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Amazon deforestation accelerating to unrecoverable 'tipping point'
- tracker1 7y agoHow much money is made from the farmland from deforested regions... how much from the lumber and how much from the reuse of the land? How many countries are trading with Brazil for consuming those goods? It's a big problem, but without some input from trade partners globally and/or other support, I'm not sure what the solution really is. Also, not just in Brazil, but other areas with grasslands that have seen desertification, countering that is very important. It may be necessary to support global efforts to increase diverse planting to portions of agricultural lands to at least try to preserve them. Grazing and crop rotations as well. Efforts for more diverse use of agriculture as well. More barley and buckwheat, less soy and corn. Less monoculture in the crops, seed varieties of crops we already grow to increase diversity in agriculture. Of course, moving away from Monsonto controlled models, which should mean reverting policy on patents regarding genetic markers and traits. Right now, too much of the food supply is from mega farms with no diversity and lots of chemical pesticides and resistant strains of crops that are killing off bee populations. I'm not so much against GMO crops as a practice, but definitely need some genetic diversity in the practice. We have the ability to feed the world, we need to start concentrating on doing it better.
- heduduhdjjd 7y agoThe only real solution will be for wealthy nations paying Brazil to not exploit their natural resources, which seems like a very very high ask for all parties involved. Otherwise we'll see the continued destruction for at least another 30-40 years until there's a global demographic peak. We're also going to see the destruction of the Canadian Boreal forest as temperatures rise makes such land viable for industrial farming.
- blablabla123 7y agoI wonder if there are any NGOs one could reasonably give money for that. Most countries just don't have a rainforest although it's in interest of most to maintain the existing ones.
- bgorman 7y agoYou can donate to charities that directly purchase rainforest. Rainforesttrust.org is one. They can purchase an acre of land for around 10 dollars. Right now the main issue is that last year they only received 15 million in donations. Not nearly enough to stop the problem.
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- mikepurvis 7y agoHaving looked into it only briefly, how are these "owned" acres policed?
- hedora 7y agoThe article says that people are illegally clearing land they don’t own.
- eloff 7y agoNo, the Canadian forest would basically reclaim as much land from the tundra where it's currently to cold for trees as it would lose to agriculture. I expect it to be more or less a wash. Also the same goes for Russia's boreal forests.
- yonaguska 7y agowhy not just sanction or tariff beef exports? Seems like a simpler solution.
- switchbak 7y agoCanada (and the Boreal in particular)is absolutely huge. I'm not convinced that much of this land is any more economically viable than the copious amounts of "undeveloped" wilderness to the south. Plus, climate change is also about variability. Much of this land could see wild extremes of weather, sounds risky for agriculture.
- terlisimo 7y ago"The planet is fine." https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uHgJKrmbYfg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uHgJKrmbYfg
- hanwenn 7y agoThe money is not made on the lumber, but on agriculture. I recently read that, most of the deforested regions are used for low-density cattle (0.5 cow / hectare), which gets transformed into beef, mainly for export.
- vitorbaptistaa 7y agoThis is the main reason I became a vegetarian.
- tracker1 7y agoWhich is sad, because you don't need deep deforestation to introduce grassland for grazing. Also, I'm consistently curious why other grassland ruminants aren't more popularized, some of which imho taste better. As to another comment on going vegan, it's just not an option for me... that doesn't mean I don't want more responsible means of farming.
- rodolphoarruda 7y agoAs a Brazilian, I'm trying to imagine the logistical costs of running any type of large scale export oriented agriculture business in the Amazon. There is no railroad, no paved roads, no electricity, no workforce (human density is lower than 1 per square Km, let alone work aged humans), nothing. There's a lot of dense forest and water. Feeding cattle in large scale must be a huge expensive challenge in the Amazon region. Processing meat and moving it to ports, an insanely expensive work due to the lack of basic infrastructure. On the flip side, there are other regions in the country with at least 3 decades of accumulated expertise in animal protein production for the international market, good infrastructure, including proximity to sea ports. I don't see how a serious globally competitive animal protein group could make the decision to run business in such an isolated infra deprived area. It would be like someone from the Silicon Valley deciding to run a tech business in Antarctica for the sole reason the datacenter could be kept cooler at a lower cost using what nature has to offer in abundance in that region: cold weather. Amazon offers cheap land and water (period), but that is not enough to make a profitable animal protein business.
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- chewz 7y ago> Less monoculture in the crops, seed varieties of crops we already grow to increase diversity in agriculture. Less people on planet Earth consuming like there is no tommorow
- makerofspoons 7y agoLoss of the Amazon would be a major tipping point in ecological collapse: https://www.nationalgeographic.com/environment/2018/11/how-cutting-the-amazon-forest-could-affect-weather/ https://www.nationalgeographic.com/environment/2018/11/how-c... In one model if the Amazon were deforested the snowpack in the Sierra Nevada mountains declines by half. There are global impacts for all of this.
- woogiewonka 7y agoNo sources, but something tells me we are already past the tipping point.
- digitalsushi 7y agoA morbid thought I've been struggling with a lot lately. As we continue to pass point of no return scenarios, will there be an increasing collective of people that flip to believing there is no hope, and adopting a congruent lifestyle? Could an increasing collective of people sharing this narrative, that we've entered the palliative era of humanity, be the last factor for our ultimate failure as we navigate this tricky problem of scaling our species for a planet? Does the process of giving up, on the individual level, accelerate a 'bank run' scenario on the planet? I devote a small minority of my constant focus to remaining calm and trying to not give in, and I am increasingly fatigued and tempted to join the much easier position that it's already too late. But I don't want to see who I turn into once I adopt that position.
- gtirloni 7y agoUntil we find an economic solution, this trend will just continue. Unfortunately, people only want to profit at all costs and governments usually want to be enablers of that, so the economy grows and they can have more votes in the next election. I think the real question is: can equivalent money to logging/beef be made from tropical forests? If we can come up with an answer to that, maybe we can revert this trend.
- baxtr 7y agoStop eating meat could be one of answers.
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- terlisimo 7y agoSo is "stop having more than 2 children". Another one is "stop buying things you don't really need". But yeah, good luck convincing people to get behind that.
- monk_e_boy 7y agoYou’re being down voted, but you raise a valid point. We are helpless. Even our first world governments are helpless to save the amazon. It’s just so damn sad.
- wincy 7y agoWhat should we do? Have the US military take over the Amazon river basin, declare it a human-free zone, forcefully evict all people from the site, and let it grow back? We're not helpless, we're just not totalitarian conquerors.
- terlisimo 7y agoI heard a story/statement once, that every time a bunch of smart people got together to think about solving the world problems, they all pretty much came up with the same solution: eugenics and birth control. Both of these are controversial subjects at best. Have you seen the TV show Utopia? Basically a group of people decide it's in the humanity's best interest to wipe out 90% of the population with viruses. Rather grim, but understandable in a way. While in the domain of Sci-Fi, the solution I liked better was the idea from "Forever peace" by John Haldeman, where human evolution is propelled to the next step by increasing mutual empathy through technology. The Internet might be a small step in that direction.
- Kaibeezy 7y agoI’m interested in this but not knowledgeable. What is a “tipping point” in this context? The article doesn’t say. How does the overall size of a forest affect its ability to re-expand? Wouldn’t this happen at the edges once those are no longer maintained, regardless of the overall size? Does “unrecoverable” mean “via natural processes”? Wouldn’t it be possible for human intervention to reforest? Thx.
- dharma1 7y agohttps://youtu.be/TigV80hwebg https://youtu.be/TigV80hwebg
- makeitrein 7y agoThis made me feel sad - what's a good charity to donate $500 to?
- overcast 7y agoAs mentioned above, https://www.rainforesttrust.org/ https://www.rainforesttrust.org/ seems to be a good one.
- makeitrein 7y agoCool, just donated some benjamins - https://imgur.com/a/ZOuZMXA https://imgur.com/a/ZOuZMXA
- woogiewonka 7y agoThank you! I wish some conscious billionaires got together and bought up as much land as possible and titled it the local indigenous populations. Why is this not a thing yet?
- z3t4 7y agoI remember in the 90's there was a drive to buy Amazon forest to prevent deforestatio. A lot of people bought (i didnt). I wonder if it still stands or if it was a scam.
- shmerl 7y agoThat's what happens, when complete crooks get to power.
- holoduke 7y agoCompletely off topic, but it took me more than 2 minutes and more than just one comment before I understood the word Amazon correctly. I though about some Jeff bezos announcement about deforestation.
- beefcake 7y agoHopefully this creates a lot of wealth and amazing businesses in Brazil. Why should they not be able to use their land to make profit?
- abootstrapper 7y agoKeep up.
- chiefalchemist 7y agoNo doubt Jair Bolsonaro hasn't helped. However, this has been going on for a long, long, __long__ time. Tipping point or not, such spin on who's accountable is irresponsible.
- forgotmypw3 7y agoIf you buy palm oil, you're complicit.
- aitchnyu 7y agoI thought you were digressing to Indonesian forests, but TIL Brazil wants the palm oil money too: https://www.theguardian.com/sustainable-business/2017/jun/29/brazil-palm-oil-amazon-rainforest-deforestation-temer-farming-para-cerrado https://www.theguardian.com/sustainable-business/2017/jun/29...
- forgotmypw3 7y agoI didn't even have to check. Anywhere warm and moist, land is being cleared for palm oil.
- tempsolution 7y agoThere needs to be a new international law that classifies nations who deliberately destroy nature as "at war". The idea is simple: Wrecking your local environment is not a local action. It affects the entire planet and should be seen tantamount to war. This will likely pretty much put a lot of nations into the war section... Then negotiations can continue from there. While military action is not feasible and in this case counterproductive, aggressive sanctions might help. Sanctioning these nations back into stone age if they don't change their course... Right now, there is no accepted means to stop this from happening.
- PinkMilkshake 7y agoIt feels like we've reached the end of the old land ownership model. If you were destroying something on your land that supplied my breathable air, I would have no choice but to stop you, even though I recognize your right to the land.
- ralusek 7y agoThat's called a third party negative externality. Even libertarians are fine with state intervention.
- PinkMilkshake 7y agoBut what if a state is causing the negative externality and the third party is all other states? (Thanks btw, I hadn't come across that term.)
- ralusek 7y agoThen the other states beat up the bad one.