The World Lost an Oklahoma-Sized Area of Forest In 2013, Satellite Data Show 143
merbs writes Oklahoma spans an area in the American South that stretches across almost 70,000 square miles. That's almost exactly the same area of global forest cover that was lost in a single year. High resolution maps from Global Forest Watch, tapping new data from a partnership between the University of Maryland and Google, show that 18 million hectares (69,500 square miles) of tree cover were lost from wildfires, deforestation, and development the year before last. The maps were created by synthesizing 400,000 satellite images collected by NASA's Landsat mission.
Which is it? Very different cases. (Score:2, Insightful)
All of those losses of forest are very different:
* After wildfires, trees naturally re-grow.
* Some deforestation is replaced with new trees, but not all.
* After development, trees are usually planted - sometimes where there used to be no trees. What is the net gain/loss of trees across ALL development, not just development taking place in a forest...
To say nothing of; what is the natural level of variation in forest year to year? From wildfires alone you would think there would be a substantial amount.
Pre
Re:Which is it? Very different cases. (Score:5, Informative)
RTFA:
"The World Resource Institute, which coordinates Global Forest Watch, notes that the loss is both of the permanent, human-driven varietyâ"razing for agriculture and developmentâ"and the cyclical; from fires, logging, harvesting, and natural tree death. In the case of the latter, forests can take decades to be restored. In the former, they are gone for good"
DRTFA (Score:4, Insightful)
...notes that the loss is both of the permanent, human-driven varietyÃ"razing for agriculture and developmentÃ"and the cyclical; from fires, logging, harvesting, and natural tree death.
So yes, I did read that, which it was exactly what led me to wonder what the breakout was of each of those things. If it's primarily natural cyclical loss that will be restored why should I freak out again?
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So yes, I did read that, which it was exactly what led me to wonder what the breakout was of each of those things. If it's primarily natural cyclical loss that will be restored why should I freak out again?
And natural cyclical loss may not be the primary cause currently in the TFA. However, the TFA goes further and states that natural cyclical loss could become a primary cause if this deforestation process with the help of humans keeps going on.
From TFA
Scientists expect wildfires to become more frequent as warmer temperatures afflict forested regions.
In other words, yes we should concern about deforestation on natural cyclical loss even though it is currently not the primary cause if less forest causes warmer temperature.
Not happy, sad - for you (Score:4, Insightful)
Because there is clearly a high level and consistent level of loss each and every year as is quite clear from the graphs.
Oh wow a graph showing a WHOLE DECADE. Of only loss, not amounts restored through regrowth... it's pretty easy to demonstrate a negative when you take away all positive parts of an equation.
If these are mostly natural forest fires (the real question at hand that all you zealots seem uninteresting in answering) the area will re-grow just fine, and in fact there will be a new rush of growth from the space opened up for undergrowth to take over for a while while new trees mature. Which in fact would sequester more carbon than old-growth forest would...
Is it even possible for you to learn anything? It would not appear so. Now THAT is sad.
Like the GW deniers do...
Since you have revealed yourself a willfully mindless cultist and thus not able to deal with reason, I'll just back away slowly and let you have the last word, so that your religious sensibilities can be satisfied. All fear the great noodlly appendages that magically destroy forest without end! In fact all the forests died over FOURTY YEARS AGO, and forest you see on the news now are all from a single sound stage in Nevada!
Re:Not happy, sad - for you (Score:4, Insightful)
If these are mostly natural forest fires (the real question at hand that all you zealots seem uninteresting in answering) the area will re-grow just fine
If they are measuring the total amount of forest, it would automatically include regrowth from past forest fires. Apparently, forest losses outweigh forest gains from regrowth.
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Does it ONLY count losses, or does it include new growth?
It doesn't actually matter, because old growth sequesters more carbon than new growth.
The only replies to him have been that it includes all new growth, but there has been zero evidence that is the case.
The studies account for forested area. There is zero evidence that they are not taking forested area into account. That's why it's a disingenuous question.
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It doesn't actually matter, because old growth sequesters more carbon than new growth.
Forests have more functions than just being carbon sinks, though.
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Forests have more functions than just being carbon sinks, though.
Yes, that's true. And they perform all of those other functions better when they're mature, too.
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Because there is clearly a high level and consistent level of loss each and every year as is quite clear from the graphs.
It is true, deforestation in places like rainforest is very bad and we should do something about it. But as usual, this alarmist paper only covers one aspect of a much larger picture.
Total carbon sequestration due to plant life has actually been increasing. [wattsupwiththat.com]
Due to RE-forestation in China, and many other factors, the actual total mass of photosynthesizing plants has gone UP.
Also according to satellites. But this time, not just from eyeballing pictures.
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Somebody do some back-of-the envelope calculation for me (it's late an I'm tired): is it actually possible to cut down enough plantlife so dip the atmospheric O2 levels down and CO2 levels up to a dangerous place?
CO2 levels are already up to a "dangerous place", levels are already within the range known to cause anxiety and stress in mammals. CO2 buildup is what causes the breathing response, but it's not a boolean and that's not the only thing it affects.
UV has driven oceanic algae to subsurface levels. That algae is where the air we breathe comes from. It's going to get worse before it gets better, especially if we keep making excuses for pollution.
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Total carbon sequestration due to plant life has actually been increasing.
Wow, it's truly too bad you can't read. "Each year, the planet balances its budget. The carbon dioxide absorbed by plants in the spring and summer as they convert solar energy into food is released back to the atmosphere in autumn and winter." That article says the exact opposite of what you want it to say! It specifically says that carbon sequestration is not increasing in any meaningful way. The increased sequestration is part of the yearly cycle, and it is released in the same year. This information is c
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Wow, it's truly too bad you can't read. "Each year, the planet balances its budget.
I'm not the one who has trouble reading. You apparently missed everything past the first paragraph. Because the second paragraph starts with:
But the budget has gotten bigger.
The article says exactly what I stated it did.
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Anonymous Coward [...] I have a degree in botany
Who the hell are "you"?
Some CO2 is released by during the process of digestion by everything from microbes to animals but the amount released is far less than the amount sequestered.
The means of production and disposal have quite a lot to say about that. After the sun, our food crops are produced primarily based on petroleum energy inputs, and waste is largely burned.
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Because there is clearly a high level and consistent level of loss each and every year as is quite clear from the graphs. So that ends your theory... Happy now? Thought not... But perhaps its time to advocate for doing something about it rather than trying to argue nothing MIGHT be wrong because of some infinitesimally small chance that the results are incorrect.... Like the GW deniers do...
Or, it could be now that people have realized that fires are natural part of forests, and stopped trying to stop all of them... i.e. managing the forests more like Ma Nature does and THAT means more fires happened recently.... thus less "forested" land exists due to it being properly managed.
Sorry dude, hippy bullshit is hippy bullshit. Let me guess, they want money and for all of us to get their magazine, and vote for their guy. Right? (rolls eyes)
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Forest fires have doubled recently compared to thousands of years before that:
http://www.scientificamerican.... [scientificamerican.com]
Must be those damn hippies setting the trees on fire to prove a point.
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Burying your head in the sand wont solve the problem...
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According to TFA, most of the loss was to natural wildfires, especially in Canada and Russia. But TFA doesn't say what a "normal" amount of wildfires is, and whether 2013 had more or less than normal, or even whether the total amount of deforestation is going up, or down. Factoids should have context. This a a good example of bad journalism.
Re:Which is it? Very different cases. (Score:5, Insightful)
To be honest here in Canada we need massive wildfires to clean up the pine beetle problem. The wood can be used, usually in chipboard or paper products as long as the tree isn't fully rotten among other problems. When I was driving out through western canada a couple of years back it was a serious problem, and if you want to see what happens when a wildfire plus pine beetle infestation can do to an area, look at the slave lake fire. The fire was deliberately set, but the forest in the area is infested with pine beetles which have caused massive die offs with the trees, basically making it a perfect situation.
Anyway, once a place is burned out, harvested, and so on we plant new trees there anyway. The forestry industry here is amazingly good at creating an entire harvest, burn, plant cycle. Not forgetting that we have laws on the books that companies that harvest(anything whether it be trees, oil, oilsands, coal, etc) have to by law set aside funds for restoration. The government oversees the funds to ensure that enough is being put aside.
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I've walked through tree farms. They are about as close to a natural forest as a field of wheat is to a prairie.
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True, but it's a whole lot better than clearcutting forests.
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So what's your alternative?
Trees are plants. Tree farms are similar to wheat fields because they both accomplish the same thing. We need our wood from somewhere.
It used to be that loggers would just go in and cut down the forest without any replanting. Always plenty of forest, right? Well, turns out that no, there's not always plenty of forest.
So laws were passed, and nowdays the lumber industry has to maintain tree farms. There's paperwork that goes along with lumber shipments to prove that it's grown
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I've walked through tree farms. They are about as close to a natural forest as a field of wheat is to a prairie.
That's great, but I wasn't talking about a tree farm. Those are something else fundamentally different aren't they. Rather I was talking about removing existing sections of forest and replanting.
Let me show you an example of a coal mine. [imgur.com] That chunk of hill, or I should say remains of mountain to the right in the image? That was a coal strip mine 30 years ago. The entire town that's in the image? That was also in the middle of the coal strip mine.
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Oh, and if you want some more pictures feel free to let me know. I've got a dozen or so more. I'm not being snide or anything, but the way things are here in Canada with resource extraction are fundamentally different compared to many other countries, because we *are* a resource extraction country and know the benefits of restoring the environment when we're done stripping out whatever we need to.
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After wildfires, trees naturally re-grow.
They will eventually, but in the amount of time it takes for them to regrow, drastic environmental impacts may happen which destroy their habitat and make it no longer a fit for that particular plant. A simple example would be mountain flooding after a wildfire. When conifers burn, they will leave a sheet of wax on top of the dirt. When snow runoff season begins (or there are heavy rains, as seen in Colorado in 2013) the ground is not as good at sponging up the moisture and releasing it slowly down-river ov
Re:Which is it? Very different cases. (Score:4, Insightful)
They will eventually, but in the amount of time it takes for them to regrow, drastic environmental impacts may happen which destroy their habitat
Forests are very optimized to handle fires, because fire is a natural occurrence that forests must deal with. Over time, some forests even require fire to thrive (like bristlecone pines which use the heat from fires to activate seeds in cones).
The main problem with fires is if there has (ironically) been too much prevention, then there is a lot of dead undergrowth and the fire burns hotter than normal.
So, again, which is it? Were these fires that have been monitored normal forest fires, that the landscape will deal with? Or were they more harmful for some reason?
Can you begin to see the feedback loop?
Again, the feedback loop is part of a natural process.
I'm not sure I understand their definition of "deforestation"
Great question also. Does it include pines killed from pine beetles for example?
Do you think that might be related to the increasing number of things that are totally fucked on our planet?
Things are always changing an environmentally we (meaning the Earth) are a LOT better off now than we were back in the 60s/70s for example. Especially when the Soviets were in their heyday they were absolutely a massive force for destruction we probably will not see the like of again. The stuff going on these days is really pretty minimal in comparison, which is why some eco-groups try to drum up fear, because they care more about maintaining funding than they do the environment.
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Citation needed.
"The stuff g
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Indeed! We have literally _twice_ as many humans today as in the 1960's.
http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/... [infoplease.com]
The improvements in ecological efforts are overwhelmed by population growth and increasing industrialization of large populations.
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Again, the feedback loop is part of a natural process.
I'll bet a dollar that if I go back through your posting history I can find you arguing against basing arguments on what is and is not natural.
Things are always changing an environmentally we (meaning the Earth) are a LOT better off now than we were back in the 60s/70s for example. Especially when the Soviets were in their heyday they were absolutely a massive force for destruction we probably will not see the like of again.
Ha! The Soviets are a mere blip compared to modern industrialism as a whole.
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Natural isn't always good. It is not artificial. A natural process typically has been going on for a long time.
Therefore, if a natural process permanently destroys forests, we'd have to wonder why we still have forests. It would seem that the natural fire cycle keeps forests very roughly stable, over time. Therefore, it's useful to know how much deforestation is caused by human (and irreversible) causes and how much by natural (and presumably reversible) causes.
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Hmm. Forest? Forest == Tree. Tree == Tree hugger. Tree hugger == hippie. Hippie == those fucking fucks I'm supposed to hate.
Fucking libtards.
The losses of forests must be due to some natural variation in the solar cycles and phases of the moon, i.e., it is good for humanity and good for the Free Market.
Wrong, my reaction is "is it OK?" (Score:1)
Why is it that your reaction, SuperKendall, is knee jerk "it must be okay"?
I didn't say it was OK, I said "Is it OK?" Because they didn't give us enough information to know; they just want us to panic. Why is it that you seem to think panicking is the most appropriate response to anything?
I myself in fact do more for the environment than you probably ever will. I do trail cleanups, plant trees, and generally try to help the environment in whatever ways I can, in person and through donations. I'll bet al
Re:Wrong, my reaction is "is it OK?" (Score:4, Insightful)
Why is it that you seem to think panicking is the most appropriate response to anything?
You're the only one talking about panicking.
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you're the only one talking about panicking, though you try to project it on us.
and fires are not simply "ok" just because they are part of the natural processes in some forests. too much fire is still a bad thing, just as too little can be.
and you really really need to understand that not every forest is like the redwood forests of California and reacts to wildfire in the same way.
Re:Which is it? Very different cases. (Score:4, Insightful)
Pretty much any time nowadays someone wants you to panic, you should look very closely at the message they are trying to sell you.
I just see some people stating some things they've measured. Not sure why you feel you should panic.
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you dumbasses are reproducing faster than the planet you live on can support you.
in fact, you've long since past the population count that your planet can support.
you're now on a rapid global resource munching collapse that is unstoppable because
both collectively and individually you will not stop consuming.
therefore all that is in the future for you, your children, and so on down the years
is a vast global wasteland of famine, war, and pestilence.
STUPID HUMANS.
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Re:Which is it? Very different cases. (Score:4, Interesting)
To say nothing of; what is the natural level of variation in forest year to year? From wildfires alone you would think there would be a substantial amount.
Some of the first laws on the books in California were prohibition of setting fires, for use against natives. They set controlled burns every year which kept the understory clear and the forests healthy. But other natives set fires to clear land for Bison. The landscape of pre-America America was very much deliberately created by peoples who had, after all, some 20,000 years to transform the continent.
Pretty much any time nowadays someone wants you to panic, you should look very closely at the message they are trying to sell you.
And any time someone wants to hand-wave away economic impact, same thing.
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Of course they are the question about the loss is whether there is habitat loss or not.
The issue here is the increasing intensity of wildfires and bushfires as global temperatures rise and forests dry out.
Fire is generally a welcome component of the functioning of some types of forests, like bushland, burning off old growth and releasing minerals back into the soil, burning seed
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Pretty much any time nowadays someone wants you to panic,
Pretty much everyone in our times knows that your stupid questions (pseudo sceptism) is just plain stupid.
For starters: the word lost implies that it was not replaced with new trees.
Under what rock did you live the last 30 years that you seem never to have heard about the world wide deforestation?
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-not all trees naturally regrow after wildfires. many forests after a wildfire take decades to regenerate, assuming they ever do, as they go through the various stages of development again. wildfires in Oklahoma cause a forest to die. then grasses move in, then brush, and slowly trees, and after 20-40 years you have a forest again. that's a far different cycle than a forest of redwood trees which are adapted to fire, and actually need it for theirs seeds, and the fire clears out underbrush but leaves many o
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A forest is an ecosystem, not just a bunch of trees.
In other news.... (Score:4, Informative)
An Australian-led analysis of satellite data has found the amount of carbon sequestered in plants has risen by almost four billion tonnes since 2003, reflecting a surge in the biomass of global flora — possibly the first such increase since the Industrial Revolution..........
http://www.weeklytimesnow.com.... [weeklytimesnow.com.au]
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Both reference the same work by the same person, even with select quotes. The one claiming a loss has data, the one claiming a gain doesn't even have a source.
No mention of Dendroctonus ponderosae, et al. (Score:3)
I don't understand how you can label Canada as losing all that forestation without mentioning MPB and other outbreaks which are on the rise.
Do they not realize that many of those forest fires wouldn't have happened outbreaks were less severe? This is ignoring the wildfire suppression that happened in the first place which contributed to the destruction being seen in the last few years.
Interesting to think that suppressing wildfires might actually contribute to climate change.
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Wildfires destroy man's natural habitat, the townhouse.
Oklahoma, as an example (Score:3)
Oklahoma was a tall grass prairie 150 years ago, with very few trees. Now there is considerable forestation. Much of this is due to human activity (for example, tree seeds being spread through cattle poop when being driven to market). Should we cut them all down and plant grass?
So is this the new metric of large square footage, the way Libraries of Congress have become?
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Also, other than the hail and possibility of a tornado, it's a damn fine place to grow nursery stock. A lot of nursery stock in Colorado comes from Oklahoma (and other nearby tough climates for growing, I'm sure, I can only speak for CO).
Re:Oklahoma, as an example (Score:5, Informative)
The USA in general has more forest now then it did 100 years ago. The first industrial revolution was really hard on trees. For example, In NorCal there is a town called Guerneville. Next to the Safeway you can read a historical marker that explains it was once called "stumptown". Reason? Redwoods cut down to make railroad ties and other structures. Guerneville is now surrounded by 2nd growth redwood. It looks great, even if you know that it's not the amazing beauty that it must have been before.
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The USA in general has more forest now then it did 100 years ago.
Not quite:
Forest area has been relatively stable since 1907-- US Department of Agriculture.
It has 300 million hectares of forest plus/minus 6m over the last 100 years.
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The USA in general has more forest now then it did 100 years ago.
Are you measuring by area, by volume, or by mass? We're only really interested in that last measurement.
For example, In NorCal there is a town called Guerneville.
Yeah, they make beer there.
Next to the Safeway you can read a historical marker that explains it was once called "stumptown".
Here comes the fun part.
Reason? Redwoods cut down to make railroad ties and other structures. Guerneville is now surrounded by 2nd growth redwood. It looks great, even if you know that it's not the amazing beauty that it must have been before.
Looks are only a highway boundary deep. Mature redwoods actually grow faster and thus fix more carbon per acre than young redwoods. So your little story about how great Guerneville looks is really quite illustrative both of how dire the situation is, and how pathetic is the public's willingness to pretend everything is A-OK.
Let me tell you a little story
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Don't make shit up. The central valley doesn't have enough rain to support redwoods. Never did.
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Don't make shit up. The central valley doesn't have enough rain to support redwoods. Never did.
Guess what? Forests change weather patterns.
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Oklahoma was a tall grass prairie 150 years ago, with very few trees. Now there is considerable forestation. Much of this is due to human activity
The natives burned down trees to make more grassland for bison. Guess what? Oklahoma being a tall grass prairie is due at least in part to deliberate human activity.
This map is highly suspect (Score:5, Informative)
I live near some of this area. There has been no fire or logging in the area and yet it is marked pink.
I'm also seeing a lot of areas that are pink that don't seem very likely to be involved in logging or forest fires. I mean, look at rural alaska.
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Pink only indicates change. Forests can change without human intervention you know.
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I don't think they have changed though... I mean, the forest is on average as dense as ever. A given tree is going to fall over now and then... but that's normal. The mushrooms go nuts on it... turn the tree to a rich mulch... and lots of saplings grow up in its place. That's a healthy forest.
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I said near my house not my literal house. And I know there wasn't any logging or fires in that area.
1. Logging is prohibited. Period. It isn't allowed. For any reason. The whole area is protected.
2. There haven't been any fires there for about 10 years.
So... why is it pink when logging is prohibited, there is no logging, there hasn't been logging there for my entire life, and there haven't been any fires in the last 10 years?
Explain it to me.
I smell horseshit. But you probably like horseshit, don't you? It
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Dude, there are pixels that are pink and pixels that are not pink all over that forest.
That means the resolution is good enough to say that there is deforestation in one part of the forest and not the other. It isn't just one pixel. You zoom in and it looks about as good as weather radar map. It isn't bad at all unless they're overstating their precision.
What is more, I jacked the deforestation up to 75 percent to see where the worst zones were and they were still citing big portions of the forest as being
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It is satellite data so the cause is not likely known. It could be biosphere recession or an increase in the water table within your area. Either would slowly change forests to grassland.
In any case. Just because you do not know of any fire or logging in one tiny area on planet earth does nothing to refute either global or local data. So why the hatespeech against other slashdot users and the derisive claim that you know more than experts who spent the last decade producing this data after a very long educa
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The forest is not changing to grasslands. It is largely unchanged. There's no logging. There's no fires. Trees do fall over and rot on occasion but nothing unusual.
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I mean, if a bunch of beetles go crazy and kill a few million trees, that isn't my fault. That's on those beetles.
Except of course, when human caused global warming causes the pine beetle population to explode.
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In un managed forests a fire sweeps through every couple decades killing off the beetle killed trees and most the beetles in an area, the healthy trees are singed but not really harmed and are thus protected by the killing of most the beetles. In managed forest
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The beetles are not new, their presence is not a result of global warming but rather of our meddling with natural burn patterns for so many years.
It's not one OR the other. Both factors play an important role.
http://ngm.nationalgeographic.... [nationalgeographic.com]
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I'm pretty sure beetles existed before humans ever lit a branch of fire much less refined oil.
So no. Beetles exist.
Your logic assumes that anything that happens has to be the fault of human beings which ignores that there are vast natural processes on this planet that existed before humans ever evolved.
to make your argument you're going to have to associate in a factual way any such incident with human activity. Absent that, your opinion is an opinion.
What is more, looking at just ONE YEAR of canopy cover c
Dammit! (Score:2)
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o gosh i hope not, because then dear ol' kansas would have no buffer from the morons that inhabit texas.
It's still better than being next to fucking Oklahoma.
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You think so?
I can see it now...
Kansans driving into Texas, like they do in Oklahoma, going ten or more mph under the speed limit everywhere (I followed a guy for ten miles doing 35 on a highway before I could pass him. It wasn't an isolated incident.).
Texans crashing into said Kansans, because they drive 90 mph and have no idea how to operate a motor vehicle (Ever seen someone spin out on ice? I saw a Dallas driver do it on a street wet from someone's sprinkler. Complete 360 and into the curb.).
And ther
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This comment made me curious. And it's not true. When measured by fatalities per vehicle mile travelled or fatalities per person, Texas is worse than Georgia.
And Montana is worse than either of them....
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Just based on my personal experience, so the comment wasn't exactly scientific.
Most of my Georgia driving was around the Atlanta area. I've seen a lot of really stupid drivers over there.
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Don't ever go to Boston. Seriously. They are in the Mumbai league of bad drivers.
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I've heard that, but the company I drove for doesn't do anything past New York (and even then, only rarely). I've heard plenty of truck drivers curse Boston, although NYC still holds the candle for most the most truck-hostile reputation (I've never been there either) - not for having bad drivers, but because the roads aren't made for 53' trailers.
Has anyone counted Oklahoma recently? (Score:2)
If there's more than one, I suspect I might know what happened.
Measurement system (Score:2)
Are we talking metric Oklahoma's or should I be converting this into American football fields?
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Use furlongs for large measurements, rods and chains for small ones.
Metric? Is that one of those fancy newfangled yards?
Some skepticism... (Score:2)
I read TFA, and looked as some of the links. I have no idea what the overall situation is, and these sites certainly do not provide the information. Just as an example, I found various maps that document forest losses. Areas of the world where forest cover is increasing (most of Europe, for example) are simply shown as "no losses". In other words, they show forests that were cut down, or that burned, but they do not show newly forested areas, or forests that have recovered from burning.
With this kid of bias
Oklahoma-sized area, hectares, square miles? (Score:2)
Oklahoma-sized area, hectares, square miles?
For people using non-retarded units, this area is a bit smaller than 60 angstromkiloparsecs
Unclear on the figures reported (Score:2)
Being suspicious of virtutally all "science" reporting I am left wondering - is the figure reported "net" loss after accounting for areas where there was forest growth?
Not All Bad News... (Score:2)
According to a recent study the total amount of vegetation in the world has gone up over the last decade. This is mainly due to tree planting efforts in China, changing rainfall patterns allowing more growth in new areas and (probably) the increased amount of CO2 in the atmosphere.
The not so good side of things is that the plants aren't taking up all the extra CO2, it's still going up just at a somewhat slower rate, and if rainfall patter
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This is mainly due to tree planting efforts in China, changing rainfall patterns allowing more growth in new areas and (probably) the increased amount of CO2 in the atmosphere.
It's probably not because of the increased CO2, because most plants can't make use of much more CO2 than they get already. In order to do so, they'd have to receive more energy from sunlight, so that they could do more photosynthesis — but most plants have evolved to make use of a certain range of insolation, and they don't function correctly or even die if they get much more than they're used to. CO2 enrichment is a thing, but it doesn't work on all plants, and it's coupled with artificial lighting.
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Hey! (Score:2)
Talk about geo-engineering mind-fuck. The tools to do it are right in place, just open your eyes: Trees, grasses, shrubs, best suited for the job and well tested for eons.
What is actually happening?
Humanity and it's internal power structures are destroying them.
Maybe the human DNA needs a patch from those plants to get healty?
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What the fuck sort of unit is an Oklahoma? Or a square mile?
A perplexing one for those who know anything about Oklahoma. Oklahoma is not known for heavy tree cover. Most of it is naturally grass land with quite few trees. According to Wikipedia, forest covers 24% of Oklahoma in the present day. I've heard it claimed (having difficulty finding authoritative sources) that this is consequences of numerous artificial lakes changing the climate and that originally there were fewer trees.
Re:What the fuck sort of unit.. (Score:5, Interesting)
I've heard it claimed (having difficulty finding authoritative sources) that this is consequences of numerous artificial lakes changing the climate and that originally there were fewer trees.
Before humans arrived in North America, much of the great plains was covered by scrub and mixed trees and grassland, similar to the African savanna. Latter, the native America tribes regularly burned off the vegetation, wiping out many of the trees, and establishing the tall grass prairie. This created grazing land for bison and pronghorns, but could only be maintained with regular intentional burning. So the increase in trees in modern Oklahoma, is really just a return to the "natural" state.
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I've heard it claimed (having difficulty finding authoritative sources) that this is consequences of numerous artificial lakes changing the climate and that originally there were fewer trees.
Part of it's probably that. A lot of it, however, is due to farming and the dust bowl back in the '30s - especially in the western half of the state.
The prairie we had before we started farming was pretty good at preserving the soil. Wildfire kept the soil enriched and the trees down, and the grass kept the soil in place.
That all changed once we ripped up all the grass and started plowing. The wind here is pretty steady, and there weren't any trees to block it. Combine that with a severe drought, and th
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That wouldn't explain the recovery after the dust bowl. Sure, there's some cattle ranching out there, but it's certainly not everywhere. And while the farmers do fertilize the fields, they don't fertilize areas left fallow. Those areas are recovering as well.
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Dumb units (Score:3)
Dumb Americans. Sensible people measure land area in Wales. How many Wales are there to an Oklahoma?
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There are roughly 8.7 Wales to an Oklahoma.
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The metric unit is a Belgium.
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What the fuck sort of unit is an Oklahoma?
An Oklahoma is where the wind comes sweepin' down the plain, And the wavin' wheat can sure smell sweet, When the wind comes right behind the rain.
OOOOOO-klaHOma...
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That'll solve the problem, and really it would be an improvement for the state.
Green would be OK, however "burnt orange makes me puke". [google.com]