Questões de Inglês - Reading/Writing

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When will the Amazon hit a tipping point?

    Scientists say climate change, deforestation and fires could cause the world’s largest rainforest to dry out. The big question is how soon that might happen. Seen from a monitoring tower above the treetops near Manaus, in the Brazilian Amazon, the rainforest canopy stretches to the horizon as an endless sea of green. It looks like a rich and healthy ecosystem, but appearances are deceiving. This rainforest — which holds 16,000 separate tree species — is slowly drying out.
    Over the past century, the average temperature in the forest has risen by 1-1.5 °C. In some parts, the dry season has expanded during the past 50 years, from four months to almost five. Severe droughts have hit three times since 2005. That’s all driving a shift in vegetation. In 2018, a study reported that trees that do best in moist conditions, such as tropical legumes from the genus Inga, are dying. Those adapted to drier climes, such as the Brazil nut tree (Bertholletia excelsa), are thriving.
    At the same time, large parts of the Amazon, the world’s largest rainforest, are being cut down and burnt. Tree clearing has already shrunk the forest by around 15% from its 1970s extent of more than 6 million square kilometres; in Brazil, which contains more than half the forest, more than 19% has disappeared. Last year, deforestation in Brazil spiked by around 30% to almost 10,000 km², the largest loss in a decade. And in August 2019, videos of wildfires in the Amazon made international headlines. The number of fires that month was the highest for any August since an extreme drought in 2010.

(www.nature.com, 25.02.2020. Adaptado.)

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What does the word nationalist mean? (Part II)

    It's also a word that means different things to different people. "There are different definitions depending on whose nationalism you're talking about," Paul D. Miller, a senior fellow with the Atlantic Council's Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security, told CNN.

    "Scholars generally differentiate between civic and ethnic/sectarian nationalism, that is, between rooting American identity in the ideals of the American experiment versus rooting it in some aspect of our culture, heritage, history, language or ethnicity. Civic nationalism is the same as what I would call patriotism, and it is essential to a healthy democracy. The second kind of nationalism -- sectarian nationalism -- is pernicious and dangerous."

    But Raheem Kassam, a former senior adviser to Brexit leader Nigel Farage, rejects this second, more negative definition of nationalist.

    "Nationalism is not inherently ugly. It is in fact inherently beautiful," said Kassam, who is currently a fellow at the Middle East Forum.

    "Nationalism is a philosophy based around either the nation state, what we know colloquially as 'countries,' or around another identity factor, which could be religion, ethnicity, geography or even interests," he told CNN.

    "In the case of President Trump, he is no doubt using the word to outline his belief in a nation of people unified by beliefs, interests and a common history. This is typically what nationalism has meant since the earliest references to it in human history, though there have no doubt been periods where nationalism, just like socialism or other philosophies, has been used to divide rather than unite, which is ironically the antithesis of its purpose."

From: shorturl.at/kmOR1 Accessed on 08/28/2019

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What do nationalists believe in? (Part III)

    Nationalists' primary belief is that people in similar societies benefit when they are united by shared values and a common belief system.

    "Uniting people -- whether under flags, banners, anthems, or constitutions -- is conducive to a more robust civic society and stronger communities," Kassam said.

    But Miller dismisses that as an "incoherent" ideology. "No one has ever been able to agree on what defines the nation. It is impractical because there is no feasible way to make governments overlap exactly with all the supposed nations in the world today," Miller said.

    Nationalists are also populists and consider themselves sticking up for the common, working man against the elites and so-called globalists. There are voters in both US political parties receptive to that kind of messaging, and that's why the fiery populist rhetoric of Bernie Sanders and Trump during the 2016 campaign ended up appealing to overlapping groups of voters.

    Nationalists are also extremely protectionist, preferring to look inward when it comes to matters of foreign affairs and trade. Trump's political positions have shifted all of his life, but the one constant has been his distrust of international trade agreements and his belief that they're ultimately bad for the United States.

    "We must protect our borders from the ravages of other countries making our products, stealing our companies and destroying our jobs," Trump said during his inaugural speech in January 2017. "Protection will lead to great prosperity and strength."

    This type of thinking is typical of nationalists.

From: shorturl.at/kmOR1 Accessed on 08/28/2019