Brazil: a country at an environmental pivot
I am standing on the top of one of downtown Sao Paulo’s tallest buildings.
In a panoramic sweep of the city a forest of tower blocks intersperse with the low level splash of orange roofed shanty towns (favelas) stretches in every direction.
It’s late evening and gradually the outline of the towers seeps away to leave their outlines in the lit windows of the homes of 19 million people who live here.
Greater Sao Paulo extends to 34 million people – already by far the largest city in Latin America, now challenging to be the largest city in the world.
We are in Brazil, looking north to the Copenhagen summit to try to understand how, what some have described as the most important meeting of nations since the end of the second world war, looks from one of the “tigers” of the developing world.
Listen!
Listen to Jon Snow in Brazil on Audioboo.
I’ve never been here before and it’s fascinating to be in a dense and vibrant society in the south in which English, Britain, the empire, have no resonance whatever.
Outside influences certainly include the United States economically and in terms of corporate investment and ownership, but it happens on Brazilian terms – Portuguese is the first language of negotiation.
My bad Spanish, dwindling memories of Italian go some way to help, but language is a severe barrier if you speak no Portuguese – there’s a lot of guesswork and hand signals involved if your translator isn’t to hand.
It’s hard in your first 48 hours to get a handle on a place that so dwarves what we once thought as large – London or New York – yes it extends over the kind of area Los Angeles is settled upon but is far, far more densely settled.
The gulf, no, ravine between rich and poor is deep and compressed.
You can be walking along an urban high way, past shops that would be interchangeable with an up market branch of Boots, or Waterstones, and suddenly your guide indicates a tiny slither of a passage between two buildings.
You walk down it; a rough covered track barely two meters high, hardly wide enough for your shoulders, and 20 meters later you gasp as you meet the semi fresh air again.
You are in the midst of a heaving swarm of shanty life. Children playing in mud puddles, old men leaning on grubby brick walls smoking. Women hanging washing on wire lines across the street. And the noise of voices, music, revved up engines. Whole families live in tiny rooms stacked crazily one upon another.
Beyond this particular favela I look up at a modern tower block perhaps 500 meters away beyond the main street I had left a few minutes earlier. Ivy cascades from the elegant balconies, there’s a swimming pool on each of the 23 floors.
I’m off to observe the rush hour. Off to try to comprehend what this dash for development, growth, urbanization, and consumption is doing to a country richer than any in available agricultural land, attempting to create still more out of the residual scrub and forest – a country at an environmental pivot.
I also have to talk to a carbon trader about offsetting our own carbon footprint.
Jon says Boo
Krishnan Guru-Murthy hands over the Channel 4 News Audioboo mantle to Jon Snow.
Related posts:
There are no comments on this post
Never been to Brazil but know people who have and they all say it is a beautiful country. The people, unless you get caught up in a gun fight between drug gangs, are lovely and very hospitable.
I sincerely hope Brazil becomes a leading nation in climate change. It has vast resources and in helping itself, it would help guide other nations. Conservation, must be a word everyone has embedded in their minds. We can all live off the planet, we just need to go about it the right way.
adzmundo CND
Unfortunately, whether you are in Brazil, Moss Side in Manchester or, the run down ghettos of Glasgow, here is the true reality of human inequality, evilness, greed and indifference. It’s a world dominated by the human selfish gene and, the road to hell driven by evolution in over population.
I’m truly glad I’ll not be hear in the future! As the world continues its demise, due mainly to the greedy rich, evil politicians and corrupt corporate scum, those who inherit this place, even today are blinkered to its demise.
The very fact that a summit to disguss climate impact is hoping to bring improvement, stands testimone to the mess that’s already taken place. Any success will be outweighed in less than 10 years, as the population continues to inflate exponentially. The ‘cancer’ of this planet is people. Too many, simple as. Any chance of reduction? No
Well Anthony….
You’re a right bundle of laughs.
‘ run down ghettos of Glasgow’ I do not agree..perhaps your experience is closer to reality but not aspiration.
Don’t buy me a drink before we hit Barrowlands…ghetto indeed..garbage..
Only the blinkered select to ignore reality. Only the evil scum cause it.
Would like to be up at the summit, viewing, Miller- like “all my sons”
I am rather claustrophobic though and find the enclosure is Spanish streets threatening, so perhaps panic might set in walking through the densely packed streets of Sao Paulo .
Couldn’t clearly hear the storm on the BOO , but we are having plenty of storms here , so can audiofit sound with sound.
We will see some of the sights for ourselves no doubt in a weeks time . Love to Brazil.
Booh..How are you Margaret?
I’m not sure if you are going to Brazil..but good luck….
Last Monday, I was walking across Sefton park in Liverpool, a large, beautiful park, full of trees, a lake, and lots of fields and flowers etc when getting nearer the centre I heard a chainsaw getting louder. On approaching the noise I saw some men chopping down some large, old, oak trees. I asked one of them ‘Excuse me, is that tree dead?’ He replied ‘No’
I then asked ‘Then why are you cutting it down?’
‘We are putting up a camera’ he told me.
‘Eh?’ I asked, ‘for what?’
We are extending the cafe (for anybody who does not know this park, there is an old cafe here in the middle) backwards.’
Continued from previous post: There is plenty of concrete in front of the cafe, so I don’t understand why some oak trees had to be cut down for an extension to a cafe. Who gave them the permission to cut the trees down- Liverpool City Council?
And therein lies the hypocrisy about Britain, the British and the First World. All over Liverpool I see trees being cut down to build and ‘develop’ or ‘regenerate’ but we lecture Brazil when they do it. If all trees are precious, absorb C02 and give off oxygen, then why do WE cut them down? My Brazilian wife thinks we are hypocritical- why can’t Brazil develop too?
Congratulation Mr. Jon Snow…. My name is Max Rezende, from Brazil but I live in UK since 2006… I watching on TV about a special week in Brazil… Brazil is the best country of world and very important to planet. Anyway, enjoy your holiday on place of ”Sun, Football, Carnival and Favela”
Gas or Distance
meters or metres
Brazil is indeed a beautiful country or it was in the 60′s when i went to Rio,yet even then it it great swathes of poverty.The problem with poverty it tends to breed larger families, and then the demand for everything grows and eventually the demand for more and more land depletes the forests and MAYBE fuels global warming
Just a quick note on global warming.
I totally agree and am an advocate, of making our world a green planet again. What I am not sure about, is whether the current climate change is due solely to toxic emissions. I believe our planet is going through a natural cycle, like it has done in its history. Some scientists believe our planet is actually getting colder. What we should be worried about, is will this planet mend itself like has done in the past? I don’t think it will.
WE MUST STOP THE PRODUCTION OF ALL FORMS OF PLASTIC NOW!
adzmundo CND
I am also on a visit to Sao Paulo (from Dublin) but I spend yesterday in Curitiba, the capital of the state of Parana with a population of 1.8 million. It is probably one of the bet examples of a large, environmentally sensitive cities in the world. It has benefited from several iterations of urban planning to avoid the sprawl of Sao Paulo. The concept of sustainability has been brought to a high level. Some enterprising local authority in Britain or Ireland should seek to develop sister status with Curitiba!
Peter, I have suggested , made it embarrasing, cajoaled and been inyerface with C4 and Jon Snow asking them to take me a ride to Brazil , but no when it comes to favours I am ignored, so will have to wait until the boat comes in.
Just don’t trash yourself Margaret. Clearly you are upset but please, please don’t become disallusioned.
Be positive, forget the boat coming in..
Simon’s looking for talent. Check him out in Sandy Lane, Barbados this Christmas …make your pitch.
Brazil or bust Simon….I was so rejected by that Jon snow…..!
Well meant…Peter