READING TA

Apuntes

READING TAKING TWO STEPS BACK 1 Imagine a great plume of smoke, big enough to stretch from the Rockies to Rhode Island, blotting out the sun and the moon. The Amazon, crown jewel of the world's rain forests, is burning - again. From June to November last year, tens of thousands of fires blazed over the two million square miles of the 5 Brazilian Amazon. Winds swept the pall of smoke across distant borders, shrouding the land and choking cities for hundreds of miles. Hospitals reported a surge in patients with bronchial problems. Smoke-blinded motorists smashed into each other on the highways. "It was like Los Angeles come to the Amazon," said Elaine Prins, a University of Wisconsin scientist studying the effect of the 10 burning on the world's climate. This was not the worst season of queimadas (burnings) ever. But the renewed binge was a cruel reminder to defenders of the Amazon that their battle was not yet won. The fires soured a recent memorial service for Francisco (Chico) Alves Mendes, the union leader and environmentalist whose protests 15 against land-clearing ranchers -and 1988 murder- turned the rape of rain forest into a worldwide scandal. And the burning mocked the mess...