First, a link: http://intentious.com/2012/02/17/kayapo-damned-brazil-government-oks-hydro-plant-condemns-40000-lives/
The date the article was written: February 17, 2012.
The first license to start the construction of the dam: February 2010.
The first report filed by staff members of FUNAI, Fundação Nacional do Índio, (National Indian Foundation): January 14, 2011.
Today's date and the day part of this article made its way to me on Facebook : January 29, 2013.
Years later and people are finally hearing about this.
In case you don't actually want to read the entire article, I'll summarize it for you. The world's third largest hydroelectric dam is being built in the Amazon. The lives of 40,000 humans in the Kayapo community will be destroyed. That's not including the other plants and animals in this region. The dam will flood 400,000 hectares of forest. (One hectare is 10,000 square meters, 2.471 acres). Naturally, the government and government-funded environmental agencies (just wrong. the government and the environment are not compatible) are claiming that this will not displace the people, and actually, they will benefit from the building of the dam! Tell me how the following quote from Roberto Messias, head of Ibama, the government-funded environmental agency, makes any sense at all:
“Many of them currently live in wooden riverside shacks. They are likely to benefit from the dam’s constructions.”
It doesn't. How are those sentences related?
And what about this:
"Minister Of Environment Carlos Minc told Brazilian TV stations, “There is not going to be an environmental disaster. Not a single Indian will be displaced. They will be indirectly affected, but they will not have to leave indigenous lands.”
That's what they always say. I've seen this happen. TI'm sure I mentioned the dam in the Nile. Same reason--hydroelectric power. They said it wouldn't effect anything. I was there and I have pictures. And no, I have no idea how to use photoshop. It was flooding. Rapids were turned into lakes. Little shacks by the banks, gone. Little islands in the middle of the river, also gone.
Everything we do has an environmental impact. Maybe we should stop thinking about power and energy and go back to how we started. We're not living sustainably or constructively. We, my friends, are killing ourselves. And maybe that's the only way to do it. Maybe we have to destroy the majority of the world we know in order for us to begin again. I'd like to think there's more to us than that, though.
Update: After reading comments from others on Facebook and doing some of my own research, the cause of the chief's tears is debatable, which brings up other interesting points. We are such visual creatures. We need pictures to help motivate us to do things, whether it's working out more, or donating to a "feed the hungry" organization, or trying to protect the environment. And then, we are so easily manipulated into believing incorrect information.
Why are the facts not enough? Why are people no longer inspired by words alone?
Update: After reading comments from others on Facebook and doing some of my own research, the cause of the chief's tears is debatable, which brings up other interesting points. We are such visual creatures. We need pictures to help motivate us to do things, whether it's working out more, or donating to a "feed the hungry" organization, or trying to protect the environment. And then, we are so easily manipulated into believing incorrect information.
Why are the facts not enough? Why are people no longer inspired by words alone?
