Coasting On Past Glory

As a Brazilian, I feel very sad about the level of misinformation that exists when foreign press reports about Brazil. This article was no exception. Just for the records: a) the Amazon rainforest encompasses nine coutries - Brazil has 60% of the rainforest b) Sugar cane crops exists since the time the Portuguese landed in Brazil (XVI century) c) As far as I know there is not intensive sugar cane plantations in or near the Amazon rainforest d) Ethanol alcohol for fuel was an alternative to expensive imported oil e) Brazil has the approximate area of the continental (less Alaska) U.S. and the related problems of being such a large country. Please take into consideration that there are poor regions and more developed areas compatible with some European developed countries.

As a Brazilian, I feel very sad about the level of misinformation that exists when foreign press reports about Brazil. This article was no exception. Just for the records: a) the Amazon rainforest encompasses nine coutries - Brazil has 60% of the rainforest b) Sugar cane crops exists since the time the Portuguese landed in Brazil (XVI century) c) As far as I know there is not intensive sugar cane plantations in or near the Amazon rainforest d) Ethanol alcohol for fuel was an alternative to expensive imported oil e) Brazil has the approximate area of the continental (less Alaska) U.S. and the related problems of being such a large country. Please take into consideration that there are poor regions and more developed areas compatible with some European developed countries.

Please don't dissociate things and put "building highways through the Amazon" in the bill of military government.
And please stop to heat your n bedrooms subprimed homes where (n-5) people "live alone for so many years" before ask developing world about carbon emissions.
Thanks a lot.

Your article is a very superficial analysis on Brazilian environmental problems. To overfly Brazil in a Boeing and write an article inspired by the view from the plane's window is a kind of journalistic arrogance typical for some second-rank newspaper, but it should not be expected from an outstanding newspaper like Newsweek. Do you seriously take it seriously the Yale and Columbia's Environmental Performance Index? Congratulations! Moreover, the figures you showed in your article are most inaccurate, some of then absurd. But what surprised me is your regrets for the Brazilian having not followed up the "virtues reflecting sound decisions" of the ambitious military government of Gen. Ernesto Geisel! What an senseless statement, sorry for being sincere! Have you an idea about the costs of the virtues inherited by the Brazilians from their military dictatorships? (not only Gen. Geisel, but all the other!) Please, you'd better writing about what you are really informed about, otherwise you will always risk producing such nonsenses!