The Amazon rainforest

[V8covin]

Does the outside world have any right to dictate what Brazil does with their portion of the rainforest ?

[Mike335i]

Very interesting dilemma, but the rights and wrongs of dictating to Brazil become less important if the consequences are as dire as foretold by some.

Two wrongs don't make a right.

[bitchstewie]

At what point does it stop being "owned" by a country and perhaps become something bigger?

If Australia decided to go dig up the Great Barrier Reef tomorrow is that acceptable because it's theirs?

You get the idea.

I'm cautious of "dictating" but I don't agree with simply sitting back and saying "All yours do what you like".

[RoadRailer]

Is it really a global issue though
Why no mention of Bolivia?

[Welshbeef]

RoadRailer said:

Is it really a global issue though
Why no mention of Bolivia?

None the less trees suck up our CO2. Fewer of them more heat retained in the atmosphere leading to more fires and more CO2 in the atmosphere.

Add in glaciers and sea ice vanishing meaning what we would more often than not have as reflected heat is instead absorbed by the ocean - warming it up which in turn leads to more glaciers melting and obvs more heat being absorbed by the sea.

We have el Nina and el nineo as well to consider plus the factual increase of CO2 PPM in the atmosphere.

One thing that is telling though was on the radio 4 the other day talking about air travel and how many protested against Prince Harry for this private jet to Italy (they paid for the carbon offset - so trees planted and over 30-40 years the CO2 will be taken from the atmosphere. However same scientist stated and business researcher stated that of all U.K. passengers who fly well under 1% paid for the carbon offset... say no more those protesters / average joe hopping on the band wagon simply don’t do it themselves.

[CoolHands]

Like all great leaders he’s using their resources (in this case allowing deforestation & major fires) in order to screw whatever it is he wants out the rest of the world leaders. Same old story. It’s just a gun to the head.

[crankedup]

ROW is going to chuck a whole load of money in the direction of Brazil, should ease the problems.
Will replant areas devasted by fire.

[turbobloke]

“The lungs of the Earth are in flames” - Leonardo DiCaprio
“The Amazon Rainforest produces more than 20% of the world’s oxygen” - Cristiano Ronaldo
“The Amazon rain forest — the lungs which produce 20% of our planet’s oxygen — is on fire” - President Emanuel Macron.

The photo Ronaldo shared was taken in southern Brazil well away from the Amazon, and it's six years old.
The photo that DiCaprio and Macron shared is more than 20 years old.
The photo Madonna and Smith shared is over 30, a useful emotional-mental age to acquire before tweeting.
Other celebrities shared photos from Montana, India, and Sweden, lovely.

The lungs thing is as environmentally informative as fag ash in any case.

Dr D Nepstad as Executive Director and Senior Scientist at the Earth Innovation Institute who has researched in the Brazilian Amazon for more than 30 years publishing more than 150 papers in the process said:

There’s no science behind that. The Amazon produces a lot of oxygen but it uses the same amount of oxygen through respiration so it’s a wash.

Ocean biomes have a far greater climate relevance than any forests.

University of California Berkeley said:

The world’s oceans have an even greater effect on global climate than forests do. Water has a high capacity for heat, and because the Earth is mostly covered with water, the temperature of the atmosphere is kept fairly constant and able to support life. In addition to this climate-buffering capacity, the oceans contain several billion photosynthetic plankton which account for most of the photosynthesis occuring on Earth.

NASA 16 August 2019 said:

Total fire activity across the Amazon basin this year has been close to (slightly below) the average for the past 15 years

Nothing will stop the flow of emotive claptrap with a theme like this, so it's hardly worth the effort taken by the above to set out where the science is. Nothing unusual there, sadly.

[Mothersruin]

All getting a bit nasty with the Brazilian leader having a pop at Macron's mum - I think it's sweet he gives her the odd day out.

[Welshbeef]

Mothersruin said:

All getting a bit nasty with the Brazilian leader having a pop at Macron's mum - I think it's sweet he gives her the odd day out.

After trumps bizarre rantings nothing shocks me anymore from leaders of different counties

[anonymous-user]

TB, can you clarify this?

turbobloke said:

NASA 16 August 2019 said:

Total fire activity across the Amazon basin this year has been close to (slightly below) the average for the past 15 years

They've Tweeted things like this:

turbobloke said:

The NISR, whose graph that is, have also written “it had detected 39,194 fires this year in the world’s largest rain forest, a 77% increase from the same period in 2018”

Where's the room for manoeuvre here? In the regions they're referring to?

[otolith]

If Brazil’s attitude is “we own it and want to make money from it” and the rest of the world says “we all need it, don’t destroy it”, surely the answer is for the rest of the world to rent/lease/buy it?

[Zirconia]

What are we buying that enables this?

[Stussy]

What’s the point on everyone throwing cash at stopping the fires if the country they’re in are happy to let them be started?

On another note, there is nothing stopping any other country planting thousands of trees on their own land

[Du1point8]

All this why not work with Brazil and help them, if they are deforesting to make way for a living, then why not subsidise them (aka pay them) not to do it, if they need to do it for food, why not ship food in for them.

It doesnt really matter as we are already paying them not to do it... Brazil literally just chopped down the amazon in secret before that hoping either they don't get caught or that even if they did get caught, nothing changes because of how valuable the rest of the amazon is. That's why the EU threating and withdrawing subsidization funding left and right, like 3 links below. Everyone already took a good look, and what that good look found is greed, apathy, and dishonesty.

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/jun/2...

https://news.abay.com/2019/08/germany-cuts-39-...

https://news.abay.com/2019/08/norway-freezes-s...

I dont think you can help them...

[GroundEffect]

Zirconia said:

What are we buying that enables this?

Cheap meat. Meat is far too cheap now. On LBC last week there was a farmer on talking about formerly our meat spend was something like 50% of our budget but now around 15% and what has enabled that is hugely unsustainable processes.

[ZedLeg]

RoadRailer said:

Is it really a global issue though
Why no mention of Bolivia?

People have been talking about Bolivia.

I hate this kind of whataboutism in particular, you can't talk about a bad thing happening in one place without referencing every other place where something similar is happening.

What about Alaska or Greenland or Siberia?

[Condi]

La Liga said:

he NISR, whose graph that is, have also written “it had detected 39,194 fires this year in the world’s largest rain forest, a 77% increase from the same period in 2018”

Where's the room for manoeuvre here? In the regions they're referring to?

TB is a climate change denier who has never been able to back up any of his sources when they're scrutinised; see the Climate Change thread and the Power Generation thread.

He also has a habit of positing stuff which doesnt stand up to inspection, ignoring all the questions which inevitably follow, then posting something completely different in order to detract attention away from the first thing.

Normally if you do a little research on the links and quotes he posts, the money trail usually leads back to US oil or coal, and the Koch brothers. Almost everything comes from 2 or 3 websites too, its got so bad he has taken to quoting 3rd party stories rather than original sources, in some attempt to hide the original articles.

Edited by Condi on Monday 26th August 15:57

[otolith]

GroundEffect said:

Zirconia said:

What are we buying that enables this?

Cheap meat. Meat is far too cheap now. On LBC last week there was a farmer on talking about formerly our meat spend was something like 50% of our budget but now around 15% and what has enabled that is hugely unsustainable processes.

Apart from tinned beef, I don't think the UK imports much South American beef?

[Condi]

GroundEffect said:

Zirconia said:

What are we buying that enables this?

Cheap meat. Meat is far too cheap now. On LBC last week there was a farmer on talking about formerly our meat spend was something like 50% of our budget but now around 15% and what has enabled that is hugely unsustainable processes.

Yes and no....

Mostly it is soya (soy, in US speak), which is in almost all animal diets (and thus cheap meat is partly responsible), but also in a lot of human foods too. We don't import much meat directly from South America, but do import a few million tonnes of soya meal which makes up the animal diets.

Another unintended consequence of the China and US trade dispute is that China used to buy millions of tonnes of US soyabeans every year, which are now subject to a large import tax. Therefore Chinese buyers will be paying up for South American beans to replace the US beans, and give the Brazilian president wants more agriculture that comes at the expense of the Amazon.