Forecast Suggests Rainforest Could Stop Producing Enough Rain To Sustain Itself By 2021 (theguardian.com) 164
An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Guardian: Soaring deforestation coupled with the destructive policies of Brazil's far-right president, Jair Bolsonaro, could push the Amazon rainforest dangerously to an irreversible "tipping point" within two years, a prominent economist has said. After this point the rainforest would stop producing enough rain to sustain itself and start slowly degrading into a drier savannah, releasing billions of tonnes of carbon into the atmosphere, which would exacerbate global heating and disrupt weather across South America.
The warning came in a policy brief published this week by Monica de Bolle, a senior fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics in Washington DC. The report sparked controversy among climate scientists. Some believe the tipping point is still 15 to 20 years away, while others say the warning accurately reflects the danger that Bolsonaro and global heating pose to the Amazon's survival. The policy brief noted that Brazil's space research institute, INPE, reported that deforestation in August was 222% higher than in August 2018. Maintaining the current rate of increase INPE reported between January and August this year would bring the Amazon "dangerously close to the estimated tipping point as soon as 2021 beyond which the rainforest can no longer generate enough rain to sustain itself", de Bolle wrote.
The warning came in a policy brief published this week by Monica de Bolle, a senior fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics in Washington DC. The report sparked controversy among climate scientists. Some believe the tipping point is still 15 to 20 years away, while others say the warning accurately reflects the danger that Bolsonaro and global heating pose to the Amazon's survival. The policy brief noted that Brazil's space research institute, INPE, reported that deforestation in August was 222% higher than in August 2018. Maintaining the current rate of increase INPE reported between January and August this year would bring the Amazon "dangerously close to the estimated tipping point as soon as 2021 beyond which the rainforest can no longer generate enough rain to sustain itself", de Bolle wrote.
Bet on it? (Score:2, Interesting)
Where can I bet against this two-year prediction? I'd be willing to give 3-1 odds against at least if there was an efficient way to make a bet that it's wrong, especially if we can agree on accurate measurements vs. politically motivated ones.
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Re:Bet on it? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Bet on it? (Score:4, Insightful)
The fifteen to twenty ones years is when it is a dry savanah, the period when it starts to dry is coming up, that drying out will take decades but the tipping point to start it is closer. Then comes the real mess for Brazil, they think, hah, hah, rest of the world drowns fuck them. Reality, the mud flows will choke and kill rivers, mass erosion heavily polluted coastal waters, dying off ecology due to extremely cloudy waters, and the loss in crops due to collapsed rainfall will be huge and those rivers will permanently shrink. That ecological catastrophe for Brazil will be far worse for them, than the rest of the world. The amount of soil to be deposited at the mouths of Brazils rivers will be huge, ten thousand years worth of mud in a century, ohh, yeah they are going to have some trully massive problems created by far right greed now thinking and damn the future, some one else's problemo, hah hah.
Re:Bet on it? (Score:5, Interesting)
the mud flows will choke and kill rivers, mass erosion heavily polluted coastal waters, dying off ecology due to extremely cloudy waters, and the loss in crops due to collapsed rainfall will be huge and those rivers will permanently shrink. That ecological catastrophe for Brazil will be far worse for them, than the rest of the world. The amount of soil to be deposited at the mouths of Brazils rivers will be huge, ten thousand years worth of mud in a century
If what you say comes to pass, then the problem will be just as bad for the rest of the world as it is for Brazil. The Earths ecosystems are interconnected, you should remember that. The Amazon river deposits a lot of silts into the Atlantic, and the marine life in the oceans benefits from that.
Something like what you describe wouldn't be something to celebrate.
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In my country even right-wingers are implementing green party policies!
The problem is that this concept of humans being the problem is false.
If anything government is the problem, but even then all animals have effects on their environment.
The climate alarmist predictions haven't just been proven false, they where pointing in the opposite direction of what actually happened:
https://cei.org/blog/wrong-aga... [cei.org]
Re:Bet on it? (Score:4)
In my country even right-wingers are implementing green party policies!
From your username/id I assume you are from the Netherlands, where perhaps yes, as you say even right-wingers implement green party policies.
But the majority of right wing politicians world wide do not.
Here in the US, "green party policies" or anything seen to benefit the environment at the cost of "economic progress" is fought tooth and nail by the right wing and their corporate masters who actually call the shots.
Your comment,
this concept of humans being the problem is false
is quite humorous, like listening to Flat Earthers try to rationalize their "theories".
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I don't see many leftists burning the rain forests and generally shitting where we eat, at least not at the moment. Do you?
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With respect to the Shitting, visit San Fran.
Re:Bet on it? (Score:4, Insightful)
How do you know the homeless are left wing or even political?
Não faça coco no lugar errado! (Score:2)
> I don't see many leftists burning the rain forests and generally shitting where we eat, at least not at the moment. Do you?
The poor in Brazil are usually Socialists, so this may reflect more on what you can read in Brazilian Portuguese. Brazil has had about 12 years of Socialist government (Lula, Dilma & a bit of Temer) that failed to do anything for the poor in Amazonia where basically starving people are trying to eek out a living with subsistence farming. Instead, all the Socialists managed to
Re:Bet on it? (Score:4)
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If it fails to come true, it will simply be said that these guys aren't "Climate Scientists" and be dismissed.
Re:Bet on it? (Score:4, Insightful)
Yes, I'm sure this will be held up as another "counter example" of climate change being fake news when it doesn't happen to the very day/hour of a prediction made by one person.
(All those glaciers disappearing since the 1960s, the wildlife moving north, and two decades of "hottest month ever" temperature records notwithstanding...)
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The glaciers have not been disappearing since the 1960s, they have been in retreat since the mid 1700s when the little ice age ended.
Right about the time the industrial revolution started?
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Yea, I get it. You have been scared into believing the narrative... except the Antarctic ice has been increasing overall since 1978.... https://www.pnas.org/content/1... [pnas.org]
So much for that theory of the start of the industrial revolution.
Your own citation says: "The satellite record reveals that a gradual, decades-long overall increase in Antarctic sea ice extents reversed in 2014, with subsequent rates of decrease in 2014–2017 far exceeding the more widely publicized decay rates experienced in the Arctic. The rapid decreases reduced the Antarctic sea ice extents to their lowest values in the 40-y record, both on a yearly average basis (record low in 2017) and on a monthly basis (record low in February 2017)."
Seems to me like you're s
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Huh? (Score:2)
a prominent economist has said
Since when are economists experts on biomes?
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Nevertheless, economists are generally brainwashed by their curriculum and discipline's culture, so I'm not inclined to treat much they say as Gospel, nor should anyone. These are the same "experts" who for generations have been telling us all that recessions and depressions are bad, when in fact they're only truly bad for the One Percent. A recession is the beginning of an economic revolution in which the disadvantaged attempt to restore to themselves a more equitable share of resources. If the fact tha
Re:Huh? (Score:5, Interesting)
Middle class are worst of. Lower class usually have nothing to lose anyway.
Re:Huh? (Score:5, Interesting)
You're quite wrong. The leverage the One Percent have, especially over the "lower class" but literally over everyone else, is their dependency upon them for employment. That is the primary leverage they exploit to preserve their dominance and prevent an actual revolution with guillotines. When a recession hits, what is the reaction of the One Percent? They begin "downsizing", laying off or firing their dependents, in retaliation for their loss of profit. What is the reaction of their dependents? Negotiation for their jobs back, with either fewer work hours or reduced pay, or both, and reduced or eliminated secondary benefits.
The old dynamic driving revolutions has changed because of the Industrial and Information Ages and the enormous competency and self-sufficiency gap those Ages have created. Most people dependent upon the One Percent for employment simply can't walk away and expect to survive. That gap didn't exist prior to the Eighteenth Century. The One Percent know this gap exists and exploit it to stall the revolutions that would otherwise occur periodically as wealth becomes excessively concentrated. The sky is no longer the limit for them.
Re:Huh? (Score:5, Interesting)
So recession comes, poor people earn less. Rich people own the same assets, but now get to pay poor people less for the same amount of work. (as a bonus they also pick up extra assets on the cheap from the over-leveraged almost rich.)
How is that not a benefit to the rich?
Scenario 2, the economy keeps growing strongly, competition for workers pushes wages up. Bad for rich. People are confident and start new companies.More competition. Good for the newcomer almost rich, bad for the established rich.
After a recession, when the economy starts to recover again, the rich also have first mover advantage since they have the assets and cash to start growing again first.
Unless the poor are going to grab torches and pitchforks and burn everything down, the rich benefit from recessions.
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Unless the poor are going to grab torches and pitchforks and burn everything down, the rich benefit from recessions.
Yep. The rich and politicians gain from recessions (somebody has to "save" those poor schleps, amirite?). What could go wrong?
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politicians gain from recessions
Often it's the politicians in opposition at the time. They get to blame the current government for the recession, and promise lots of good things to fix it for everyone.
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> the poor are going to grab torches and pitchforks and burn everything down
Y-Yea... after burning everything down the poor surely won't be poor any more. They'll burn their way to prosperity and wealth.
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They aren't trying to gain prosperity and wealth. They already know they can't because they think the rich already have it all.
(not saying I think that)
Both sides are just being selfish assholes.
Rich: I've got mine, fuck you.
Poor: Not any more you don't. Fuck you right back.
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You do realize that it's been over 200 years since we've had "actual revolution with guillotines", right?
The Great Depression happened without a massive worker uprising that overthrew the government, and they were able to hold things together without the amazing thought control powers that mass media and social media give wealthy superpowers today.
Sorry dude, but what you describe is probably not gonna happen again.
Re:Huh? (Score:4, Informative)
There were various revolutions and coups that ended up leading to a world war. Even in America there was serious talk about the President taking emergency powers and ruling as a dictator as well as rumours of coup.
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Dependence on employment is what keeps the poor producing for the wealthy, but it isn't what keeps revolutions at bay. Shelter and full bellies keep the revolutions at bay. People like to talk about revolution, but until a sufficient block of people are going to bed hungry on the regular there won't be any revolution (and I'm talking about real hunger - not "I skipped a meal because I left my wallet at home" hunger that studies looking to grab headlines love to promote). Who wants to leave their family,
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I wasn't talking about the apocalypse, just regular economic cycle ups and downs. Once law and order is gone, all bets are off.
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Oh. I was talking about the article at hand. Sorry.
Re:Huh? (Score:4)
There's no debate that Bolsonaro is encouraging people to slash and burn the rainforests as quickly as possible. That's a bad thing. What does that have to do with your tirade against economists and how recessions are really great...?
Original papers (Score:5, Informative)
More details about how the rainforest effects rainfall cycles:
https://royalsocietypublishing... [royalsocie...ishing.org]
https://rmets.onlinelibrary.wi... [wiley.com]
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FYI: https://www.grammarly.com/blog... [grammarly.com]
Sounds like we need a war (Score:5, Funny)
Clearly the major powers need to invade Brazil and occupy it, and then use this occupation to do whatever is necessary to stop the deforestation.
Maybe Europe can head this one up.
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Or maybe you could just stop buying illegal brazilian wood, so the grileiros don't cut em for you.
The whole "cutting the amazon to make farms" is a scam, because the fertile soil there is thin and not usable for farms at all, but the grileiros pretend to be making farms to get around hurdles to acquire corrupt fake ownership papers there.
Re: Sounds like we need a war (Score:5, Funny)
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Re: Sounds like we need a war (Score:2)
You stop sucking Brazilian dicks.
Re:Sounds like we need a war (Score:5, Informative)
Your land grab idea is not even close to the reality of their situation. They don't even THINK like that. They're too busy trying to stay alive.
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But if they starve and die, then the problem is solved is it not? No more starving and no more breeding of future starvers, and no need to cut down any trees. Seems like a viable solution (what is called a win-win) to me.
Additionally, a nuclear war between Pakistan and India will solve global warming and also end the robocall epidemic -- both almost overnight, which also is a win-win situation. How do we get the Paki's and the Indians to kill each other off with nuclear weapons?
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So what, precisely, is your solution for Brazil and it's people? I don't think they are just going to die willingly as a token gesture to the rest of the world. I certainly wouldn't.
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Until the population of Brazil can do its own politics in a way the EU approves of.
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Yes, invading a sovereign country that has done absolutely nothing hostile certainly conforms with good world citizenship.
In the past, I would assume you were joking, but now, I am sure there are plenty of socialists/sociopaths that think this is a great idea, and makes perfect sense. That's why I am glad the USA has lots of nuclear weapons and could blow Europe off the map in about 15 minutes, if push comes to shove.
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Clearly the major powers need to invade Brazil and occupy it, and then use this occupation to do whatever is necessary to stop the deforestation.
Maybe Europe can head this one up.
What a great idea! Intevencionism and occupation has always proved to solve all major problems around the world.
Let's start it right now!
We have secured the Rainforest- Trump (Score:2)
Maybe we can send Al Qaeda into Brazil (Obama style), do a Color revolution Clinton style and once the country is burning (this time the cities) we can have a party on Rio beach with a "Mission Accomplished" banner
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TBH I know you're kidding but it's the only way that "precious" natural resources are going to be preserved, either:
a) bring the standard of living of people all over the world up to that of Western wealthy states, such that they have the idle wealth and capacity to fallow vast tracts of otherwise-useful land because it's "important" for some reason, or
b) the rich countries simply buy sovereignty over or take over the places that are important. Think Brazil is handling the Amazon forest badly? Buy it, the
Didn't get past "far-right president" (Score:1, Offtopic)
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"My neighbor just called me to let me know my house is on fire, but I'm going to ignore him because he had a big Hillary sign in his yard back in 2016."
Facts don't stop being facts because you disapprove of the political views of the messenger.
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Facts don't stop being facts because you disapprove of the political views of the messenger.
Oh, you mean like when people on the left or the right start talking about the need for nuclear power?
If both Andrew Yang and Donald Trump are agreeing on something then maybe we should pay attention. Like that of the need for nuclear power for keeping the lights on.
When we have Cortez, Sanders, et al. talking about shutting down all the nuclear power plants and hydroelectric dams, and people oppose this, that's not always because of the political views of the messenger. It might be that, but not always.
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If both Andrew Yang and Donald Trump are agreeing on something then maybe we should pay attention. Like that of the need for nuclear power for keeping the lights on.
Agreed. Donald Trump is a spectacular idiot, so if Yang and Trump are agreeing on something, that something must be stupid.
Re:Didn't get past "far-right president" (Score:5, Insightful)
It's indicative of the contempt you hold for most peoples concerns that burning rain-forests in the Amazon represent an opportunity for you to discuss your "feelings" about nuclear power.
My "feelings" on nuclear power are certainly relevant to this discussion, a relationship I neglected to make clear before.
What is replacing the Amazon forest that is being burned? For one it is sugarcane grown for energy. Energy in the form of ethanol fuel. We know how to make fuel from nuclear power, and we have known how to make fuel from electrical power for a very long time. The process of turning electricity into a fuel that is analogous to gasoline, jet fuel, and other liquid fuels we use every day, is a process developed a century ago. A technology that kept German airplanes flying in World War II long after they lost access to petroleum imports. They used coal for their primary source of carbon in this process, because that was what they had. Development of this process has allowed us to use most any source of carbon, such as municipal waste and sewage. Further development has allowed us to use CO2 from the air or from that dissolved in water. During this time of developing this fuel synthesis process we've been developing nuclear power, and getting electricity from nuclear power is well understood. Put the two technologies together brings us the ability to produce the fuel we need in a way that produces no net CO2 in the air, burning the fuel means releasing the same amount of CO2 that was removed from the air to create the fuel.
If we want to keep Brazil from burning the Amazon for fuel then we need to offer them an alternative. Something available to them at a cost less than that of burning the Amazon. We have that in the form of fuel we can get using carbon and hydrogen in seawater, and using nuclear fission reactors for the heat and electricity to drive the process.
Most people with concerns about the environment object to nuclear power because they've educated themselves enough to understand we don't need it.
Okay then, where is Brazil going to get this power? Solar power? Where do they put the solar panels that doesn't displace forest? Wind power? Where do those go? Hydroelectric power? Won't the dams disrupt the flow of the rivers? The rivers that nourish the forest and everything that lives within it?
To save the Amazon from destruction means providing the people in Brazil energy that doesn't require disturbing the Amazon. Nothing can do this but nuclear power. If you "feel" differently, because of your education, then educate me how this would work without nuclear power.
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It's indicative of the contempt you hold for most peoples concerns that burning rain-forests in the Amazon represent an opportunity for you to discuss your "feelings" about nuclear power.
My "feelings" on nuclear power are certainly relevant to this discussion, a relationship I neglected to make clear before.
What is replacing the Amazon forest that is being burned? For one it is sugarcane grown for energy. Energy in the form of ethanol fuel.
Sugar is Brazil's main produce item. Ethanol is produced from the byproducts of the sugarcane industry. So, no, nuclear power is not relevant to this discussion in the context of the strawman you have produced.
The ethanol is produced by industry byproducts that would have rotted and released CO2 anyway. Using it to produce fuel is the very meaning of "sustainable" energy.
How much of those sugar exports are to the US, now that's a more interesting question.
Most people with concerns about the environment object to nuclear power because they've educated themselves enough to understand we don't need it.
Okay then, where is Brazil going to get this power? Solar power? Where do they put the solar panels that doesn't displace forest? Wind power? Where do those go? Hydroelectric power?
They're already more than twice as energy effici
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Let us know when armchair politicos who use the "far-right" label start talking facts and then we might take them seriously.
Okay, here it is from Fox News [foxnews.com]. When even the right-wing media is admitting the environment is having a rough go of it, there might be something going on...
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It's directly relevant because the so-called conservatives are the profit-at-any-cost camp. They're the "it's okay to burn it all down as long as I get mine" posse. But it's not okay to burn down the Amazon. Earth as we know it depends upon it, and that's where we all live — the 1% included. They will find themselves gasping at the same time as the poor.
Sky isnâ(TM)t falling (Score:5, Interesting)
Scientists keep finding ancient earthworks and other civilization remnants in areas of the Amazon that have been recently cleared. The presumption was that this a giant 55 million year old forest that covered most of South America. What they are discovering is that fair parts of the modern Amazon used to be Savanna. The question is really how much of the modern Amazon used to be ancient farmland. One thing for certain is that the Amazon of 2000 years ago was much smaller than today.
https://www.livescience.com/46... [livescience.com]
Re:Sky isnâ(TM)t falling (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Sky isnâ(TM)t falling (Score:5, Insightful)
Or more likely that the millions of people who lived there up until around 500 years ago did a good job keeping large areas of it clear enough for growing crops to feed their population. The diseases brought over with the Spanish expeditions all but killed 90% or more of the population, to the point that the civilizations collapsed and they didn't have the work power to keep the farmlands clear (remember, they didn't have horses and ox, as those were non-native species, which were the "workhorses" of Western and even Eastern civilization for farmland cultivation, clearing, and maintenance. These civilizations relied on pure human work forces to do these jobs, which from accounts by the early Spanish expeditions, most likely meant a portion of slave labor from other groups/castes/tribes in the regions, but with most everyone being sick and dying, there was no longer a method to keep and sustain such labor forces).
An outcome that was near inevitable, regardless of if the Spanish came or not.
Europe, Africa, and Asia, all had their share of plagues over the centuries and millennia. This left them far more immune to disease than those on the American continent. Having access to beasts of burden, more easily accessible coal and oil, and other benefits of the geography and wildlife, meant they would advance more quickly in technology.
One possible option for the American natives to have changed this was the possibility to domesticate a kind of horse or other large animals found in the area. Evidence shows they were hunted to extinction instead of being domesticated and used for beasts of burden. Some tribes trained dogs to carry light loads, help with hunting, and as animals for battle. This was not unique to the Americas and therefore not an advantage to them when people from far off places came. People from far off places carrying metal swords and armor, and unfamiliar diseases, against people with wooden weapons and weak immune systems.
Oh, and the habits of some tribes to sacrifice the strongest among them to their gods didn't help in keeping a healthy gene pool.
There are many instances of Europeans coming to the Americas to find abandoned villages. They found empty homes and fields of crops left growing in the wild because the natives died from disease, long before the Europeans came, or wiped out from wars with neighboring tribes. Like it or not many of these cultures were hanging on by a thread. Anyone that came along would disrupt these fragile societies and bring them down. When unfamiliar cultures meet there will be conflict, and such conflict usually favors one far more than the other.
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I am always curious what people think the optimal history would've been if they Americas hadn't been visited when they were.
Somehow radio / video observation until vaccines, then careful inoculation of the entire population? All of this with europeans somehow knowing all of this with almost zero understanding of any of it.
People seem to think life has always been like it is now.
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They didn't have weaker immune systems, they were just maladapted to intracontinental disease. Stuff like blood type distribution shows selective pressure from things like plague in Europe and so on. The reason for the abandoned villages was feral livestock spreading zoonotic disease ahead of the explorers. The lack of domestication in the Americas is why they had fewer adaptations to zoonotic illness: there were fewer. If left alone for longer eventually the alpacas and llamas and so on would've made their way on through and the disease landscape would've been more like the Old World, but it would've taken a while due to the geography.
Studies of Amerindian immune systems suggest that they had adapted to parasites instead of infections due to evolutionary pressures.
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Studies of Amerindian immune systems suggest that they had adapted to parasites instead of infections due to evolutionary pressures.
Wouldn't that be only parasites instead of both? Europeans had plenty of parasites.
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I'm not sure where you are getting a lot of this. Most of what happened to the Amerind populations was a simple historical accident that could have easily gone the other way. See Charles C. Mann's 1491 [wikipedia.org] for an overview. Some specifics inline:
An outcome that was near inevitable, regardless of if the Spanish came or not.
Europe, Africa, and Asia, all had their share of plagues over the centuries and millennia. This left them far more immune to disease than those on the American continent.
Studies of Amerind immune system genetics suggest that parasites were a bigger issue for them than zoonotic diseases, so it is not surprising that their immune systems were not tuned for this kind of assault. That doesn't make them inferior, just adapted to a different
Re:Sky isnâ(TM)t falling (Score:4, Informative)
Sure the Amazon forest was smaller back then, but so was the population and the amount of fossil fuels they burned. Man's influence on the world's climate was tiny compared to now.
The start of the Industrial Revolution roughly coincided with the end of the large-scale deforestation of Britain (chopping down trees for lumber and firewood), and the same thing happened in other places. The end result now is that the Amazon is a large fraction of our total amount of forest, and losing it would be a big deal.
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Fossil fuel burning is not what is endangering the Amazon, directly, but rather explicit deforestation efforts to produce temporary farmland.
Farmland to grow what? Sugarcane perhaps? For ethanol fuel? We know that's the case. I read articles about how Brazil is making great advances in reaching a "green economy" with ethanol fuel but they almost always leave out the damage this has done to the rain forest. What Brazil needs is an alternative to ethanol and fossil fuels that doesn't mean more damage to the forest. Solar power isn't it, because that takes land, land that cannot be used for growing plants. At least not cheaply. Maybe there
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One thing for certain is that the Amazon of 2000 years ago was much smaller than today.
I've heard some interesting theories that the Amazon is an overgrown garden of the civilization that once lived there.
wonder if Sheen's The Arrival is happening? (Score:2)
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I'll care about that when they start reducing their emissions.
How may countries have lowered their emissions since Paris Accord? Remind me which one that was.
Re:wonder if Sheen's The Arrival is happening? (Score:4, Interesting)
I went to look this up. Now most the numbers I have are 2018/2017 but still.
USA had the largest reduction in total CO2, while China/India's went up.(by more than the whole world's reduction)
https://www.forbes.com/sites/s... [forbes.com]
https://www.eesi.org/articles/... [eesi.org]
https://www.aei.org/carpe-diem... [aei.org]
I did not know this, and had assumed the left's rants in how bad USA is.
Re: wonder if Sheen's The Arrival is happening? (Score:2)
Re: wonder if Sheen's The Arrival is happening? (Score:2)
Of ocurse you had to add your 2c (Score:2)
I'd be disappointed if the biggest American apologist didn't at least try.
America goes up because it's economy is growing. All good free pass.
China goes up* because it's economy is growing. Boo hisss, China bad.
*You can argue the exact numbers, but I don't think many people would dispute that China's been growing.
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USA apologist is pointing fingers again (Score:2, Insightful)
Oh, your WindBourne. You constantly like to downplay how dirty America is. Absolve America and hand wave away your increases. Why are you over twice as dirty as India with only about a quarter - fifth the number of people?
Doesn't that make you about ten times dirtier per person?
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2) they still manage to be half as GHG polluting as you are per capita
3) They have coal reduction targets and are beating them.
There *has* to be an easier way to respond to the chinese GHG boogeyman trolls.
How about: So long and thanks for all the FUD
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That is a great movie and one I saw in a theater during the original release.
That is all.
Re: wonder if Sheen's The Arrival is happening? (Score:2)
crashing the rain forrest is not a good idea (Score:5, Interesting)
Seems the only thing in dispute is when not if.
If it takes 2 or 20 years, it will be a major disaster.
It is pretty clear that a change in direction is needed sooner rather than later.
maybe some of these carbon taxes being should be going towards replanting the rain forest.
Hopefully this article will help show that you can change direction currently if there is the will to do so.
https://www.boredpanda.com/bra... [boredpanda.com]
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maybe some of these carbon taxes being should be going towards replanting the rain forest.
A huge effort at replanting trees world wide is needed, and needed now. However with what I have seen in the last few years or so, and even more so recently I've come to the conclusion that whether it is climate change or "the singularity", the human race is on its way out.
And yes, from a macro view you can say that this is just another evolutionary change, that mankind "evolved" to the state to both create a new "life form" that will take our place while simultaneously and rapidly destroying the Earths
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Invade (Score:4, Insightful)
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If ever there is a case for invading a rogue state to protect for the greater good this is it.
Forget the middle East. This is far far more urgent, serious and worthy.
Right . . . . What the world needs is another "worthy" war. Brazil is a democracy. They elected their guy. It's not a "rogue" state. It's a G20 nation with a population of over 200 MILLION people. It's burning down the rain forests because--to a lot of poor people--the trees are getting in the way of a better life. It's land. Good luck trying to convince hungry farmers with hungry families that they shouldn't try to better themselves because it might be inconvenient for the world at some point in the future
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After impeaching the previous president when all the impeachers were infinitely more corrupt than she was, and convicting their most popular leftist leader in a kangaroo court to prevent him from running. Funny how you left those parts out.
And banning the slave trade was a sad day for slave traders. You also leave out the fact that illegal miners and loggers
For every tree felled, 2 should be planted. (Score:3)
It's investing in the future, employing a huge group of cultivation type people, is a win win.
Well it's slightly less profitable, now.... So hey let's just burn it all to the ground.
Bring it on! (Score:2)
We are soooo f*cking screwed. (Score:3)
November is closing in and I'm walking outside in a T-Shirt and just had a miniature hayfever attack. Already the seasons are starting shift among trees, like in the actual Rainforrest. What we are seeing now is caused by what we pumped into the atmosphere 40 years ago. Runaway effect is running at full tilt and in 10 years from now the fecal matter will already have hit the rotary air impeller to a measurable extent. I expect NYC/Manhattan, London and Flordia to be soon battling a perpetual flood problem.
Major Screwage is on the way - prepare for incoming. That what I say.
Re: (Score:2)
Now or we all die! (Score:2)
Right up there with "generating revenue" (Score:2)
When I read any politcally-charged report that uses the phrase "tipping point" ...
Yeah.
It's right up there with "generating revenue" - meaning stealing money by taxes, inflation, or borrowing with the promise to pay it back (plus interest) with money stolen later.
What "destructive policies" (Score:4, Informative)
The reason you are hearing more about Brazil recently is they elected a more conservative leaning president to replace the incredible corrupt left leaning president. Remember now it was the people on Brazil that made this choice, but like so many other places around the world this is not accepted by the more liberal/left leaning people around the world who see any loss of dominion over the common folk as a personal attack on them.
There have been no change in policies, how could there be in so short a time? Yet now Brazil's policies are labeled as "destructive", with no context.
The fires you read about? Turns out they happen every year, and have for a very long time...
And if you look at deforestation - it's the same as it has been [nytimes.com] for the past few years, dramatically lower than in past decades.
Such a shame that these days even the simplest bit of news cannot be trusted. By injecting partisan commentary in the summary we can only assume this report is full of lies, it's just hard to tell what are the lies and what is truth... so we have to discard the whole story, like people fleeing a swimming pool a turd has just plopped into.
Re: (Score:2)
There have been no change in policies, how could there be in so short a time?
Bolsonaro has reduced incidences of fining people for setting the fires [washingtonpost.com], and cut funding to environmental agencies [piie.com], and has even claimed the Amazon is not burning [washingtonpost.com]. He has willfully exacerbated an already-bad situation, and yes, he has changed policies (notably, the policy of funding environmental watchdogs) and that has made things worse.
A Socialist already tried to murder him once... (Score:2)
> Jair Bolsonaro is probably going to disappear pretty soon.
A Socialist already tried to murder Bolsonaro once, so I won't be surprised when they try it again. Also, former President (and current prison inmate) Lula claimed this to be some kind of hoax despite it being captured on video [youtube.com]. Lula, of course, was a founder of PT ("Partido dos Trabalhadores" / Worker's Party), also a Socialist.
For those who don't know, Adélio Bispo de Oliveira, who was a member of the Partido Socialismo e Liberdade ("