Portside

Neanderthals 400,000 years ago were striking flints to make fires, researchers have found.

There are four key ingredients to the disastrous wildfire seasons in the West, and climate change figures prominently.

There are the three great tropical forests. The Amazon, the Congo and Indonesia and Borneo. They’re all massively important, and in all of them over the last 20 years we’re seen really destructive forest fires.

The widespread burning of tropical rainforests and peatlands to develop pulpwood and palm oil plantations is one of the largest sources of carbon pollution occurring in the world today. The fires are due to a broken system of international commodity production that will take all of us at both ends of the supply chain to fix. This will necessitate holding Western companies accountable for the consequences of their global operations.