With the new year ushering in a new Brazilian president – albeit a recycled one in Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva – much optimism is felt by the 215 million citizens languishing in hunger, and suffering from inflation, homelessness, economic decline and diminishing funding for health, education and science. (Third time lucky as Lula starts rebuild, 3/1). Launching his presidency by sweeping to power at the Planalto Presidential Palace in a black convertible Rolls Royce, the visual images of grandiose wealth and privilege contrasted starkly with Lula’s leftist ideology. Promising to abandon all further clearing of Brazilian rain forests indefinitely is surely going to make the greatest contribution to carbon dioxide containment, as this massive entanglement of tropical rain forests has long been dubbed the “lungs of the Earth”. Australian economic involvement in supporting such ventures is surely a more immediate and sustainable measure against climate change rather than the China-managed, mass production of millions of solar panels and wind turbines, which aggressively elevates the carbon dioxide levels everyone is so concerned about. Alan Sexton, North Parramatta 4Jan2023.