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Amazon Wildfires

Pancho

By Pancho
in Daily Texan

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futureman

futureman 22485

Posted
Posted
4 hours ago, Captainant said:

It's also worth noting that many of these fires are man made. This is a pretty well-sourced comment that I'm shamelessly stealing and reposting here, but basically the Brazilian government promoted a "fire day" to clear land and show support for relaxing environmental regulations.

I really recommend checking out the first article in the post and translating from portugese in your browser to read. Some of the more interesting datapoints are that a significant number of fires are originating from highways, according to satellite imagery. Real fucked up situation, burning your country down is a really dumb political statement. 

fake news.  it’s global warming, man.  like, everybody says so.  

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High Plains Drifter

High Plains Drifter 11050

Posted
Posted

 

22 hours ago, TexArcher said:

Yeah, just like mass extinctions help the earth rejuvenate when they happen from time to time.  

Honestly, she'll be better off without us and I bet some cool new giant reptiles will evolve when the earth is one giant desert.  

 

It will either be seagulls or rats.

And the Earth won't be a desert. It'll be a swamp.

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ImissWallyPryor

ImissWallyPryor 9046

Posted
Posted
7 hours ago, Chrispy_ said:

I think it was sometime around 1995 that these people from Save the Rainforest came to my elementary school to sell T-shirt’s. They explained that if we didn’t buy any that the rainforests would disappear very, very soon. It was a hell of a marketing strategy and we bought hundreds. So in other words, I’ve done my part. 

There have been lots of doomsday predictions. National Geographic, et al have peddled their share over the decades. Personally, I think what’s burning is nothing but old stumps. 

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ImissWallyPryor

ImissWallyPryor 9046

Posted
Posted
7 hours ago, Chrispy_ said:

I think it was sometime around 1995 that these people from Save the Rainforest came to my elementary school to sell T-shirt’s. They explained that if we didn’t buy any that the rainforests would disappear very, very soon. It was a hell of a marketing strategy and we bought hundreds. So in other words, I’ve done my part. 

There have been lots of doomsday predictions. National Geographic, et al have peddled their share over the decades. Personally, I think what’s burning is nothing but old stumps. 

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Patricio Swayze

Patricio Swayze 17058

Posted
Posted

Every Brazilian I know is pissed about this. Every Brazilian I follow on social media is pissed about this. They also hate their president. I asked my wife if she had been following it and she got pissed at me like I set the fires. Geez.




But for real, it sucks. It’s like we are back in the 80s. Lula wouldn’t have let this happen, but he is also corrupt. Brasil está fudido.

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workswithseed

workswithseed 2112

Posted
Posted
6 hours ago, Patricio Swayze said:

Every Brazilian I know is pissed about this. Every Brazilian I follow on social media is pissed about this. They also hate their president. I asked my wife if she had been following it and she got pissed at me like I set the fires. Geez.




But for real, it sucks. It’s like we are back in the 80s. Lula wouldn’t have let this happen, but he is also corrupt. Brasil está fudido.

 

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Pods

Pods 7586

Posted
Posted
2 hours ago, Bevo said:

I looked up Bolsonaro on Wikipedia. It says he is currently a member of the conservative Social Liberal Party. I guess this means that he can claim being both conservative and liberal so everyone can hate him.

Bolsonaro is a fascist. He wants to open new areas to mining. Getting rid of any indigenous population is central to this. Miners have been throwing the natives off their land by force and taking the villages over, but this is bringing international condemnation down on Bolsonaro's government. Burning huge swathes of the rain forest is a good way to force them to move, while making it appear it's out of his hands.  

Whoever mentioned up thread about this being good for rejuvenation is very wrong. Fire is one of the worst things that can happen to a rainforest. Rainforest soils are notoriously thin and nutrient poor. Organic material that dies is almost immediately taken back up by vegetation and little remains in the soil. 

Slash and burn agriculture is incredibly destructive, because when heavy rains come, they wash the exposed soils away, removing whatever nutrients there are. That's why the farmers are always looking to expand into pristine rain forest. The areas that they have already burned are rendered completely worthless very quickly. Fires on this scale will render large sections of the rainforest sterile for the foreseeable future. 

 

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deadshank

deadshank 24653

Posted
Posted

My wife was in a panic over this.  

Seems she ordered some dog chew toys from Amazon and then saw the news crawl stating the Amazon was burning and she desperately states she hoped the chew toys shipped out prior to Amazon catching on fire.  

True story.  

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Fudge Nuggets

Fudge Nuggets 19206

Posted
Posted
1 minute ago, deadshank said:

My wife was in a panic over this.  

Seems she ordered some dog chew toys from Amazon and then saw the news crawl stating the Amazon was burning and she desperately states she hoped the chew toys shipped out prior to Amazon catching on fire.  

True story.  

There’s another thread for this.  You know what you must do.

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Onboard 2.0

Onboard 2.0 9083

Posted
Posted
26 minutes ago, deadshank said:

Done

It was subject timely, so no worries.  Some men just wanna put everything in neat, little, rigid categories.  I personally stay away form the wives say stupid shit thread. It gets depressing that we have half the population saying stupid shit all the time. I hear enough out in the free world without reading it here.

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Biff Tannen

Biff Tannen 45691

Posted
Posted
11 hours ago, Pods said:

Bolsonaro is a fascist. He wants to open new areas to mining. Getting rid of any indigenous population is central to this. Miners have been throwing the natives off their land by force and taking the villages over, but this is bringing international condemnation down on Bolsonaro's government. Burning huge swathes of the rain forest is a good way to force them to move, while making it appear it's out of his hands.  

Whoever mentioned up thread about this being good for rejuvenation is very wrong. Fire is one of the worst things that can happen to a rainforest. Rainforest soils are notoriously thin and nutrient poor. Organic material that dies is almost immediately taken back up by vegetation and little remains in the soil. 

Slash and burn agriculture is incredibly destructive, because when heavy rains come, they wash the exposed soils away, removing whatever nutrients there are. That's why the farmers are always looking to expand into pristine rain forest. The areas that they have already burned are rendered completely worthless very quickly. Fires on this scale will render large sections of the rainforest sterile for the foreseeable future. 

 

This.  Bolsonaro is an evil fuck.

 

2 hours ago, Patricio Swayze said:

Bolsonaro is Trumpinho with less checks and balances.

giphy.gif

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Nivek

Nivek 16945

Posted
Posted
It was subject timely, so no worries.  Some men just wanna put everything in neat, little, rigid categories.  I personally stay away form the wives say stupid shit thread. It gets depressing that we have half the population saying stupid shit all the time. I hear enough out in the free world without reading it here.

It is group therapy for those who like access to vagina.
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hpslugga

hpslugga 4062

Posted
Posted

The UN needs to convene in order to discuss whether or not to apply the Nuremberg Principles and/or the Rome Statute of the ICC against Bolsonaro. Considering how vital the Amazon is to the environment, as well as human existence, a very credible case for the "in favor" category can definitely be laid out.

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Dewey

Dewey 3286

Posted
Posted
1 hour ago, Pancho said:

Meanwhile 

 

I really thought they might have a really good reason I wasnt thinking of, but it's just pride, stubborn, ignorant pride. Admits that they do not have the resources to fight the fire, turns help away because he thinks they are out to get him. How selfish and stupid and tragic.

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Patricio Swayze

Patricio Swayze 17058

Posted
Posted
I really thought they might have a really good reason I wasnt thinking of, but it's just pride, stubborn, ignorant pride. Admits that they do not have the resources to fight the fire, turns help away because he thinks they are out to get him. How selfish and stupid and tragic.


That is why I called him Trumpinho.
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SimonBolivar

SimonBolivar 10958

Posted
Posted
3 hours ago, Dewey said:

I really thought they might have a really good reason I wasnt thinking of, but it's just pride, stubborn, ignorant pride. Admits that they do not have the resources to fight the fire, turns help away because he thinks they are out to get him. How selfish and stupid and tragic.

Though this be madness, yet there is method in 't. That land wasn't making a dime as a rainforest.

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NaTeWHO

NaTeWHO 852

Posted
Posted
On 8/25/2019 at 9:14 PM, freyguy said:

It'll all balance out.  The earth will warm up a bit, and the algae/plankton in the oceans will flourish even more so and make up the 20% of oxygen supply we're losing to the amazon.

Are you saying 20% of the oxygen we breath comes from the Amazon? It doesn't. Why do I keep seeing this and where did it come from? I swear people just make shit up and if it sounds somewhat plausible everyone believes it.

I remembered hearing that all the oxygen in the Amazon was consumed by the Amazon from a show called "One Strange Rock," a docuseries about the Earth and its different systems. Well, the show was right.

Scientific American

Quote

Fires in the Amazon rainforest have captured attention worldwide in recent days. Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro, who took office in 2019, pledged in his campaign to reduce environmental protection and increase agricultural development in the Amazon, and he appears to have followed through on that promise.

The resurgence of forest clearing in the Amazon, which had decreased more than 80% following a peak in 2004, is alarming for many reasons. Tropical forests harbor many species of plants and animals found nowhere else. They are important refuges for indigenous people, and contain enormous stores of carbon as wood and other organic matter that would otherwise contribute to the climate crisis.

Some media accounts have suggested that fires in the Amazon also threaten the atmospheric oxygen that we breathe. French President Emmanuel Macron tweeted on Aug. 22 that “the Amazon rain forest—the lungs which produces 20% of our planet’s oxygen—is on fire.”

The oft-repeated claim that the Amazon rainforest produces 20% of our planet’s oxygen is based on a misunderstanding. In fact nearly all of Earth’s breathable oxygen originated in the oceans, and there is enough of it to last for millions of years. There are many reasons to be appalled by this year’s Amazon fires, but depleting Earth’s oxygen supply is not one of them.

Oxygen from plants

As an atmospheric scientist, much of my work focuses on exchanges of various gases between Earth’s surface and the atmosphere. Many elements, including oxygen, constantly cycle between land-based ecosystems, the oceans and the atmosphere in ways that can be measured and quantified.

Nearly all free oxygen in the air is produced by plants through photosynthesis. About one-third of land photosynthesis occurs in tropical forests, the largest of which is located in the Amazon Basin.

But virtually all of the oxygen produced by photosynthesis each year is consumed by living organisms and fires. Trees constantly shed dead leaves, twigs, roots and other litter, which feeds a rich ecosystem of organisms, mostly insects and microbes. The microbes consume oxygen in that process.

Forest plants produce lots of oxygen, and forest microbes consume a lot of oxygen. As a result, net production of oxygen by forests—and indeed, all land plants—is very close to zero.

 

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NotActuallyALonghorn

NotActuallyALonghorn 4976

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Posted
29 minutes ago, NaTeWHO said:

Are you saying 20% of the oxygen we breath comes from the Amazon? It doesn't. Why do I keep seeing this and where did it come from? I swear people just make shit up and if it sounds somewhat plausible everyone believes it.

I remembered hearing that all the oxygen in the Amazon was consumed by the Amazon from a show called "One Strange Rock," a docuseries about the Earth and its different systems. Well, the show was right.

Scientific American

 

Young forests that are growing produce more oxygen than they consume. Otherwise they would not be putting on mass. Older forests that are no longer adding mass to the total volume of wood not so much. 

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