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

Re: The Amazon Is Not the Earth’s Lungs

#121

Post by nwah1 » Tue, Sep 10, 2019, 5:05 PM UTC

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…

A lot of the deforestation is caused not by landowners who are engaged in agriculture, but as a result of land speculators letting good land sit idle, and forcing impoverished homesteaders into the rainforest where they engage in clearcutting out of desperation.

There is likely an "environmental kuznets curve" where developing countries cause an environmental burden as they develop up until a certain point, after which further gains in general wealth begin to improve the environment. It is only when people are wealthy that they start to be willing to do things like reduce pollution.

Wealth in general is the key to solving our environmental issues. It encourages sustainable fertility rates, and makes people rich enough so that they don't have to resort to desperate measures like using fire for clear-cutting.

Re: The Amazon Is Not the Earth’s Lungs

#122

Post by ineedasername » Tue, Sep 10, 2019, 5:06 PM UTC

partialrecall wrote: post #76

ineedasername wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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/…

Hah, yes, good to know it at least wasn't the writer's fault for the headline.

As for who calls out the falsehood, I was thinking more in the vein of "all else being equal", but I suppose you're right and all else wouldn't be equal between the various news sources.

Re: The Amazon Is Not the Earth’s Lungs

#123

Post by not_a_cop75 » Tue, Sep 10, 2019, 5:07 PM UTC

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…

Breathing too hard would also end the oxygen supply eventually, but trying to make any one factor the cause for the end seems to be a waste. You might as well be trying to find which one reason is responsible for the collapse of Rome. Or maybe you find that one thing about the USA that makes it intolerable in your opinion, but it will always pale to the multicausal.

Re: The Amazon Is Not the Earth’s Lungs

#124

Post by tempguy9999 » Tue, Sep 10, 2019, 5:12 PM UTC

reb wrote: post #102

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…

> the scale of our folly of consumerism and over-consumption Consumerism, over-consumption, and the economic growth these behaviors drive are impossible to eliminate without crippling the global economy. But I think there actually is a way to have our unlimited cake without toasting the planet, it just requires us to divorce the concept of value from physical items (or increase the fidelity, and thus value, of digita…

> Consumerism, over-consumption, and the economic growth these behaviors drive are impossible to eliminate without crippling the global economy.

Then let's ask the question. What are the medium (5-20) years and long (100 years) consequences of such crippling in your view? I am not an economist so any insight from an expert would be good.

Re: The Amazon Is Not the Earth’s Lungs

#125

Post by strainer » Tue, Sep 10, 2019, 5:20 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…

But its not a falsehood to call the Amazon "lungs of the Earth" - its an illustration of the fact that the Amazon, until perhaps recently has been the "largest residual terrestrial carbon sink on the planet"[1]

The article opens with this headline which is false: "Humans could burn every living thing on the planet and still not dent its oxygen supply."

If every living thing was burnt, the planet would cease to resupply oxygen and most of the free oxygen reserves in the atmosphere and oceans would be consumed through geological processes. It would take millennia to complete but its not an outcome which is valid to describe in an educational or truth straightening context as "not a dent".

[1]https://www.nature.com/articles/nature14283 "Long-term decline of the Amazon carbon sink"

Re: The Amazon Is Not the Earth’s Lungs

#126

Post by mistermann » Tue, Sep 10, 2019, 5:22 PM UTC

partiallypro wrote: post #93

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…

> 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 anything about it. Actually it does the opposite. The climate change deniers have for so long hinged on the fact that people openly lie about the climate to push an agenda. You can't fault them for that...and having people w…

> Actually it does the opposite. The climate change deniers have for so long hinged on the fact that people openly lie about the climate to push an agenda.

Actually, you're both right.

The title and the facts upon which it are based, will to some degree reinforce those who are resistant to or skeptical of the climate change message, in that it once again demonstrates the fact that the messages broadcast in the "leftist" media contains factual inaccuracies, also known as fake news or lies. Of course, if they actually read and properly integrated the entire contents of the article into their worldview, this type of article "should" make the world a better place, since it is informative and ~truthful. But that's not how human minds work, as we all know when we're specifically discussing an article about human psychology and cognition, but so easily forget (or under-appreciate) while having discussions on other topics.

You're right that telling the truth should be the correct path, but considering the complexities of reality, I reckon the grandparent is probably more strategically correct. It seems logical that the more truthful message should win out in the end, but if you're not willing to be truthful all/most of the time (how would this even be coordinated?), then it may be a sub-optimal strategy.

Re: The Amazon Is Not the Earth’s Lungs

#127

Post by siliconunit » Tue, Sep 10, 2019, 5:23 PM UTC

Thinking that exposing the objective truth to the general public is always the best course of action is at best naive and can at times lead to tragedy... You can do this to a greater extent if your nation is small and has a high amount of highly educated citizens (ie Scandinavian countries) that are able to understand implications and distinctions and place limits to their personal volition for the sake of the community. Tell to Joe down the road that the recycling truck at times dumps everything together for technical reasons and you will dramatically diminish the care and effort to properly separate waste.

Re: The Amazon Is Not the Earth’s Lungs

#128

Post by autokad » Tue, Sep 10, 2019, 5:39 PM UTC

I thought the Amazon was called Earths lungs because of how it sucks moisture from the ocean across land.

(Please correct me if I am wrong) its my understanding that the area would be quite dry, but the plants manipulate the atmosphere with particulates to draw in water from the oceans and create precipitation across the continent. I thought it was this 'sucking' that gave its name 'earth's lungs'.

I also dont like the focus on Co2. that's not the only way the world cools, warms. the water being converted to gas, to water, and gas again takes up energy and cools the planet. beyond c02, if the Amazon were to go away, I think the earth would get warmer to some extent.

Re: The Amazon Is Not the Earth’s Lungs

#129

Post by obelos » Tue, Sep 10, 2019, 5:42 PM UTC

wutbrodo wrote: post #109

obelos wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

“Put simply, our first suggestion is _don’t expect to counter the firehose of falsehood with the squirt gun of truth_.”[1] Climate denialism is the proverbial firehose of lies. Finely parsing words to maintain some Panglossian notion of a market dominated by rational choice of information-rich actors is not going to turn us away from disaster. [1] https://www.rand.org/content/dam/rand/pubs/perspectives/PE10...

Thank you, this is a thoughtful response. That being said, the argument you're linking to, while quite sound, doesn't disagree with me. It's saying that, when rebutting concerted propaganda, simply making the truth available in an undirected manner and hoping people will find it isn't enough: you have to make an effort to get it to the right places at the right time. There's no endorsement therein of suppressing or f…

I don't disagree with this, and I'm not advocating for creating or perpetuating “noble lies.” But look at the framing of the OP article. It is the perfect example of the squirt gun of truth. The headline refutes a metaphorical statement, not a factual claim. There are ways one could counter particulars or improve the quality of the metaphor without altogether tossing it in the bin. Saying the Amazon rain forest is the Earth's lungs has lots of metaphorical applicability. It speaks to people's intuition about how forests cycle water around the planet as a quasi-respiration organs, very much like gas- and water-exchanging lungs. And with similar importance to the “organism” of Earth's biosphere.

The author could have focused on expounding the ways in which the metaphor holds to underlying scientifically-verifiable truth, taking asides here and there to correct misinformation. As it's framed, and as the headline emphasizes, that approach is ignored in favor of the “gotcha!” truth-telling that, despite its couple of meager attempts to point out how critical the Amazon is to life on Earth, allows the reader to walk away with the impression that things really aren't as bad as they previously thought, and so maybe they can just ignore the issue or deprioritize it a little but longer. And the skimmer looks at just the headline and is justified in their status quo understanding that there is a climate “debate” with two sides that really should be considered by someone, somewhere.

Re: The Amazon Is Not the Earth’s Lungs

#130

Post by rafaelvasco » Tue, Sep 10, 2019, 5:42 PM UTC

Doesn't mean we shouldn't care; It's amazing how people always view things with a negative and destructive not-my-problem mindset; Humanity in general right now is much more destructive than constructive; We must always strive to make a positive impact for others and for the entire planet, leaving things better than they were before us, not the contrary;