Brazil is doing what others have done

All this fuss by environmental groups about the fires in Brazil have missed the major point.

It’s the way developing nations become developed nations.   It happened all over the world and it happened right here in the United States.

At one time, North America was covered with hardwood forests from the sand of the Atlantic Ocean to the banks of the Mississippi.  Forests so dense that roads were almost impossible to build.  Trees so thick and tall that they blocked out the sun for thousands of miles.

And yet, settlers in those areas, cut the trees, for houses, for firewood and for clearing land for growing crops.  The trees had to go if food was to grow to feed the growing population.  Trees were even cut and shipped to Europe who had cut down all of its trees, centuries before.

Lets not forget that Native American tribes also set fire to the trees, to clear land to plant corn.

In Brazil, most of the fires are being set by farmers and settlers, trying to clear the jungle so they too can raise crops and animals to feed the country’s increasing population.  In many cases, the land had previously been set afire and the new fires were to burn off what brush had grown since the last fire.

There was no one around in the 17th and 18th Century who complained that cutting the hardwood forests of America would severely impact the air that we breathed.

The point.  If environmentalists are to complain about farmers clearing land to raise cattle and grow food, then they have no concept of history.

The only way developing countries can become developed countries, is by taking advantage of the natural environment around them.  All of the countries of Europe did it, the United States did it and Brazil should be supported in its efforts to feed, cloth and house its people.