‘If the Amazon is
destroyed, it will be
impossible to control
global warming.’
—Ricardo Galvão,
official fired by Brazilian President Bolsonaro
from the agency that monitors deforestation
The Peruvian Andes have lost nearly
half their glacier-ice surface area
since the 1970s, impacting hundreds
of thousands who rely on glacier water
for agriculture and hydropower
1
Longer and more frequent droughts
in Honduras, El Salvador, Guatemala
and Nicaragua are among the factors
driving people from their homes,
northward to Mexico and the U.S.
2
In recent years, flooding exacerbated
by sea-level rises caused damage
of about 60% of the GDP of Guyana,
where people live mostly on the coast
3
Deforested tropical lands (mostly in
the Brazilian Amazon) account for
more carbon emissions than any
country except China and the U.S.
4
Flash flooding and landslides, like
the 2017 Mocoa disaster that killed
over 300 people, are now common on
South America’s northwestern coast
5
The Patagonian ice fields that
straddle the border between Chile and
Argentina are melting at some of the
highest rates on the planet