Netflix Spent More On Friends Than G7 Has Pledged To Put Out Amazon Fires

World leaders have offered to pledge $20 million (£16.3 million) to help tackle the raging fires which are sweeping across the Amazon.

Now, you might think that sounds like a lot of money, however, it's not gone down too well with people online who have pointed out that Netflix forked out $100m (£81.7 million) just to buy Friends.

And there were plenty of people who quickly shared this shocking fact.

Responding to the news, Twitter user Pablo Hidalgo said: "Netflix paid $100 million to stream Friends."

A second critic added: "We live in a world where Netflix will pay $100 million to keep Friends for another year but the top governments of the world will only pay $22 million to protect the Amazon rainforest."

PA

While another wrote: "Y'all made Netflix pay 100 million dollars to keep Friends on there meanwhile the 7 most POWERFUL COUNTRIES IN THE WORLD only paid 20 million to help the f***ing Amazon from burning down."

At the G7 summit in France, President Emmanuel Macron announced the group of nations - made up of the US, UK, Germany, Italy, Japan and Canada - had agreed to donate money to help get the blaze under control.

Speaking at the summit, President Macron said: "We must respond to the call of the forest which is burning today in the Amazon."

But according to many, it's just not enough. And, as it turns out, it's not just the 90s sitcom that cost more than the future of the 'Earth's lungs'.

Once people started digging - and not that deep - they found plenty of other examples of silly money being spent on other - arguably less important - things.

One Twitter user wrote: "Let me get this straight: $1 billion is immediately pledged when an old church burns down in Paris. A global catastrophe, on the other hand, one that poses a threat to every living being on this planet, is met with $20 million from nations with a combined GDP of $40 trillion?"

A second perplexed user said: "And Disney bought Lucasfilm for 3 billion..." Correcting them, another added: "Four billion but what's an extra billion between entertainment and the death of an entire ecosystem."

According to leading authorities, the Amazon was hit by more than 72,000 fires between January and August, the most since records began in 2013.

In fact, they've seen more than 9,500 forest fires since last Thursday, most of which were in the Amazon region.

To put that in context, they said that they only saw 40,000 throughout the entirety of 2018.

The large plums of smoke from the raging fires blocked out the sun in São Paolo, leaving the city in total darkness at 3pm.

Topics: World News, Amazon

Dominic Smithers

Dominic graduated from the University of Leeds with a degree in French and History. Like you, Dom has often questioned how much use a second language has been. Well, after stints working at the Manchester Evening News, the Accrington Observer and the Macclesfield Express, along with never setting foot in France, he realised the answer is surprisingly little. But I guess, c'est la vie. Contact us at [email protected]

@SmithersDom