Glenn Reynolds likes to say in one form or another, “I’ll treat climate change like a crisis when the elites do.” But I think even my friend Glenn would be astonished at the hypocrisy and contradictions taking place in the Amazon.
The leaders of the COP30 climate summit insisted that they needed to hold their next meeting in the Amazon — to draw attention to the dangers of deforestation, among other issues. And they are so worried about deforestation that the same leaders have clear-cut a four-lane highway through the heart of the rainforest in anticipation of the traffic that will come to the city of Belém.
No, I’m not kidding, and neither is the BBC:
A new four-lane highway cutting through tens of thousands of acres of protected Amazon rainforest is being built for the COP30 climate summit in the Brazilian city of Belém.
It aims to ease traffic to the city, which will host more than 50,000 people – including world leaders – at the conference in November.
The state government touts the highway’s “sustainable” credentials, but some locals and conservationists are outraged at the environmental impact.
But hey, it will have “solar lighting and cycle paths”! Plus, Belém will get a lot more lumber. Don’t forget to buy your carbon credits to offset your shouts of “TIMMMMMBEEEEEERRRRRR!” too.
My favorite part of the video comes from a hapless chap in Belém, who hasn’t quite grasped the hypocrisy. “We hope that the discussions aren’t just on paper,” he tells the BBC, “but become real actions, so that the population in the future will have cleaner air.” Ahem. The discussions have already led to “real actions” in the form of destroying the rain forest and reducing the opportunity for cleaner air.
And for what? This whole project is so that “world leaders” and climate poseurs could hold a publicity stunt in the rainforest rather than meeting in Rio de Janeiro or São Paulo, where infrastructure for such meetings already exist. Why, it just wouldn’t be the same unless they destroyed the rainforest so that Greta Thunberg could get a photo op of scowling and berating people over their life choices … none of which involve clear-cutting rain forests.
How many people will descend into the clear-cut setting for this climate catastrophe? Fifty thousand:
More than 50,000 people are expected for the 30th annual UN climate summit in Belém, in November, including a number of world leaders.
Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silv boasted that this year’s event will be “a COP in the Amazon, not a COP about the Amazon.”
The state government of Pará initially hatched the idea for the thoroughfare in 2012, but it was repeatedly put on hold after concerns were raised over its environmental impact.
And here’s another question: why would Belém need a road through the Amazon at all? Belém isn’t some obscure town in Brazil; the capital of Pará has a population of 1.3 million people, and has highways already built that connect it to other parts of the country. It also has rail service as well as an international airport and a military air base. The civilian airport has been around for 50 years and serves over 3 million passengers a year, many of whom presumably can find their way back and forth from Belém already without clear-cutting a rainforest to find it.
Oh, but world leaders can’t be inconvenienced by [checks notes] using a workaround to save the rainforest. And Greta’s scowl might bring plagues!
If we didn’t already know that the “climate change” hysteria was nothing more than a grift, this is unassailable proof. These “world leaders” and activists aren’t interested in the environment; they are interested in power. And they will gleefully destroy anything in their way of it, even the rainforests that they claim to revere.
