Reporting by Ana Mano; Editing by Aurora Ellis Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles., opens new tab , opens new tab Browse an unrivalled portfolio of real-time and historical market data and insights from worldwide sources and experts. , opens new tabScreen for heightened risk individual and entities globally to help uncover hidden risks in business relationships and human networks. © 2025 Reuters. All rights reserved Unjabbed supporters of President Bolsonaro are banned from some pubs – but elsewhere fans can buy pizza named after him Jana Santos has an unambiguous message for Jair Bolsonaro-supporting anti-vaxxers who want to sup a Moscow Mule or Caipirinha at her bar in south Brazil “Don’t come. We don’t want you here,” said the mixologist and bar owner who recently placed a placard at its entrance instructing unvaccinated Bolsonaristas to steer clear said she had decided to ban unjabbed Bolsonaro followers from the Cosmos Gastrobar in Curitiba as a result of his “villainous” response to a Covid outbreak that has killed nearly 620,000 Brazilians and battered businesses such as hers “It was a cry from the heart – a protest against everything this president has put us through … He’s a wicked man,” the progressive publican said of Brazil’s far-right leader who claims not to have been vaccinated and has repeatedly undermined Brazil’s immunisation campaign as the poisonous political atmosphere enveloping Brazil contaminates even its pub scene and a number of watering holes tell their political opponents to get lost Bolsonarista boozehounds are still not short of alehouse options with their radical president continuing to enjoy the support of about 20% of voters as he prepares to seek re-election next year a frontier town in the heavily pro-Bolsonaro Amazon diners can even order pizzas named after their populist leader thanks to the rightwing restaurateur Valmir Chaves “He’s the most patriotic president Brazil’s ever had,” said the 58-year-old during a recent visit to his Bolsonaro-themed eatery Aquarius Pizzaria Chaves said the Bolsonaro pizza was sprinkled with chicken olives and two portions of palm hearts in homage to the white vegetable Brazil’s president used to harvest during his childhood in rural São Paulo Chaves remembered how he had invented the patriotic pizza and decked his bar with Brazil flags after Bolsonaro’s 2018 election “People say I adore Bolsonaro – that I’m a Bolsonaro fan But it’s not about Bolsonaro,” said the barkeeper whose black Hyundai has been decorated with the words: “100% Bolsonaro” “It’s about my country – and if there was someone else doing the things Bolsonaro is Lefties are not the only thing unwelcome in Chaves’s Bolsonarian bar A sign on the wall informs drinkers they will not be allowed to tune into Brazil’s largest broadcaster “To clients and friends of this establishment,” it reads Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo A Brazilian study published in the journal Communications Earth & Environment shows how wildfires and forest burning for agriculture influence rain cloud formation in the Amazon aerosols (tiny solid particles and liquid droplets emitted into the atmosphere by fire) hinder the freezing of cloud droplets when the atmosphere is humidified but can also promote freezing when the atmosphere is dry This alters the natural functioning of clouds and their typical height and may also affect precipitation and the amount of sunlight reaching the ground the scientists used a large dataset collected over a 15-year period involving satellite imagery from the United States National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) measurements of atmospheric aerosols from fires made by NASA’s Aerosol Robotic Network (AERONET) and reanalysis data from the European Center for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF) Reanalysis data provides the most complete picture currently possible of past weather and climate blending observations and past forecasts rerun with modern forecasting models The satellite images and reanalysis data covered the entire Amazon region The aerosol data referred to five locations in southern Amazonia: Alta Floresta and Cuiabá in Mato Grosso state; Rio Branco in Acre state; and Ji-Paraná and Ouro Preto do Oeste in Rondônia state a professor in the Department of Applied Physics at the University of São Paulo’s Institute of Physics (IF-USP) and first author of the article The study was supported by FAPESP The co-authors were Elisa Sena (Federal University of São Paulo) and Ilan Koren (Weizmann Institute of Science depends mainly on a combination of three factors: atmospheric humidification In southern Amazonia’s rainy season (roughly December-April) the atmosphere is extremely clear and the origin of the particles in the aerosols is natural They come from condensation of gases emitted by the forest and from wind abrasion of soil and vegetation large-scale fires emit a huge amount of smoke which spreads throughout the region and is blown by the wind to other regions “They produce much worse pollution than urban activities in the city of São Paulo The study is a contribution to the knowledge of the behavior of clouds in the Amazon and can be enriched by further research “The influence of clouds on the climate is very important This is the most complex topic in climate models that set out to forecast what will happen with regard to this theme in the future so any improvement in knowledge of how clouds function is a major contribution to the advancement of climate science,” he stressed About São Paulo Research Foundation (FAPESP) 10.1038/s43247-021-00250-3 and radiation control the temperature of glaciation in 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tough to tame When they reached the settlement of Ouro Preto do Oeste in 1971 it was little more than a lonely rubber-tapper outpost hugging the single main road that ran through the jungle like a red dust scar Sitting on the porch of the family farmhouse in the sweltering heat of the Amazon dry season now 79 with neat gray hair tucked behind her ears and a smile that shows half a dozen stubborn teeth indigenous tribes and the mythological Curupira: a creature with backward-turned feet who misleads unwelcome visitors to leave them lost among the trees The family carved their home from the forest They built their walls from the tough trunks of the cashapona tree and thatched a leaky roof from the broad palms of the babassu and some days the only food was foraged Brazil nuts in hungry darkness they would listen to the cascading rain there was a stream so wide that the children – aged between 5 and 12 when they arrived – would dare each other to reach the other side Now it's not a meter wide and can be cleared with a single step and the wider water problems they are a part of Covering an area roughly the size of the contiguous United States and accounting for more than half of the world's rainforest the Amazon exerts power over the carbon cycle like no other terrestrial ecosystem on Earth The tree loss from an extremely dry year in 2005 released an additional quantity of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere equivalent to the annual emissions of Europe and Japan combined according to a 2009 study published in Science magazine As more and more of the forest is cut down researchers say the loss of canopy risks hitting a limit – a tipping point – after which the forest and local climate will have changed so radically as to trigger the death of the Amazon as rainforest The consequences for biodiversity and climate change would be devastating extinguishing thousands of species and releasing such a colossal quantity of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere that it would sabotage attempts to limit global climate change The Amazon tipping point would mark a final shift in the rainforest's ability to sustain itself an inflection point after which the trees can no longer feed traversing clouds with enough moisture to create the quantities of rain required to survive Climate models have foreseen other so-called tipping points disrupting Earth's long-balanced systems for example warming that causes Siberian permafrost to thaw and release huge amounts of emissions or Greenland's Ice Sheet melting at such a rate that annual snowfall can no longer make up for the loss Some researchers argue that current modeling isn't sophisticated enough to predict such a moment at all But evidence is mounting that in certain areas localized iterations of the tipping point may already be happening Reuters has tracked three extended experiences of the Amazon to give a real-world view of degradation once only predicted by computer simulations A family that has farmed this once-lush part of rainforest for almost 50 years A scientist couple who have monitored thousands of individual trees for decades And an atmospheric chemist who has collected air samples from far above the canopy for years Their perspectives reveal the long-term impact of deforestation: on rainfall on the remaining forest and on global emissions they show the dangerous extent of the changes wrought on the world's largest rainforest Even as science learns more about the far-reaching impact of destruction that began many years or even decades ago deforestation has surged under President Jair Bolsonaro who supports further opening the Amazon for mining and agriculture an area larger than Lebanon was cut from the rainforest and though preliminary data for 2021 points to a slight year-on-year decline deforestation remains at a level not seen in Brazil since 2008 one of the leading scientists studying the changing health of the Amazon rainforest sums it up: "There's a limit to how much shit the system can take." the Freire family hacked and sawed farther into their patch of forest on Brazil's western frontier after clearing a couple of hectares and getting permission to use some of their neighbor's pasture too they invested in 10 heifer calves and a bull – the start of a dairy business that would over the years grow into a successful herd of about 400 head They had come from the Vale do Jequitinhonha 2,500 kilometers (1,553 miles) to the east where decades of slash-and-burn agriculture had dried and degraded the land The semi-arid strip became notorious as the "Valley of Misery." Even while water was plentiful they sensed the same could happen in their new home like that which plagued the Vale do Jequitinhonha often follows rapid and chaotic agricultural expansion especially when transformed into pasture and pounded hard by grazing cattle loses ability to retain water in soil and foliage Rain runs off the altered surface in sudden surges dragging topsoil into streams and rivers that then clog and dry Brazil is blessed with the largest freshwater reserves in the world But the relentless rise of one of the world's agricultural powerhouses combined with changes in global climate are helping to drive a loss of this vital resource found Brazil lost 15% of its surface water in the three decades prior to 2020 the last bits of doubt about the drying of the land seeped away on a parched day in 1991 A cowhand told Gertrudes the cattle were so thirsty they were nuzzling the bottom of dried-out springs She acted swiftly and put in a complex system of pipes and pumps to draw water for the cattle from springs that had not yet gone dry Gertrudes had little idea of what she was doing but trusted her instincts sharpened by years of drought in the homeland she'd abandoned Her neighbors – and husband – thought she was crazy as she planted trees around water sources and along streams and vowed that the last remaining patch of virgin forest "I came back from one short trip away and my husband had cleared another patch" for pasture Gertrudes sensed that rainfall was changing too Several scientific studies have found the same Because tropical forests influence rainfall One influential 2011 paper looking at 30 years of precipitation data found that the onset of rains in Rondonia state Research since then has backed up this trend which brought together around 200 scientists said available data pointed to a dry season that "has expanded by about one month in the southern Amazon region since the middle 1970's." an agroecologist with decades of experience in the rainforest is helping farmers replant trees and bring water back to their properties He works for a subdivision of the Ministry of Agriculture focused on cacao which he says has the oldest weather data in the area Although total rainfall hasn't changed significantly in Ouro Preto do Oeste the dry season has gotten longer and drier because crops and grasses don't have long enough roots to find water when there's no rain The drier climate makes reforesting harder too rainforest species could be planted straight into the bare soil Deuseminio says he must now first plant drought-resistant trees and only once these have grown enough to provide shade and improve the soil can he follow up with classic Amazon species Rainforest saplings now struggle to survive Decades of farming have made the Freires sensitive to the changing rains the slow shifts in surviving forests - like the one at the end of the family's farm - are harder to see Detecting these changes can require years of methodical study with tape measures and walking boots and notebooks and Beatriz Marimon have spent so long in their forest plots that they've befriended many of the trees They're saddened by those they have lost over the years The couple conduct research at the local campus of the Mato Grosso State University in Nova Xavantina a soy town of 20,000 people located about 1,200 kilometers east from the Freire farmhouse The surrounding area is a biome borderland an in-between space where the Cerrado savannah transitions into the Amazon rainforest crunching through a dry patch of forest on the edge of town If the tipping point marks the irreversible march of savannah over rainforest scientists predict the process would first occur in forests where savannah and rainforest are already intertwined with a neatly trimmed white beard and frayed walking boots – a chewed victim of their dog has long gray hair tied back in a practical ponytail The couple met in the 1980s while studying forest engineering in the state capital The two have basically worked together ever since "He likes to talk; I like to do," jokes Beatriz the couple tag trees of varying sizes and species across their plots with bits of metal that look like military dog tags They return at regular intervals – anything from three months to three years – and measure tree circumference Trees that haven't made it are added to a list of the dead Rainforests recycle vast quantities of water by returning rainfall to the sky through soil evaporation and plant transpiration by which water absorbed in the roots is released via a plant's leaves moisture that comes off the Atlantic Ocean is transported for thousands of miles across the South American continent falling as rain and rising again as vapor as many as seven times until it hits the mountain wall of the Andes But large-scale deforestation disrupts this process reducing the number of trees to such an extent that precipitation levels fall or become more concentrated over a shorter wet season In some parts of wide-ranging Nova Xavantina over the past 30 years Local temperatures also increase – particularly on edges where forest and farmland meet Those vast flat agricultural clearings increase the strength of winds which can rip through woodland and tear down the tallest The drier forest is also more vulnerable to fire which is still widely used for clearing farmland here drought and fire – their deaths increase the likelihood of such extreme weather in the future Early experiments that mimicked extreme drought in the Amazon had led scientists to think the drier climate would kill older trees first but what Ben Hur and Beatriz have found is the opposite the largest trees are usually the most resilient – at least to drought pointing to the brown leaves of a nearby plant the degrading forests around Nova Xavantina demonstrate that the tipping point may already be happening there on a local level The major question remains whether this same process could occur on a huge scale over entire swaths of the Amazon basin – and if so Celebrated Brazilian climatologist Carlos Nobre who has helped popularize the idea of the tipping point over the past decade puts the precipice at between 20% and 25% deforestation of the original Amazon canopy according to the major report with 200 scientists published this year Nobre believes we could see mass dieback across eastern southern and central Amazonia within as little as 15 years an earth system scientist who worked on models before switching to field work says current simulations oversimplify the diverse vegetation soil type and topography found across the Amazon basin there's not yet enough evidence to say where the tipping point is or even if such a single threshold exists for sure Hirota considers it more likely that deforestation would trigger multiple smaller tipping points in different locations across the Amazon similar to what Ben Hur and Beatriz have seen in Nova Xavantina But many scientists think putting a single number on the tipping point is still important as a clarion call even if it's too complex to currently prove and so even if we're not exactly sure where it is we're rushing towards it with our eyes closed." In the decades that Ben Hur and Beatriz were listing trees and wrapping them with tape measures the atmospheric chemist Luciana Gatti was mastering how to catch carbon dioxide from the skies While the view from the ground found trees struggling under hotter and drier temperatures Gatti wanted to understand what these changes meant for the Amazon's role in global climate change first specialized in reactive gases and began her career at Brazil's Nuclear and Energy Research Institute After the 1992 Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro joining a crop of home-bred scientific talent striving for a bigger Brazilian role in global climate research where her narrow office is cluttered with family photographs and lanyards from past conferences On her desk sits a stress ball shaped like planet Earth scientists estimate that roughly a quarter of all fossil fuel emissions have been absorbed by forests and other land vegetation and soils as mass human migration to the Amazon was just beginning the rainforest drew down some 500 million tons of carbon from the atmosphere every year more than the current annual emissions of Germany Photosynthesis by the forests' billions of trees served as a vital buffer against climate change As migration increased and more of the Amazon was cleared for agriculture scientists knew the forest's ability to suck in carbon would be hit Gatti squeezed into a roaring single-engine four-seater plane armed with a padded suitcase packed with glass flasks she could sometimes see the scale of destruction the gray smoke billowing from burning trees and the yellow patches of earth shorn of the forest green Gatti's earliest air samples date back to 2000 But she found the data too narrow and volatile to give a picture of the carbon balance for the whole basin so over the following years she expanded the work training teams and contracting light aircraft to fill flasks of forest air from four parts of the Amazon: Santarem and Alta Floresta in the east and Tefe and Rio Branco in the west the aircraft have taken more than 600 vertical profiles – a series of samples taken at different altitudes over a given spot It showed the southeastern Amazon was releasing more carbon that it was absorbing even in rainy years when scientists had expected the forest to be in better health It meant a part of the rainforest was no longer helping to slow climate change she went through seven methodologies before eventually accepting what had seemed impossible The southeastern Amazon is not only a net producer of carbon the forest alone – or the non-fire net biome exchange – is a carbon source as the most definitive so far on the changing carbon fluxes of the rainforest is in better health and can still absorb substantial amounts of carbon But it's not enough to compensate for the polluting east where ranching and soy farming have cut deep into the rainforest The so-called lungs of the Earth are coughing up smoke "We are losing the southeastern part of the forest," Gatti says Gatti thinks her numbers show that certain parts of the Amazon may already be at their tipping point She believes the data points to the same process that Ben Hur and Beatriz have witnessed but on a greater scale: Rainforest species such as the brazil nut and the ironwood giving way to trees like mabea fistulifera and ouratea discophora that are more tolerant of the drier Such regime change releases huge quantities of carbon and would help explain the forest's flagging ability to draw down emissions the Freires bemoan the driest dry season any of them can remember reservoirs are dangerously low as Brazil suffers one of its worst droughts in a century The family is diversifying to try and shield their business from drought building out capacity in breeding and beef cattle to complement their milk production They've also started an organic soap business and want to plant corn Some nearby farmers have already sold their land – mostly to larger cattle ranchers who address the problem by digging deep wells or piping water over long distances "It's going to get even drier," says Gertrudes looking out over her farm's yellow grass as two cats laze comatose in the stifling afternoon heat smoke hazes the horizon as newly slashed forest burns Metropóles Elon Musk anunciou, na noite desta quinta-feira (29/8), que a SpaceX fornecerá serviço de internet gratuitamente no Brasil por meio da Starlink até que a disputa judicial sobre o bloqueio de contas da empresa seja resolvida “Muitas escolas e hospitais remotos dependem da Starlink A SpaceX fornecerá serviço de Internet aos usuários no Brasil gratuitamente até que essa questão seja resolvida mas não queremos cortar o acesso de ninguém” A decisão do ministro Alexandre de Moraes, do Supremo Tribunal Federal (STF) que bloqueou as contas da Starlink Holding no Brasil devido à ausência de representantes legais Musk usou suas redes sociais para expressar descontentamento com a medida, afirmando que a ação judicial que também afeta as finanças da Starlink Holding prejudica outros acionistas e os usuários brasileiros “SpaceX e X são duas empresas completamente diferentes com acionistas diferentes então essa ação absolutamente ilegal do ditador @alexandre pune indevidamente outros acionistas e o povo do Brasil,” escreveu Musk Na semana passada, o STF decidiu bloquear todos os valores financeiros da Starlink no Brasil para garantir o pagamento de multas relacionadas à rede social X A medida visa assegurar que a empresa responda pelos valores devidos à Justiça brasileira em relação às penalidades impostas à rede social A disputa judicial entre Musk e Moraes teve um impacto significativo na operação da Starlink no Brasil, especialmente em áreas remotas e dependentes do serviço de comunicação. com 50.537 contratos de serviço firmados com a empresa representando 23,45% da operação da Starlink no país a empresa tem 215.320 contratos em todo o Brasil com destaque para a região Norte e o Sudeste O escritório da rede social X no Brasil foi fechado por Elon Musk após conflitos com o ministro Alexandre de Moraes O bilionário alegou não concordar com as multas impostas pelo Supremo Tribunal Federal e com a ordem para a remoção de conteúdos publicados por usuários que violam o Estado Democrático de Direito e a legislação brasileira Moraes passou a exigir que Musk nomeasse um representante legal para responder oficialmente pelos atos da plataforma Receba notícias do Metrópoles no seu Telegram e fique por dentro de tudo! 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