reverence for Nature. And even the Romans weren't the first. It goes back even further, to the roots of what we are taught to call "civilization" itself.
The Empire wants to not only plunge our planet into terminal disease and death, but it wants to wipe out the CURE as well, so that even if we decide we want to actually, you know, LIVE, and HEAL ourselves, we won't know HOW, because the healers and teachers will have already been extinguished.
The aboriginal peoples of the world are the targets of a slow-moving Holocaust, all around the world. And in Brazil, for the first time in a long time, the Holocaust has moved out into the open, as a brazen Hitler-figure brazenly calls his followers to invade their land and murder them.
Brazilian Hitler promised on the campaign trail to exterminate the indigenous peoples of the Amazon. He said he was going to do it. He said it many times. It was his official campaign position. And everyone who voted for him knew it. And now he's doing it.
He's giving armed gangs of cattle ranchers a green light to go into the Amazon and kill indigenous people. And the ones they don't kill directly they're going to kill through mining projects and logging and burning, because these people DEPEND on the forest. The forest is their LIVELIHOOD. That's why they're indigenous. That's what indigenous MEANS. That's the definition of it. They rely on that forest, they get everything they need from the forest, and so, if you destroy the forest, you destroy THEM. If you destroy the rivers, you destroy them. Whenever you open up a mining operation, it pollutes the local rivers, the fish die, and the people can no longer eat or drink. If they flee the area to the cities, they might survive, working in factory sweatshops, but then their culture is destroyed. And we need them AND their culture, because their healthy culture is the cure for our sick culture.
They're vanishing now. The cattle-ranchers are exterminating them, just like the Nazis did, and just like the United States used to do. Remember when they sent the cavalry to go slaughter the Indians? Brazilian Hitler is doing that right now.
However, he's not the first. Even if he were impeached or assassinated, the process will continue. Perhaps not as quickly - but it will still continue. He's speeding it up, and we have to treat it has an immediate emergency because of him, but we also have to look at the underlying causes of all of this, so that we can stop ALL of the destruction.
We have to act now. All of us. If we don't, we lost the Amazon, we lost the indigenous peoples, and we lose what may be the only road back form the precipice.
What can you do now?
While the personal choices mentioned above are very important, they're still not sufficient.
To truly solve this planetary ecological crisis, we have to redesign our entire civilization. We have to build a whole new social system that enshrines the values of ecology.
For example, a huge part of carbon emissions is transport of food - not of people. We transport our food dozens, hundreds, thousands of miles, sometimes from other continents. Often it's food that's perfectly capable of growing where we live, yet for some reason we import it thousands of miles, and that uses an enormous amount of energy. Why do we do that? Why are we transporting our food so far? Why aren't we growing it in our own communities?
Our social system prevents it. For one thing, asphalt covers a large portion of the land we ought to be using to grow food.
There are also ordinances against gardening, in many cities and communities. Even if gardening is legal, most of us are afraid of what the neighbors will think, if we replace our lawns with food. Producing our own food is somehow "icky" or "beneath" us. To be "middle class", must have a lawn, with pointless useless grass. If we grow food, it makes us "lower class." Our entire value system is screwed up. We need to start over.
And there are a hundred other ways we're being wasteful and short-sighted, from our wasteful transportation system to our culture of extreme private property - the very SHAPE of our economy is incompatible with the Earth.
But if we rearrange our values, we'll be able to rearrange our architecture and economic system. We can have a system that's reasonable, and compatible with the planet we live on.
This sounds like a tall order you say? Where to start?
Good news, the Earth Party has a plan to do exactly that. We have a comprehensive plan to evolve our society into a a mature civilization. Step by step, from start to finish.
A new social system designed from the bottom up.
The plan is available. It's written. You don't have to think it up.
But we do need your help disseminating it. We need to build a movement to spread awareness so fit.
While many organizations may have a piece or two of the puzzle, no one has the full picture. No one even CLAIMS to. Except us.
We don't have time to wait. We're in an emergency. The Amazon's burning. The whole planet's burning. If you want to wait for a better plan, a better organization to come along with a better offer, ask yourself: How long are you willing to wait?
How long will you wait for something better to come along?
Another week? Another month? A year? Two years? How long?
The Amazon is approaching the desertification tipping point right now. Every tree that burns could be the last tree before the tipping point, for all we know. We don't have any time to wait.
Our links:
Main page: www.TheEarthParty.net
Our page on climate chaos: www.TheEarthParty.net/climate-chaos-ecological-breakdown
Our master plan: www.TheEarthParty.net/blueprint-for-a-mature-civilization
Join us. Get involved. We need you.