G07: Globalization Debate: Pro Resources

Fast food is a common meal option, but it’s high in calories and low in nutrients. Eating too much of it could affect nearly all parts of your body.

“McJobs” became a term for low-paying, dead-end positions, “McMansions” for garish, oversize houses.

A handful of the world's largest food companies and commodity traders, including the McDonald's fast-food chain, are driving illegal and rapid destruction of the Amazon rainforest, according to a six-year investigation of the Brazilian soya bean industry.

McDonald’s Corp. has ties to deforestation and labor abuses in Brazil’s Pantanal wetlands and in the Amazon rainforest, which plays a crucial role in regulating the world’s climate, according to a report published Wednesday by Repórter Brasil, an independent research group focused on environmental and labor issues.

The Amazon rainforest is on fire. But what does this have to do with McDonald’s, KFC and Burger King? Here are the top five reasons why these fast food giants must take a stand against Amazon destruction:

In this series, The Washington Post travels to some of the Amazon’s most remote and dangerous regions to reveal how crime, corruption and greed are leading to its systematic dismantling — and how Brazil, and the world, are failing to ensure the integrity of the planet’s largest rainforest.

If the Amazon is to die, it will be beef that kills it.