Our planet can’t take many more populists like Brazil’s Bolsonaro.

Pedro_P

Just when Earth badly needs pro-environment leaders, we get big-business strongmen. There’s a reason for this grim irony

Jair Bolsonaro during a press conference in Rio de Janeiro. Photograph: Mauro Pimentel/AFP/Getty Images
▼ Unless every poll is wildly wrong, Brazil will probably elect a racist, sexist, homophobic advocate of torture at the end of this month. The former army captain Jair Bolsonaro nearly won outright in the first round, securing the votes of almost 50 million people – despite his extreme views being well known.
What is less well understood, however, is the catastrophic environment implications of his rise to the brink of power. And in this, Bolsonaro is not unique: around the world, diminishing resources are fuelling a global rise of authoritarian leaders dedicated to doing the bidding of some of the world’s most environmentally damaging interests.
The Brazilian election resultswere announced on 8 October – just as climate scientists were issuing their most dramatic warning yet that humanity has  just 12 years to slash emissionsor suffer the consequences of dangerous global warming. If countries do not start planting trees and cutting fossil fuels now, they said, then it will be impossible to prevent a rise of more than 0.5C, which would completely eradicate all of the world’s corals and irreversibly disrupt weather systems, bringing droughts, floods and extreme heat that will push hundreds of millions into poverty.History tells us that when environments deteriorate, societies turn to 'strongmen' and zealots rather than pragmatic leaders
History tells us that when environments deteriorate, societies turn to supposed strongmen and religious zealots rather than smart, pragmatic leaders. That is happening now. In addition to the dictatorships of China, Russia and Saudi Arabia, a growing number of young democracies have relapsed into authoritarianism: the Philippines under Rodrigo Duterte, Turkey under Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, Egypt under Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, and next, it would seem, Brazilunder Bolsonaro. And underlying this is environmental stress, which has been building for over two centuries.
Starting in Britain, the carbon-capitalist industrial model has long been extracting minerals and organic resources, and discharging the waste into the air, sea and land. As more nations developed, they exported their environmental stress to the next country rising up the economic ladder.
Now that this paradigm is being replicated by the world’s most populous country, China, there are very few places left to absorb the impact. Competition for what is left is growing. So is violence and extremism. Centre-ground politicians who once talked chummily about “win-win solutions” have been pushed to the sidelines. No one believes this any more. Voters may not see this in environmental terms, but consciously or subconsciously they know something is broken, that tinkering is no longer enough. (▪ ▪ ▪)

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sktorry

Very true. But, the western countries has to bear the burden of fixing the issue they started.

sks

Absolutely true. Thing is it's no more time to find who is / wap responsible. It's time to find what we can do