debate Environmental Thread does anyone care that Amazon Rain Forest is burning down to the ground

[oldtimer]

This is a total catastrophe and failure for the World and humanity at large. There are some things that surpass national boundaries and borders like Human Rights and certain Environmental issues that affect the whole Globe which surely should be of concern to all of us. Whether it’s the Oceans and Rivers that have been polluted or whether it’s our air and soil that have been poisoned, it all has something to do with human activity like the Global Warming and the Melting of the Ice Caps and Glaciers which is going to put many coastal Cities and Communities under water soon. IMO

Everyone’s opinions are welcomed, but keep your comments constructive, professional, and on topic. Personal attacks and belittling of others are not tolerated.

 

[enlytend]

It’s horrible. So many plant and animal species that may be lost forever. And the few remaining indigenous people...???

Worst part is that they are believed to be deliberately set.

 

[DapperJane]

People need to stop electing right wing candidates that don’t care about the environment, that’s the truth. You can’t get serious about the topic with people who don’t even believe there are real issues. In America alone environmental protections have been stripped under trump in favor of business. See recent ruling about mining in Alaska.

 

[oldtimer]

It’s horrible. So many plant and animal species that may be lost forever. And the few remaining indigenous people...???

Worst part is that they are believed to be deliberately set.

I don’t think that any NGOs would deliberately do this (as being claimed by some). Nevertheless regardless of how it has happened the important thing is for the International community to respond quickly to help end this catastrophe. IMO

 

[biggie]

i saw brief news about the fire there

some alluded to farmers and loggers being involved

but as money and greed, continues to suck the planet dry

soon the earth will look like mars

imo...

 

[Mister Funsky]

The Brazilian president is urging farmers to burn and clear land (indirectly at best).

"there is abundant evidence that the fires are mostly caused by humans — notably cattle ranchers — and that these illegal operators are being encouraged to clear land by the policies of Bolsonaro, who is eager for Brazil to exploit the Amazon's agricultural and mineral wealth."

https://www.npr.org/2019/08/23/7537...o-may-send-army-to-combat-amazon-forest-fires

Short of a military invasion of a sovereign country to forcibly attempt to squelch the fires and 'guard' the rest of the forest, what could be done?

I will answer: Nothing (economic sanctions will help a little, but the results would be negligible).

The rest of the planet has to encourage its citizens to plant as many diverse trees and indigenous vegetation as possible...mindsets of the 'well to to' have to change so they can get over their massively manicured treeless lawns and be happy with natural species and trees taking over (OMG Becky, look at their yard!).

I have planted several CO2 eating trees on a 3 acre piece of land adjacent to a 1/2 acre pond and then let it go wild with underbrush and animals...my neighbors are not pleased...I do not care.

 

[J Sokol]

The sad thing about our current environmental crisis is that we've had 55 years to address it. I first became aware of the problem during the oil crisis of 1973 and have lived my life accordingly ever since. It has been horrifying to watch the effects of overdevelopment and overpopulation through the years -- and hard to grasp the greed and indifference that has brought us to this point.

To me the best thing to come out of the next U.S. presidential election is that the candidates are finally addressing the matter. Maybe this help the many who have ignored the problem to start to wake up and act. @Mister Funsky's suggestion would be a good way to start:

The rest of the planet has to encourage its citizens to plant as many diverse trees and indigenous vegetation as possible...mindsets of the 'well to to' have to change so they can get over their massively manicured treeless lawns and be happy with natural species and trees taking over (OMG Becky, look at their yard!).

I have planted several CO2 eating trees on a 3 acre piece of land adjacent to a 1/2 acre pond and then let it go wild with underbrush and animals...my neighbors are not pleased...I do not care.

 

[urlurl]

1/5 of the world's oxygen is produced by the rain forest...

 

[oldtimer]

People need to stop electing right wing candidates that don’t care about the environment, that’s the truth. You can’t get serious about the topic with people who don’t even believe there are real issues. In America alone environmental protections have been stripped under trump in favor of business. See recent ruling about mining in Alaska.

I like to think of myself as an impartial and unbiased intellectual who cares about the Humanity and the Environment at large and who puts common sense based on logic and compassion above all political, religious, and racial affiliations and loyalties and as such this is how I see the truth:

I assure you that the Right knows the seriousness of the Environmental issues that this Planet is facing and cares about their children’s future who have to live in this World as much as the Left does. The only problem is that the Right mistakenly thinks that they still have enough time to establish economic superiority for their base before they have to take the drastic measures that are needed to fix the problems with the Environment. The Left also knows that the Economy is as important as the Environment for most of the people in their base, but has chosen to politically weaponize the Environmental issues in order to gain an upper hand in the situation even though when they were able to do something meaningful about the Environmental problems in the past they pulled the breaks in many instances and didn’t take the necessary actions to preempt those problems and allowed most of the Environmental issues to be passed on to the future generations.

Nevertheless the only way out now is for everyone to put the future and wellbeing of this Planet above their immediate interests and agendas before it becomes too late to be able to do anything meaningful about the Environmental issues.
IMO

 

[J Sokol]

I agree that both sides are guilty of extreme negligence. I read somewhere that every U.S. President since Jimmy Carter has known that fossil fuels were causing climate change. So that's fifty years of both parties kicking the can down the road, protecting the interests of the automotive and oil industries and their own political well-being.

 

[DapperJane]

I like to think of myself as an impartial and unbiased intellectual who cares about the Humanity and the Environment at large and who puts common sense based on logic and compassion above all political, religious, and racial affiliations and loyalties and as such this is how I see the truth:

I assure you that the Right knows the seriousness of the Environmental issues that this Planet is facing and cares about their children’s future who have to live in this World as much as the Left does. The only problem is that the Right mistakenly thinks that they still have enough time to establish economic superiority for their base before they have to take the drastic measures that are needed to fix the problems with the Environment. The Left also knows that the Economy is as important as the Environment for most of the people in their base, but has chosen to politically vaporize the Environmental issues in order to gain an upper hand in the situation even though when they were able to do something meaningful about the Environmental problems in the past they pulled the breaks in many instances and didn’t take the necessary actions to preempt those problems and allowed most of the Environmental issues to be passed on to the future generations.

Nevertheless the only way out now is for everyone to put the future and wellbeing of this Planet above their immediate interests and agendas before it becomes too late to be able to do anything meaningful about the Environmental issues.
IMO

People don’t like to get political, the problem is politics play a major part.

What you just posted doesn’t jive with the republicans in power. Republicans are the biggest climate change denying group in the world. A president that called this a Chinese hoax and points to snow falling in the winter as proof there is no warming. We don’t have an intellectual in charge of things right now. Again, nothing has been done under this admin to help the environment, actually the opposite. Windmills give people cancer type of nonsense from trump.

The guy in Brazil, another far right denier.

 

[oldtimer]

People don’t like to get political, the problem is politics play a major part.

What you just posted doesn’t jive with the republicans in power. Republicans are the biggest climate change denying group in the world. A president that called this a Chinese hoax and points to snow falling in the winter as proof there is no warming. We don’t have an intellectual in charge of things right now. Again, nothing has been done under this admin to help the environment, actually the opposite. Windmills give people cancer type of nonsense from trump.

The guy in Brazil, another far right denier.

Why did the Environment get to this point to begin with, it didn’t happen over night, and why wasn’t something meaningful done 50 years ago to preempt all these Environmental issues. The time for pointing fingers and passing on the blame is over as Fires, Glacier melting, and stronger and more destructive storms are only going to get worse day by day. Politics as usual is not going to save this Planet, everyone has to change their attitude (Left, Right, Middle …) if we are going to find a solution to this problem. IMO

 

[DapperJane]

Why did the Environment get to this point to begin with, it didn’t happen over night, and why wasn’t something meaningful done 50 years ago to preempt all these Environmental issues. The time for pointing fingers and passing on the blame is over as Fires, Glacier melting, and stronger and more destructive storms are only going to get worse day by day. Politics as usual is not going to save this Planet, everyone has to change their attitude (Left, Right, Middle …) if we are going to find a solution to this problem. IMO

Most of this is on republicans, you’re seeing that right now. The type of worldwide change to actually have a real affect is in fact going to have to be at a governmental level. Recycling your cans, planting a tree will make you feel good inside, help very little, but to “save the planet” is higher level stuff.

 

[oldtimer]

The Brazilian president is urging farmers to burn and clear land (indirectly at best).

"there is abundant evidence that the fires are mostly caused by humans — notably cattle ranchers — and that these illegal operators are being encouraged to clear land by the policies of Bolsonaro, who is eager for Brazil to exploit the Amazon's agricultural and mineral wealth."

Farmers and loggers have been clearing patches of land in Amazon Rain Forest for many years now, some with Government's approval and some illegally, I guess something must have gone out of control this time. It's hard to believe that they would want to destroy the Amazon Rain Forest intentionally on this scale, it's like as if the Egyptians wanted to destroy all the Pyramids on purpose. IMO

 

[Mister Funsky]

Farmers and loggers have been clearing patches of land in Amazon Rain Forest for many years now, some with Government's approval and some illegally, I guess something must have gone out of control this time. It's hard to believe that they would want to destroy the Amazon Rain Forest intentionally on this scale, it's like as if the Egyptians wanted to destroy all the Pyramids on purpose. IMO

The (farmers, rulers) are woefully uneducated as to what happens after slash and burn. The first year of crops can be good or great due to many factors, one of which is the ash. The second year has a yield that can be roughly half of that of the first. The third year can be half of the 2nd and thereafter the soil can yield very little. The local environment changes, the cycle of evaporation and rain halts and desolation follows with little more that scrub brush growing thereafter.

 

[Blitzpotz]

Here is something to better visualize, yesterday published by NASA.
The colours do not show wildfires but the generated carbon monoxid plume.

Similar non-animated picture showing smoke (Source: heavy.com, 2 days ago):

Here are the fire locations (Source: news.com.au):

_______________________________

If I ask myself how mankind can escape this mess but I do not have much hope. It is dry season in the Amazon region.
And do you remember how Brazil managed to fight the fire in their National Museum one year ago?

I would like to read reports by Brazil members of this forum. But what is free speech here may be a crime there. So, anybody?

 

[oldtimer]

If I ask myself how mankind can escape this mess but I do not have much hope.

It's a huge task, but with the help of the International Community and a little cooperation from mother nature in the form of some rain across the affected area the situation might be kept from getting worse.

As we watch this catastrophe unfold it makes one wonder if the United Nations has any preplanned operations and protocols set in place to deal with such disasters. Whether its natural disasters that we have to deal with or whether it's other catastrophes such as famine, genocide, or war it seems like we always have to watch helplessly for days on as lives are being lost before anything is done to put a stop to it.

Planning ahead for such Global disasters and quick response by the International Community are the key to preventing such events from getting out of hand in the future. IMO

 

[Blitzpotz]

As we watch this catastrophe unfold it makes one wonder if the United Nations has any preplanned operations and protocols set in place to deal with such disasters.

The UN would be the right institution but they are weak and slow. Imagine long discussions in UN forums with Veto rights and confronted superpowers, endless diplomacy following and then, when the last tree has disappeared in the region, an invasion of Brazil with troops that are a toothless tiger if you remember Ruanda.

Right now we have a G7 summit happening in France where this issue must rank top in the agenda. However, I assume that other items will be discussed like Iran sanctions and linked oil tanker arrest status, US buying Greenland or not (for shelf-gas fracking or the ice-crusher industry?), tolls.

We can blame corrupt political leaders for drawbacks in the fields of human rights, democracy and environmental protection. And I don´t mind if they are so-called right like in Brazil or so-called left like in Venezuela. We can blame bad education systems in the Second and in the Third World. But how stupid must people be not to recognize the results of self-destruction of their livelihood?

The problem are - all of us. We don´t want to give up our lifestyle. We want to eat daily meat. We are traveling the whole world. We are driving one, two or three cars. North Americans, Europeans and others are mostly wealthy and have a good life. China is very close, India and parts of South America not too far away from our standards and the rest of the world seek our way of life, daily seen on TV or Social Media. So they burn the rainforest to create meadows for cows used to RIP in our stomachs. Meat that was packed in plastic for transportation which we see polluting the oceans a while after our BBQ.

I cannot spot a vision for the rescue of the planet even if I´d stop eating meat, smoking cigarettes etc myself.

Who is able to see the glass half full, not only based on diffuse hope?

 

[oldtimer]

I cannot spot a vision for the rescue of the planet even if I´d stop eating meat, smoking cigarettes etc myself.

Who is able to see the glass half full, not only based on diffuse hope?

I don’t think that the Planet is passed the point of no return yet. We should not lose hope, as it is hope (no matter how small) that is going to motivate people to take action, if everyone gives up on the Environment too soon then we might very well miss this last window of opportunity and go beyond the point of no return.

The fact that more and more people are paying attention to the Environment is a good thing and the fact that they are actually beginning to see its effect in their daily lives is going to make them demand action on these issues sooner or later.

As to what could be done to save this planet if a Global consensus is achieved to do so, perhaps that’s what we can focus on going forward. IMO

 

[oldtimer]

The type of worldwide change to actually have a real affect is in fact going to have to be at a governmental level. Recycling your cans, planting a tree will make you feel good inside, help very little, but to “save the planet” is higher level stuff.

We have to find a balance between Economy and Environment as they are both important to the well being of the World, either everyone cooperates and works together voluntarily in order to fix these issues now or they’ll be forced to cooperate once the full effect of all these Environmental problems get here soon. There is no escaping the future when this planet goes permanently out of balance, it won’t mater if you are rich or poor, or what political party or ideology you follow, life will become harder for everyone across the board. IMO