IN OLYMPICS OPENING CEREMONY, BRAZIL GOES BIG ON CLIMATE CHANGE

The Opening Ceremony at the Rio Olympics Friday evening was filled with fireworks and celebration. But for a few brief moments, the message was polarizing and crystal clear: The world must do whatever it can to stop climate change.

Brady Dennis of The Washington Post reported that the Opening Ceremony at the Rio 2016 Olympic Games may have opened up with a dance party, but it was a video on climate change watched by roughly 3.3 billion that made people stop what they were doing and focus on human-made pollution.

The video, narrated by Academy Award-winning actress Judi Dench, delivered a stark message about the challenges facing the planet and an unsubtle reminder that the countries of the world are inexorably linked in their fates.

Perhaps it was fitting that Brazil chose to raise awareness about climate change. The country is home to about one-third of the world’s rainforests, and more than half the Amazon rainforest lies within its borders. Significant chunks of that land has been lost to deforestation, and drier, hotter weather is expected to stress the rainforests only more in coming years.