Ahmed Helal's Blog

Now Everything is Clear

It was not a surprise at all, remember in my previous post I told you that I had some suspicions that the Amazonian rainforest’s fire did not start by natural causes and it might be intentionally set on fire.
Surprisingly, this might be actually true. If you follow the news regarding our “Planet’s Lungs” as we called it, you may noticed that  Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro refused the world wide aid presented to help in the situation through the G7 members. And if you decided to dig more into the news you would find this story everywhere. In addition, the Brazilian media started a huge attack on the western nations claiming that they are only interested in taking the Amazon forest from Brazil claiming a colonialist mindset.
Have a look and see yourself: BBC   Amazon fires: Brazil to reject G7 offer of $22m aid 
Politico Brazil rejects G7 Amazon money
MSNBC  Why Brazil's President is refusing millions of dollars in aid to fight Amazon firesCNN Brazil rejected millions in Amazon aid. Hours later, Bolsonaro hinted at a reversalNewYork Times The amazon fireCNBC    Brazil leader wants an apology before accepting $22 million fund to fight Amazon fires

According to the Washington Post, Bolsonaro shared a meme mocking Macron's wife, to which Macron replied, "I have a lot of friendship and respect for the Brazilian people, I hope they will very soon have a president that acts like one." Bolsonaro told reporters that he would accept the G-7's money only if Macron apologized. Then things got personal.

Now, I am asking is this kind of joke, he is willing to destroy the most important rain forest in the world for some kid jokes that he started.   

Reading all of that makes me wonder why?!

So, I decided to read more about the Brazilian president Bolsonaro, and what I discovered was shocking. I found that during his presidential campaign, he promised many things regarding the Amazonian forest. For example, he promised to exploit the Amazon and build a road through it, also he claimed that he will start building a power plant inside the forest and support the transformation of the forest into modern industrial era. 
Scott Wallace on National Geographic (October 2018) asked an interesting question Brazil's new leader promised to exploit the Amazon—but can he? 
I think he started and he is doing it, according to Business Insider  “the Amazon rainforest has suffered from more than 10,000 new forest fires since August 15, a record pace that has sparked international concern and a state of emergency in Amazonas, Brazil's largest state. Experts fear that rapid destruction of the world's largest rainforest could bring consequences for the rest of the globe if left unchecked.”
A map showing every fire that started across Brazil since August 13, 2019. (Credit: Global Forest watch fires) 

Also  Kara Fox and Marina Lang on CNN said “ Brazil's Bolsonaro says he 'loves' the Amazon. But his policies are designed to wreak havoc on it.” 

I think his refusal of the G7 aid is not only personal, despite him trying to make it look like one, but it is mainly business. He actually wants to destroy the forest to use the land; the planet does not matter, the whole ecosystem does not matter.      
We need to do something to stop him and other idiots from destroying our planet, we cannot think of tomorrow if we are destroying our today.

Let us think and try to help the Amazonian rainforest our Planet’s Lungs.


Go read the previous post Amazon is burning

The Amazon is Burning

      I regularly do not like to write about news, however, this time is related to our main goal, saving the planet and changing our lives.
If you have not heard, the Amazon is currently burning, not that Amazon, but I am talking about the Amazonian forest. You might ask why this is so important; this happens every year, in the Amazon and California even in Russia.

     The fires every year in California or Russia may be due to environmental reasons. However, I believe that some of these fires are not induced by environmental causes but by humans who have business interests in these areas. This could be true or false but still lies under the conspiracy theory category.

   What is really important about the Amazonian Rainforest is that this forest is called “the planet’s Lungs”. This is because the forest alone produces almost 20% of the oxygen in the whole world. According to the Brazilian Research Center (INPE), the number of fires in Brazil is 80% higher than last year. 99% of these fires result from human actions, either on purpose or by accident as stated by Alberto Caesars, a senior scientist at INPE, according to CNN.

    In my opinion, people are causing deforestation because of new industrial and business projects that benefit from the land the Amazon provides. This is not only for agriculture practice; it is mainly used to transport lumber and oil. The land was also used to build the transoceanic highway connecting Brazil with surrounding countries to reap the benefits of trade with China.
Unfortunately, according to the World Wildlife Fund, this fire could generate a lot of carbon dioxide, one of the major drivers of climate change.



Still not convinced? Look at this,

CNN meteorologist Haley Brink said the fires are "definitely human-induced," and can't be attributed to natural causes like lightning strikes.
The worst thing always comes from people who are responsible for the decision making. Activists say the anti-environment rhetoric of Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro has encouraged such tree-clearing activities according to BBC.
In response, Mr. Bolsonaro, a long-time climate change skeptic exactly like our Donald Trump, accused non-governmental organizations of starting the fires themselves to damage his government's image.  He later said the government lacked the resources to fight the flames.

So what is this? Is it a political war? This is like two people living in the same house, and each one starts a small fire in one of the rooms, just to say the other one is not a good leader. This is one reason why I hate politics, when they enter anything they damage it directly.
How Bad is it?     I am telling you it is very bad, a huge area in Brazil is burning right now and for almost three weeks (at the time of this post) you only need to look at some of the images to know how bad it is. NASA said that you can see the smoke from space, and according to the BBC it has even caused skies to darken in São Paulo. See the tweet down  - more than 2,000 miles (3,200km) away.

*World Weather* Day turns to night in Sao Paulo, Brazil due to thick smoke coming from fires in the Amazon region, hundreds of kilometers away. Report: @GlobalNews77 pic.twitter.com/2kYGHknEeU— severe-weather.EU (@severeweatherEU) August 21, 2019

Moreover, according to the Copernicus Atmosphere Monitoring Service (Cams), a part of the European Union's Earth observation program, the smoke has reached the Atlantic coast. The fires have been releasing a huge amount of carbon dioxide a bout 228 megatons so far this year.





  We need to move things around, take action to push the politicians to declare this forest an emergency or crisis area. Twitter users criticized the media for giving more attention to the fire at Notre Dame and other news than to the rain-forest fires. 

Social media users also called out billionaires for lack of donations. Everyone on the planet should be worried, this is our life. This is our planet’s lungs and we need to save it, otherwise, our planet dies. A lot of celebrities stumbled upon this situation and started to talk about it including C. Ronaldo who also tweeted about it because he is concerned.

You should also be concerned about it, especially here on The Life You Deserve. So, start brainstorming with me. What can we do to help revive our planet?

There was worldwide outcry when the Notre Dame cathedral was on fire. Why is there not the same level of outrage for the fires destroying the #AmazonRainforest? pic.twitter.com/VbSda5PYAK— WWF UK (@wwf_uk) August 21, 2019

The Amazon Rainforest produces more than 20% of the world’s oxygen and its been burning for the past 3 weeks. It’s our responsibility to help to save our planet. #prayforamazonia pic.twitter.com/83bNL5a37Q— Cristiano Ronaldo (@Cristiano) August 22, 2019

I really can not wait for it.

OK, how many of you got your driver license when you were 16? Maybe a lot. I got mine when I was 24 since then I have been driving almost every day, back and forth, from home to work, from work to home, from home to here and there.

However, I am getting tired, tired of everything, driving, traffic, parking and waiting. I am used to driving but it seems like it is getting harder every day. People are getting crazy, parking is becoming impossible, driving day and night are becoming frustrating.

How many of you drive in the morning traffic to work, then by 6 pm drive again back home in the worst traffic;  get home dreaming of resting only to discover that your daughter has a swimming class and your son has a soccer training separated by 15 to 30 min at the two different places. Now you have to drive your daughter to her swimming, drop her off, and continue driving to you son’s soccer training, drop him off too, to drive back instantaneously to pick up your daughter then come back to pick up your son. Finally, when you look at your watch you discovered that you were driving from 5 or 6 pm to 8 pm. Then they ask why you are so tired.  Now imagine that this happened every other day and may include more on the weekend. I am sure this might drive you crazy as it did to me.Taking all of this into your account and look into how many accidents happened here in the USA alone till the year of 2017and this is not only in the US but everywhere around us in the world.https://www.researchgate.net/publication/316256528_Car_Accident_Notification_based_on_Mobile_Cloud_Computing/figures?lo=1Look more at these statistics and you will be terrifiedI can keep going on forever, the internet is full of these data analyses, shows the number of fatalities by car accidents, you can find age, type of vehicle, male or female and so on.So what we can do about that?       What is the life you deserve? Is it a life of slavery inside your car? Is it the life in which you lose a beloved one to an accident by a drunk or even a tired driver? No, the life we deserve is not this.      Imagine with me, a life where there are no road accidents, no waiting in traffic and no stress of going around day and night. This is my dream.I dreamed of the day in which I get out of my house to find a nice self-driving car waiting for me. A car that can control itself, test the surroundings and drive me efficiently and safely to my work. During this fast trip, I can listen to music, relax, read a book or even start my work early. All of this while I am setting relaxing and going to work. I will never be late because everything is calculated, never have an accident because the AI car can see and feel everything around it, and can react in advance toward any danger that might pop up.https://www.aarp.org/auto/trends-lifestyle/info-2018/self-driving-cars.html     Imagine that you get home relaxed, your kids got their cars ready to drop them at their practices and bring them back when they are done. Your wife can go shopping without the hazard of diving at night and more.This is not all, I am imagining a world where no one owns a car, I do not want owning a car. All the cars will belong to the government or a huge company (Uber already on the way now) and controlled by a smart AI system that knows your schedule, your kids and wife schedules. An AI that will prepare the car for you, that will take you to work then park in a central automatic underground garage, not waiting for you, but for anyone else who might need it. When you are done with your work; a car is waiting for you to pick you up for your enjoyable relaxing home journey.In this view, we do not need a huge number of cars; the AI will be able to fulfill all our needs with a couple of millions of cars.  Since no one will own a car, you do not need a dead car under your house.  In case of emergency, a car from the closest parking and automatic maintenance garage will be under your house in less than 5 minutes (maybe less); and you can pay a monthly rent that is all. These cars will come in different sizes, personal, couples and family sizes, you do not need a huge car if you are going to work by yourself.The top leaders of this progress right now as of 2018 are (according to Navigant):GM, Its Level 4 self-driving Cruise AV,  does not include a steering wheel.Waymo,Daimler-BoschFordVolkswagen GroupBMW-Intel-FCAAptivRenault-Nissan-Mitsubishi AllianceVolvo-Autoliv-Ericsson-ZenuityPSAMoreover, these cars will be electric cars, so we will take care of our environment to save our beloved planet and clean our life to the one we deserve.

Extra readings https://www.aarp.org/auto/trends-lifestyle/info-2018/self-driving-cars.htmlhttps://www.dezeen.com/2018/01/10/self-driving-cars-exacerbate-congestion-says-paul-priestman/https://investorplace.com/2018/12/4-self-driving-car-stocks-paving-the-way-for-profits/https://www.zdnet.com/article/dossier-the-leaders-in-self-driving-cars/https://www.wired.com/story/guide-self-driving-cars/

The Vision

What will life will look like after 30-40 years from now? Can we actually do something to make it better? Do we have the power to do the required changes?



The goal of this blog is to address all these questions. I will try to introduce my ideas, my vision and my thoughts of how I believe we should be living after 30-40 years from now, we may call this “World 2050 vision”.

I believe that we as humans have the power to do that, to shape our life. Yes we can do it. We can make our life miserable or we can make it a happy and an amazing life. The road might be hard, long or even challenging but if we want we can do it. What is my manifesto? I do not know yet, but I can promise all of you who can actually join me in this vision that I will do my best to come up with something that we all agree on.

Feel free to share your view and vision with all of us.