Brazil’s Lula to talk climate at U.N., but Amazon fires back home undermine his message

Associated Press

RIO DE JANEIRO (AP) — When Brazil’s President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva opens the United Nations’ General Assembly on Tuesday, he is expected to call on the world to do more to combat climate change. It remains to be seen whether he will address fires ravaging the rainforest back home and stirring criticism of his administration’s own environmental stewardship.  Brazil’s Amazon saw 38,000 blazes last month — the most for any August since 2010, according to data from the country’s space institute. September is on track to repeat that ignoble feat. Smoke has been choking residents of many cities, including metropolis Sao Paulo that’s thousands of miles away.