Boris Johnson and Angela Merkel put the squelch on Macron's attempt to preen at the expense of free trade

One of the more amusing developments at this year's G-7 was seeing the UK prime minister and the German president get their hackles up over French president Emmanuel Macron (also the host of this year's pow-wow) trying to block a trade agreement between the EU and the Mercosur-agreement (Latin American) countries as a grandstanding gesture because of the Amazon-region fires in Brazil.

A few things to note:

• Merkel goes in for the climate-crisis hooey, but she still has the sense to know you don't walk away from an economic opportunity that took 20 years to craft
• Brazil is not a G-7 member, so Jair Bolsonaro wasn't on hand to rebut Macron's stance
• Most of the fires that have the climatistas' panties in a knot have been set by farmers in Amazon-adjacent areas. They are clearing them for next year's crops.

At the above link, there's a very noteworthy graphic that originally appeared in the New York Times showing that Amazon-region deforestation rates since 2008 have been nowhere near their 1985 - 2007 levels.

Let people engage in economic activity. The climate is not in any kind of crisis.