"I like it when people on the right are forthright about the implications of their beliefs, because it helps reassure me that I’m not crazy. So in a way, I’m grateful that Brendan O’Neill has published “Why shouldn’t Brazilians burn down trees?” in Spiked, because it is a good way to show how the logic of libertarianism works and why it’s so deadly.
O’Neill first argues that the forest fires currently burning in the Amazon don’t matter. He supports this arguments with two points: (1) While the number of fires is indeed the highest on record, records have only been kept for six years and (2) while NASA has confirmed that the number of fires is indeed unusually high, the overall amount of fire is “slightly below average.” But of course, neither of those address the critical question of whether deforestation in the Amazon does, in fact, pose dangerous consequences for the planet. O’Neill does not quote or deal with the recent Intercept report on Amazon’s fires and deforestation, which lays out the stakes: "