The Green Red show keeps on broadcasting as over at Bloomberg Green they call the reelection of far-left demagogue “Lula” in Brazil, or “Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva” if you’re not on a nickname basis with that particular Che Guevara admirer (and he’s just “Che” if you are too), “A reprieve for the Amazon” because it “means the country won’t make a sharp pivot in its approach to climate change, as promised by Lula’s opponent Flávio Bolsonaro, who called for more development in the Amazon and looser environmental rules.” As if there were, as per our #Canary in a Climate World series item on Andrew Roman, some kind of glass dome over Brazil so that whatever GHGs it emitted would only affect weather in the Amazon rather than going into the global mix. But what will really save the Amazon is the fact that they aren’t cutting down as many trees as they used to.

Something called “Brazilian Climate Observer” warned, though not apparently online, that Brazil was an environmental and political cesspit but said “Lula’s historic comeback” did:

“remove the immediate threat to democracy and, on the socio-environmental agenda, to the climate, forests, traditional peoples and communities, environmental institutions, and public policies. Brazil needs to see the climate issue and its environmental heritage as opportunities to drive economic growth and reduce social inequalities.”

And after lunch world peace.

Or maybe actual climate science, if only by accident, because that same outfit did manage to post a piece on how “Amazon deforestation plummets to record low in Brazil”. And we are glad to hear it. It had the usual left-wing “all you need is love” attitude that:

“Official data show that halting and reversing forest loss in the Amazon by 2030 is possible and depends only on the government and society’s willingness to make it happen”.

Ah. Only on our willingness. But a few years back, seven to be exact, the Amazon was allegedly a fiery mass on its way to being a charred heap, and as it was the “Lungs of the Earth” the planet was going to turn blue and fall over dead or something. Hey, it wasn’t our metaphor so it’s not on us that it doesn’t make sense. At the time everyone who’s anyone, a term here including fabled climate scientists Leonardo DiCaprio and Emmanuel Macron, told us climate change was burning up the rainforest. Which if true surely means that to put out the fire you’d have to stop climate change, right? Climate change né global warming, so you’d need to take global action against carbon emissions which clearly personkind has not done. So the forests should be disappearing, regardless of who’s in the Palácio da Alvorada, right?

Instead there is a dramatic reduction in Amazonian deforestation, so it was not CO2 burning the trees. It was stuff like slash-and-burn agriculture and badly-drafted or poorly-enforced logging rules, along presumably with the spread of cities and villages and construction of highways like the one to the site of COP30 that… oh. How embarrassing. As it is embarrassing, surely, that the Amazon was not burning up at all, let alone due to plant food. But let us narrow the focus a bit.

The Observatorio produces some interesting statistics that we have no reason to believe are not essentially accurate:

“The Amazon recorded a historic low in deforestation in 2026: 3.335 km², the lowest figure since satellite monitoring began in 1988. This represents a 41,81% decrease from last year’s figure (5,731 km²) and a 71.2% decline over the past four years. In the Cerrado, Brazil’s fastest-deforested biome, the area cleared also fell to its lowest level on record, at 5.516 km², a decline of 23.76% from last year (7,235 km²) and 48.4% over the past four years. The data from Inpe (National Institute for Space Research), released this Friday (16th) represent a victory for Brazilian society and are cause for celebration.”

Then they insist that the data “send three clear messages” that don’t entirely persuade us, partly by omission. We actually agree with “The first is that ending deforestation is possible.” Certainly it is. It has been done elsewhere, and prosperity is a key to doing it over the long run. We have as noted issues with “The second is that political will is essential to making this happen.” Especially in the modern world we need more political won’t and less political will, as we need more attention to practicalities and less to virtue-signaling.

We could also devote considerable effort to critiquing “The third is that curbing deforestation is good news not only for the environment. It is good for the climate” as trees hoover up CO2. Which yes, they do while growing, but then they release it while decaying and nobody we presume is working on immortal trees that grow to the sky. But three things at a time.

So instead of getting thus distracted, we wish to stress the obvious point they overlook, namely that if deforestation can be dealt with locally and on a short time-scale it is not caused by the dreaded climate change. If they noticed it, they didn’t say it and are not being forthcoming. If they didn’t notice it, their powers of observation fall short of their name.