The Amazon Is Not the Earth’s Lungs • Hacker News Board

Re: The Amazon Is Not the Earth’s Lungs

#71

Post by [deleted] » Tue, Sep 10, 2019, 3:46 PM UTC

journalctl wrote: post #63

djsumdog wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yea, you shouldn't deny a reality because you believe in the noble lie. And to be fair, climate change is turned into a crazy red hearing of a political issue. There are lakes of sludge outside factory cities in China, insane amounts of plastic particulates in the oceans, tons and tons of textile waste. There are so many many forms of pollution much worse than CO2, and when you focus on just CO2, you get carbon laws…

Localized pollution and climate change are different issues. Both are bad, but you can’t equate “lakes of sludge outside factory cities in China” and the dramatic changes expected if the models are correct. Whataboutism isn’t helpful here (or anywhere, really). Climate change IS an issue, and it’s only going to get worse. Ten-year cell phones won’t make a lick of difference if we continue burning fossil fuels, and la…

[deleted]

Re: The Amazon Is Not the Earth’s Lungs

#72

Post by Carioca » Tue, Sep 10, 2019, 3:47 PM UTC

input_sh wrote: post #28

ajmurmann wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From what I've read most of the agricultural production in Brazil goes directly or indirectly towards beef and biofuel. So cutting down on beef consumption seems like a great step. I personally have cut down my meat consumption dramatically, but how can we move that further as not only a society, but a species? If I stop eating beef, but nobody else does, nothing is won. If the US cuts down on beef consumption, other…

> ...but how can we move that further as not only a society, but a species? The answer is simple, the execution is hard and will piss a lot of people off: start treating red meat as a luxury item, and slowly introduce taxes on top of its price, like we do for alcohol and tobacco. Nothing drastic of course, just a few cents extra every half a year or so to make people reconsider their eating habits again and again. Bu…

There are other measures that could help, like actually policing the region and promoting economic alternatives for local population. Sadly, the currently Brazilian government decided to stop both of them

Re: The Amazon Is Not the Earth’s Lungs

#73

Post by jk3faster » Tue, Sep 10, 2019, 3:47 PM UTC

partialrecall wrote: post #59

ineedasername wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If a true fact is playing in to a false narrative, there is a problem with how it's being presented. Calling that out is just as important as calling out falsehoods.

The article contextualizes the truth in terms of the pro-climate narrative, > "Losing the Amazon, beyond representing a planetary historic tragedy beyond measure, would also make meeting the ambitious climate goals of the Paris Agreement all but impossible. World leaders need to marshal all their political and diplomatic might to save it." So what exactly are you calling out? Better the Atlantic be the one to call ou…

Probably the clickbaity title -- It's only partial truth. How many do you count would read the entire article? Losing Amazon is a disaster, and as the OP mentioned it will eventually lead to diminishing oxygen supply sooner or later(though not much later).

Re: The Amazon Is Not the Earth’s Lungs

#74

Post by pdonis » Tue, Sep 10, 2019, 3:47 PM UTC

gambiting wrote: post #53

pdonis wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> having the earth temperature go up 5 degrees would kill most phytoplankton, and that would end the oxygen supply (eventually) The global average temperature has been higher than that in the past, and there was plenty of oxygen in the atmosphere.

Yes, but the temperature rose to those levels over millenia, not just hundreds of years. Ultimately, life on Earth will adapt - it's just that we might not survive long enough to witness the adaptation.

> the temperature rose to those levels over millenia, not just hundreds of years

We don't actually know that. The time resolution of the data is not good enough to tell us. It's quite possible that it happened faster in the past as well.

> we might not survive long enough to witness the adaptation

Quite honestly, I don't understand why people think our ability to adapt is so poor. We already have more than 5 C variation in average temperature across different regions of Earth, yet people adapt to living in all of those different regions.

Also, all the alarmist rhetoric about the supposed impacts of changes in temperature is not based on actual knowledge or on models with demonstrated predictive power. It's based on very crude extrapolations of trends that assume that people will do nothing at all to adapt. In other words, they assume people won't adapt and then complain that we can't adapt.

What's more, the two main things we can do to adapt are things we should be doing anyway: (1) bring more people out of poverty--the richer people are the easier they can adapt to change; and (2) make our infrastructure more robust. The second, in particular, is exactly what "green energy" should be marketed as--making energy more decentralized, which makes the entire system more robust. And doing those things benefits us regardless of what kind of change happens--whether it's climate change or any other kind of change.

Re: The Amazon Is Not the Earth’s Lungs

#75

Post by wutbrodo » Tue, Sep 10, 2019, 3:48 PM UTC

dejaime wrote: post #31

This feels like a simple strawman. The problem is called global warming, not global deoxygenation.

Strawman of what? The article isn't titled "there is no problem with deforestation, go nuts". The first paragraph describes the hypothetical loss of the Amazon as a "planetary historic tragedy beyond measure", and says that it'll make the Paris climate goals impossible to reach.

None of this contradicts the premise of the article, which is that a commonly-held and - expressed belief about the Amazon's role in our oxygen supply is not supported by the science.

Strawman doesn't mean "talking about a different topic than I'd prefer".

Re: The Amazon Is Not the Earth’s Lungs

#76

Post by partialrecall » Tue, Sep 10, 2019, 3:49 PM UTC

ineedasername wrote: post #68

partialrecall wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The article contextualizes the truth in terms of the pro-climate narrative, > "Losing the Amazon, beyond representing a planetary historic tragedy beyond measure, would also make meeting the ambitious climate goals of the Paris Agreement all but impossible. World leaders need to marshal all their political and diplomatic might to save it." So what exactly are you calling out? Better the Atlantic be the one to call ou…

Why does it matter who calls out the falsehood? Otherwise, while the article may come out acknowledging climate change, the headline comes across as click-bait that could easily be pushed into a climate-denier narrative. Better to have a more neutral title like "The Amazon's Role in Global Oxygen Production". That stops the facts from being decontextualized.

> Why does it matter who calls out the falsehood?

Because if Fox News were to call out this particular falsehood, they may very well sum it up with some bullshit like "and that's why liberals are dumb and we should burn more coal." With the Altantic, we instead have reasonable pleas to remember that climate change is a very serious issue.

As for the matter of the given title: https://twitter.com/PeterBrannen1/status/1166446298897289216

Re: The Amazon Is Not the Earth’s Lungs

#77

Post by aaron-santos » Tue, Sep 10, 2019, 3:49 PM UTC

djsumdog wrote: post #58

partialrecall wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Adherence to the truth is more important than adherence to a narrative. Promoting a good cause by allowing falsehoods to spread may seem helpful in the short term, but in doing so you're building a house on a foundation of sand. When you promote trivial falsehoods instead of calling them out, you allow your opposition to be the one who calls out those falsehoods, and thus undermine your cause. When somebody on your s…

Yea, you shouldn't deny a reality because you believe in the noble lie. And to be fair, climate change is turned into a crazy red hearing of a political issue. There are lakes of sludge outside factory cities in China, insane amounts of plastic particulates in the oceans, tons and tons of textile waste. There are so many many forms of pollution much worse than CO2, and when you focus on just CO2, you get carbon laws…

> people will not recognize the real changes needed to build a more sustainable world

I'm a bit more pessimistic. Consumerism and over-consumption is an open-eyed march toward doom. Educating (even by collapse) doesn't change the failure to coordinate. When the incentives are structured to trade values for temporary rosperity "The process continues until all other values that can be traded off have been – in other words, until human ingenuity cannot possibly figure out a way to make things any worse." [1]

https://slatestarcodex.com/2014/07/30/meditations-on-moloch/

Re: The Amazon Is Not the Earth’s Lungs

#78

Post by jstummbillig » Tue, Sep 10, 2019, 3:50 PM UTC

partialrecall wrote: post #24

vfc1 wrote: post #20

It might be that burning down every living tree would not make a dent in the oxygen supply, but having the earth temperature go up 5 degrees would kill most phytoplankton, and that would end the oxygen supply (eventually). This type of articles is the last thing we need right now, it all piles up on the narrative that the consequences of climate change are really not that bad and there is no real urgency in doing any…

Adherence to the truth is more important than adherence to a narrative. Promoting a good cause by allowing falsehoods to spread may seem helpful in the short term, but in doing so you're building a house on a foundation of sand. When you promote trivial falsehoods instead of calling them out, you allow your opposition to be the one who calls out those falsehoods, and thus undermine your cause. When somebody on your s…

This is incredibly naive in a reality, where the POTUS can contradict himself on social media – with traceable evidence dating back often not more than a week – and absolutely nothing coming of it.

Right now, when it comes to public opinion and action, volume clearly beats a good signal/noise ratio. This is not an isolated issue, this happens all around the globe. Populism is on the rise. Simple beats true.

Yes, you can argue this is not the way it is supposed to be, but it is how it is. But if you really care about making a change for the better, then this is most definitely not the time for deliberate narratives.

You might have the peoples attention, but not their patience. If you want change, do not squander it.

Re: The Amazon Is Not the Earth’s Lungs

#79

Post by jk3faster » Tue, Sep 10, 2019, 3:50 PM UTC

ineedasername wrote: post #68

partialrecall wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The article contextualizes the truth in terms of the pro-climate narrative, > "Losing the Amazon, beyond representing a planetary historic tragedy beyond measure, would also make meeting the ambitious climate goals of the Paris Agreement all but impossible. World leaders need to marshal all their political and diplomatic might to save it." So what exactly are you calling out? Better the Atlantic be the one to call ou…

Why does it matter who calls out the falsehood? Otherwise, while the article may come out acknowledging climate change, the headline comes across as click-bait that could easily be pushed into a climate-denier narrative. Better to have a more neutral title like "The Amazon's Role in Global Oxygen Production". That stops the facts from being decontextualized.

This. But who cares in this attention hunting, consumerist world -- More clickbaity(and controversial) the title is, more shares all leading to more profit.

Re: The Amazon Is Not the Earth’s Lungs

#80

Post by icebraining » Tue, Sep 10, 2019, 3:50 PM UTC

ajmurmann wrote: post #21

chisleu wrote: post #12

This is a great point. An important aspect of this is that most of the Amazon's deforestation is land owners developing their land and adding to the agricultural sectors of South America. If we want to stop them, we need to stop the excessive consumption of these goods. This doesn't just mean stopping over eating, it means changing what you eat and paying more for goods sourced locally. Unfortunately, that means from…

From what I've read most of the agricultural production in Brazil goes directly or indirectly towards beef and biofuel. So cutting down on beef consumption seems like a great step. I personally have cut down my meat consumption dramatically, but how can we move that further as not only a society, but a species? If I stop eating beef, but nobody else does, nothing is won. If the US cuts down on beef consumption, other…

Stupid idea: tax meat and use the money to purchase tracts of farmland in the Amazon and such places, preventing them from being explored. That would reduce the drop in prices, by increasing the cost of productive land.