Have you heard about the huge Amazon fires going on?

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Have you heard about the huge Amazon fires going on?

Post by Oxmyx »

Reminds me eerily of when the Malevs tried to wipe out humanity by making the Earth unlivable. We're doing a pretty good job of it ourselves.

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Re: Have you heard about the huge Amazon fires going on?

Post by possumgrease »

I hope this won’t disrupt my two day Prime shipping. :)

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Re: Have you heard about the huge Amazon fires going on?

Post by Chiclo »

Oxmyx wrote:Reminds me eerily of when the Malevs tried to wipe out humanity by making the Earth unlivable. We're doing a pretty good job of it ourselves.

I know not everyone has read those issues of VH1 so I apologize if you don't know what I refer to
Is Jair o Redentor somehow culpable?

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Re: Have you heard about the huge Amazon fires going on?

Post by nonplayer »

They dont really care now they can grow soy and canola.
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Re: Have you heard about the huge Amazon fires going on?

Post by greg »

Oxmyx wrote:Reminds me eerily of when the Malevs tried to wipe out humanity by making the Earth unlivable. We're doing a pretty good job of it ourselves.

I know not everyone has read those issues of VH1 so I apologize if you don't know what I refer to
Even if they don't know the Malev reference, they would probably also recognize the other Magnus stories stolen by the Matrix writers. :wink:

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Re: Have you heard about the huge Amazon fires going on?

Post by Oxmyx »

greg wrote:
Oxmyx wrote:Reminds me eerily of when the Malevs tried to wipe out humanity by making the Earth unlivable. We're doing a pretty good job of it ourselves.

I know not everyone has read those issues of VH1 so I apologize if you don't know what I refer to
Even if they don't know the Malev reference, they would probably also recognize the other Magnus stories stolen by the Matrix writers. :wink:
There was an Amazon fire plot in The Matrix?
I've been looking everywhere for the ultra-rare Turok vs Blister issue. Anybody able to help me out?

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Re: Have you heard about the huge Amazon fires going on?

Post by greg »

Oxmyx wrote:
greg wrote:
Oxmyx wrote:Reminds me eerily of when the Malevs tried to wipe out humanity by making the Earth unlivable. We're doing a pretty good job of it ourselves.

I know not everyone has read those issues of VH1 so I apologize if you don't know what I refer to
Even if they don't know the Malev reference, they would probably also recognize the other Magnus stories stolen by the Matrix writers. :wink:
There was an Amazon fire plot in The Matrix?
Not exactly, but the humans did scorch the skies thinking they could kill the machines if they didn't have sunlight. My guess is that the Amazon smoke clouds are pretty dark. :hm:

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Re: Have you heard about the huge Amazon fires going on?

Post by Blood of Heroes »

possumgrease wrote:I hope this won’t disrupt my two day Prime shipping. :)
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Re: Have you heard about the huge Amazon fires going on?

Post by mramsterdam »

France is calling it a national crisis,how long till they need our help like always? :hm:
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Re: Have you heard about the huge Amazon fires going on?

Post by Chiclo »

mramsterdam wrote:France is calling it a national crisis,how long till they need our help like always? :hm:
Why would a forest in Brazil be a national emergency for France?

Should we need to save the French again, perhaps we should leave Brigitte Bardot in charge when we leave. She can see the black crow of despair on their countryside (it makes sense in Froglish).

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Re: Have you heard about the huge Amazon fires going on?

Post by kjjohanson »

Chiclo wrote:
mramsterdam wrote:France is calling it a national crisis,how long till they need our help like always? :hm:
Why would a forest in Brazil be a national emergency for France?

Should we need to save the French again, perhaps we should leave Brigitte Bardot in charge when we leave. She can see the black crow of despair on their countryside (it makes sense in Froglish).
It's an international crisis. The Amazon produces a huge amount of oxygen and sucks up a huge amount of carbon. It can't be overstated how important it is to the future of a liveable planet
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Re: Have you heard about the huge Amazon fires going on?

Post by mramsterdam »

kjjohanson wrote:
Chiclo wrote:
mramsterdam wrote:France is calling it a national crisis,how long till they need our help like always? :hm:
Why would a forest in Brazil be a national emergency for France?

Should we need to save the French again, perhaps we should leave Brigitte Bardot in charge when we leave. She can see the black crow of despair on their countryside (it makes sense in Froglish).
It's an international crisis. The Amazon produces a huge amount of oxygen and sucks up a huge amount of carbon. It can't be overstated how important it is to the future of a liveable planet
Yeah,i used to joke about saving the rainforest being a slogan,it should be a priority.
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Re: Have you heard about the huge Amazon fires going on?

Post by lorddunlow »

kjjohanson wrote:
Chiclo wrote:
mramsterdam wrote:France is calling it a national crisis,how long till they need our help like always? :hm:
Why would a forest in Brazil be a national emergency for France?

Should we need to save the French again, perhaps we should leave Brigitte Bardot in charge when we leave. She can see the black crow of despair on their countryside (it makes sense in Froglish).
It's an international crisis. The Amazon produces a huge amount of oxygen and sucks up a huge amount of carbon. It can't be overstated how important it is to the future of a liveable planet
I'm very much attuned to the ecological damage we do and push for everyone to minimize damage, but the Amazon doesn't produce a ton of oxygen. Rainforest ecosystems produce a lot of CO2 as well so that offsets their air scrubbing potential. Most of the CO2/O2 conversion is carried out by the taiga forests of Siberia and Canada with most actually being carried out by algae and phytoplankton in the ocean.


I'm more concerned about the local ecological impact on the flora and fauna of the region and health of the people living there.

Rainforest deforestation is more a problem of market forces than an ecological issue. We privileged first worlders hold third world farmers to our standards which is not fair, especially since it's our voracious appetite for chocolate, bananas, and coffee that fuel this kind of destruction. And it doesn't even really affect us much. It is devastating to the people of South America.
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Re: Have you heard about the huge Amazon fires going on?

Post by lorddunlow »

https://www.forbes.com/sites/rachelsand ... statistic/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
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Re: Have you heard about the huge Amazon fires going on?

Post by kjjohanson »

The 20% statistic being floated isn't correct, true, but it's still an important area for combatting global warming.
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Re: Have you heard about the huge Amazon fires going on?

Post by lorddunlow »

kjjohanson wrote:
The 20% statistic being floated isn't correct, true, but it's still an important area for combatting global warming.
So, it's complicated. This was the best set of numbers I could find from a recent study/estimate: https://www.livescience.com/44235-amazo ... sured.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
Image

The issue with rainforests is they are very active biologically. What I mean by that is that there is lots of new growth and lots of death/decay feeding the new growth. The decay in a warm, moist area like the Amazon is pretty constant as is growth. As you can see in the article above the Amazon does likely post a net negative on carbon dioxide production (it scrubs 300 million tons a year).

However, the taiga forests I mentioned and the ocean are much better at sequestration of carbon emissions. Both of these environments don't release much carbon naturally.

https://www.scientificamerican.com/arti ... ge-fight1/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

This article estimates 1.5 billion tons sequestered by all the taiga forests (Canada, Europe, and Asia) with Russian forests alone contributing 300-600 million. This doesn't seem like more important than the Amazon, but it pretty much only sucks in carbon dioxide. There is very little decay due to dry, cold conditions.


The ocean on the other hand is covered in phytoplankton and algae. They absorb around 50 billion tons of carbon dioxide. They makes the contribution of the Amazon on carbon dioxide minimal.
Image


As I said, I hate seeing the Amazon being destroyed. It is bad for the earth. But it is way more locally damaging to the ecosystem in Brazil than it is to us here in the US. As far as finger pointing to farmers clear cutting and burning - if they converted the entire Amazon to farmland it would have the impact on the carbon emissions that our energy use in the US create. Our wasteful, disposable, convenient way of life is much worse than the rest of the world. The waste we produce is more than most countries in South America consume.

The main intervention is we all need to stop having kids. Each human born contributes between 30 and 75 tons of carbon per year. https://www.zmescience.com/ecology/fewe ... nt-042342/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

If we could all limit ourselves to 2 or fewer children, we'd solve the ecological crisis in 1-2 generations without changing anything else.
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Re: Have you heard about the huge Amazon fires going on?

Post by Chiclo »

The thing about forests - they can grow back.

The fire destroys and new growth takes its place. New life blooms in a place that had stagnated. Thus the circle of life continues. Wide-ranging fires are one of the ways that nature rejuvinates itself.

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Re: Have you heard about the huge Amazon fires going on?

Post by lorddunlow »

Chiclo wrote:The thing about forests - they can grow back.

The fire destroys and new growth takes its place. New life blooms in a place that had stagnated. Thus the circle of life continues. Wide-ranging fires are one of the ways that nature rejuvinates itself.
Rainforest doesn't grow back as mature rainforest, though, especially if the land is used for farming.
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Re: Have you heard about the huge Amazon fires going on?

Post by Chiclo »

lorddunlow wrote:
Chiclo wrote:The thing about forests - they can grow back.

The fire destroys and new growth takes its place. New life blooms in a place that had stagnated. Thus the circle of life continues. Wide-ranging fires are one of the ways that nature rejuvinates itself.
Rainforest doesn't grow back as mature rainforest, though, especially if the land is used for farming.
Farming, whereby plants are replaced with more plants. And the dead plants you mentioned, which outgas carbon and offset much of the filtration of the forest, are managed.

I am not saying that recovery would be immediate - but it will recover. It may take a different form, farmed and managed rather than growing wildly, but there will be plants there again. Soon.

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Re: Have you heard about the huge Amazon fires going on?

Post by lorddunlow »

Chiclo wrote:
lorddunlow wrote:
Chiclo wrote:The thing about forests - they can grow back.

The fire destroys and new growth takes its place. New life blooms in a place that had stagnated. Thus the circle of life continues. Wide-ranging fires are one of the ways that nature rejuvinates itself.
Rainforest doesn't grow back as mature rainforest, though, especially if the land is used for farming.
Farming, whereby plants are replaced with more plants. And the dead plants you mentioned, which outgas carbon and offset much of the filtration of the forest, are managed.

I am not saying that recovery would be immediate - but it will recover. It may take a different form, farmed and managed rather than growing wildly, but there will be plants there again. Soon.
I like how I always find myself arguing against both sides.

Like I said, I'm not as concerned about the CO2 issues with the Amazon destruction, but the decrease in local biodiversity. It's hard to replace the ecological function of a rainforest once destroyed and agricultural use prohibits any use by native plants or animals thereby reducing biodiversity. Maintenance of biodiversity is the only thing that will keep this planet running consistently.

I'm not one for advocating g we never lose species to extinction or that we should prevent any destruction of local environments, but we should always try to maximize biodiversity in all systems on earth. It makes for a healthy biome.

Speaking of natural processes to recover from destruction - did anyone see the story about the biologically rich pumice island floating toward Australia that scientists are hoping could be a shot in the leg for the dying Great Barrier Reef? https://www.cnn.com/2019/08/25/asia/pum ... index.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
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Re: Have you heard about the huge Amazon fires going on?

Post by Chiclo »

lorddunlow wrote:
Chiclo wrote:
lorddunlow wrote:
Chiclo wrote:The thing about forests - they can grow back.

The fire destroys and new growth takes its place. New life blooms in a place that had stagnated. Thus the circle of life continues. Wide-ranging fires are one of the ways that nature rejuvinates itself.
Rainforest doesn't grow back as mature rainforest, though, especially if the land is used for farming.
Farming, whereby plants are replaced with more plants. And the dead plants you mentioned, which outgas carbon and offset much of the filtration of the forest, are managed.

I am not saying that recovery would be immediate - but it will recover. It may take a different form, farmed and managed rather than growing wildly, but there will be plants there again. Soon.
I like how I always find myself arguing against both sides.

Like I said, I'm not as concerned about the CO2 issues with the Amazon destruction, but the decrease in local biodiversity. It's hard to replace the ecological function of a rainforest once destroyed and agricultural use prohibits any use by native plants or animals thereby reducing biodiversity. Maintenance of biodiversity is the only thing that will keep this planet running consistently.

I'm not one for advocating g we never lose species to extinction or that we should prevent any destruction of local environments, but we should always try to maximize biodiversity in all systems on earth. It makes for a healthy biome.

Speaking of natural processes to recover from destruction - did anyone see the story about the biologically rich pumice island floating toward Australia that scientists are hoping could be a shot in the leg for the dying Great Barrier Reef? https://www.cnn.com/2019/08/25/asia/pum ... index.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
It brings to mind something a wise man once said about how taxonomists are too eager to classify new species and that the pressures to "publish or die" encourage biologists to overstate minor differences in populations as differences between species.

That was one of the smartest things I had read in a while. That guy really knew what he was talking about.

That's interesting, about the pumice island.

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Re: Have you heard about the huge Amazon fires going on?

Post by X-1ManofWar »

possumgrease wrote:I hope this won’t disrupt my two day Prime shipping. :)
It won't but it will disrupt your breathing.

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Re: Have you heard about the huge Amazon fires going on?

Post by lorddunlow »

This article is very apropos: The Atlantic: The Amazon Is Not Earth’s Lungs.
https://www.theatlantic.com/science/arc ... nd-science" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

It also reinforces my point that what the US does (burning tons of fossil fuels at a much greater rate than other nations - waaaay more than third world countries) is much more impactful on the environment than the Brazilians burning their rainforest. I'm not saying either are good, but one is definitely worse.
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Re: Have you heard about the huge Amazon fires going on?

Post by lobo »

Chiclo wrote:
lorddunlow wrote:
Chiclo wrote:The thing about forests - they can grow back.

The fire destroys and new growth takes its place. New life blooms in a place that had stagnated. Thus the circle of life continues. Wide-ranging fires are one of the ways that nature rejuvinates itself.
Rainforest doesn't grow back as mature rainforest, though, especially if the land is used for farming.
Farming, whereby plants are replaced with more plants. And the dead plants you mentioned, which outgas carbon and offset much of the filtration of the forest, are managed.

I am not saying that recovery would be immediate - but it will recover. It may take a different form, farmed and managed rather than growing wildly, but there will be plants there again. Soon.
You understand the density of green biomass of amazon rain-forest is significantly more than any crops or immature rain-forest in the exact same area? CO2 filtered out of the atmosphere by mature rain-forest is probably x100s over what will grow in its place. It takes 60-70 years minimum to grow back the mature growth rain-forest back.

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Re: Have you heard about the huge Amazon fires going on?

Post by Oxmyx »

lobo wrote:
Chiclo wrote:
lorddunlow wrote:
Chiclo wrote:The thing about forests - they can grow back.

The fire destroys and new growth takes its place. New life blooms in a place that had stagnated. Thus the circle of life continues. Wide-ranging fires are one of the ways that nature rejuvinates itself.
Rainforest doesn't grow back as mature rainforest, though, especially if the land is used for farming.
Farming, whereby plants are replaced with more plants. And the dead plants you mentioned, which outgas carbon and offset much of the filtration of the forest, are managed.

I am not saying that recovery would be immediate - but it will recover. It may take a different form, farmed and managed rather than growing wildly, but there will be plants there again. Soon.
You understand the density of green biomass of amazon rain-forest is significantly more than any crops or immature rain-forest in the exact same area? CO2 filtered out of the atmosphere by mature rain-forest is probably x100s over what will grow in its place. It takes 60-70 years minimum to grow back the mature growth rain-forest back.
Thank you Lobo. I think it's 100% understandable that even smart people make judgement calls based on the world they know, and the evidence of their senses, but i wish more people would own up to how their experiences are so limited as to be microscopic compared to the problems we face. I loved an interview with Neil DeGrasse Tyson I saw talking about E=MCsquared and relativity and how it makes no sense to most people because the conditions for E=MCsquared are never encountered in our human experience.
I've been looking everywhere for the ultra-rare Turok vs Blister issue. Anybody able to help me out?


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