Brazil Tries Deploying Its Military To Fight Fires in the Amazon (businesstimes.com.sg) 44
"As an ecological disaster in the Amazon escalated into a global political crisis, Brazil's president, Jair Bolsonaro, took the rare step on Friday of mobilising the armed forces to help contain blazes of a scale not seen in nearly a decade," reports the New York Times:
The sudden reversal, after days of dismissing growing concern over hundreds of fires raging across the Amazon, came as international outrage grew over the rising deforestation in the world's largest tropical rainforest. European leaders threatened to cancel a major trade deal, protesters staged demonstrations outside Brazilian embassies and calls for a boycott of Brazilian products snowballed on social media. As a chorus of condemnation intensified, Brazil braced for the prospect of punitive measures that could severely damage an economy that is already sputtering...
"[E]xperts say the clearing of land during the months-long dry season to make way for crops or grazing has accelerated the deforestation," reports AFP. "More than half of the fires are in the Amazon, and some 1,663 new fires were ignited between Thursday and Friday, according to the National Institute for Space Research."
terrancem quotes the non-profit environmental news site Mongabay: High-resolution images from satellite company Planet are revealing glimpses of some of the fires currently devastating the Amazon rainforest... Beyond dramatic snapshots, those images also provide data that can be mined for critical insights into what's happening in the Amazon on a basin-wide scale, according to Greg Asner, the director of the Center for Global Discovery and Conservation Science at Arizona State University, whose team is using Planet's data to assess the impact of the fires on carbon emissions.
"If you took all of the carbon stored in every tropical forest on Earth and burned it up, you would emit about five times the carbon dioxide into the atmosphere that is already there. The Amazon rainforest represents about half of this forest carbon to give you an idea of how serious this current situation is and the kind of impact it will have on climate change."
"[E]xperts say the clearing of land during the months-long dry season to make way for crops or grazing has accelerated the deforestation," reports AFP. "More than half of the fires are in the Amazon, and some 1,663 new fires were ignited between Thursday and Friday, according to the National Institute for Space Research."
terrancem quotes the non-profit environmental news site Mongabay: High-resolution images from satellite company Planet are revealing glimpses of some of the fires currently devastating the Amazon rainforest... Beyond dramatic snapshots, those images also provide data that can be mined for critical insights into what's happening in the Amazon on a basin-wide scale, according to Greg Asner, the director of the Center for Global Discovery and Conservation Science at Arizona State University, whose team is using Planet's data to assess the impact of the fires on carbon emissions.
"If you took all of the carbon stored in every tropical forest on Earth and burned it up, you would emit about five times the carbon dioxide into the atmosphere that is already there. The Amazon rainforest represents about half of this forest carbon to give you an idea of how serious this current situation is and the kind of impact it will have on climate change."
All I can say is (Score:2)
It's better than flamethrowers [theonion.com].
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Since you don't know this - The Onion is a news parody site. What I posted was not a real news story.
Re: All I can say is (Score:2)
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Ha, ha.
But back burning [wikipedia.org] is a legitimate firefighting technique.
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It's probably more effective to deploy the military to shoot at the people starting the fires.
We have a solution (Score:2)
So, if the current tree mass contains 5x the CO2 that is already in the atmosphere, than adding only 20% to that tree cover should remove substantially all of the CO2 from the atmosphere, should it not?
20% more forest coverage does not sound too bad (though, needless to say, agriculture would have to be a bit more compact to accommodate it).
Re:We have a solution (Score:5, Insightful)
So what, we just click our heels together, snap our fingers, and say the magic words hooda thunkit, and we'll have 20% more trees in the world, just like that?
So what, we just click our heels together and the entire world just magically transitions to a low carbon global economy, just like that?
According to researchers at ETH Zurich, planting trees is by far the most effective way to combat climate change: https://www.theguardian.com/en... [theguardian.com]
If everyone who protests in the streets or posts online about global warming instead spends a fraction of that time planting trees, then we would have far more time to transition to a reduced carbon economy. The ETH researchers have even identified the best places in each country to do so. I have no respect for the endless online whinging from people who have never planted a tree in their lives.
If you truly believe there is a climate crisis, then act like it - go a plant a tree.
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All these eco warriors who cycle to work every day to reduce their carbon footprint, when they are cycling down cycle paths that were put in by removing the fucking trees along the side of the road. Tree hugger idiots, don't be a tree hugger, be a tree planter. India just had a huge campaign a short while ago and planted... I forget, a lot of trees. I remember doing this back when I was in school, it's sad that it doesn't happen anymore. It's like we are getting dumber as a soc
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North America is still pretty much covered with trees wherever trees used to grow. Eastern Europe and Scandinavia as well.
Adding 20% more trees in the world is a LOT of trees, moreover, worldwide tree coverage has increased over the last 35 years.
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20% more forest coverage does not sound too bad (though, needless to say, agriculture would have to be a bit more compact to accommodate it).
And, presumably, we all would have to eat a bit less. I fear that voters in most countries will be less than thrilled about this solution.
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Actually, as a species, it would be helpful if humans stopped eating cattle
Raising cattle for food is about 10x less efficient than just growing food for people
Ok, ok, so some people by feel their freedumbs are being hurt, but honestly, what good is a freedumb that eventually wipes out our civilization?
Is there any evidence that forest firefighting (Score:2)
Is there any evidence that forest firefighting at this scale can be successful? I mean, sure you could blow tens of millions of dollars in a futile attempt to put it out, only to watch it burn util it stops on its own. Sure seems like this is how it works in CA every other year. Besides, it would seem that "deforestation" should be helpful in stopping fires, if that's what you want.
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As shown in CA, fighting their naturally occurring forest fires has an inverse effect on the number and quality of their forests. As old trees no longer sustain damage from burning (unlike what tree-huggers like to tell us, forest fires don't burn the whole forest to a toasty crisp), they are crowding out the ecosystem below their canopies and thus shrubs and vegetation no longer grow, leading to less bugs, less animals, starving brown sub-canopy vegetation, eroding soil and eventually unhealthy old trees w
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Sure, some forest fires can be 'resorative', but the fires around the Amazon, which are being set to claim grazing land via slash and burn, are not restorative at all.
In these cases, the fires are followed with efforts to remove any remaining root systems and completely remove any 'forest' that survives the fire
Re: My typical experiences with the modern Interne (Score:3)
Maybe... (Score:1)
Woods are on fire because planet got too hot and too dry and we indirectly caused it and there is no increase in criminal activity in the area, maybe there is even less and this is just a consequence of global warming we didn't anticipate
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If we take that article at it's word, it seems more a consequence of free-market capitalism.
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Pro-"gotta eat."
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emboldened by Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro’s pro-business policies. "
Let me guess, "business" is a swear word now?
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Meanwhile, there are 3x as many fires burning in Angola [bloomberg.com], and 50% more burning in the Congo. And yes, they're pretty much all farmers clearing previously cleared fields of overgrowth in preparation for more planting.
An existential crisis, it ain't...
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The existential crisis in this context is not necessarily the burning rainforest, but rather the right-wing Trump-style regimes like Bolsonaro's, who have encouraged the ranchers and farmers to clear these lands. I'm hearing from Brazilian friends that Bolsonaro is not sending the military to fight the fires, but rather as cover to protect the farmers and ranchers from the indigenous people who live in the Amazon who are pissed that their home is on fire. And when you hea
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Or the media coverage you're seeing/they're seeing is there mostly because that media doesn't like Bolsonaro, which is why they're reporting on this like it's the end of the world, rather than a few years ago when there were even more fires, nor the even larger number of fires in Angola or the Congo.
It's openly known that most photos circulating on social media and being publicized by celebrities are from years, even decades, ago, or from other countries entirely [france24.com]. What would be your explanation as to why th
Huh... (Score:3)
Nothing about so many of the images being used to show this 'disaster' from 2019, are actually images from 1999. Colour me shocked.
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Let me guess ... a news site used some older pictures, and somehow you think that's proof about the science here.
No. But nice try. It was politicians, idiots on social media, and news organizations showing older pictures and labeling it as actual footage. Right beside the heavy smoke pictures. There was no taken in 1999 in the picture bylines. Macron is one of the chief political asshats pushing it. The 'science' says that the fires are in the normal band of the year, in some cases are less severe then previous years.
Hope you're enjoying the fake news, that was manufactured to generate outrage.
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Meh. It got a devastating problem which occurs annually some public attention which is the first step to actually doing something about it. I'm okay with Fake News for the right reasons.
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Meh. It got a devastating problem which occurs annually some public attention which is the first step to actually doing something about it. I'm okay with Fake News for the right reasons.
All forests in the dry season have annual forest fires. The fact that the number of fires is less than 20 years ago, but is suddenly a thing should tell you exactly how much you're being manipulated. The question you should ask is "why" this is news, the answer is simple. The media and leftwing politicians hate the new president.
~8 years ago the forest fire season here in Canada was bad. It was a no-spring year, meaning low rainfall in the early part of the year, with the temps being very warm, very fas
Mostly Farms, Not Forests (Score:5, Interesting)
https://reason.com/2019/08/23/... [reason.com]
"Natural fires in the Amazon are rare, and the majority of these fires were set by farmers preparing Amazon-adjacent farmland for next year's crops and pasture," soberly explains The New York Times. "Much of the land that is burning was not old-growth rain forest, but land that had already been cleared of trees and set for agricultural use."
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Miatake (Score:2)
Succumbing to international coercion was a mistake. If the Europeans are willing to defy America to continue trading with the murderous, terrorist-supporting Iranians, they'd never cancel a trade deal over trees. Brazil will regret signalling that they can be so easily coerced and blackmailed.
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Succumbing to international coercion was a mistake. If the Europeans are willing to defy America to continue trading with the murderous, terrorist-supporting Iranians, they'd never cancel a trade deal over trees. Brazil will regret signalling that they can be so easily coerced and blackmailed.
In Europe, governments lose voters' backing if they refuse to protect the rainforest. People know that destroyed rainforest cannot be restored by forestation.
This happens every year, in S. America and Africa (Score:2)
Usually after El Niño, the dry weather will increase the fires. It happens every year, but after el Niño it gets a bit worst.
You can use the National Institute for Space Research tool and see how it happens in every year and how it's in the medium historical value (select Brazil): http://queimadas.dgi.inpe.br/q... [dgi.inpe.br]
Or you can use the NASA tool and see how it happens on South America and it's a way worst on Africa (but you'll not see Macron and DiCaprio posting 2003 images about it): https://firms.m [nasa.gov]
They'll shoot that fire dead! (Score:1)
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