Conflagration in the Amazon Rainforest

[BluesJr]

Is there any data out there that shows how much net acreage is being lost due to the fires compared to previous years? The fires happen every year, and these are only the worst in the last few years. Not exactly the end of the world on their own.

So far it's the usual trial by social media with almost no impartial discussion.

This is exactly the kind of attitude that prevents action. This is huge and we are literally killing the planet. No one cares everyone is so obsessed with their own self importance and money. It’s so stupid.

 

[11101]

This is exactly the kind of attitude that prevents action. This is huge and we are literally killing the planet. No one cares everyone is so obsessed with their own self importance and money. It’s so stupid.

That's exactly what I'm talking about. How do you know it is huge and we are literally killing the planet? Because you saw some posts on Facebook i expect, or have you actually seen the data i asked about. If you have, please post it.

Deforestation has until this year at least been declining steadily for years and the fires in the Amazon as a whole are about average for the time of year.

As of August 16, 2019, an analysis of NASA satellite data indicated that total fire activity across the Amazon basin this year has been close to the average in comparison to the past 15 years

https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/images/145464/fires-in-brazil

 

[WensleyMU]

So NASA have said the fires are no worse than at any point in the past 15 years.

Others are saying its a global emergency.

Quite a contradiction.

 

[ThatsGreat]

Brazil should be compensated for maintaining the Amazon forests imo. If they're protecting a resource that benefits the whole world then its upto the whole world to help them look after it.

 

[BluesJr]

That's exactly what I'm talking about. How do you know it is huge and we are literally killing the planet? Because you saw some posts on Facebook i expect, or have you actually seen the data i asked about. If you have, please post it.

Deforestation has until this year at least been declining steadily for years and the fires in the Amazon as a whole are about average for the time of year.



https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/images/145464/fires-in-brazil

The planets climate is changing. Global warming is real and it’ll be irreversible unless we stop being fecking idiots and pretending our lives are more important than the planet we live on.

I’m not really interested in arguing in the particulars of the data on these fires, some data has been posted above showing how it’s up year on year with this imbecile in charge. I’m thinking about the bigger picture.

 

[11101]

So NASA have said the fires are no worse than at any point in the past 15 years.

Others are saying its a global emergency.

Quite a contradiction.

I tend to trust NASA a lot more than I do politicians and journalists who will say anything for votes and clicks.

To be fair they have said fires in some regions are up, but they are down in others. It would be interesting to know why it's up so much in those regions though, is it luck of the draw or is Bolsonaro really planning to restart mass deforestation again.

 

[Fergies Gum]

That's exactly what I'm talking about. How do you know it is huge and we are literally killing the planet? Because you saw some posts on Facebook i expect, or have you actually seen the data i asked about. If you have, please post it.

Deforestation has until this year at least been declining steadily for years and the fires in the Amazon as a whole are about average for the time of year.



https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/images/145464/fires-in-brazil

Stop downplaying what is happening here and trying to make out its perfectly normal.

Brazil has seen a record number of fires in 2019, Brazilian space agency data suggests.

The National Institute for Space Research (Inpe) says its satellite data shows an 85% increase on the same period in 2018.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-latin-america-49433767

Spoiler

 

[Dr. Dwayne]

Is there any data out there that shows how much net acreage is being lost due to the fires compared to previous years? The fires happen every year, and these are only the worst in the last few years. Not exactly the end of the world on their own.

So far it's the usual trial by social media with almost no impartial discussion.

Naturally occurring fires aren't the problem, it's the fires started by cattle ranchers to clear land for pasture that's the problem. They've always done it but this year's they've gone crazy.

 

[Sp00ks11]

I watched a documentary the other day and apparently it is a big myth that the rainforest provides 20% of the world's oxygen. Apparently there is so much life there that not a single breath leaves the rainforest, meaning that ALL the oxygen the rainforest creates is actually used up by all the things living there.

Documentary is available on Netflix, it's called one strange rock. Fairly interesting show to be honest.

 

[Silva]

https://theintercept.com/2019/07/06...ndigenous-conservation-agribusiness-ranching/

 

[Dr. Dwayne]

I watched a documentary the other day and apparently it is a big myth that the rainforest provides 20% of the world's oxygen. Apparently there is so much life there that not a single breath leaves the rainforest, meaning that ALL the oxygen the rainforest creates is actually used up by all the things living there.

Documentary is available on Netflix, it's called one strange rock. Fairly interesting show to be honest.

Great, now that that's out of the way do you think it's a good idea to burn down rainforest that's teeming with life in order to raise more cattle and increase the quantities of CO2 and methane in our atmosphere?

 

[Buster15]

I watched a documentary the other day and apparently it is a big myth that the rainforest provides 20% of the world's oxygen. Apparently there is so much life there that not a single breath leaves the rainforest, meaning that ALL the oxygen the rainforest creates is actually used up by all the things living there.

Documentary is available on Netflix, it's called one strange rock. Fairly interesting show to be honest.

I am not doubting you but I find statement that the Brazilian rain forest has a net zero impact on oxygen level as difficult to believe.
My understanding is that the very dense rain forest does not have a huge amount of animals living in it.
A more open forest would support a large number of oxygen breathing animals.
I also read that even with the current level of photosynthesis plant life, the current level of atmospheric oxygen of about 20% would be replanished in around 2000 years.
So. Thinking logically, it is difficult to comprehend how the planets largest forest has no positive impact on O2.

 

[WensleyMU]

The French and Irish leaders have threatened not to ratify a trade deal with South America over this.

Smart move?

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-latin-america-49450495

 

[WensleyMU]

https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m0007t13/breakfast-23082019

@1 hour 10 mins a Prof. John Lloyd, Bio Geo Chemist Imperial College London gives an insight into the Brazilian view. Its not overly supportive of the outside view.

Prof L - "there's an argument that's made and it's pretty hard to counter it that you in the UK and internationally have already removed your forests and now you're telling us 'we have to keep ours so you can absorb your CO2' ..."

Pretty harsh words. I don't think threatening Brazil or all of South America is going to work.

 

[Rams]

https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m0007t13/breakfast-23082019

@1 hour 10 mins a Prof. John Lloyd, Bio Geo Chemist Imperial College London gives an insight into the Brazilian view. Its not overly supportive of the outside view.

Prof L - "there's an argument that's made and it's pretty hard to counter it that you in the UK and internationally have already removed your forests and now you're telling us 'we have to keep ours so you can absorb your CO2' ..."

Pretty harsh words. I don't think threatening Brazil or all of South America is going to work.

The U.K. was deforested 1,000’s of years ago long before the Anglo Saxons arrived. Just saying like.

 

[11101]

Stop downplaying what is happening here and trying to make out its perfectly normal.

Brazil has seen a record number of fires in 2019, Brazilian space agency data suggests.

The National Institute for Space Research (Inpe) says its satellite data shows an 85% increase on the same period in 2018.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-latin-america-49433767

Spoiler

It's a record number since they began keeping records, all of 7 years ago. NASA has been monitoring this stuff for years and they don't seem to be overly alarmed.

To be clear it shouldn't be happening at all, but it's the alarmist reporting and social media frenzy that irks me. It's such a huge increase on last year mostly because last year was pretty much the lowest on record.

 

[berbatrick]

It's a record number since they began keeping records, all of 7 years ago. NASA has been monitoring this stuff for years and they don't seem to be overly alarmed.

To be clear it shouldn't be happening at all, but it's the alarmist reporting and social media frenzy that irks me. It's such a huge increase on last year mostly because last year was pretty much the lowest on record.

just a coincidence

https://www.nationalgeographic.com/...olsonaro-promises-exploit-amazon-rain-forest/
Brazil's new leader promised to exploit the Amazon—but can he?
President-elect Jair Bolsonaro wants to harvest the rain forest’s riches, raising fears among environmentalists and indigenous communities. Are they justified?
PUBLISHED OCTOBER 31, 2018







Jair Bolsonaro launches assault on Amazon rainforest protections
Executive order transfers regulation and creation of indigenous reserves to agriculture ministry controlled by agribusiness lobby
Wed 2 Jan 2019 17.33 GMT
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/jan/02/brazil-jair-bolsonaro-amazon-rainforest-protections

 

[berbatrick]

Nothing to see here


November 08, 2018

As part of his “Brazil first” platform, Bolsonaro pledged to roll back regulations protecting the Amazon rainforest and indigenous lands
...
He’s been supported very strongly by the interest group that represents agribusiness in Congress, and they're sometimes called the “Beef, Bible and Bullet” group. They feel like Brazil's the most regulated place in the world, which is actually true. Brazil does have the best laws on the books currently for preventing deforestation, and private companies have signed on to a moratorium not to buy from properties that have deforested. So the interest group wants to eliminate the moratorium, and they want a reduction in the environmental penalties, because they feel like they're unfairly persecuted, globally.

February 16 2019

“THE BRAZILIAN CAVALRY was very incompetent. Competent, yes, was the American cavalry that decimated its Indians in the past and nowadays does not have this problem in their country.” That’s the opinion of Brazil’s far-right President Jair Bolsonaro, expressed on the floor of Congress in 1998. His views appear to have changed little since then; in a video message to supporters 18 years later, he promised to revoke the protected status of an Indigenous reserve in 2019 and in the next breath added, “We’re going to give a rifle and a carry permit to every farmer.”
...
Bolsonaro, consistent with his anti-Indigenous stance throughout his career, said in a televised interviewshortly after his election that if it were up to him, “there won’t be any more demarcations of Indigenous land.”
...
In last year’s election, Bolsonaro campaigned hard on cuts to government funding for Indigenous services and freezing the expansion of federally protected reserves. He immediately moved to make good on these promises after his inauguration last month.

Meanwhile, armed bands of land grabbers, known as “grileiros,” have been staging attacks on Indigenous communities — a pattern of violence that has surged in the wake of Bolsonaro’s election, according to Indigenous leaders and allies interviewed for this article.
...
He referred to the invaders as “peons” sent by powerful bosses to cut down trees, burn undergrowth, and plant grass for cattle grazing
...
Brazil’s Ministry of Agriculture, now headed by Tereza Cristina Dias, a former member Congress from the powerful “ruralista” agricultural caucus, did not respond to The Intercept’s questions about whether the demarcation of Indigenous lands would continue.

Days after signing the decree, Bolsonaro tweeted a video clip of another one of his ministers who argued in a cable news interview that many of the existing Indigenous reserves were established using fraudulent documents, and called the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples “spurious” and “treasonous.”

Thu 25 Oct 2018 06.00 BST

The growl of a chainsaw and the howl of a straining tractor engine were enough to draw the environment officials up a rutted track into the forest. In the clearing at the end of the road, three young loggers silenced their machines and proffered their documents. They were paid in cash, they said – nearly four times the Brazilian minimum monthly salary of £200 ($258) – to ship out up to two truckloads a day of huge hardwood logs. And like most people in the heavily-deforested Amazon state of Rondônia on Brazil’s western border, they are sure who they will vote for in Sunday’s presidential run-off vote. “It has to be Bolsonaro. He supports us,” said Edivaldo da Silva, 22.

In the Amazon, Bolsonaro has promised progress instead of protection.

And his radical proposals – to neuter federal environment agencies, give the green light to destructive hydro-electric dams, freeze the demarcation of new indigenous reserves and open up existing ones to mining– chime with voters here, including those breaking environmental laws. Loggers, illegal gold miners and squatters on a protected reserve all told the Guardian they are voting for Bolsonaro because they believe he will make their lives easier.

18 December 2018

• President-elect Jair Bolsonaro has chosen Ricardo Salles as Brazil’s environment minister. The former São Paulo state government environment secretary is under investigation for allegedly redrawing maps allowing protected lands to be developed for mining and factories. His statements are heavily pro-agribusiness and sometimes espouse violence.
• The selection of ruralist Tereza Cristina as agriculture minister, and Ernesto Araújo as foreign minister, also almost certainly signals difficult days ahead for Brazil’s environment. Cristina has pushed hard for fast track approval of toxic pesticides. Araújo calls climate change a “Marxist” conspiracy.
• Analysts say that, by choosing ministry appointees who hold extreme views on the environment, Bolsonaro is making Brazil vulnerable to economic reprisals from the international community – especially from developed nations and companies responding to voters and consumers who oppose harm to the Amazon and indigenous groups.

just 100% cool coincidences, baseless alarmism based on a picture

 

[Buster15]

I believe governments and big industry are complicit in this.

It's a tragedy of astronomical proportions.

You are absolutely right. This kind of thing cannot be allowed to happen. Not for any reason.

 

[Buster15]

Is there any data out there that shows how much net acreage is being lost due to the fires compared to previous years? The fires happen every year, and these are only the worst in the last few years. Not exactly the end of the world on their own.

So far it's the usual trial by social media with almost no impartial discussion.

Even one acre lost is an acre too much. As has been mentioned. If only 1% is lost per year, then the whole thing will be lost in as little as 100 years. I would be amazed if it is still there in 40 to 50 years time.
And it is not acceptable to say that other nations have cut down their forests. This was done when we were all ignorant to climate change.
Ours is the first generation who is now fully aware of the damaging effects of Man Made Climate Change.
In my view and knowing what we know, such destruction should be classed as a crime against humanity.

 

[Florida Man]

It's a record number since they began keeping records, all of 7 years ago. NASA has been monitoring this stuff for years and they don't seem to be overly alarmed.

To be clear it shouldn't be happening at all, but it's the alarmist reporting and social media frenzy that irks me. It's such a huge increase on last year mostly because last year was pretty much the lowest on record.

I think the alarmist reaction is much preferred to the usual apathy. The former could at least effect positive change, and anything that can slow down the effects of climate change is a good thing.

 

[WensleyMU]

The U.K. was deforested 1,000’s of years ago long before the Anglo Saxons arrived. Just saying like.

Only sharing what he said and how its being viewed by the Brazilian leaders.

 

[Rams]

Only sharing what he said and how its being viewed by the Brazilian leaders.

I realized that, just pointing out it’s an extremely weak argument.

 

[berbatrick]

Evo Morales Hires Supertank Aircraft to Fight Fires in Bolivia’s Amazon Region
Bolivia's president further announced the creation of an Environmental Emergency Cabinet; in Brazil, Bolsonaro blamed deforestation activists for promoting fires.

https://riotimesonline.com/brazil-n...aft-to-fight-fires-in-bolivias-amazon-region/

It's thought that the fires were started deliberately to clear the land for farming, but quickly got out of control. The perpetrators aren't known, but Bolivian President Evo Morales has justified people starting fires, saying: "If small families don't set fires, what are they going to live on?"

The disaster comes just a month after Morales announced a new "supreme decree" aimed at increasing beef production for export.

Twenty-one civil society organisations are calling for the repeal of this decree, arguing that it has helped cause the fires and violates Bolivia's environmental laws. Government officials say that fire setting is a normal activity at this time of year and isn't linked to the decree.

 

[VeevaVee]

Conflagration doesn't seem like it should mean that.

 

[esmufc07]

Jet fuel can't melt trees.

 

[ValenciaRocks]

Jet fuel can't melt trees.

Yeah really funny that... I mean it’s obviously a massive conspiracy theory that world leaders aren’t influenced by the mega rich who in turn couldn’t give a f*ck about our planet, just as long as they can upgrade their yacht every year.

 

[VeevaVee]

Yeah really funny that... I mean it’s obviously a massive conspiracy theory that world leaders aren’t influenced by the mega rich who in turn couldn’t give a f*ck about our planet, just as long as they can upgrade their yacht every year.

Bit of a prat isn't he?

 

[Casanova85]

Brazil should be compensated for maintaining the Amazon forests imo. If they're protecting a resource that benefits the whole world then its upto the whole world to help them look after it.

Is that BS lie, no offense, which pisses me off the most: the Amazon rainforest can maintain itself, like it has for millions of years. Humanity is the danger, especially predatory politicians/landowners.

 

[ValenciaRocks]

Bit of a prat isn't he?

Based on that post, yeah.

 

[Ødegaard]

Leaked documents show Brazil’s Bolsonaro has grave plans for Amazon rainforest


https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/de...sonaro-has-grave-plans-for-amazon-rainforest/

If that is true, what the feck can the world in general do?
Looks to me like humans will go extint because of our own greed and stupidity.

 

[George Owen]

Is that BS lie, no offense, which pisses me off the most: the Amazon rainforest can maintain itself, like it has for millions of years. Humanity is the danger, especially predatory politicians/landowners.

??

The Amazons is in Brazil, mainly. If the Brazilian people wants to destroy it to feed themselves, they can do it and there is nothing we can do about it... well, except for paying them to keep it intact.

So yeah, we (the whole world) should be be paying Brazil to keep the rainforest intact.

 

[Grinner]

Does Brazil export a lot of beef or is it mostly for domestic consumption?

 

[ValenciaRocks]

??

The Amazons is in Brazil, mainly. If the Brazilian people wants to destroy it to feed themselves, they can do it and there is nothing we can do about it... well, except for paying them to keep it intact.

So yeah, we (the whole world) should be be paying Brazil to keep the rainforest intact.

As sad as it is, you have a fair point there. You can’t stop them from doing what they’re doing unless there’s Money involved.

 

[George Owen]

Does Brazil export a lot of beef or is it mostly for domestic consumption?

they export a lot. At least here in Chile, where we used to have some of the best beef of the world, now it's all Brazilian meat, and it sucks. The good chilean beef is sold to USA and Europe.

 

[Grinner]

they export a lot. At least here in Chile, where we used to have some of the best beef of the world, now it's all Brazilian meat, and it sucks. The good chilean beef is sold to USA and Europe.

Well hopefully that's the leverage then. It seems to me that once a decent meat-substitute is perfected that a lot of environmental problems will be solved.

 

[George Owen]

Well hopefully that's the leverage then. It seems to me that once a decent meat-substitute is perfected that a lot of environmental problems will be solved.

I hope so, but it's gonna be too late I think. The amount of beef people consumes is just ridiculous. What substitute gonna be able to keep up with he demand anytime soon?

Spent 5 weeks recently in the US and its fecking ridiculous, the amount of meat they eat is crazy. If they (and the world) cut meat consumption to half of what they currently do, then I would be hopeful. The solution needs to come from the consumers, but sadly it won't, so I don't know, it fecking sucks.

 

[Casanova85]

??

The Amazons is in Brazil, mainly. If the Brazilian people wants to destroy it to feed themselves, they can do it and there is nothing we can do about it... well, except for paying them to keep it intact.

I didn't realize that "lines on a map" (aka, "nations") have the right to completely destroy one of the most important ecosystems of the planet.

 

[George Owen]

I didn't realize that "lines on a map" (aka, "nations") have the right to completely destroy one of the most important ecosystems of the planet.

It's not only Brazil. Almost every country is destroying the ecosystems. If everybody is doing it, why Brazil can't?

Capitalism for the win.

 

[matherto]

If they can perfect lab meat for burgers made out of stuff that isn't meat then they barely need to even tell anyone do they?

I'm amazed no rich celebrity has gone for the PR move and started chartering a giant tanker to start putting it out. Unless Bolsonaro has threatened them getting shot down or something?