On 8/27/2019 at 8:58 PM, Joyrex said:

 (although they're not really trying, despite what they're saying).

that might be because it won't be profitable for them to do so. since china is now getting their soybean imports from brasil since trump so artfully gave them a deal they could refuse- new farmland is required for this new "growing" industry.

  On 8/27/2019 at 11:19 PM, Nebraska said:

that might be because it won't be profitable for them to do so. since china is now getting their soybean imports from brasil since trump so artfully gave them a deal they could refuse- new farmland is required for this new "growing" industry.

Yep - NPR also had an interesting article on how illegal gold prospectors in the Amazon are having an easier time now thanks to the Brazilian President:

https://www.npr.org/2019/08/26/754266197/amazon-rainforest-fires-put-a-spotlight-on-illegal-land-grabbers

I don't think they will ever stop destroying the rainforests, so we should buy the land from them after we (EU) have ruined them economically with sanctions.

Amazon should buy the Amazon and then sell tiny bits of the Amazon on Amazon for really cheap.

  On 8/28/2019 at 3:56 AM, Mesh Gear Fox said:

it does seem as though there is more money to be made in letting it burn than saving it. especially considering the rhetoric of bolsonaro thus far. you'd have to be pretty naive to think this was an accident tbh. maybe it started as an accident but you can't tell me there aren't some greedy opportunistic fuckers taking advantage of the situation and aiding the destruction. if there's one thing we can learn from history it's that nothing is too low for some people.

did you miss the bit where this is probably nothing special? pretty much average dry season fire in terms of the affected area? the majority of fires not actually occurring in old forest amazon, but in brush from previously cleared forest? 

if there's one thing we can learn from history it's how easily manipulated some people can be. see the spread of fake news images from random fires around the world, bullshit figures about 25% of the worlds O2 at risk, reports of unprecedented levels of deforestation? no, it was much worse in the 50s and 60s, and even worse again in the 90s and 2000s.

do you actually realise how much 'it' there is to burn, how long it would take to burn it all at current rates? (somewhere between 500 and 1,000 years, though maybe 100 years would be enough to do actual serious consequential damage to the global environment in a moderate-to-worse case scenario, most likely scenario? low level deforestation continues for a while, plateaus, reforestation begins).

for all the problems of the modern world, forest cover is thankfully not high on the list. humans destroyed the vast majority of the planets forests long before industrialisation, in the last hundred or so years the planet has actually seen significant reforestation (despite several relapses and recoveries during that time).

Hmmmm. If your first thought after hearing about these fires is that it's fake news maybe you should stop watching fox news.

time for some mythbusting

  On 8/28/2019 at 6:07 AM, caze said:

did you miss the bit where this is probably nothing special? pretty much average dry season fire in terms of the affected area? the majority of fires not actually occurring in old forest amazon, but in brush from previously cleared forest? 

if there's one thing we can learn from history it's how easily manipulated some people can be. see the spread of fake news images from random fires around the world, bullshit figures about 25% of the worlds O2 at risk, reports of unprecedented levels of deforestation? no, it was much worse in the 50s and 60s, and even worse again in the 90s and 2000s.

do you actually realise how much 'it' there is to burn, how long it would take to burn it all at current rates? (somewhere between 500 and 1,000 years, though maybe 100 years would be enough to do actual serious consequential damage to the global environment in a moderate-to-worse case scenario, most likely scenario? low level deforestation continues for a while, plateaus, reforestation begins).

for all the problems of the modern world, forest cover is thankfully not high on the list. humans destroyed the vast majority of the planets forests long before industrialisation, in the last hundred or so years the planet has actually seen significant reforestation (despite several relapses and recoveries during that time).

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Yeah wake up sheeple, burning forests is good. Animals love fire and smoke

fight fire with fire, sick! Available at all good barbeque accessory and mudding stores

As usual, this is a nuanced topic that probably can’t be distilled down to “OK” vs “not OK”. 

Lots to consider from the impact on habitat to the impact on climate change, as well as the socio-political concerns. 

My opinion (based on a few things I've read), it’s probably not as bad as being made out to be, in the present. That's not to say that we shouldn't be trying to curtail it, as beyond the immediate impact, there are probably a shitload of unintended consequences that we haven’t begun to consider. 

The earth is a resilient system, but we’re pushing hard at some of the boundaries of that system. 

  On 8/28/2019 at 3:33 AM, Zephyr_Nova said:

Amazon should buy the Amazon and then sell tiny bits of the Amazon on Amazon for really cheap.

Jeff Bezos is a rich motherfucker. Although I suspect he's more concerned about preserving Amazon than the Amazon.

  On 8/28/2019 at 7:00 AM, kichiguy said:

time for some mythbusting

 

 

A forbes article about the environment 

Look at this guys articles, almost all lunatic fringe pro-nuclear fan fiction https://www.forbes.com/sites/michaelshellenberger/#64a5eabab1b8

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It Sounds Crazy, But Fukushima, Chernobyl, And Three Mile Island Show Why Nuclear Is Inherently Safe

 

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  Quote

The Reason Renewables Can't Power Modern Civilization Is Because They Were Never Meant To

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The Reason They Fictionalize Nuclear Disasters Like Chernobyl Is Because They Kill So Few People

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But no - it's the scientists that are fake news 

https://news.mongabay.com/2019/08/michael-shellenbergers-sloppy-forbes-diatribe-on-amazon-fires-commentary/

  On 8/28/2019 at 3:10 PM, chenGOD said:

The earth is a resilient system, but we’re pushing hard at some of the boundaries of that system. 

Well, yeah, but I get the feeling we're pushing a little bit too hard. The number of unpleasant freak phenomena involving nature has increased rather rapidly the last handful of years. At the very least that is suspicious.

  Quote

As usual, this is a nuanced topic that probably can’t be distilled down to “OK” vs “not OK”. 

Yup. From what I've read setting fire to the Amazon forest is in itself not unusual, nor totally and utterly terrible (but still worse than setting fire to grassland in Congo and Angola, which this is now getting lumped in with). What *is* unusual, however, is that the burning is done close to the main roads, meaning in plain sight of law enforcement. Before Bolsonaro the burning was done deeper in the forest where perpetrators were less likely to be caught and fined.

Anyway, the Amazon forest being the poster child for environmentalism (never mind that it's not really that old, only around 400 - 500 years or so), everyone is getting really hysterical and level headed discussion about how we maybe shouldn't be setting fire to the largest rainforest in the world becomes impossible.

  On 8/28/2019 at 5:34 PM, Enthusiast said:

A forbes article about the environment 

Look at this guys articles, almost all lunatic fringe pro-nuclear fan fiction https://www.forbes.com/sites/michaelshellenberger/#64a5eabab1b8

But no - it's the scientists that are fake news 

https://news.mongabay.com/2019/08/michael-shellenbergers-sloppy-forbes-diatribe-on-amazon-fires-commentary/

Shellenberger is on point when it comes to nuclear. Nothing fringe about his articles at all, mainstream stuff amongst the reality based community. It's the anti-nuclear lobby which is filled with cranks and scientifically illiterate shitheads, people who are useful idiots for the fossil fuel lobby, doing their bit to contribute to global warming, good job assholes. 

That response to his amazon article is not great...

  Quote

• What Shellenberger gets wrong: According to scientists, the big issue is that the Brazilian Amazon stores a vast amount of carbon. Increased deforestation combined with climate change is pushing the Amazon ever closer to a forest-to-savanna tipping point, triggering a large release of carbon and worsening global warming.

While the first part of this is true, to say we're being pushed ever closer to a dieback tipping point is wrong. That would require about 20-25% of the amazon to be cleared, which at current rates (7900 km2 out of 3.3m km2 total area last year - or 0.2%) would take around 100 years. Now deforestation has increased under Bolsonaro, so we should be somewhat worried about this, but it hasn't increased to a level where it's any kind of imminent danger (even if the rate doubled we'd have 50 years to do sort it out, at the peak rate from 2004 - which was never a consistent yearly rate - it would take 30 years). Deforestation rates are still far less than what they were at their peak in 1995 or 2004 (under the socialist government of Lula, who - to be fair - also oversaw an 80% reduction towards the end of his term, though much of the good stuff he did was undone by his successor and protege Rousseff, due to the flagging economy when she took over), this year compared to last was a big increase (though may not be as big as some are currently predicting, because we don't actually know what % of the current fires are brush vs. old forest vs. cleared forest), but it's not much greater than the average over the last decade. If it continues to increase it will be bad, if it stays at current levels we don't need to worry too much as long as it doesn't go on for too long.

  Quote

 Given that fires are burning hotter than normal this year, it’s almost certain that sub-canopy fires are burning from agricultural areas and slashed forests into rainforests. We’ll know for sure once the smoke clears and scientists are able to assess the situation on the ground. Shellenberger is wrong here.

How can he say Shellenberger is wrong if we don't know the actual extent of the fires into the forest? We only have data on the visible fires, which are mostly in agricultural and cleared land. He's just making an assumption here, there is no evidence yet for significant damage to the rainforest from the fires. We'll have to wait for further NASA surveys after the dry season ends and on-ground assessments to know for sure. My guess would be that there was some spread of the fires into the rainforest, but because it's not particularly dry this year it's not going to be as bad as it could have been. Interestingly if you look at the graphs he includes at the top of the article, there were significantly more fires in 2005 than 2004, yet 2004 saw far greater deforestation (those years aren't shown in his deforestation graph, but you can see the data here), clearly number of fires by itself isn't a great indicator of deforestation.

Mostly aside from that he agrees with Shellengerger's main criticisms, focusing mostly on a few minor areas where Shellenberger was probably in the wrong (the possible threats are greater than the Forbes article made out, but they are only possible threats, for the time being). So the overall framing of the piece is pretty shitty.

...also should be noted that the 20/25% deforested dieback scenario is just one model, it might not be that bad, there are alternate models that have the affected regions transitioning into seasonal forest rather than savannah [1] or that there will be varying sub-regions depending on various factors [2]. how forests handle decline varies greatly, depending on climate, soil quality, differences in plant species involved, etc.

  On 8/28/2019 at 11:54 PM, caze said:

It's the anti-nuclear lobby which is filled with cranks and scientifically illiterate shitheads, people who are useful idiots for the fossil fuel lobby, doing their bit to contribute to global warming, good job assholes. 

Mummy, the man on the IDM website is ranting about nuclear power again...

  On 8/28/2019 at 10:54 AM, Enthusiast said:

Yeah wake up sheeple, burning forests is good. Animals love fire and smoke

 

Are you illiterate ?

  On 8/28/2019 at 5:35 PM, rhmilo said:

(never mind that it's not really that old, only around 400 - 500 years or so^{[citation needed]})

 

  On 8/28/2019 at 4:23 PM, ambergonk said:

Jeff Bezos is a rich motherfucker. Although I suspect he's more concerned about preserving Amazon than the Amazon.

insightful stuff

Burn Gulley

  On 8/29/2019 at 2:35 AM, drillkicker said:

I got this from Charles Mann’s excellent Book “1493” (or “1492” - I don’t remember - but read both, they’re really good) but the idea that before Columbus the Amazon basin was in fact densely populated and more like a garden than what we commonly think of as a pristine forest has become commonly accepted in the past decades as evidence for this has been dug up.

If you want, you can find some info on it on Wikipedia as well.

Interestingly enough, the practice of burning undergrowth and trees was already common one thousand years ago. Turns out the soil in the Amazon basin is really poor and the only way to grow crops on it is to fertilize it with the charred remains of plants. For more info on this Google “Terra Preta”.

^^ That might be about recent evidence that there's more ruins in those places than previously thought/known. I came across this youtube about something similar but about the Sahara desert yesterday. Amazon also drops by somewhere in it. Interesting watch. Although it's just some guy on youtube with way too much spare time, so use salt appropriately

  On 8/29/2019 at 8:19 AM, rhmilo said:

Interestingly enough, the practice of burning undergrowth and trees was already common one thousand years ago. Turns out the soil in the Amazon basin is really poor and the only way to grow crops on it is to fertilize it with the charred remains of plants. For more info on this Google “Terra Preta”.

Soil so poor that it depends on nitrogen from sand carried on the wind from the Sahara, to replenish what's washed away in the amazon. 

unrelated to topic but the brilliant Brazilian musician Djavan wrote a song about this topic:

  On 8/29/2019 at 10:29 AM, caze said:

Soil so poor that it depends on nitrogen from sand carried on the wind from the Sahara, to replenish what's washed away in the amazon. 

This ones for you Caze.

https://open.spotify.com/track/63BnoVNVwCuQraDEKGH8EQ?si=Fz9UXMxLR6uGN4EX02bOYQ