Author of WHEN WE SOLD GOD’S EYE, which is coming out soon. My first book was BRAZILLIONAIRES and I've also written for
@NYTmag
,
@newyorker
,
@BW
,
@Harpers
, etc.
According to lore, Brazilians are obsessed with bathing (multiple times a day is not uncommon) because once-fetid Portuguese colonists learned the habit from Indigenous people
I remember thinking it was pretty extreme that Brazilians all keep a toothbrush at the office to refresh their teeth after lunch. They, of course, are always appalled to realize that foreigners don’t
@demori
Acabei de imaginar essas 92 pessoas todas juntas na mesma sala — o camarote VIP simultaneamente mais caro e mais cafona que já existiu no Itaim Bibi. Redbull, silicone, creatinina, meritocracia
I just woke up in East Africa to learn that Lula has won, that Bolsonaro has literally gone to bed rather than concede, and I am feeling a mixture of intense relief, cautious hope, and admittedly some apprehension — don’t think I can relax till Bolsonaro is definitively gone…
My latest piece is a long one about Bernardo Paz, a Brazilian mining tycoon who created one of the world's largest open-air art museums, Inhotim—with a fortune built on financial crimes, environmental destruction, and, I discovered, even child labor
For the
@NYTmag
, I followed two Brazilian scientists on the front lines of Amazon deforestation to understand what is happening to the world’s largest rainforest. Even after many years reporting there, I was surprised and disturbed by what I saw:
Wow, this tweet is doing numbers. Since you’re here, why not preorder my new book, which follows an Amazonian tribe reckoning with the temptations of the diamond trade
One reason to read reporting on the US from outside the US is for the clarity that comes in describing our politics in the sweeping terms usually reserved for foreign countries
I wrote about the strange resonance of Sebastião Salgado's 1986 photos of Serra Pelada with Brazil's recent mining disasters. A generation later, workers' lives are still cheap, and a contaminated environment is still an acceptable cost of doing business
Descending on Rondônia, enveloped in haze from the Amazon fires. I've been spending a lot of time here—off Twitter, working on my next book—and a month ago I saw the sky darken with smoke, and wisps of ash floated down into my hair, but I didn't imagine then what it would become.
Erika knows the Amazon like few others. We should listen when she says it's not enough for Lula to halt deforestation. Even where the forest remains standing, it's so hot, dry and degraded that it's becoming a kind of tinderbox — and the next big drought is already on its way
Milhões de hectares da
#Amaz
ônia queimando não é a imagem que nem o Brasil e nem o mundo esperam vir do Lula, mas isso talvez seja o caso no 2o semestre, com a chegada do El Niño. Mas nem tudo está perdido - há soluções. Nossa coluna no Valor 👇
In just a week’s time, The Posthumous Memoirs of Brás Cubas will be landing in bookstores and on doorsteps! (Though probably a bit longer before it gets to mine – the international mails aren’t what they used to be.)
It was a rancher in Rondônia who showed me the video, calling Dom an "ecologista de bosta." I don't know if the criminals in Javari saw it too, but there's no question Bolsonaro has stoked a paranoid hatred of foreign journalists and activists for Indigenous people in the Amazon.
Figured this was coming. He was always going to find a way to make this about himself and his own putrid bullshit. Bolsonaro says Bruno Pereira and Dom Phillips were on an "adventure" that is "not recommended."
As far as dirty money goes, this is about as dirty as it gets. Look forward to reading this book by my fellow Bloomberg billionaires team alum
@davidthejong
Whatever Lula’s ambitions for the Amazon, the sad reality is that there are just *a few hundred* agents to police a rainforest larger than most countries. Even doubling the budget for environmental protection is nowhere near enough.
I love that Brazil is a country where coup plotters draw up a “minuta do golpe” (uhh, coup rough-draft?). And that Bolsonaro was kind of like the editor
If deforestation reaches 20 to 25 percent of the original area, the flying rivers will weaken enough that the Amazon will collapse into scrubby savanna, possibly in a matter of decades.
By
@pulitzercenter
#RainforestReporter
@alexcuadros
for
@nytimes
⬇️
Ok, today is the day 🚨 After four years of work, my second book is finally out. If We Burn - now available in hardcover, e-book, and audio editions. For now, I just want to thank the hundreds of people who helped to make this book possible
I wrote about "The Gringa," a fictionalized take on Lori Berenson (the American who famously joined a Peruvian guerrilla group in the '90s) that is either a brilliant or quite possibly accidental critique of US solipsism:
For those who prefer their apocalyptic climate news to be whispered into their ear, the good people at The Daily did a podcast version of my recent longread on the Amazon:
@Vinncent
I’m deeply upset that you have both started and completed your second book in the time that I’ve been working on mine, but begrudgingly: congrats. I’ll definitely read it
Crazy when history rhymes like this. Young Zionists learned almost the exact same phrase deployed by Brazil’s military regime to justify settling the Amazon:
Having read
@jorie_graham
’s work back when I was a Sarah Lawrence College student taking poetry workshops, I am especially chuffed about these kind words
Thank u
@alexcuadros
&
@nytimes
—brilliant writing & essential journalism. This is when NYTimes is the gold standard. Please read this even though, yes, it’s hard. We need to know. The fight is not over. Not by a long shot.
I'm late to her article, but Erika calls for emergency measures including urgently training local firefighters. Bolsonaro gutted the environmental agencies, leaving them without the necessary staff to react to major forest fires. The next big El Niño is forming — a dangerous sign
My friend and colleague
@domphillips
has disappeared while reporting in the Brazilian Amazon with a leading indigenous expert Bruno Pereira, just days after receiving threats. Extraordinarily worrying. Please share as widely as possible.
What's the gist of why traders sold Mexico after Sheinbaum's big win?
Just generic "sell the news" (everybody knew she would win) or something specific concerns about policy choices on account of the size of the victory?
For the
@NYTmag
, I followed two Brazilian scientists on the front lines of Amazon deforestation to understand what is happening to the world’s largest rainforest. Even after many years reporting there, I was surprised and disturbed by what I saw:
@MattZeitlin
In Brazil voting machines are all electronic, so you get *official* results within minutes of the last polls (in western Acre state) closing.
The end of
@longformpodcast
is truly the end of an era. It has literally spanned the entirety of my career doing longform myself, and probably shaped it, since I've been able to listen to the best discuss their craft along the way. I'll miss it!
The modern history of the Amazon is a history of outsiders pillaging its natural resources, no matter the cost to Indigenous people. Now they dress up as environmentalists to sell fictitious "carbon credits" to global investors
To be clear, halting deforestation would still be a major improvement! No question Lula is a million times better than Bolsonaro on the Amazon (among many other things)
@dnepstad1
Good point, and there is also ICMBio and the Federal Police. Anecdotally though, having spent a lot of time among madeireiros and garimpeiros in Rondônia, I never heard about crackdowns by state agents, only federal. Perhaps it’s different in other states.
@triofrancos
Apart from the somewhat alarmist headline, the piece is clearly overwhelmingly positive (and rightly so, I should add). Unless you read it with the lens of prior conviction that the NYT could not possibly treat a radical left-wing movement favorably
@barbara_paz
Hi Barbara, I'm afraid your memory is mistaken. (You were around 12 at the time, yes?) Here are Sardenberg's direct quotes to me about the trip. And here is a paragraph from a Valor story that also mentions it: