Burning Lungs
Image Courtesy: NASA Earth Observatory Fellow Earthians, The tiny orange dots that can be seen are not city lights; they are fires burning their way through the Amazon , world's largest rainforest . Image Courtesy: GETTY This year, the number of fires in Brazil alone has gone up by 85% from last year. So far, more than 80,000 fires have been detected by Brazil's National Institute for Space Research (INPE), the highest on record since 2013. And these are not minor fires; the resultant smoke is visible from space . Brazil's environmental minister, Ricardo Salles, attributed the fires to dry weather, wind, and heat. However, CNN meteorologist, Haley Brink, clarified that the fires were human-induced and could not possibly have been started by natural causes like lightning strikes. In the words of Christian Poirier, program director of non-profit organisation Amazon Watch, "The vast majority of these fires are human-lit ." Image...