It is another cold, rainy day in what used to be tropical Rio de Janeiro.
As I head for the ICS (Institute for Climate and Society) in Humaita (Rua General Dionisio 14), I am wearing a vest, long-sleeved shirt and a hoodie, or jacket with a hood and carrying an umbrella.
I might as well be in London, rather than “tropical” Brazil!
The weather has indeed changed in Rio de Janeiro and other parts of world as greed and savage capitalism overtake environmental concern.
Seeking answers to questions what might be done to invert this catastrophic path and what has happened to our climate I am attending a conference at the Institute by director Ana Toni.
The seven-year-old non-profit Institute has concluded that if the Brazilian governments don´t take corrective environmental measures, the worse is yet to come.
Ana Toni, consultant of the Public Interest Management and was representative of the Ford Foundation in the 2000 decade, shows us alarming statistics which display how carbon dioxide emissions are poisoning a once bucolic and beautiful city and nation.
These alarming statistics remind me of some of the results of savage capitalism.
They include: extra -tall buildings savagely crowded one atop of another (Witness the Agrioes neighborhood of once bucolic Teresopolis, upstate Rio de Janeiro state or Barra de Tijuca, Rio de Janeiro, a tropical(?) replica of Miami), polluted lakes and streams, widely advertised and anti-environmental hairsprays becoming a norm rather than banned, etc.
But thank goodness not everyone will stand by and allow Rio and Brazil to be environmentally destroy;
As revealed at the conference, Rio’s Talanoa Institute, launched earlier this week a 10-point Plan to remove carbon from our atmosphere with investments of 91 billion reais gerating 250,000 “green “jobs for a future President.

Whether such an idealistic plan will be accepted by the current President, who favors mining in the Amazon and jet ski in ecological Paradises is another question.
And here is the prevision of a bleak future by Brazilian researchers at the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro, if something is not done soon to save the environment:
“The continuity of the current environmental policies of the Brazilian government in the last four years, which accelerated the pace of deforestation in the country, would make Brazil exceed by 137 percent the goal of greenhouse gas emissions assumed by the country in the Paris Agreement, with a deadline set in 2030. The current model would also drive Amazon deforestation to the steep 20 percent threshold for what experts point to as the savanna residue of the world’s largest rainforest. recovery.”
Yes indeed Mark Twain to modify your famous statement “everyone talks about the weather but a few are trying to change it.”
Stay tuned!