Deforestation is Driving Snakes Out of the Jungle and into Rio Di Janeiro

Snakes!

Deforestation!

Deforestation and Snakes!

It sucks to suffer from Ophidiophobia (fear of snakes)and live in Rio De Janeiro right now. The city is being invaded by snakes, driven from their forest home by logging. The AP has it:

RIO DE JANEIRO, Brazil: Snakes are increasingly invading the eastern Amazon’s largest city, driven from the rain forest by loggers and ranchers who are destroying the reptiles’ natural habitat, the government’s environmental protection agency said Tuesday.

The agency, known as Ibama, has been called out to capture 21 snakes this year in Belem, a sprawling metropolis of 1.5 million people at the mouth of the Amazon River, Ibama press officer Luciana Almeida said by telephone.

Link [International Herald Tribune]

Photo credit: Flickr user Chad Mill 

Amazing Photo: Mother Beaten While Trying to Stop Black Wall of Police Shields

Holy fuck.

An indigenous woman holds her child while trying to resist the advance of Amazonas state policemen who were expelling the woman and some 200 other members of the Landless Movement from a privately-owned tract of land on the outskirts of Manaus, in the heart of the Brazilian Amazon March 11, 2008. The landless peasants tried in vain to resist the eviction with bows and arrows against police using tear gas and trained dogs. REUTERS/Luiz Vasconcelos-A Critica/AE (BRAZIL)”.

Link [Reuters]

Let There Be Organic Tobacco: Smokers Deserve Healthy Cancer Sticks

Environmental Graffiti got in a snit about greenwashing by the tobacco industry:

The cigarette industry knows that there are smokers who can’t kick the habit, but still want to go green. Recently, roll your own cigarettes have been promoted as a more eco friendly, cleaner alternative to regular smokes. That’s not the case, however, as roll your own cigarettes were recently found to have more chemicals than regular cigarettes.

Other companies are rolling out organically grown cigarettes. While this tobacco isn’t doused in pesticides during its growth, the previously mentioned problems still apply. So what’s a green smoker to do? Nothing.

I’m not going to defend the greenwashing by tobacco companies, but is it realistic to expect everyone to stop smoking for the benefit of the environment? Call me a cynic, but my guess is that I have a better chance of being elected President in November than that happening. Smoking tobacco is not going anywhere and if we really want to save the world we need to figure out a way to give people their cancer sticks without destroying the rain forest in the process. Smokers should be able to buy minimally processed, chemical free Fair Trade tobacco.

Tobacco companies should be called out for their bullshit greenwashing, but at the same time they should be encouraged to actually get a handle on the environmental impact of their business. If we can get the tobacco industry to get on the bandwagon maybe we’ll have luck in convincing the Drug Cartels to green up their product line. A guy can dream can’t he? (Note: I don’t smoke cigarettes, just the random shisha)

Link [Environmental Graffiti]