Choose a recent civic, national, or world event and briefly describe your thoughts about it.
Recently in Brazil, the oil company Petrobras has claimed that they will be drilling within the Amazonian basin. This advancement was met with distaste from a host of Brazilian governmental officials and, most importantly, from the country’s indigenous population.
These deeply-rooted and historical tribes claim that Petrobras is violating their rights by assuming the right to drill close to their homes. I completely agree. How can a company see this act as just?
Within society, many have leaned towards putting money before respect. Money before humanity. Sure, Brazil would make bucket loads of money for contributing their land to the oil harvest, but who would be at stake? The lives of these rainforest-nourished individuals would be completely altered if the drilling were to go through.
The government denied Petrobras the rights. Petrobras appealed. The already-wealthy company will not take no for an answer, and they are far from stopping. The CEO of the company stated publicly that he expects them to be within the Amazon and moving forward with their plan by either the end of 2024 or by early next year.
My blood boils and tears rise to my eyes when I think of the families and the ecosystem that will be destroyed, displaced, disheartened, and disgusted by this territorial breach of their ancestral land. The verbiage I could employ pertaining to the horror I find in the reality of this behavior is unceasing. This destruction of native land and lack of respect for indigenous culture has gone way too far. It went too far centuries ago and it still spirals today.
On a similar note, in my AP Literature & Composition class, we just concluded the novel Potiki by Patricia Grace. I adored this book and I hated it. It brought me so much frustration and it made me feel so much. The premise follows a Maori tribe in New Zealand attempting to regain their homeland after it was stolen from them by the government and put into use for the military’s operations. The cultural sentiment and the saddening burden that populate the fictional tribe’s structures parallel exploitation in real life. The expansion of industrial production into native land does not look like it will stop.
The global movement to combat climate change needs to include supporting those communities that were silently devastated by the impacts of industrialization. Global warming has been going on for the entirety of my lifetime and it is still a recent event. It comes up everyday in the news. I follow both stories that incite fear and hope within me.
I love our planet and its diverse set of people. I strive for this uniqueness to outlast the anthropocene’s days of pollution-catalyzed illness and stress. In order to move forward to a cleaner and greener Earth together, we need to guarantee that everyone’s voices are being authentically heard. This includes the indigenous tribes in Brazil and it includes you.