Bolsonaro's ego gets in the way to save the Amazon

• Click to share on Facebook (Opens in a new window)
• Click to share on Twitter (Opens in a new window)
• Click here to share on LinkedIn (Opens in a new window)
• Click to email a friend (Opens in a new window)

Editor's note: Frida Ghitis, ex-producer and correspondent for CNN, is a columnist on international issues. He collaborates frequently for the CNN opinion section, for The Washington Post and is a columnist for the World Politics Review. You can follow him on Twitter at @fridaghitis. The opinions expressed in this comment are those of the author.

(CNN) - “Did I say that? I said?". That was the president of Brazil Jair Bolsonaro who spoke with reporters on Tuesday morning, apparently denying what his office had told CNN exactly one hour ago, that is, that he would reject a donation commitment of US $ 20 million. G7 countries to help fight the fires that consume the Amazon. It was a touch of psychological abuse in the style of Bolsonaro.

Amazon fires are burning Earth's most vital ecosystem at such a dizzying pace that by the time you read this, a few thousand more trees will have turned to ashes. The Brazilian space research agency estimates that the equivalent of one and a half soccer fields in forest forests is burned every minute. That destruction includes trees and everything that lives in the forests and cannot escape.

• READ: Bolsonaro wonders why the international community "has its eyes on the Amazon"

As the fires spread, the scale of the devastation could reach a point where the damage could become irreversible. Given the growing pressure abroad and within Brazil, Bolsonaro has remained busy with a childish (and sexist) dispute over whether he has a wife more beautiful than that of French President Emmanuel Macron or if international efforts to help amount to attack against Brazilian sovereignty. Meanwhile, more forests burn.

Brazil should receive help not only because what happens in the Amazon will affect the entire planet, but because it should not be the only one to bear the cost of preserving the Amazon. Whether or not Bolsonaro feels he has something to prove, Brazilians have a lot to be proud of. They have a spectacular country, and have shown in the past that they are able to protect it. Do not be ashamed to accept assistance from a world that is willing to help. You have every right to handle the operation. It is your country. But your problem is affecting everyone. If everyone wants to help, why not leave them? The obstacle, as often happens with demagogues, is its president. It is a perfect example - perfectly horrible - of what happens when nationalist demagogues come to power.

It is no surprise that Bolsonaro has been described as the "Trump of the tropics." Much of his political style reminds the American president, including his approach to the environment.

At the request of foreign leaders to fight the fires - which enable more land for Brazilian landowners and miners to graze cattle and extract mineral wealth - Bolsonaro said that "they have to understand that the Amazon is from Brazil, not yours" .

• LEE: Brazil will reject 20 million dollars of aid of the G7 against fires of the Amazon

It was no different when President Donald Trump said in his press conference three days later, when asked if he was still skeptical about climate change. In his scattered response he said he is an "environmentalist," and continued to describe exactly the opposite, this is "USA. It has enormous wealth. Wealth is under your feet, "he added:" I will not lose that wealth; I will not lose it based on dreams. ”

The creed of the nationalists is centered on some version of MAGA, Trump's slogan of "Making America Great Again", which is a call to distrust collaboration with other countries and to reject the possibility of sacrificing for a common good shared with other nations.

The environment, international collaboration? Those are for the weak. Nationalists flaunt their power and tell others to stop meddling in their affairs.

It is no coincidence that Bolsonaro, too, campaigned on the basis of a hypermasculine platform. The omnipresent gesture at their rallies was an extended index finger and thumb, as an imaginary gun, symbolizing their plan to place more weapons in the hands of civilians. He praised Brazil's military dictatorships, attacked the Brazilians of the LGBT community and when he heard that a woman called him a rapist, he said she was not attractive enough for him to rape her.

At the core of the impulse of the nationalist politician is a strident defense of the country against imaginary threats. Without a doubt, Brazil has been a victim of colonialist exploitation during its history and has the right to protect its sovereignty.

• READ: Bolsonaro decrees suspension of burns in Brazil for two months

But Macron, who has led the effort to help Brazil fight fires in the Amazon, "the lungs of the planet," points to a reality that no amount of manly bravado or nationalist demagogy can deny: we all live on the same planet.

Macron's plan, which he presented next to Sebastián Piñera, the president of the neighboring country of Brazil, Chile, would begin with an emergency impulse to put out the fires, followed by a collaborative program between the Amazon countries and the rich nations of the G7 . As Piñera said, it would be done "always respecting his sovereignty."

The fallacy of ultra-nationalism is that we no longer live in a world where countries can wallow and realize that what happens beyond their borders does not affect them. The smoke of Brazilian fires is visible from space; will plan without respecting the borders of man. Not only the smoke from the burning forests crosses the borders. Lethal viruses too, as well as the raw material for the products we use every day. Ideas and facts also cross borders. Although Trump and Bolsonaro and their followers deny climate change, the facts speak for themselves.

Nationalist demogogos may not want to work with other countries, but the longer they refuse to do so, the faster they will be dragged away by angry voters tired of lies, ambiguity and deception, unable to deny the realities they see with their own eyes, and to breathe with their own lungs.

AmazonasFiresFires in the Amazon