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Humanity Has Flipped the Amazon Forest from Carbon Sink to Source

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Re: Humanity Has Flipped the Amazon Forest from Carbon Sink to Source

#91

Post by Dumblydorr »

eloff wrote: post #39
mensetmanusman wrote: post #32

I have seen interactive data representations over time using NASA satellite databases: https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/images/147075/a-new-tool-f... It was amazing seeing the effect of political action on the satellite data: e.g. areas that were deemed okay (or not) to cut down were almost immediately protected (with lit borders to stop law-breakers) or destroyed. If Brazil becomes a failed state, of course the Ama…

> It’s an interesting thought experiment as to what it would take for the world to force protection with an external military force (e.g. this might be the only solution, but the chances of it happening are zero). Brazil would never tolerate that, nor should they. On the other hand if you want to buy huge tracts of the Amazon and pay private security forces to protect it, that's doable. Better though would be to make…

Someone above stated they were just near the Amazon, they saw someone's privately owned lot got invaded with bulldozers. I'm not sure if private ownership is the answer, the Amazon is extremely huge.

Re: Humanity Has Flipped the Amazon Forest from Carbon Sink to Source

#92

Post by atatatat »

throwaway803453 wrote: post #84
travisjungroth wrote: post #6

I spent the last 10 days in a hut on the edge of the Amazon and am in a hotel in Lima, waiting for my flight out of Peru. Seeing this story, I thought I'd add one brief first hand account. The jungle was noticeably cut down since I had last been there 7 months ago. What had been just a hiking trail to our camp had been widened to the size of a road by all the tree clearing. The trees are pretty thin and not the best…

"The boards that make our hut were cut from somewhere". I had hoped that consumption of wood for construction is one of the best things we can do assuming the tree is mature and no longer growing and a new tree is planted in its place. Unfortunately there is data that shows old trees are better carbon consumers than young trees which is surprising. I expected the carbon required for physical growth would be much high…

And that they're much larger, and their "filters" are more mature than young trees.

Re: Humanity Has Flipped the Amazon Forest from Carbon Sink to Source

#93

Post by bamboozled »

DennisP wrote: post #21
nine_k wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you live in the U.S. and drive a car and eat meat, you are very unlikely eating illegally-raised Brazilian beef, or consuming illegally-mined Brazilian gold. Most likely, you eat U.S.-raised beef and burn gasoline from oil that comes from the U.S. or Middle East. Surely you are adding to the global warming, but it has nothing to do with Amazonian forest being illegally cut. In Brazil, most if not all cars run on e…

You make it sound like Brazilian beef is some little boutique thing. We don't eat much of it in the US because we are a giant beef producer ourselves, but Brazil is the world's largest beef exporter, by a significant margin. https://www.statista.com/chart/19122/biggest-exporters-of-be...

He’s just saying that if you’re an American, you probably don’t have much hand in the destruction of the rain forrest via consumption.

Re: Humanity Has Flipped the Amazon Forest from Carbon Sink to Source

#94

Post by rimliu »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #58
bonzini wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the immortal words of George Carlin, "The Planet is fine, the people are fucked".

> In the immortal words of George Carlin, "The Planet is fine, the people are fucked" It is well within humanity's capacity to, potentially permanently but at least for tens of millions of years, end the Earth's ability to host macroscopic life. Within a few decades, we'll likely have the ability to end the Earth's life-supporting ability period. I get the message behind the meme. But unfortunately, our actions have…

We could not end Earth's ability to support life even if we tried our best at it.

Re: Humanity Has Flipped the Amazon Forest from Carbon Sink to Source

#95

Post by pessimizer »

baron_harkonnen wrote: post #88
DoingIsLearning wrote: post #2

* Consumers eating JBS beef and consumers buying exotic wood and consumers buying gold from illegal mining have flipped the Amazon Forest from Carbon Sink to Source. This collective blamming becomes tiring when the actions are self-contained in a small group of people.

We all benefit from global economic activity. Do you earnestly not believe that part of the capital generated in Brazil (and of course all of other parts or resource extraction across the planet) eventually ends up as a dollar in an investment fund that a VC is going to use to fund the countless startups that employ HNers? Where do you think all the capital that drives our economy comes from? On top of that destructi…

Collective blame for the actions of a tiny minority is an excuse to not do anything. If it's everybody's fault, it becomes nobody's fault.

Re: Humanity Has Flipped the Amazon Forest from Carbon Sink to Source

#96

Post by pessimizer »

danparsonson wrote: post #62
ricardobeat wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Public policy is always the greatest factor for change at this scale. It’s extremely unlikely that you’ll effect change by individual action, even if you enlist a church-like following.

Sure, and (in countries with functioning democracies) public policy responds to pressure from the public. It doesn't tend to change in the face of public apathy.

And in countries with functioning mass media systems, the public responds to pressure from the tv.

Re: Humanity Has Flipped the Amazon Forest from Carbon Sink to Source

#97

Post by JumpCrisscross »

rimliu wrote: post #94
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> In the immortal words of George Carlin, "The Planet is fine, the people are fucked" It is well within humanity's capacity to, potentially permanently but at least for tens of millions of years, end the Earth's ability to host macroscopic life. Within a few decades, we'll likely have the ability to end the Earth's life-supporting ability period. I get the message behind the meme. But unfortunately, our actions have…

We could not end Earth's ability to support life even if we tried our best at it.

> We could not end Earth's ability to support life even if we tried our best at it

We’re within a few decades of a global superpower being able to deflect a large asteroid which would, after millennia or even centuries, impact the Earth with enough energy to melt the crust several kilometres down.

Re: Humanity Has Flipped the Amazon Forest from Carbon Sink to Source

#98

Post by pantalaimon »

271828182846 wrote: post #72
InfiniteRand wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the model of paying locals to preserve the land makes sense because of these concerns, of course you need to guarantee that some politician doesn't just pocket it all.

Totally makes sense. Maintaining the Amazon forest versus captializing off it financially by destroying it is an actual service to the world. Virtually a product! The product is a service turning CO2 into O2.

Amazon should just buy the Amazon.
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