World Watch Institute: Satellite imagery released earlier this week provided further evidence that deforestation in Brazil’s Amazon region accelerated dramatically this year. Between August 2007 and July 2008, 8,147 square kilometers of the Brazilian Amazon were cleared, according to the country’s National Institute for Space Research (INPE). This is an area more than twice the size of the U.S. state of Rhode Island. The expanse of deforested land is about 69 percent greater than last year, when …