Tonight,
I want to talk about the Amazon. The one that's losing half its assets,
but not to divorce. When I was growing up, I heard a lot about
how the Amazon rainforest needed saving. This is the rainforest in 1900, and this is the rainforest today. Who caused
all this damage to the rainforest? Unfortunately, people did. ♪ The rain forest.
The tropical rainforest. ♪ ♪ Unfortunately, some don't understand ♪ ♪ Like people coming in
And clearing the land ♪ ♪ Tragically this devastation
Doesn't have to happen ♪ ♪ That's why I'm on the mic here rappin' ♪ For the record, I am absolutely fine
destroying the rainforest as long as that guy lives there. Look, I always thought that was
the weirdest PSA I had ever seen, until I saw the one with Kevin Spacey. I am the rainforest. I watched them grow up here. They've left, but they always come back. Yes, they always come back. That PSA aged so poorly, Kevin Spacey doesn't even think
it's hot anymore. I know. Hey, you didn't think you'd see him
on Netflix again, did you? They didn't even reshoot
with Christopher Plummer. You had no idea. Now, the reason
you probably stopped seeing PSAs about the Amazon
and saving the rainforest is because we actually started saving
the rainforest. Between 2004 and 2012,
deforestation plunged 84%. Yes. It's shocking. Humans actually
stepped up and did the right thing. But let's not give ourselves
too much credit. We didn't save the rainforest
as much as we didn't fully kill it, but just like Nazis
and high-waisted jeans, deforestation is making a comeback. In the last year alone,
Amazon deforestation has jumped 13.7%, a loss of nearly 1.2 billion trees. Now, deforestation rates are on the rise, and this couldn't be happening
at a worse time for the planet because when it comes to climate change,
we are, and I cannot stress this enough... fucked. Dire new warnings
about the effects of climate change. Intense heat, waves, storms. Deadly wildfires, droughts. Ocean dead zones. People are dying. They are dying. You know Fox
is gonna use that against her. They'll be like, "Oh, really?
You're talking about death, even though you're still alive.
Such a hypocrite. Really, AOC?" Now, look, we have to stop messing
with the rainforest. The Amazon is home to 10%
of all species on Earth. It absorbs 25% of the carbon emissions
captured by the world's forests. The Amazon also produces massive amounts
of oxygen and water vapor, which serves as the Earth's cooling system, which is why the Amazon is often called... The lungs of the Earth. The lungs of the Earth. The lungs of the Earth. I don't know if you know this,
but every part of Earth is actually a body part. The Amazon is the lungs.
Canada is the forehead. Iceland is the third nipple.
Malta's the skin tag. England is the birthmark.
Italy is not the foot. Australia is the foot. Italy's the bladder.
Germany's the benign tumor. North Korea's the malignant tumor. Argentina is the sinus,
and Fiji is the prostate. Going there is simply
the greatest pleasure you will ever experience. The Amazon
touches nine different countries, but to really understand why
deforestation is on the rise, we have to look at the country responsible
for most of it. Brazil. Now, there are a lot of great things
about Brazil. Carnival, Neymar,
some percentage of Hailey Baldwin and the Brazilian wax,
which is another kind of deforestation. But it's also very painful.
Over the last five decades, almost 20% of the Amazon
has been destroyed. Even though Brazil has laws
to protect the environment, those laws aren't always enforced because
of insane amounts of political and corporate greed,
and I know as an American, we should probably shut the fuck up
when it comes to the moral high ground. Americans lecturing Brazil
about corruption is like Steve Bannon
launching a skin care line. It's just like take care of... your own shit before you... dive into the whole face... thing. But corruption in Brazil is truly
on a whole 'nother level. Brazil's last three presidents
were steeped in scandals. Dilma Rousseff, impeached
for financial misconduct. Michel Temer, charged with corruption. And Lula da Silva, currently in jail
for stealing DVDs from a Redbox. I'm just kidding, corruption. And we haven't even gotten
to Brazil's massive bribery and money laundering scandal
called Operation Car Wash. Now I'll let Fareed Zakaria, aka
the original brown John Oliver, explain. The biggest corruption scandal ever
anywhere in the world, $788 million in bribes
to various officials, five former Brazilian presidents,
nearly one out of three cabinet ministers and almost one out of three senators
have been indicted or investigated. This is the country the world
is relying on to protect the Amazon. Thank God,
America doesn't have that responsibility. Can you imagine
if we were in charge of the Amazon? We would probably tear it down
and build a headquarters for Amazon. You just see a bunch of howler monkeys driving UPS trucks
with Kindles in their hands. Now, unfortunately,
things are going to get a lot worse because of Brazil's current president,
Jair Bolsonaro. He's a former army captain
who answers the question, "What if Carl Sagan
wasn't properly embalmed?" And he's made it very clear where he stands on the environment. Mr. Bolsonaro campaigned
to make Brazil great again, to kick-start it's struggling economy. And he sees the Amazon
as Brazil's cash cow. He may open up vast sections
of the Amazon rainforest to mining. He said he's gonna pardon people
who have been fined for deforestation. "We don't owe the world anything"
sounds like the chorus to an Eminem song. But Bolsonaro's stance on the environment
doesn't even scratch the surface of his insanity. Jesus. Bolsonaro sounds like every last comment
before someone is blocked on Twitter. This is why he's often referred to
as the "Trump of the Tropics." So think of Trump,
but with even more tiki torches. Bolsonaro also loves Twitter,
and his tweets are insane. The president, who tweeted a video
apparently filmed at a carnival event, showing one man urinating
on another man in a sexual act. On the plus side, at least Brazil's seen
their president's pee tape. Now, eventually, "Golden Shower President"
started trending online. Bolsonaro then tweeted out,
"What is a golden shower?" I love how there isn't a Portuguese word
for "golden shower." Like, you ever been to another country
and then you watch TV and they're like... [speaks gibberish] "Macaulay Culkin." You're like, "Something's happening
with Macaulay Culkin." Now, as dangerous as
Bolsonaro's policies are for the Amazon, that danger is fundamentally being driven
by agribusiness, which is the industry that produces
the food that we eat. Agribusiness accounts for almost a quarter
of Brazil's economy and is one of the biggest drivers
of illegal deforestation. Brazil is the world's largest exporter
of sugar, coffee, soybeans, orange juice and most importantly, beef. The Amazon is home to millions of species, and the biggest threat
to the rainforest itself is this one. Cattle ranching is responsible
for up to 80% of deforestation. And to turn the rainforest into grassland,
they don't just cut it down. They burn it down. It's all about creating new pastures. The Amazon rainforest
is being burned down and destroyed. Elizeu takes pictures of the tragedy in order to tell the authorities
what's going on here. Anything that can still move tries
to escape the inferno. No no no, don't worry. That rat goes on
to become a chef in Paris. It's beautiful. Brazil's beef industry is a huge driver
of Amazon deforestation. And it's dominated by a single company
called JBS. They're the largest
meat processing company in the world. Last year, JBS made $46 billion. That's a double what McDonald's made. Even more surprising, Brazil only accounts
for 24% of their revenue. Their U.S. division generates 76%. That's $35.2 billion. That's right, America.
Once again, we are fucking shit up. Look, if it's terrible,
we're probably in the mix. We're like the raisins
of international relations. Like, the rest of the world is like,
"We fucking hate raisins." And we're like, "Raisins are essential
to democracy. Raisins have to be in everything,
raisins need to be in Afghanistan for three plus decades." JBS also happens to be one of the most
corrupt companies in the world, which isn't shocking because
for a long time, it was run by Joesley and Wesley Batista. The Batista brothers. Now, come on. Their names are Joesley and Wesley. They look like dudes on a yacht
Liam Neeson has to rescue girls from. The Batista brothers are possibly two
of the most corrupt people on Earth, and they have history
with the Bolsonaro administration. Bolsonaro's current chief of staff
has admitted to taking money from JBS, and in the past, the woman who is now
Bolsonaro's Minister of Agriculture gave JBS tax breaks while also doing
personal business with them. The fact that senior members
of the Bolsonaro administration are closely linked to JBS
is a huge liability because the last president that got
entangled with the Batista Brothers was Michel Temer, and it ended horribly. In exchange for no jail time,
Joesley Batista strikes a deal, providing information about bribing
1,829 Brazilian politicians. The Batista brothers admitted
to bribing almost 2,000 politicians, spent roughly $150 million just in bribes and agreed to pay a fine of $3.2 billion, which is almost how much Facebook has
to pay for destroying democracy. Shouldn't it be, like, more? It should definitely be more.
JBS' business practices continue to do environmental damage. They have been accused of buying cattle
from illegally deforested land in the Amazon, even though they deny it
and investigators recently arrested Joesley Batista again for allegedly bribing officials
at Brazil's agriculture Ministry. If that doesn't make you sick,
their beef just might. JBS bribed Brazilian food inspectors
to give passing grades to spoiled meat. And on the U.S. side, their meat isn't any better. A massive ground beef recall
is now expanding. The USDA says the Brazilian company,
JBS is now recalling more than 12 million pounds of ground beef
shipped to stores across the U.S. This past year, JBS beef and chicken from the U.S.
were found to have been contaminated with hard plastic, rubber and e-coli. All of which
generally cost extra at Chipotle. But even before that, the US had banned all Brazilian beef
imports, including JBS, indefinitely. Do you know how bad your meat has to be
for Americans to notice? We thought Super Size Me
was just a normal movie. No lessons. It actually just made us hungrier. The Amazon has never been more vulnerable. Between political corruption,
Bolsonaro's pro-business agenda and the incentives of agribusiness, the Amazon is going to keep burning. But there is some hope.
The strongest blockade against deforestation isn't
more regulation or enforcement or fines, it's people. The Javari Valley Indigenous Reserve... eight million hectares
of Brazilian Amazon, the size of Austria. It's home to the largest number
of non-contacted tribes in the world, photographed only rarely from the air. There are nearly a million
indigenous people in Brazil, and almost half of them live
in the rainforest. Research shows that
when indigenous people have legal and physical protection, so does the rainforest.
Now, I know this looks like a map of the only school of vaccinated kids
in Orange County, but... it's actually a time-lapse
of deforestation. The red is loggers and ranchers,
and that part right there is protected indigenous land,
and the only reason they stop is because these tribes
are not fucking around. The Guajajara Indians armed
and in full camouflage, crouch down for an ambush. These vigilante patrols began
six years ago as a way to battle
the region's powerful logging mafia. They call themselves
"The Guardians of the Forest." The Guajajara are one of 305 tribes
that have official demarcated land that is legally protected
by Brazil's Constitution, but it is still a war for them. And look, I know,
deforestation has been on the rise well before Bolsonaro,
but no modern Brazilian president has ever been this hostile
toward the indigenous. I don't know, racism sounds weird to me
when you use the metric system. I mean, if they're like, "Build the wall, one kilometer at a time." I'd be like, I don't... I don't get it. Bolsonaro is not just dog whistling
to his base. He is barking through a megaphone. On the night of Bolsonaro's election
in October, a hospital and a school
on an indigenous reserve were fire-bombed and land invasion,
when loggers and ranchers take indigenous land,
that has increased 150%. Protected areas borders
are a thorn in the side of many farmers. They want their cattle
to be able to penetrate the reserve. First of all, I believe in God and then in
the words of our President Bolsonaro. He promised we would soon be able
to enter the reserve. The department in charge
of overseeing indigenous lands is an agency called Funai. On Bolsonaro's first day in office,
he took that function away from Funai and gave it
to the Ministry of Agriculture. Remember? The same government agency
that JBS paid off for years. And even now,
Brazil's Agriculture Minister wants to open indigenous land
to commercial farming, but indigenous tribes are fighting back
to defend their land, and no one has brought more attention
to the movement in recent years than Sônia Guajajara.
She's a prominent activist for indigenous rights
and was the first indigenous woman in Brazil's history
to run for vice president. So I sat down with Sônia
and her translator to talk about her fight
to protect the Amazon. Here in America, we've already destroyed
all of our forests, and we raise millions of cows. So do we sound like assholes when we say, "Hey, Brazil. Don't cut down your trees
and don't raise cows"? But you're saying we're assholes? It's true. Look, we're assholes, all right? I admit it. America, we're assholes. We still haven't given
Captain America a promotion. I mean... What does a guy have to do
to become Major America? Now, for Sônia and her tribe, protecting their homeland
gets more urgent every day. Last month, tribes from around Brazil
gathered in the capital for an annual march
to protect indigenous rights and take on Bolsonaro's policies. Bolsonaro has escalated the fight
against the indigenous, but in many ways, he's just adding
to a dark chapter of Brazil's history. 519 years after the Portuguese set foot
in Brazil, it's the same fight. On one side,
are the people who live on the land and want to protect it. And on the other side are the people
who see the Amazon as a resource to exploit. In Sônia's lifetime alone,
over 1,400 people have been murdered in Brazil
because of land disputes, but she isn't backing down. Sônia doesn't just take on Bolsonaro
in real life, she trolls him online, too. How did you get into the meme game? Let me guess, it was your son. I've seen a lot of your memes. You have the classic
Pinocchio Bolsonaro meme, you have the golden showers dog
peeing in Bolsonaro's mouth meme, -Sí.
-and then, of course, you've got this one. I honestly don't know
what's happening here. So I wanted to help you with your memes. Is that okay? Claro. Okay. So, let me know
what you think of these. This says, "When you're Bolsonaro
and you haven't displaced an indigenous person in eight minutes." This is Bolsonaro right here, and he's
getting one of those huge veins in his head. Where he's like... It's like if he doesn't say anything
about indigenous people, he looks constipated. How about this one? "You can't be jailed for corruption if climate change wipes out
all the people." It's all good. This doesn't work.
The meme game is a volume business. Everything's not gonna hit.
You've seen the girlfriend meme, right? This is the Amazon rainforest. This guy over here, that's the agribusiness
lobby being like, "Oh, damn!" Okay? And this is oxygen, and oxygen's like,
"Hello. We're together." What do you think of the meme? All right. How about this? This is Bolsonaro, he's like,
really staring at the Amazon. Super creepy. And the girlfriends like,
"God, you're such a dick." Sônia, you posted a photo
of a dog peeing in Bolsonaro's mouth, Alright, Sônia may not like
my memes but... I don't know. I wanted to take a page out
of her playbook. I wanted to find a way to troll Bolsonaro
and help at the same time. So we thought, "Why not buy a website?" Obviously, goldenshower.com
was long gone. Goldenshowerpresident.com
was also taken, probably by Michael Cohen. But we were able to get... goldenshowerpresidente.com. Like, how did Bolsonaro's digital team
not beat us to this? It's just been there the whole time.
If you go to goldenshowerpresidente.com, you can donate to organizations that
help protect the Amazon and its people. Remember, it's goldenshowerpresidente, The "e" is very important, because we're trying to help
the rainforest, not get you fired.
Hasan breaks down of the growing threats to Brazil's Amazon rainforest. After a long and welcome decline, Brazil's deforestation rates have begun to rise again, just as climate science shows how desperately we need the forest to survive.